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

The House will now know that the aim of the Bill is to tidy up the statutory basis of the operations of the Ministry of Defence police. However, it should not be assumed that, because the Government are introducing legislation, they must wish to confer new powers on the MDP.

By introducing this Bill, the Government are responding to the recommendations of the Select Committee on Defence made in 1984 and of the Broadbent report published in July 1986. The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) commented in Committee on the speed with which the Government were moved to bring in legislation. He described it as

"what appears, in the history of bureaucratic reform, to be indecent haste."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 10 February 1987; c. 18.]

In the circumstances, I take that as a compliment.

May I take this opportunity to clarify again the powers of the Ministry of Defence police? There is a distinction between the position when MDP are within the establishments which they may be called upon to protect and the position when they are outside those places. Inside the establishments, which, broadly speaking, are those in the possession or under the control of the Ministry of Defence, visiting forces, ordnance factories or dockyards, the powers of MDP will not change. When in those establishments they have the full powers of a constable covering all types of crime in the same manner as for a Home Department police constable.

When outside those establishments MDP powers are more restricted. Under existing statutes they have constabulary powers in Great Britain in relation to Crown property and service personnel, including the property and personnel of visiting forces and international military headquarters, and the property of ordnance factories and dockyards. Such powers may be exercised only up to 15 miles from any of the establishments. Under this Bill the I 5-mile limit will no longer apply; instead the MDP will have constabulary powers throughout the United Kingdom but they will be able to exercise them only in relation to Crown property and the property of those I have mentioned, the personnel of MOD and visiting forces and matters connected with defence contracts. The Bill also contains some minor provisions which enable the MDP to assist their Home Department police colleagues in the vicinity of a defence establishment and to exercise constabulary powers in United Kingdom territorial waters and and in certain places, such as the Royal Mint, which will be published in gazettes.

The main effect of the Bill on MDP's jurisdiction will be to remove the uncertainties caused by the 15-mile limit when MDP are outside defence establishments. It will not affect their present responsibilities or the way in which these are discharged. The very few other changes to MDP's jurisdiction concern the extension of their powers, when outside establishments, to MOD civilians and defence contracts, and the power to assist Home Department forces in the vicinity of defence establishments

In Committee we explored in detail the relationship between the MDP and the Home Department police forces. Nothing in the Bill changes the primacy which the Home Department chief constables have throughout the United Kingdom, including "within the wire" at defence establishments. As for the working relationships between the forces, I agree entirely with the point made repeatedly by hon. Members in Committee that the effective operation of both MDP and Home Department forces requires, in the words of the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright),

"sensible co-operation with local police forces."—[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 12 February 1987; c. 58.]

Officials are making progress in discussions with the Associations of Chief Police Officers for England and Wales and for Scotland and interested Departments about the arrangements to be followed in certain situations where the Home Department forces and the MDP have concurrent jurisdiction. I expect the discussions to lead to guidelines covering such subjects as the policing of married quarters estates, public order policy, major crime and terrorism and control of traffic.

What will he the status of the guidelines? Are they to be laid before the House as a statutory instrument? Will they be advisory? How will they be enforced on the respective police services?

They will be advisory.

I have already acknowledged the prime responsibility which the chief constables of Home Department forces have for all crime and I propose to leave the arrangements concerning the interface between the MDP and Home Department police forces to these discussions on the broad principles and also to more specialised local arrangements in particular areas. But there will be advisory guidelines put out because, as we know, the status of chief constables is such that they take advice from the Home Department.

That would mean that if, for example, the chief constable of the MOD police chose not to follow those guidelines he would not be required to do so.

As I understand it, such is the primacy of the chief constable that he can only be advised and in practice he cannot be instructed on what he is supposed to do.

The Government do not believe it is proper to embody such administrative matters in legislation, but in Committee I accepted that the guidelines should be public. I intend, therefore, to have them placed in the Library of the House when they have been agreed and issued.

In Committee, a number of hon. Members raised questions about the Police Committee and its procedures. Its terms of reference are:

"To determine policy for the operation, management and the administration of the Ministry of Defence police, including the identification of the overall money, manpower and equipment resources necessary to achieve that policy."

The chief constable and deputy chief constable of the Ministry of Defence Police will normally attend meetings.

When necessary, the police staff associations will have access to the meetings of the committee, and they will also be able to make written representations.

We expect the committee to meet four times a year. Some hon. Members in Committee queried the terms of clause 1(5) of the Bill because they interpreted it to mean that the Ministry of Defence Police Committee would be inhibited in carrying out its terms of reference. I repeat my assurance that this clause does not restrict in any way the freedom of the Ministry of Defence Police Committee to advise my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on its own initiative.

My hon. Friend will remember that in Committee I asked particularly whether he would reconsider the membership of the Police Committee and whether he would be prepared to broaden that membership to reflect something less than the rather cosy arrangement for membership indicated by my hon. and noble Friend in another place. Has my hon. Friend had time to reconsider that point?

We have thought about the membership of the committee. Of course, it includes an ex-chief constable from an English constabulary and also one from Scotland, so we feel that the interests of police constables have been reflected in the composition of the committee. I do not think there is anything inflexible about the composition: it could be changed.

There are two areas of management in which other bodies complement the Police Committee. The first is industrial relations. The existence of the Defence Police Federation is established in the Bill, just as the Police Act 1964 established the police federations.

The chairman, vice chairman and other Police Committee members will meet the Defence Police Federation and the senior officers twice a year in meetings of the joint consultative committee, which is the forum for dealing with MDP industrial relations problems.

The second is complaints against the MDP. The force is subject to the Police Complaints Authority, just as the Home Department's police forces are. It is not the MOD Police Committee which is responsible for investigating complaints.

Thus the public have an entirely satisfactory means of protection against any misuse of the MDP's power. More widely, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is answerable to the House.

When the Bill was published, I gave it a cautious welcome on behalf of Opposition Members. We had anxieties on Second Reading and in Committee over questions of primacy, jurisdiction, the complaints procedure and relationships with the Home Department police forces. We also expressed anxiety about the Police Federation's concern about rights to finance for legal representation, if necessary, for its members on disciplinary matters. We ventilated most of the areas of concern in Committee.

On primacy, we welcome the Minister's clarification of the position. Certainly it is reassuring to know that the Home Department police forces will still be in the lead in any matters outwith the Ministry of Defence and other related establishments. In regard to jurisdiction, we all recognise that the 15-mile rule was somewhat old-fashioned and outdated. It related more to the distance that any thieves of cannonballs could be expected to carry their loot than to anything else. We have now probably got a more sensible arrangement and the concerns of Members on all sides of the Committee about the relationship between the home police forces and the MOD police force have been to some extent reduced.

I think it is fair to say that some of us would probably have preferred some form of statutory instrument to consolidate the relationship between the two bodies. However, the Department's lack of enthusiasm for such a proposal is understandable, even though it is not acceptable. The compromise put forward by the Minister was offered in a spirit of good intent and the publication of the guidelines should be an opportunity for all who are concerned to see whether they are working properly. If they are not, I would imagine that the kind of pressure that was building up on all sides of the Committee will be brought to bear. The biggest source of concern was the uncertainty of those Members with constituencies near which there are major defence establishments. They and their chief constables required some reassurance.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) referred to the spectacular haste—I would not think that he would want to use the word "indecent"—of the MOD in bringing forward this legislation. Perhaps it would have been better if it had been delayed a little longer until we had reached the end of the negotiations between the Home Department police forces, the MOD and the respective Ministries. But the Minister has given us assurances and I do not believe that it would be tolerated either by the House or by those who take an interest in matters relating to law and order and civil liberties if a set of guidelines were established which did not afford the kind of provisions and facilities available to the home police forces at the moment. We shall obviously have to wait and see what happens. We are not in a position to change the guidelines but the fact that they will be open for public scrutiny is in itself an advance and should be of assistance to those hon. Members who might want to make representations at some future stage.

I am not completely satisfied with what the Minister has said with regard to the complaints procedure, but I think that any change would probably require legislation to take care of the home police forces as well, because many people on the Opposition side are not at all satisfied with the nature of the complaints procedure. There is always the lingering doubt that it is merely the police force looking after its own and that, even if justice is done, it is not seen to be done. However, that is a problem beyond the terms and objectives of this legislation and if we were to seek to make the complaints procedure more open it would require legislation of a good deal more controversial nature than the kind that we have before us this evening.

With regard to industrial relations aspects, the Minister, as I recall, has met the observations of the MOD Police Federation as distinct from the Home Department Police Federation. There are two organisations, one of which the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) represents in the House, and another which many of us, having been exposed to its activities, view with some affection. If the MOD Police Federation is to be put on an equal footing with the Home Department Police Federation one hopes that the facilities which the Home Office makes available to its Police Federation will be made available on the same generous lines to the MOD Police Federation, because the membership base of the organisation is somewhat restricted and the need for some degree of support from the Ministry of Defence has already been recognised. I think it is fair to say that the membership of the MODPF would be grateful for more resources being made available and I know that the Minister did not rule this out. He is too old a hand to be forthcoming in making promises about increased assistance for pretty well anybody — apart, perhaps, from Vickers Shipbuilders, but that is another story.

This Bill has certain problem areas, but we do not think that they are major ones. We would have liked to have the opportunity of debating this later rather than earlier. Having said that, however, this is a Bill which is long overdue. The Select Committee on Defence made recommendations which have been acted upon. They are not to any great extent contentious. We would like to think that recent incidents involving convoys and the like would be taken care of in the guidelines and that the anxieties that have been expressed by local Members of Parliament concerning the activities in sensitive areas of all the security services would be ironed out. If they are not, I am sure that we shall be coming back to the subject. I very much doubt that it will be in the form of amendments, but there will certainly be close scrutiny of the guidelines. In fact, the scrutiny may be so close that the Minister will come to regret that he ever conceded the point in the first place. I will he generous, because this is not a partisan issue, and we are satisfied that this Bill should be given a Third Reading. I know that some of my hon. Friends have observations to make, but I do not think that any of them are of a kind likely to obstruct the progress of this modest, but at the same time important, piece of legislation.

This is a very unusual and in some ways a very difficult Bill. It is unusual in that there has been scarcely any party political disagreement about the need for the Bill and it is probable that it will pass through all its stages in this and the other place without Divisions. But it has at least been debated; it is the first time since 1860 that the question of Ministry of Defence police has been debated.

I inadvertently did an injustice to my noble Friend Lord Trefgarne at column 289 of the Second Reading debate when I said that my hon. Friend was the first Minister of the Crown to introduce a debate in either Chamber on the subject. Of course, I was wrong, but I was seeking to compliment my hon. Friend.

The Bill is also unusual because the official Opposition have raised many quite fundamental objections to aspects of it, only to have been almost instantly reassured by my hon. Friend the Minister. This is a great compliment to his powers of persuasion. It is also a very genuine compliment when I say how patient he has been with his hon. Friends, including me, who have felt it important to make a number of probing comments on his thinking. We have no wish to look in later years at events which may take place and say "We told you so."

Perhaps what is most unusual in this Bill is the degree to which we have been legislating in the dark, and this worries me. On point after point we have been told that consultations will take place, agreements will be reached, guidelines will be established, and we have taken it all on trust.

I said that in some ways this was a difficult Bill. It has been particularly difficult to probe the Government's intentions without giving the totally misleading and unworthy impression that some of us are in some way opposed to the MOD police. I certainly am not. The present position is as unsatisfactory for the MODPF as it is for the Home Department police force.

I have been anxious to ensure that the new arrangements will be better. Perhaps I have been particularly sensitive, because in the county of Wiltshire and in my constituency of Salisbury the county constabulary and the MODPF have worked side by side for many years and because the Wiltshire county constabulary was the first in the country, which is why its motto is "Primus et optimus".

We must not be in any doubt that with this Bill we have for the first time created a national police force, which, against all the traditions, is accountable only indirectly through the Secretary of State to Parliament. It is not true that the Docks police, the Transport police or the Atomic Energy Authority police are in the same category. Their jurisdiction is severely and precisely limited geographically and functionally. Nor is it true that the Metropolitan police are in the same category because they are answerable to the Home Secretary. It is true that the Home Secretary is the police authority for the Metropolitan police, but his jurisdiction is geographically limited and is not national. Like the chairman of every other police authority, he often is heard to protest that operational matters are not for him, but for the chief officer of police.

Yet, today, we shall create a police force with a national jurisdiction under the direct operational control of a Minister of the Crown. Throughout our nation's history we have resisted this sort of arrangement and I am astonished that Parliament has allowed it to happen so easily. I know that I am just one Back Bencher and that not even the Opposition Whips are worried about this, so I recognise reality when it stares me in the face. However, I am certain that we have not heard the last of the Bill.

Clause 1 sets up the machinery for MOD special constables. We were told in Committee that the need for the scheme is being reviewed and that consideration will be given to whether MOD police specials should be paid or unpaid. The Minister could not say how long the inquiry would take or when its findings would be available. Yet, if he decides to adopt such a scheme, clause 1(1) provides for it without the need for further amendment or discussion. Yet to pay MOD police specials would seriously upset the traditional position in the Home Department forces and create anomalies which I would not welcome.

Many of the points of disagreement that were discussed in Committee are capable of resolution only under the guidelines which are to be agreed in future between the Ministry of Defence and chief constables of Home Department police forces. The guidelines are to be established by ministerial direction and my hon. Friend the Minister has told us that he is nowhere near formulating them.

It is in the national interest that those guidelines should have the unqualified support of Home Department police forces and I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to ensure that that is the case. It is also in the national interest that the guidelines should be in the public domain. They should not be secret and I welcome my hon. Friend's assurances on that.

In Committee the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) said that any decisions reached on the guidelines should be brought to the House in one form or another and added:

"Very often, decisions are made almost regardless of the operation of a Standing Committee or of the House itself." —[Official Report, Standing Committee B, 10 February 1987; c. 30.]

That is a problem which I echo. My hon. Friend the Minister said that he genuinely did not know what form the guidelines would take and that it was difficult to know what classification to put on them. I am delighted that that has now been resolved. We look forward to reading the guidelines as soon as possible and practicable.

I hope that in considering firearms in the guidelines my hon. Friend the Minister will exercise the closest possible co-operation with Home Department chief constables. When firearms are taken outside military establishments, for example, accompanying a convoy or policing a base, it is not enough for the local chief constable to be told that that is happening. Home Department forces should be consulted in advance because sensitive community policing is involved. Moreover, since we have established by probing in Committee that Home Department police forces have primacy both inside and outside the wire, it is logical that the chief constables should know what they are to be responsible for. A situation, however remote, could arise when firearms are drawn. Parliament must legislate to cover the worst scenario. If something goes wrong and shots are fired by the Ministry of Defence police, the county chief constable will have primacy and must restore law and order. Therefore, it is a principle of good policing that he should be aware of the possibilities, however remote, before they arise.

I lament the fact that the legislation is necessary, but I do not dwell on the past. I look to the future and to the fundamental importance of maximum consultation in establishing those crucial guidelines. That must be in the best interests of both the Ministry of Defence police and Home Department forces. It is also in the best interests of communities, such as mine in south Wiltshire, and, indeed, of policing the nation.

I welcome the Bill perhaps because of the long association of the Ministry of Defence with the Woolwich arsenal, but also because it provides much needed clarification of the powers and duties of the MDP and much needed recognition of the important work that the MDP does on all our behalfs in the difficult jobs which it undertakes.

Three areas worry me, all of which we explored in depth in Committee. First, the powers of the MDP committee seemed to make it a somewhat toothless tiger. I have explored that in depth with the Minister and I accept his assurances that, although we may argue about the membership of the committee, it will have rather greater powers and be more effective than it appears to be on the face of the Bill. I am happy to accept that assurance.

The second area of concern was reflected in all parts of the House and is the question of relationships with civilian police forces. We all understand the need to achieve what I called "sensible co-operation" between the MDP and the Home Department police forces. In Committee the Minister went a long way to reassure us on that matter. As other hon. Members said, we shall examine the guidelines in depth when they are published. Nevertheless, this is an important step in the right direction. The commitment to consult on and publish the guidelines and to be as open as possible about those relationships is welcome and removes some of our anxiety about the original implications of the Bill.

The third area of concern relates to the complaints machinery. There is no doubt that the MDP will be subject to the same complaints procedures as the civilian police forces. I wish that that general procedure were a little stronger, but the Bill is not the vehicle to deal with that matter. It is absolutely right that the MDP should be subject to the same arrangements as the civilian police and I welcome that.

I do not intend to delay the House. I compliment the Minister on his careful handling of the Bill through all its stages. Its passage has been a model of good-tempered parliamentary scrutiny, and I am happy to support its Third Reading.

Like hon. Members on both sides who have spoken, I welcome the principle of the Bill and, like my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key), I draw the attention of the House to the fact that we are creating a national police force for the first time. It is as well that hon. Members should consider what the implications are.

That national police force may be hedged around in clause 2(2)(d) by the restriction that the M DP can operate only on land

"in the vicinity of land mentioned in any of"

the other paragraphs of that clause. As we found out in Committee, only one part of the United Kingdom is excluded from that definition and it happens to be the constituency of the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George), who distinguished our debates in Committee.

The hon. Member for Walsall, South, perhaps with more ribaldry than is his wont, tried to dismiss my pointing out to him that the area also includes land in the vicinity of the United Kingdom. That was not an entirely frivolous remark because, of course, the existing Ministry of Defence establishments, together with the definition of the vicinity, means that we are giving jurisdiction to the Ministry of Defence police that covers virtually the whole of this country, especially when one considers how indented is our coast line.

Therefore, it behoves us to consider what we are creating in the way of jurisdiction. That is something that we would do well to take more than merely on trust, however much we are wont to trust everything that my hon. Friend says. Therefore, I hope that he will not only publish the deliberations of the committee, which we understand is considering the issue of jurisdiction, but will find a way of embodying its conclusions—so long as we agree with them — in the proceedings of the House. Perhaps some form of order would be an appropriate way of dealing with it, as the hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) suggested.

My remarks in Committee about the composition of the Ministry of Defence Police Committee were not wholly frivolous. On 10 February, at column 24, my hon. Friend suggested that the membership of the committee which came from the Home Office represented an outside element. I know that my hon. Friend is not so parochial as to expect us to believe that Home Office membership of such a committee would effectively represent the concerns of the general public over and above the concerns of the Home Office, as against those of the Ministry of Defence.

In view of the strong constitutional implications of the Bill, I urge my hon. Friend to consider that there would be a great deal of merit, if only to appease the worries of my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury and myself, in the suggestion that some member of the great and good on that list, who is also a member of the public and not a civil servant, might be included as a member of that committee. 1 understand that there are still one or two people on the list who are not civil servants.

Like other hon. Members, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on the extraordinary persuasiveness that he has displayed. He certainly persuaded us not to seek to press these matters to a Division. I hope that during our debates in the coming months he will reassure us on the worries that we have expressed.

I have suffered several grievous blows in these proceedings by being quoted approvingly by three Conservative Members. It would be most helpful if the Minister would denounce me, lest I return to my party in even greater difficulties.

The proceedings in Committee were unique. I did not think that it was possible to find an area of defence where there would be no divisions, and the Minister must be complimented on finding at least a tiny area of consensus about defence security policy and for building upon it as fast and as far as possible. The proceedings in Committee were notable partly for their brevity—there were only two sittings—partly for establishing a sort of consensus, and partly because several myths were discussed and eliminated.

We heard earlier that the Government were legislating in the dark, and that is partly true. However, we must distinguish between the darkness for which the Ministry of Defence is responsible, having turned off the lights, and the darkness which is our responsibility. If information is not there and if we do not seek to find it, that is our responsibility and we cannot completely blame the Ministry of Defence for that. However, the criticism that things have been unfolding in and since the Committee stage is absolutely valid.

The Committee was notable for enlightening us all on defence matters and for taking us along the highways and byways of Salisbury on a veritable "Down Your Way" with Franklin Engelmann. I must say to the hon. Gentleman, who managed — I do not say this too harshly — to create almost a "Guinness Book of Records" in terms of mistakes per paragraph in Hansard, that most of the alleys turned out to be blind.

A couple of new areas have been introduced that I did not catch in Committee, and one is the establishment of a national police force. The hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) talked about his unhappiness — I am not quite sure whether that is the correct word— that the Bill had to be introduced. I do not feel that, somehow, we are creating a gendamerie, a KGB, a unit of black or brown shirts, or a national police force that would somehow be unleashed on an unsuspecting public. We have managed to avoid that during more than a century of policing in this country. For a start, there are only just under 5,000 Ministry of Defence police officers. If a national police force were created, it could hardly be of a magnitude such as to threaten civil liberties. It is far more important and inevitable that a police force that would be attached to the Ministry of Defence should be a part of national operations, because crime does not confine itself to neat geographical or policing boundaries. Despite the constraints upon the Ministry of Defence police, that force clearly must operate not only within the national framework but, in some cases, within an international framework. It is not right at this late stage to introduce a new concept and suggest that we are opening a Pandora's box and establishing a national police force. Some of the myths have been eliminated, but some have been recreated.

In Committee we were informed about the "rubber-stamp" police committee. I understand that, since then, the composition of that committee has been announced. However, I am not entirely placated by the Minister telling us that two ex-chief constables have been added to it. I mean no disrespect to the Minister in saying that hon. Members of all parties said that it might be better to appoint from those outside the normal policing framework. I am disappointed that my volunteering to serve on such a committee was so swiftly dismissed. However, there must be a broader basis of experience on that committee. I hope that when the Minister provides us with the necessary information, we shall be reassured that the committee will not simply do the Minister's bidding, but will have a wider basis of representation.

The Minister was silent about the suggestion of publishing an annual report to Parliament on the activities of the Ministry of Defence police. Until this Bill, its activities went largely unnoticed by this place, but it has now emerged as an interesting issue. Although we are obsessed by the Home Office police forces, we should also not be indifferent to the Ministry of Defence police. Therefore, the publication of an annual report to this House would give us the opportunity to scrutinise the activities of that important force, and a report by the chief constable to the Secretary of State would not be an adequate substitute.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) reiterated an issue that was raised in Committee about the Defence Police Federation. Unlike the Police Federation, that federation is very small, with a membership of less than 5,000. That gives it an inadequate financial base upon which to mount its activities. The Defence Police Federation is inadequately funded because of its lack of membership and it is unable to mount the range of activities that it should mount. Therefore, I hope it will be possible to establish a degree of parity with the Police Federation. I understand that there is some financial contribution to the Police Federation from the Home Office — or the provision of certain facilities. I would like to see that replicated within the Ministry of Defence relationship with the Defence Police Federation. I hope that something will emerge from our deliberations.

An issue that was not raised in Committee, which is of critical importance, is the use of firearms. Clearly, the attractiveness of the Ministry of Defence police over contract security is the access that they have to firearms.

They do not carry firearms, but they have access to them. Surely that is a deterrent to any potential terrorist if he or she is considering raiding the royal ordnance factory at Enfield or anywhere where there are arms or small arms that could be used for illegal and terrorist activities.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House are concerned that the police, the Ministry of Defence police and anyone else who has access to firearms are properly trained. I am not in any way criticising the Ministry of Defence police, its method of training or the amount of time spent in training, but I ask the Minister in all seriousness—he is being as helpful as possible—whether he will review the training given to the Ministry of Defence police. I should like to see the system of training sufficiently refined so as to give people with an interest in policing the proper reassurance that the degree of training given is adequate to meet the tasks. I hope that it is not just a question of examining that aspect. I understand that a working party involving the Home Office police forces has been examining that aspect. I would at some stage like to have reassurances that the Ministry of Defence police weapons training is adequate to meet the growing threat that it faces.

I understand that something that I brought up on Second Reading is proceeding, I might add detrimentally. I now believe that the central London detachment of the Ministry of Defence police is to be moved from guarding the headquarters of MI5. I should have thought that this was not the right time to do that. The argument that £250,000 might be saved by moving the Ministry of Defence police and inserting a civilian grade, the Property Services Agency security guard, is questionable. I hope that the Minister will be prepared to give the House, or the Defence Select Committee representing the House, adequate opportunity to examine that decision because, obviously, everyone here is interested in national security. While efficiency and cost saving is to be elevated to the highest order, national security is much more important than the saving of £250,000. I hope that the Minister is prepared to argue his case in the House, or before a Select Committee, to justify the decision that his Department has taken.

What the Select Committee on Defence, the Standing Committee and the House have done is to debate an important police force that we tend to forget about, and an important police force that, as a result of this legislation, has justification for saying that it is not a second-class police force. It is not some ramshackle security outfit that happens to be given the privilege of guarding sensitive property, but is a force whose history goes back many years. It has a history of 300 years of policing military establishments. The legislation gives that police force the statutory recognition that it deserves. I hope that the people who read and listen to these proceedings will recognise that here is a police force of competence, one that needs to be taken seriously and not just dealt with on sporadic occasions by the House.

It is important that the activities of this police force are constantly brought to our attention. I do not mean that they should always be brought to our attention in a critical way. I hope that the Minister will give serious thought to presenting an annual report to Parliament. Even though these proceedings have been dealt with rather swiftly and there has been little fundamental disagreement—despite what the hon. Member for Salisbury said—this modest Bill is one that needs to be passed. I am pleased to participate, in my own way, in the passage through the House of an important though small piece of legislation.

Some Standing Committees tend to polarise the divisions of the House while others create an atmosphere of brotherly love. I did not have the pleasure of serving on the Standing Committee, but it is clear that the charm and blandishments of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement have brought about a quite unaccustomed unity of view on both sides of the House, and I congratulate him on that. In those circumstances, it may be indelicate on my part to intrude a few questions about the wisdom of what we are about to do.

By instinct, I favour defence and I support the police, so I have no choice but to support the Bill. I also read with great interest the report of Sir Ewen Broadbent and I congratulate him and his committee on the thoroughness of their work. I also congratulate the Select Committee on its thoroughness. With that sort of authority, how dare one raise one's voice about some aspects of the Bill? As I am also in favour of my hon. Friend the Minister, it is with the greatest reluctance that I must point to certain defects in the Bill.

It is common ground that the Ministry of Defence police need a statutory framework, and we are all for that. I think that we all agreed, too, that at a time of increasing attacks on British and American defence installations in this country and of increasing demonstrations and thefts of MOD property, there should be a stronger and clearer arrangement to provide the necessary support and protection for those agencies. However, having examined the Bill in detail with representatives of the Association of Chief Police Officers and with the Police Federation, I must say that I am unhappy about it, and so are they.

My hon. Friend the Minister has succeeded in convincing the Committee that the powers that the Ministry of Defence police will exercise will not be increased, but I am advised that the Bill changes their powers substantially. Broadly speaking, their jurisdiction is extended in area in the sense that, henceforth, they will have responsibility and powers across the entire country. Their powers are also extended by function in that, for the first time, the MOD police may exercise the powers of a constable on any matter that has been the subject of a contract between the Secretary of State for Defence and any other person. A contract can mean virtually anything from the procurement of food for the American forces, right the way through to the complexities of modern weapons procurement. It is therefore a broad extension of powers by function.

The status of the Ministry of Defence police is materially altered and strengthened. Henceforth, instead of being special constables its members will be full constables. I have no objection to that, but it is important that the House should recognise that nearly all legislation touching upon the criminal law starts out with the words "that constable may". The term "constable" has a special status in this country. Now that we are conferring that status on Ministry of Defence police it is incumbent on the House to ensure that the powers of the constable are balanced in every way by the same accountabilities that the Home Department's police constables are required to observe. At present, the Bill confers the powers of the constable on the Ministry of Defence police, but it does not require the same degree of accountability as for the civilian police. I will try to illustrate that.

If the powers to confer accountability on Ministry of Defence police already exist in other legislation, it would be superfluous to introduce them into this legislation.

This legislation clearly goes further because legislation to date gives the Ministry of Defence police only the powers of special constables, which are very different from those of the constable under the criminal law.

One of the central differences that will continue to exist between the two types of constable is illustrated by clause 1 of the Bill, which states that the MOD police shall consist

"of persons nominated by the Secretary of State".

Moreover,

"The Secretary of State shall appoint a chief constable" and

"shall have power—

(a) to suspend a member of the Ministry of Defence Police from duty; and

(b) to terminate a person's membership."

In other words, the Secretary of State hires and fires every member of the MOD police. That is entirely different from the Home Department police. No Minister of the Crown has ever sought to arrogate to himself the power to hire and fire police officers, and it is central to the separation of the powers of the police from the political management of our country that the Home Secretary, who is the only Minister who has anything directly to do with the police, does not have that power. The House should therefore recognise that the Bill will create not only a national police force but a one-man political police force under the control of the Secretary of State for Defence. That has never happened before. The House should be clear about what it is doing.

My next point concerns jurisdiction. The MOD police will henceforth have power to go into virtually any area of Britain provided that they are carrying out the functions laid down in the Bill. I am advised that unless clear and mandatory guidelines are laid down — I emphasise the word "mandatory" — there could be unnecessary collisions between two groups of officers who in general work well together. I give just three examples. I hope that I can attract my hon. Friend the Minister's attention in offering them to him as they arise not from my imagination but from the advice of those who have perhaps rather more experience than he or I in practical policing.

My first example concerns a surveillance operation conducted by the Metropolitan police, or indeed by any other police force, through the CID or the special branch in respect of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1984. When such a surveillance is being conducted, the police must be sensitive to the situation in the local community. They may have to operate, as from time to time they do, under cover without there being much knowledge of their presence. That is implicit in the nature of counter-terrorist activity. In those circumstances, what will happen if members of the new MOD police move in—in pursuance of one of their operations in plain clothes, and armed because they are conducting the CID or detective side of their work — without advance notice being given to the police conducting the counter-terrorist operation? Without elaborating too much, the possibilities of collision or worse are grave.

I hope that we shall overcome that problem by establishing beyond peradventure, wherever the MOD police are to operate outside their installations and within the area of another police force, not merely that it ought to be their duty but that it shall be their obligation to inform the chief officer of police of the county force in question of what they are doing and why. If they fail to do that, they may run the risk of arrest and of a collision between the two forces.

Does that not also reinforce my earlier point that in those circumstances, having established that the Home Department force has primacy, the chief constable of the county constabulary would be responsible for clearing up the ensuing mess although he did not know that it was likely to happen?

He would indeed. That is another example of the Bill's asymmetry.

Secondly, the House and the country now expect the police to deal with the problem of drugs. It is the common experience of police officers in big city areas that if they seek to enforce the criminal law in respect of drug trafficking by stopping, searching and even arresting two or three young people, perhaps in an ethnic minority area, before they know it, they are confronted with a threat to the Queen's peace — in other words, a race riot. The delicate area between the enforcement of the criminal law and the maintenance of the Queen's peace requires the greatest sensitivity, which, I concede, the police do not always achieve with the greatest efficiency. But if, in that situation, without the knowledge of the officer in charge of, say, the Metropolitan police operation, members of the MOD police then come lumbering in — [Interruption.] Tiptoeing in, shall we say — I do not need to use pejorative language. If the MOD police insert themselves into the area, pursuing their obligations to look into some contract with a defence producer or in respect of some particular member of the Armed Forces whom they are seeking—an extremely sensitive situation—and if they do so without giving advance notice of what they are doing, who is doing it, and why, the situation will be replete with difficulties.

My third example has been mentioned on several occasions and relates to convoys. Of course, I am in favour of ensuring that convoys of sensitive materials through Britain are properly protected. I want to see the MOD police active in that difficult duty. But it must be completely understood that where a convoy goes into a civil police area there must be proper advance warning of what it is doing and where it is going. It was put to me by a senior member of the Association of Chief Police Officers only this morning that if the police have determined that a demonstration is likely to take place, for example, near a defence establishment in my own or any other constituency and they decide for a variety of reasons that it is important to route traffic away from a particular area, it is critical that the MOD police should advise the chief police officer and, through him, his traffic department of what they are about to do.

In mentioning those possible difficulties to the House, I understand full well that my hon. Friend the Minister will! say that the primacy of the civil police is not in doubt and that it is certainly the intention that the chief constable of the MOD police should do his duty and inform the local chief constable in advance. I am sure that in most circumstances that would happen as between practical men, but nothing in the Bill requires it. There is only, with respect, my hon. Friend's assurance and the circular that he has yet to produce. That circular should be mandatory in respect of the chief constable of the MOD police. I appreciate that it can only be advisory in respect of the other chief constables, but in respect of a man who is hired by and can be fired by the Secretary of State, that instruction should be mandatory and binding upon him.

As the hon. Gentleman has just been in consultation with the Association of Chief Police Officers, can he enlighten us as to what progress has been made in the establishment of the guidelines and whether the association is satisfied with the present position, given the length of the discussions?

It is much more for my hon. Friend the Minister to satisfy the House on that than me. The ACPO committee put forward its views on the initial draft offered by MOD and there was a wide divergence of views. As I am advised, MOD has returned with a further draft and ACPO is not satisfied with it. It may be that in the course of the consultations, and I have been involved in this kind of thing over many years, a sensible conclusion will be reached. I certainly hope so. But the important point remains. The ordinary chief officer of police is, in a sense, his own man under the law. His police authority can give him general instructions, but he is his own man with regard to operations. The chief constable of the Ministry of Defence is a different creature. He is a servant, an employee, a man to whom the Secretary of State can say, "Do this or be sacked". The circular should be advisory in relation to the chief police officers who do not come under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of State, but in relation to the Secretary of State's own man the circular should instruct that chief constable to inform the chief officers of police into whose jurisdiction his force may go. There can be no compromise — no question of asking the MOD police politely to advise the police force into whose jurisdiction they may go. They must advise the chief police officers, and it is for the Secretary of State to ensure that they do so.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. He may recall that a few months ago I spoke about some misdemeanours occurring on a London housing estate. The charges were denied by the local police, but months later when people were sent down at the Old Bailey it was discovered that the estate and certain people living on it had been under surveillance by Scotland Yard. That illustrates a lack of information as it is clear that the local police did not know about the Scotland Yard operations. How does my hon. Friend expect cross-communication between the military and the police to work if it does not always work within the police force?

My hon. Friend is correct. From time to time there is a lack of co-ordination between individual forces or branches of the same force. I am not proud of that. I deplore it. But the House should not institutionalise the likelihood of its happening. I therefore make a plea to the Minister, who has still to determine the guidance to be given, to ensure that it is binding upon the MOD police, before going into a chief constable's area, to tell that chief constable what they are about, what they are seeking to do, and why.

I should like to examine further the difference in status between the two types of constable. The constables that for some 17 years I have had the privilege to represent are unique citizens under the law. A police constable is given, through legislation, certain powers that are not available to other citizens. In return, special duties and accountability procedures are laid upon him. The constable is accountable, first, under his oath of office; secondly, to his discipline code; thirdly, to the law of the land; fourthly, in general terms, to his chief officer and the police authority; and, finally, to the independent Police Complaints Authority.

The Minister should make it clear that every constable in the MOD police is as accountable in those specific ways as any other constable in the country. That accountability is not clear in the Bill. Nor is it clear from the various byelaws that the Bill pulls together. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister can find a way of attaching some code or schedule to the Bill to make that accountability clear beyond peradventure.

My final point is a political one. Throughout my life in the House, in my connection with the police services and on behalf of my party, I have always held one thing dear — that we must at all costs separate the police from politics. No Minister controls a civil police force in Britain, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary would be the first to agree. The police authority in Manchester, Merseyside or the west midlands is not the operational controller of the police in that area. Similarly, the Home Secretary is not the controller of the Metropolitan police, nor should he be. But with this Bill we are creating for the first time, by statute, a police force which is the creature of the Secretary of State for Defence. He gives the orders. He can hire or fire members of that force. It is he who defines where that force will go. Ultimately, the Secretary of State is responsible to the House. That is the only safeguard on Ministry of Defence police actions. But what has happened to the separation between the police and the politician? The Bill destroys it. That question should have been examined by the Opposition in Committee. It is the job of the loyal Opposition to try such issues before a Committee of Parliament.

I wish to end my speech with a quote from the chairman of the legislation sub-committee of the Police Federation. Inspector Mannion and his experienced colleagues have examined every major piece of legislation that has come through the House in the past 10 years. They have examined every clause and every amendment to test legislation against the background of practical experience. Inspector Mannion writes of this Bill:

"Amongst a host of sloppily drafted, abstract, inconsistent and vague legislation this Bill ranks supreme. It says very little. It leaves much up in the air and if I were a member of the Defence Police Federation I would regard it with the utmost dismay."

That is the considered judgment of the chairman of the legislation sub-committee of the statutory Police Federation of England and Wales. My hon. Friend should take that judgment seriously. I have sent my hon. Friend a copy of the letter from the Police Federation, which has objected to a number of points in the Bill. I hope that there is still time for some discussion before the circular is agreed and sent out to police forces.

I hope that this Bill is passed. Overall it is a sensible Bill, as it is high time that the Ministry of Defence police were placed under proper statutory jurisdiction and that they performed their job of protecting our defence establishments more effectively. But while I respect my hon. Friend the Minister's intentions, the Bill is defective. It has moved in other directions than the House has previously recognised. The circular, when it emanates, must tidy up those problems. Otherwise, there will be nothing but trouble ahead.

I did not intend to intervene at this stage, but I must tell the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) that a number of the points that he raised were ventilated in Committee.

The hon. Gentleman takes his money from the Police Federation and he is entitled to do so. However, he did not participate in the Committee proceedings, nor did he seek to participate. He made one or two superficial interventions on Second Reading—

rose—

As far as the Labour party is concerned — other parties can speak for themselves — any representations that were made either from the Association of Chief Police Officers or, for that matter, the Ministry of Defence police force were subjected to discussion. The fact that we did not put such matters to the vote is, frankly, of no consequence because—

Order. I was misled by the hon. Gentleman. I believed that he wished to make an intervention. However, if he wishes to make another speech he must have the leave of the House. Does the hon. Gentleman have the leave of the House to speak again?

Yes.

I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It had not originally been my intention to speak again. However, I waited until the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds had finished his speech.

It is only fair to reply to the hon. Gentleman's speech because his remarks were tantamount to a slight on all hon. Members and the manner in which we discussed the Bill in Committee. It was open to the hon. Gentleman to put any complaints or grievances to the Committee about how it had dealt with the Bill. The hon. Gentleman could have approached the Committee when it sat for two days. Indeed, there were certain critics on the Conservative side of the Committee who attracted media attention and who were capable of putting forward the amendments that the hon. Gentleman sought to discuss. Frankly, I believe that it is a disgrace for an experienced Member to make on Third Reading, a Second Reading speech—I imagine to save face with his paymasters. That is unacceptable.

Important points were made constructively in Committee by a number of Conservative Members. We should have taken on board some of the points which the hon. Gentleman made had they been brought to our attention by him or by the individuals and organisations with which he associates. We are not prepared to take that kind of criticism because it is totally unfounded. We raised points on many matters and the fact that we did not detain the Committee unnecessarily with Divisions which would not achieve anything reflects hon. Members' good sense and is to their credit. Too often we are accused, correctly, of using adversarial tactics in Committee. We had no intention of doing so on that occasion.

I seek the leave of the House to speak again.

Order. In the particular circumstances the hon. Member does not need the leave of the House.

That is reassuring, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

This has been a constructive debate with good contributions by hon. Members on both sides of the House. It has been a good, non-partisan Bill.

The hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) was not happy with the complaints procedure, but I think that he recognised that the complaints procedure provided for in the Bill follows that of the Home Department police forces. If we wanted to change this complaints procedure, it would be sensible to change the Home Department's complaints procedure. I should be surprised if, in practice, Ministry of Defence police did not follow suit in any changes made in the Home Department police forces.

My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) said that the Ministry of Defence police were a national force under the operational control of a Minister of the Crown. The Secretary of State is directly accountable to Parliament for the actions of the Ministry of Defence police who, in common with other police, are accountable to the courts and to the independent Police Complaints Authority. Direction and control of the force are exercised by the chief constable, who is under oath to administer the law in the same way as other members of police or any other police force. That is an important point. There has been much talk about us having a political police force. That is not true.

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend, but I must point out that no other Minister can sack a chief constable in the fashion that the Secretary of State for Defence can in this case. The chief constable of the Ministry of Defence police is the creature of the Secretary of State for Defence, and no other chief constable is put in that position.

I take my hon. Friend's point about hiring and firing, but I should like to come to that problem when I deal with his speech.

The hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright) raised three points which I think were covered reasonably well in Committee. I thank him for his general welcome for the Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Cranborne) mentioned, once again, his concern that the definition of "Crown property" covers the foreshore. I am sorry that he thought that I was deriding him in Committee. I am afaid that I still cannot conceive of a large number of circumstances in which the Ministry of Defence police will want to operate on the foreshore, even though they may be free to do so. I think that my hon. Friend was slightly misled.

The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) does not mislead us often, but he gave the slight impression that his was the only area that was not covered under the 15-mile limit. I have a map with some black areas on it which I should be happy to show to the House. It shows that extensive areas of, for instance, Scotland are not covered under the 15-mile limit. [Interruption.] I shall certainly ensure that a copy is placed in the Library. I might even send one to my hon. Friend so that he can see that there are incomplete areas which are not covered under the 15-mile limit. This causes embarrassment if there are convoys going to nuclear areas in Scotland. That is one of our difficulties.

The hon. Member for Walsall, South made a strong point about the national police force. At the end of the day, we are talking about crime, which happens all over the country and knows no boundaries. It is important that the police should have the capacity to deal with crime wherever it happens on Ministry of Defence property.

The hon. Gentleman was concerned about publication of reports. There is, of course, the chief constable's report. I have a copy of the report for the year ending 30 September 1985 which, as the hon. Gentleman can see, is restricted. It is quite a document. We have agreed that future reports may be placed in the Library. Last year's report ran to 19 pages and eight additional annexes. It is not altogether fair to dismiss that as inadequate. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would have to draw extensively on the report if he was to write another report for the House. We might agree therefore that, if the report is placed in the Library, we can discuss whether we should go further and whether the Police Committee should produce its own report.

The hon. Member for Walsall, South raised the problem of firearms and training and expressed concern about whether people were being properly trained. I repeat what I have said because it is extremely important. The use of firearms is always a serious matter because of the possibility of injury or even death arising from their use. That, of course, includes innocent people not in any way involved in the offence to which the firearms are related. Firearms are therefore issued only to Ministry of Defence police officers who are fully qualified to use the types of weapon to be carried and only when the order for their issue has been given by the chief constable after the authorisation by the Secretary of State.

Training in the use of firearms is undertaken regularly and the senior police officer at each establishment is responsible for ensuring that all ranks are fully conversant with the MDP's safety precautions and general instructions on the use and carrying of firearms. I shall consider this training aspect because the hon. Member for Walsall, South is clearly concerned about it. We should not dismiss it lightly because it is sensitive. We must have total confidence in police training. I shall write to the hon. Gentleman to tell him of my findings.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) is worried about the role of the Secretary of State towards the Ministry of Defence police and the degree to which he is able to hire and fire. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is responsible for hiring and firing a large number of people. I suppose that he is responsible for most of the civilian work force in the Ministry of Defence which, according to the last figures I saw, numbered 160,000 people. I do not envisage my right hon. Friend spending a lot of time worrying himself too much about who is hired and who is not.

I agree that there is concern about the firing of people within the Ministry of Defence police, but I do not think that my right hon. Friend has quite the freedom of action suggested by my hon. Friend in terms of firing a member of the Ministry of Defence police with whom he does not agree. There would be a fantastic furore if my right hon. Friend were to take what could be seen as very arbitrary action in firing a member of the Ministry of Defence police. I should have thought that, in those circumstances, there would be a serious row if it were not seen to be a reasonable action of getting rid of someone who was not doing his job properly.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds raised a number of questions and gave a number of hypothetical examples of what might go wrong in terms of the inter-relationship between Home Department police forces and the Ministry of Defence police. He mentioned surveillance operations under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1984 with Home Department police forces acting under cover. He saw armed plain clothes Ministry of Defence key people moving in without giving any notice and without saying that they were there. That conflicts with practice in almost every way. In practice, when it comes to armed people moving about, the MDP makes certain that the local Home Department police forces are informed about what is happening. The CID of the Ministry of Defence police spends most of its time investigating fraud. To deal with fraud that body wants the greatest freedom of action. It always communicates with the local police forces to say what it is doing and what lines of inquiry are being pursued.

It is in those respects that the police are likely to range widest across the country when tracking down contracts which have gone wrong and cases in which people have cheated the Ministry of Defence. That is not a likely hypothesis, nor indeed is the hypothesis on the drugs investigation and the sensitive policing that is going on. I cannot imagine the Ministry of Defence police going into an area such as that. As I have said, most of the matters in which they are involved concern fraud. They would be unlikely to end up in some difficult part of Brixton, for example.

I am quite sure that the Minister means what he says, but how does he know? How can he say that he does not think that it is likely that the Ministry of Defence police would go into a particular area? He is not prepared to give them an instruction that they should not go into such an area without telling the civilian police beforehand. That is the issue.

It is better, rather than to deal with hypotheses, to see what has happened under the existing practice. Under the existing practice there is close cooperation between the Home Department police forces and the Ministry of Defence police. Indeed, at a low level, they work extremely well together. On the whole, when crimes are investigated, the Home Department police forces are likely to contact the Ministry of Defence police and say, "Will you deal with this one for us?"

The practice now is for Ministry of Defence police always to notify the Home Department police forces and tell them where their convoys will go and the routes that they will follow. They will not find themselves going into a demonstration or anything of that sort, because the local Home Department police forces will already have been informed of the route that they intended to take. Obviously, if there were demonstrations and such matters going on, and the chief constable were concerned that they might get mixed up in them, he would come back to them on that matter.

I apologise to the hon. Member for Walsall, South. I have been trying to dream up some basis on which I could denounce him. I have his political interests at heart. He has made my job extremely difficult. I echo his words to the House. The Ministry of Defence police are not a second-class police force. They are doing a useful and valuable job in protecting Ministry of Defence property. They are available also to back up the Home Department police forces, and regularly do so, when their resources run low. They are playing a magnificent role in maintaining law and order.

I beg to move,

That this House takes note of the un-numbered explanatory memorandum dated 21st January 1987, submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, describing draft Regulations: amending Regulation 1785/81 on the common organisation of the market in sugar; relating to a decision on placing sugar held by the Italian intervention agency at the disposal of charitable organisations for consumption within the Community; on the free transfer to charitable organisations of products processed from cereals held in intervention; and amending Regulation 804/68 on the common organisation of the market in milk and in milk products and Regulation 1842/83 establishing general rules for the granting of milk and certain milk products to students in educational establishments; and endorses the Government's decision to work speedily through charitable organisations to achieve free distribution of beef, milk and certain milk products to the most needy in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and others.

These arrangements arose from the decision of the Council of Ministers in the European Community to react to the extremely hard weather earlier in the year by ensuring that; the supplies of food that we had in surplus were available to those in the Community who were most needy and had therefore been affected more than others by the weather. The decision was taken after a quick discussion over a couple of days so that the distribution of food might be started before the weather warmed up. I put it as simply as that because, with some of the suggestions that I have heard about what we might have done and how we might have arranged it, it would have been flaming June before anybody got any butter or beef. Therefore, it seemed to me that it was important for us to act as rapidly as possible.

I make no apology for the timetable that was forced upon us by the nature of what we sought to do. Nor do I apologise for the fact that, from the beginning, the United Kingdom was concerned lest the speed with which we acted and the haste with which the Commission presented its proposals meant that the scheme was unworkable. We pressed a number of changes upon the Commission, all of which were accepted, and have ensured that we at least had a scheme that could properly be implemented. For that reason, on the very day on which the decision was made, we sought a meeting with charities in this country to get the scheme under way.

The idea that the scheme would make a major contribution or, indeed, even a partial contribution to getting rid of the surpluses in the CAP was not entertained by the United Kingdom Government. After all, butter stocks amount to one and a half times the annual world trade. They are equivalent to 10 months' supply for every man, woman and child in the Community. Unless one envisages the delivery of a quantity of butter on every family doorstep so enormous as to reach well into flaming June, it would be unlikely to make any real impact on our stores. We were concerned to use the opportunity that was afforded to us in a sensible and realistic way. We were much happier to do so, given that the proposals that came after the decisions in the December Council which, as we know from yesterday's decisions, are soon to be implemented, enabled us to see that there was a change of heart in the CAP, and the tap was turned off. In other words, we shall not produce the kind of stocks that we had in the past. The 9·5 per cent, cut in milk quotas and the further cut in the year after the coming marketing year mean that we have a realistic approach and that our present stocks, once they are removed from cold store, will not be replaced.

In that context, it seemed sensible that even the small contribution that could be made by providing butter and beef and the other surplus products for the most needy was worthwhile, particularly as we were looking for additionality. The idea was that we would seek so to distribute it that it would provide extra food for those who had been most affected by the weather. To do that, we used charitable organisations. That was part of the Commission's intention. It was not a choice by us, although I shall not disguise from the House that it is a system through which I am pleased to have worked. There was no flexibility on this point. There was no way in which we could directly use local authorities, for example, because the legislation was directly applicable in the United Kingdom.

Will the Minister give way?

When I finish dealing with this passage of my speech, I shall be happy to give way.

The point that I wish to make clear is that what we sought—and we achieved this—was to ensure that we should decide which charities we should invite to help us. Originally, the plan was to have only two charities throughout the European Community, the Red Cross and Caritas. Admirable though both organisations are, they are obviously not the two organisations which, alone, would be satisfactory in this country, and, in the event, we have seen that this is so.

The Minister seems to imply that these rules, to which we must adhere, are laid down by some external body. Will he confirm that that is not the position? The Commission puts up a proposal to the Council of Ministers, of which he is a member, and he and his colleagues in the Council of Ministers are responsible for the ultimate decisions. Therefore, he, together with his colleagues on the Council of Ministers, must take the responsibility for whatever scheme was agreed. They— not the Commission—are the ultimate authority in the Community.

I am happy to accept what the hon. Gentleman said. All that I said was that the decision was not for the British Government alone. That seems to be a perfectly unexceptionable comment. The truth is that, on the recommendation of the Commission, the Council of Ministers agreed that the scheme would be operated through the charities. I said that I agreed willingly. I am not opposed to it—in fact, I am pleased about it. But once we agreed, there was no question of our being able unilaterally to make a different decision. I merely made that point in case people considered that we could have chosen to do both. We felt that it was not necessary to do both, because most of our charities work extremely well with most of the local authorities and they have been able to work side by side with them. However, the charities have been the engine of the operation. That is valuable. The voluntary movement in this country is particularly good at this kind of operation, and it has shown itself to be good in this case.

Hon. Members are familiar with the list of charitable organisations concerned. I do not wish to be invidious by choosing one, or another, or a number, for special mention as having been particularly helpful. Nevertheless, I stress how very generous they have been in terms of the time and effort that have been put into this operation and how enthusiastically the voluntary movement has sought to carry out difficult operations. The charities had to move very quickly. The decision was made at 2 am, our time, in Brussels. I arrived back at 3 am. By 5 pm the charities were sitting round the table in the Ministry discussing how best to carry out the operation. At no time since then have any of the charities, save perhaps one, suggested that they could not cope with this operation.

I apologise to my right hon. Friend for not being here at the beginning of his speech, but may I endorse what he has said about the British Red Cross, for example. I went to see the ladies who were doling out the butter on Saturday morning in my constituency. They were doing a remarkable job. Many of the people there were delighted to take advantage of the butter that was being provided for them. All that upset them was the thoughtless and rather silly attack of local Labour party members who suggested that old people were being demeaned by being provided with this butter. The British Red Cross are doing a remarkable job and will receive the grateful thanks of the local community.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he has said. That is certainly my experience, too. In Wolverhampton, for example, I found that the Women's Royal Voluntary Service was doing a remarkable job in distributing these products through the meals on wheels service. I have also seen the Salvation Army operation. In parenthesis, may I say that those who have not seen the Salvation Army operation at full stretch have missed a remarkable sight.

I accept that because this came very quickly upon them it caused difficulties for some of the voluntary organisations. Some of them said, "We shall make our arrangements tonight and start tomorrow." Others said, "We are not directional organisations; we do not run from the centre outwards, as the Salvation Army does. We consist of federations; therefore, it will take us a little longer to get off the ground." We accept that. Some voluntary organisations found it easier to deal with some products rather than others. Again we accepted that. We sought to have, not a formal system, but one that they could work out together. We hoped that the smaller organisations — the territorially more limited organisations—would be able to work through the main group.

To the main group we added a number of others. It was felt that the original selection did not wholly cover all the needy. Therefore we sought the advice of the Scottish Office and the Northern Ireland Office to make sure that they, as well as the Welsh Office, were covered and that every part of the United Kingdom had the best mix that we could possibly put forward. Again I thank all those groups, both the ones that we have dealt with directly and the rest, for the work that they have done.

I accept what the Minister has said about the role of the voluntary organisations, but is he aware that in the London area there appears, sadly, to be a lot of confusion in the minds of elderly people as to where to go to collect the surplus butter? Could he tell the House what kind of publicity has been made available because, frankly, many people have not benefited at all? If this is the start of other surpluses being made available, although the charitable organisations may continue to distribute them, it would be a good idea if the Minister could consider an advertising campaign so that people would know where to go to collect the surpluses.

When I describe to him what has generally happened I think that the hon. Gentleman will discover that in fact we have reached a very high proportion of those who come into the general categories that we have sought to reach. The hon. Gentleman is quite right; there are difficulties. We could have had a bureaucratic scheme whereby we defined precisely who might have the surplus products. It would have taken us some time, of course. However, we could have given them a voucher and made sure that people knew exactly where to go for the products. But that was not our intention. We decided to use the voluntary system to reach as many needy people as quickly as possible. In general, that objective has been achieved. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there will be some who have not been reached, but if I describe to him how we have done it I think that he will find that he is happier than he was to begin with.

I ought to explain some of the logistical details. Butter is stored in intervention in bulk, and it takes three or four days for the butter to warm up sufficiently to be able to chop it up into suitable packs. That is paid for by the Commission at a flat rate per tonne for repackaging and transport. Beef is made available in boxes of 25 kg. It consists of cuts of boneless beef. Therefore, although butchering is necessary, it is not of a very sophisticated type. We sought to ensure that we got out as much as we could as quickly as we could.

We started with butter, because that was the easiest product for most of the charities to deal with. Then we took the beef and sought first to get the large orders out — in other words, in I tonne pallets — to those organisations that could deal with them. Having got that beef under way, we were able to provide charities with beef in 25 kg boxes so that a much wider range of people was able to receive it. Normally about 10 boxes were taken rather than 40, which is the size of a pallet.

Some organisations and charities found that they did not have the resources to do the butchering. I pay tribute to the initiative of the meat trade. It has provided its expertise free, or at nominal cost, to the charities. As for transport, the Commission is making a flat rate payment for transport to distribution points.

We have discussed eligibility with the charities and have sought to lay down guidelines as to those who might be categorised as particularly needy and particularly affected by the cold weather, but we wanted the charities to feel that they could make sensible judgments about the people with whom they were in general contact. The advantage is that these people are dealing from day to day with the needy. That is why we chose the charities.

We laid down guidelines to the effect that those normally in receipt of supplementary benefit or family income supplement, the homeless, those living in hostel accommodation, or attending feeding centres, or receiving meals on wheels, or those who are disadvantaged in other ways, should receive these products, but we wanted the charities to use their common sense. For example, if the majority of people who use a luncheon club come from needy backgrounds, it would obviously be invidious to provide butter for some but to say, for example, to Mrs. Jones, "No, you can't have it, because you are not on supplementary benefit." I did not want this scheme to be based on people producing their supplementary benefit books or their family income supplement entitlement. It seemed to me to be better to leave it to those who know the circumstances and who can act sensibly within the guidelines.

We have not broadened the scheme to cover all pensioners. That was not the arrangement under the agreement. The arrangement was that these products should go to the needy. Although some pensioners are needy, others are not. Therefore, it seemed to be more sensible to do it that way. We have also sought to ensure that the product received is additional rather than a substitute. It would be very expensive to give butter to those who normally buy it. They would then put it into their own freezers and would not buy other butter, which would mean that we ended up with as much butter in store as we started with, and also with the great cost of distribution. That would not have been sensible. It would have repeated the failures of past arrangements, of which hon. Members on both sides; of the House have been very critical.

Having set up the arrangements for beef and butter, we turned our attention to milk, cheese and certain other milk products. Having talked to the charitable organisations, we decided that milk and cheese were the two that we particularly wanted to distribute. They felt—and we felt, too—that yoghurt was probably not one of the products that we wanted to use in this way. On 6 February that part of the scheme began to operate.

The Community legislation that is in front of us today is different in this case, because instead of the products coming out of intervention store — because we do not intervene in the case of these products—they are bought on the market and the charities are reimbursed. The charities are able to purchase whole and semi-skimmed milk, buttermilk, cheese and concentrated butter and these products are distributed in many parts of the country.

I apologise for missing the start of the Minister of State's speech. However, what about the booze? What about the wine lake? Will pensioners get to grips with that?

I am not sure that the House would have been very enthusiastic if I had proposed that we should spend a large sum of money importing wine to distribute free to pensioners. Many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor), would have had some comments to make about the distribution of free alcohol. I have noticed that the two categories in the population who have remarked about this distribution of alcohol are Members of Parliament and journalists, both of whom fell, that we should do it. I have decided not to accept the blandishments of those who wished us to distribute free olive oil or free wine. Neither of those products came into the categories that we wanted to distribute.

I have also decided, in concert with the charities, that both flour and sugar, for different reasons, should not be distributed.

Why not?

I was about to explain why and the hon. Gentleman does not need to intervene from a sedentary position.

We have no milling flour in this country in intervention. We would have had to bring it in, although at least it would have been paid for by the Commission. It would have come from Germany, been milled and made into loaves. It would not be easy to provide what I call additionality in the business of bread. That is not a sensible way to use money to which, in the end, we contribute.

Similarly bringing in and distributing quantities of sugar from Italy at great expense would not have been a sensible way of implementing the proposals.

I would have thought that the Minister could have made do with a couple of loaves and a few fishes.

The hon. Gentleman may make jokes about this, but I believe that we are distributing in a sensible way.

To date, the figures for authorised releases from intervention stores of butter are 22·6 million packs and for beef 4·16 million meals.

I want to make an important point because there are different base lines for the calculations. Did the Minister say authorised for release, but not released?

No, I used the expression "authorised releases" because I did not want to mislead the House. I am absolutely sure how much has been authorised for release. That means that which has already gone out or is going out in some form. In other words, it may have just left the intervention store or it may already have been consumed. Any other figure is arbitrary. For example, on Wednesday five tonnes of butter will arrive in Tunbridge Wells and I know that because an hon. Member asked me about it. There should not be a moving base line, so I have always used the same base line and the House can see how it builds up. I believe that that is the best base line and I will continue to use it.

A very large number of the most needy in the United Kingdom have already received a substantial addition to their weekly diet and others will receive that addition before the scheme ends. A comparison between our efforts and that of our neighbours will show that we have been very much more successful on the whole. I say "on the whole" because, for example, the French have operated a system for many years which might inevitably be called "beef kitchens". The French provide, as a matter of course, all over the country, the equivalent of soup kitchens, into which they put cheap beef. The French have used that system for distributing free beef. However, the French have been much less successful in the distribution of butter. The Germans appear to have distributed much the same amount of butter as we have, although it is difficult to know the exact up-to-date figures. However, they have distributed a good deal less beef. I must stress that that is the latest position, but we do not have up-to-date figures such as I have been able to give about our distribution.

However, in the rest of the European Community, no other country appears to be distributing in the same way as we have distributed. There has been no report of implementation in Greece. The latest figures from the Netherlands show a very much more limited distribution. The Irish, the Luxembourgers and the Spanish all have a much more limited distribution. The Italians are not reported to have made any distributions. There have been no distributions in Portugal. There has been a certain amount of distribution in Belgium and Denmark. However, none of those countries has operated in the same way as we have.

It was the Council's decision that the distribution should be made. We all had reservations about the method and the sense of making the distributions. However, having decided to distribute, it seemed to be correct that the United Kingdom should take action and do what we could as well as we could. Our action has meant that throughout the country there has been an addition to the diet of those most in need and that has been distributed by those most able to distribute it. The voluntary societies for which Britain has an international reputation and of which we are proud are distributing those goods.

It was therefore, with some amazement that I read today's Order Paper. I discovered that the Labour party, concerned as it always is for the most needy, does not in its amendment mention any congratulations. There is not a word of thanks for the 22·5 million packs of butter for the most needy. There is not a scintilla of thanks for the Red Cross or the Salvation Army. The Opposition have not thanked Help the Aged or Age Concern. They do not mention the Church of Scotland or the Church Army, nor do they reach out to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul or to Bryson House. The Opposition have not mentioned any of those organisations. Indeed, I doubt whether they have heard of them. All that the Opposition wanted to do was to make a cheap party political point.

I have two points to make about the Minister's impudent diatribe. First, will he confirm that the Church of Scotland was not included in the original list until some of us raised that matter? Secondly, does he not remember that I used to work at Age Concern and I know a little more about it than he?

The fact that the hon. Gentleman used to work for Age Concern does not change the fact that he did not mention in the amendment the good work carried out by Age Concern. He appears to have forgotten more about Age Concern than he should have. The hon. Gentleman is not correct about the Church of Scotland.

Yes, I am.

The hon. Gentleman must really wait for my answer. I shall tell him exactly what happened about the Church of Scotland. We had the meeting at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and the arrangement was made through the Church Army at the behest of the British Council of Churches, as I understand it, which covers the Church of Scotland, that initially the Church Army would make arrangements with the Church of Scotland and tell the Church of Scotland that it could choose how it wished to be associated with the scheme, either directly or indirectly, through the Church Army. The Church of Scotland chose to be associated directly. We made the arrangements as it wanted. It had nothing whatsoever to do with the impudent comment made by the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) who did not contribute to the matter. The hon. Gentleman's only contribution is his whingeing and miserable attitude.

I know about the Minister's connections with the Church of England. Does he not recognise that the Church of Scotland is the established church of Scotland and a direct approach to it would have been appropriate?

The hon. Gentleman must accept that in the United Kingdom we have a very close working relationship between all the major denominations, both established and non-established. I do not think that the establishment has anything to do with the matter. What we sought to do was deal through all the organisations that were most appropriate and that could be gathered together between 3 o'clock in the morning and 5 o'clock in the afternoon. It may have escaped the hon. Gentleman's knowledge that the Church of Scotland operates mainly in Scotland and, therefore, it was easier, in order to have that meeting, to arrange for someone to stand in for it at that time. I make no apology for that.

That is not true.

The hon. Gentleman must not say that. What he is saying from a sendentary position is utterly untrue. I was present at the meeting and I heard the statement made on that occasion. It was my statement which said that we should ensure that the Church of Scotland was represented in whatever way it wished to be represented. I do not see how one could be fairer than that. My relationship with the Church of Scotland has always been extremely cordial and I would not wish to remove it or exclude it. I think that what the hon. Gentleman has to say is in a spirit that is far from Christian charity.

I am in regular touch with different people in the Church of Scotland and their account of the set-up which took place in relation to its involvement is totally different from the Minister's. Having in my constituency, in Crichton West church in Cumnock, a lady minister, someone ordained in the Church of Scotland, I can recommend that for any church. Women can play a far greater part in the Church than the Minister.

I suspect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you would say I was out of order if I tried to explain to the hon. Gentleman what a difference there is between those of us who hold the historic ministry that comes from the universal church and those who seek to break that historic ministry. It has nothing to do with sexism but a great deal to do with the catholic doctrine. I shall now move on to discuss the motion before us and in that I know that I am supported by the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) who understands catholic doctrine in these matters.

Before the Minister moves on — I am not in any way seeking to detain him on matters we have been debating in the past few moments—can he confirm some of the amounts of money involved in surpluses? Can he confirm that British taxpayers are now paying well over £1,000 million a year to subsidise the mountains of butter and beef? Can he also confirm that British taxpayers, in the latest sale of butter to the Russians, are having to foot the bill, which comes to £650 million? Are those not astronomic amounts of money coming from British taxpayers and is not the scheme we are debating just a tiny bit coming back to this country?

Obviously the hon. Gentleman was not here to listen to the first part of my speech when I made my point clear. I do not think that anybody who was here missed the point. I said right at the beginning that (his was only a small contribution to the reduction of surpluses but that it seemed, nonetheless, a worthwhile one. In that catalogue of woe that the hon. Gentleman put before us, he might have mentioned that in December, because of the action of the British Government in the British presidency, we have now changed the arrangements of the common agricultural policy so that surpluses in beef and dairy products will no longer be built up. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman was not in his place when I announced that from the Dispatch Box so that he could congratulate the British Government, which sentiment I know would have been in his heart at the time.

In the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley (Sir P. Wall) and my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. McLoughlin), could my right hon. Friend find it within himself to pay a tribute to the faithful Church of Rome?

I feel that I am going to be led down a whole series of unsuitable courses. However, I have to say that the Roman Catholic organisations have been particularly good in the distribution of this food. Indeed, I believe that the Roman Catholic cathedral in Middlesbrough has been used as a storage point from which the butter has been distributed over the diocese of Middlesbrough. I should like to thank the Roman Catholic organisations for that and to say how much we appreciate it.

I should like to ask the Minister to take up the point made by an Opposition Member about publicity. I have listened with great interest to 98 per cent, of his speech — I missed the first three lines or so—but I must tell him that my experience in the north-west is totally different from everything I am listening to in the House. I am fed up with people in the north—I even had it in the train travelling down today — telling me that they have never seen the butter and asking where it is and who has got it and so on. I accept everything that the Minister said. I do not doubt the points that he has made for one second. However, I wonder whether some sort of publicity about the limitations and who are the correct recipients of the butter might be in the Government's best interests. A lot of people who think they should have got it should not have got it within the scheme. Some publicity about that might be in the Government's interest and certainly in the interests of some hon. Members in the north.

I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. However, I have heard others in the north congratulating us on the extent by which we have been able to get to those in most need. It is in my experience, sadly, that any hope of anybody getting something for nothing tends to bring people out, whether one has advertised to them that they come within the category or not. I have appeared — some Opposition Members would say too often—on the television and radio and on every occasion I have tried to make the point clear. I took every opportunity because I wanted to help the voluntary organisations, which themselves explained the restrictions. I agree that it has not always been understood, but I do not think that further advertising would have been satisfactory.

Will my right hon. Friend accept that his Department has informed Members of Parliament of the scheme and that it is up to hon. Members, not only his Department, to provide press releases and advertisements on the scheme to inform our constituents about it and not to rely on national advertising all the time?

I agree with my hon. Friend. I made sure that there was a full and detailed statement available to all hon. Members through the usual channels in quantities large enough for every hon. Member to take action on it. That was not only through the usual channels on the Conservative side of the House, but through the usual channels of the various Opposition parties. I did that personally because I thought that it was necessary for every hon. Member to act upon it. I hope that that was successful.

It does not help the House or the reputation of the Opposition if they are not willing to accept even the part of our motion in which we express some thanks and congratulations for the activities that have gone on. It leads me to think that the Opposition amendment is tabled in the vain hope of getting a bit of party political propaganda. I am terribly sad because I would have expected more of one or two of the signatories. I would not have expected much better of one or two others, and with one or two I am surprised that it is as moderate as it is. Their amendment states:

"Regrets … the lack of proper consultation with, and information to, charitable organisations".

They say "proper consultation" but there was a meeting at 5 o'clock on the day on which we decided on the scheme. Not a single one of the charities has complained about consultation. Where is that from? It goes on to say that the charities were "prevented … from making preparations". They were told that the scheme was under way in the morning, they met to discuss the scheme and the scheme is phrased in the way that they wanted. How could we have done it better than that? The motion then goes on to say:

"as a result of which large numbers of the most needy are likely to be excluded from this aid."

That cannot be so because we have already distributed 22·5 million packs of butter—[Interruption.] I was quite clear in saying that it is either distributed or on its way. The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) knows perfectly well how this figure has gone up day by day and week by week and will continue to do so. The Opposition would stand better in the eyes of the country if they had the grace and courtesy on occasion to say that the Government have done as well as they could in the circumstances and thanked the charities and the Ministry officials for having made this possible.

I beg to move, to leave out from "establishments" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:

'but regrets that the lack of proper consultation with, and information to, charitable organisations in the United Kingdom prevented them from making preparations for a speedy and efficient distribution, as a result of which large numbers of the most needy are likely to be excluded from this aid.'.

When the Minister was about half an hour into his speech—and had said very little—I began for the first time to feel sorry for the Archbishop of Canterbury. His combination of querulous behaviour and heckling tone sits ill on a Minister discussing an item of this nature. The motion—in a wadge of dough with very little currants in the form of facts—contains no word of congratulation to the charities, but merely asks this House to endorse the Government's action.

The Minister has the effrontery to talk about somebody seeking to extract political capital out of this issue. Scarcely a day goes by without this Minister being photographed in front of some open door or another, in some silly hat or another, yet he talks about political capital. I genuinely seek to have a good and fair distribution of what is available to everyone, but we are not helped by his attempt — thinly disguised by facts, because the Minister can handle them least well of all— to be a national figure.

The Minister and the Council of Ministers have decided to distribute the £36 million worth of food to the most needy. Whatever our views of the idea — and the Minister made clear his dislike and distrust of this scheme —we must now make the best scheme possible for the United Kingdom. But it must be put on record—and I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) has already referred to it — that it is a sweetener to smooth the disposition of 400,000 tonnes of butter to the Russians with a forced loan of about £400 million by the United Kingdom on uneconomic terms to the EEC, and for a further 400,000 tonnes to be disposed to animal feed.

How should we assess the success or otherwise of the scheme? The duty on any Government in this country is to give as wide and prompt a distribution of the aid available as possible. The question we must answer tonight is how many of the most needy have received the aid and how quickly, and how many of the available commodities have been distributed? As the Minister made a partisan point, I want to make it clear that nothing in our amendment or anything that I say tonight is in any way critical of the charities that have been involved in this scheme. Many people have worked very hard and with great dedication—

Oh.

I do not know what the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) is saying, but I think he probably finds difficulty in following the complexity of this debate.

No; I can understand it.

The hon. Member says that he understands it. A less vacuous appearance on his face might benefit the House.

Many people are working very hard and with great dedication to distribute this food. They deserve our thanks. The hon. Member is now seeking to sing a duet, and since his voice is unmusical the effect is unpleasant.

We must ask ourselves whether the charities were given a fair chance of meeting the criterion of wide and prompt distribution, given the way that they were handed the problem by the Government. Prior to the EEC announcement, as has been confirmed this afternoon by the Minister, there was no warning and no consultation on the likelihood of any scheme being set up. Therefore, I think that the Minister will accept that some of the charities involved are not distributing charities. There was no organisation in place, nor was there any system for this operation. The factors that the charities had to face lead us to suppose that a better system of consultation and more prompt information could have improved the scheme.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

The hon. Gentleman has been in the House for none of the speeches. He needs to wait a little while before he can intervene. I will give way to him once he is accustomed to the House.

The first factor that the charities had to overcome was in the form of food. The Minister of State said that both the butter and beef are in 25 kilo blocks — immense quantities. Some of the charities did not have refrigeration facilities, so that once the food was defrosted it was unuseable if the charities did not pick it up. Last Monday the Salvation Army was appealing on HTV in Bristol because 140 lb of beef was on their hands and defrosting. The charities concerned did not pick it up and the Salvation Army was asking any luncheon club to take it. That sort of problem is caused by these large quantities of food.

This morning it was reported in The Scotsman that a Fife butcher has constructed a scheme whereby the beef in question can be reduced to be used in hamburgers. The report said that the butcher had to find some use for it because otherwise the charitable bodies with which he was speaking were suggesting that the best thing to do was to dig a hole and bury the beef in it. That is a real problem facing charities. The form in which the food was released was so large and difficult to handle that the charities had to have help.

Secondly, another difficulty is the number of people involved. The Minister of State said that he did not want to tie that down to any particular figure and that supplementary beneficiaries were a major but not the sole category. Charities such as the Salvation Army and the Womens Royal Voluntary Service can identify the people within this definition with whom they deal, but they have no comprehensive knowledge of who is within this category, even by pooling their ideas. I put it to the Minister that it is unlikely that the pooled ideas of all the charities involved are likely to reveal all those who are eligible. Some may supplement that by phoning in to state their own claim but the DHSS could not possibly release their confidential lists of people who are eligible and in receipt of supplementary benefit. The number is more than 5 million people in this country.

I regret, since the Minister played a part in the decision by the Council of Ministers, that local government authorities were not involved — not for any doctrinaire reason but because they could have helped to identify people within their areas who were in the subject categories. A few became involved in this operation, but had it not been for the exclusive nature of the resolution and the form of legislation which the Commission and the Council of Ministers adopted, many more would have become involved and the charities would have had much better knowledge of those who were eligible for aid. Distribution of food to people eligible to receive it is likely to be more comprehensive and speedier. Earlier and better consultation in that area could have improved the scheme.

Thirdly, there was the question of speed of distribution. Not only was there the need to set up the organisation, but a great deal of hard-pressed charity cash, which could have been used for other cases, was absorbed on postage and telephones. That is not only my view; it was expressed by the European Conservative group when it commented on the measure.

Despite the very careful words which the Minister of State used at Question Time last Thursday—many of us were listening to him carefully—it is quite clear that the cost of distributing food will be borne by charities unless the EEC rules are changed, I do not believe that any charity is in such luxurious financial circumstances as to be able to bear that expense. Moreover, such expense will reduce charities' ability to help those whom they normally help.

The Minister will probably want to convey to the EEC our call for administration and distribution costs to be lifted from the shoulders of charities so that they can do their work safe in the knowledge that their future work will not be hampered as a result.

We have not taken up all the items of aid for which we are eligible. The Minister implied that the charities could not handle the extra burden, but why have we not taken advantage of sugar from Italy? Ireland is just one of the countries which has taken advantage of it. We also have surplus cereals. We have 2·36 million tonnes of bread wheat in store in the EEC. Why have we not used it?

It is not suitable to distribute wheat in the form of bread because it is so perishable, but why are we not distributing cereals as flour which the needy can use for cake or bread? The Government said initially that there was no demand for it. When there proved to be a demand, the Government said that the surplus could not be distributed except at disproportionate cost. The sad thing is that we are the only country in the EEC which is not taking advantage of those surpluses.

I intervened in the Minister's speech to ask about the quantities of food that have been received. He recognised my serious point. There is the world of difference between authorising release from storage when charities ask for it: and distribution. At column 1049 of Hansard on Thursday, the Minister appeared to give different statistical bases. He talked about packs of butter and portions of beef. The Minister has said what is in store and can be released if asked for, but he has not said what has been released.

It is a matter not of whether charities ask for it but of what they have asked for and what we have released. We will release anything that they ask for. We are talking of butter or beef which has been distributed, is on its way and which charities have ordered. There is nothing potential about it.

With respect, I think that it is a little different. The figures reveal a wide disparity between the Minister's formula and what has been distributed.

I want to challenge what the Minister said last Thursday. I remind him that he said:

"Britain got off the ground first."

It was the United Kingdom, but never mind.

"We have distributed more than any other country in Europe and have done it more efficiently." — [Official Report, 19 February 1987; Vol. 110, c. 1049.]

I would welcome confirmation of the suggestion that he was referring to the figures given to the European Commission as of noon on 16 February. There were no more contemporary figures at that stage. If that is so, his statement was seriously misleading because earlier he told my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) that 15 million packs of butter and 3·15 million portions of beef had been released.

We have already considered authorisation, and I have demonstrated that it does not mean that the commodities have been released. If the Minister's words were taken literally, each of the 5 million supplementary benefit recipients in Britain would already have had three packs of butter. Nobody believes that that has happened. Indeed, none of us has met anybody who has received three packs of butter. As at 16 February, 639 tonnes of butter had been released. By 20 February, 2,358 tonnes of butter had been released. Will the Minister confirm those figures because the number of packs that they imply is markedly lower than the figure he gave on Thursday?

The same is true of beef. We were told about the size of the 3·15 million portions of beef but, at 16 February, only 58 tonnes had been distributed from cold stores in the United Kingdom. The Ministry told me this afternoon that, by 23 February, 191 tonnes of beef had been delivered. The Intervention Board gives a somewhat larger figure. All the figures, however, show a much less sanguine position than that given by the Minister last week. If 3·15 million portions have been issued, on the basis of the volume of beef that is known to have been distributed, each portion would have been less than one ounce — hardly a significant addition to people's diet.

There are even disparities in authorisation as between regions. I understand from the Intervention Board that 174·5 tonnes of beef have been authorised for England and Wales, that the figure for Scotland is 71 tonnes and that that for Northern Ireland is 221 tonnes. Therefore, more beef has been authorised for release in Northern Ireland than in England and Wales. Certainly Wales comes out badly because the figure authorised for release there is nil. Northern Ireland seems to have got more than its fair share. Why? Why, for example, has none of the 150 tonnes of beef in store in Truro been authorised for release?

On the figures, can the right hon. Gentleman be forgiven for saying that he was correct in his assertion that we have distributed more than any other country as opposed to saying that we have authorised it for distribution? I looked quizzically at the right hon. Gentleman when he gave the figures because on 16 February we were third in the EEC for the amount of butter distributed. Germany had distributed far more than we had, as had France. We were also third in the distribution of beef. France and Ireland had distributed far more. Ireland, which was second, had distributed four times as much beef as we had. If the right hon. Gentleman reads Agra Europe, he will see the source of the figures. I have checked with the European Commission. I think that the Minister is getting agitated because he is using a different statistical base. I am talking about food actually distributed, food that has got to the needy. We are lower in the pecking order than he suggests.

To take the Irish position, on 18 February — this is information that we have gathered directly—small, unspecified amounts had been moved. The Irish intend to move considerable amounts, but on 18 February the figures for Ireland for butter, cheese, milk, beef, flour and sugar were small, unspecified amounts. I am happy to mix figures with the hon. Gentleman. I have been trying to give as accurate figures as I can. I have been careful to try to find out the realities. The evidence is as I have given it. If I discover that I have been wrong, I shall be happy to apologise, but that is the evidence we have.

I will release the figures to the Minister, but a perusal of Agra Europe would have given them to him. It gives the figures that were released by the European Commission. I have checked directly with the European Commission that at 16 February the Irish had released 245 tonnes of beef. That is the reason for my assertion. Whereas we are third in the two major categories, all the other countries are also distributing commodities which we have deliberately by our own choice refused to distribute. We have said that we cannot handle them.

We will never know how many of the people who are eligible for this food aid will get it. Some will get more than their share, but many will get little or nothing. That is why I am concerned, and that is why we tabled the amendment. The Minister has given charities the political equivalent of a hospital pass. Let me tell him what that is. It can be seen sometimes on the rugby field, most commonly when England plays international rugby. It is a pass where the ball and the opponent arrive simultaneously at the same spot. In this case the ball is the responsibility for carrying out the scheme and the opponent is the demand which has been stoked up by news of the scheme.

There have been disappointments. We have all had letters from people complaining about their disappointment at not benefiting under the scheme. Paradoxically the disappointments are blamed on the charities and not on the Government. The Government have claimed responsibility for beneficence, with many photographs of beaming smiles. The beneficence of the Government is seen by everyone, but the responsibility for disappointing ordinary men and women who have applied for food aid and who have overwhelmed the system has fallen on individual charities.

Lest the tabling of the amendment is misunderstood by some of the slower learners on the Government Benches, let me once more pay tribute to the work of charities. They deserve better of us than to be landed with the responsibility for disappointing many people. Their organisation has been stretched beyond reasonable limits. If we as a House do not endorse the Government's action, that is in no way critical of the charities or unwelcoming of their actions. It means that if there is any follow-up proposed by the Government it will be much better than this scheme has proved.

The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) is a notable member of that small minority of sensible Members within the parliamentary Labour party. I am not surprised that he seemed to distance himself from the amendment which was so effectively demolished by my right hon. Friend the Minister in his opening speech.

In that case, it must be the only example of an author distancing himself from his book.

There are many cases in which an author has had second thoughts on reading what he has written and has done his best to strike it out. I think that is what happened today.

I note that the emergency scheme that we are discussing is only part of the subsidy system for distributing cheaper food. In 1986, the Intervention Board spent some £5 million on subsidising the purchase of 4,000 tonnes of butter which went to 3,869 non-profit-making organisations. One recipient of the subsidised British butter is St. Christopher's hospice in my constituency. The authorities there tell me that the subsidy is worth about £56 a month to them. That works out at about £1 per bed per month, or nearly £700 in a full year. For an organisation with an annual budget of £2·5 million, a subsidy of £700 a year is very welcome. The Intervention Board scheme is hedged around with rules of Byzantine complexity, which cannot be altered dramatically without the approval of the Community. When the emergency scheme has run its course, I should like to see the Intervention Board subsidy scheme simplified and expanded.

I note in passing that if the scheme were to be expanded in the right way it could be of considerable help to the London borough of Bromley and to the Bromley health authority. Last year, Bromley council provided 200,000 meals on wheels. There were also 100,000 meals served in the day centres for the elderly. The council provided 2·5 million school meals. The local authority also provides meals every day of the year for 600 elderly people in residential homes. In other words, Bromley council provides, directly or indirectly, more than 3 million meals a year, while the Bromley health authority provides more than 1 million meals for the occupants of the 2,000 hospital beds which it maintains in acute, geriatric and mental health wards. A subsidy for the butter, cheese, meat and sugar components of those millions of meals would surely lead to increased consumption of these products and bring considerable benefit to the consumer. In my constituency, some of the day centres for the elderly have been serving meat which has been made available under the present winter emergency scheme, the pensioners have paid 40p rather than the 80p normally charged for their meal, and they have had more meat to eat than they would normally have had.

At Christmas, and perhaps at Easter, there may well be a case on a regular basis for distributing individual packs of butter and cheese, and indeed bags of sugar, to individual pensioners. After the present scheme has run its course it would be sensible to look at the desirability of increasing the scale and the scope of the Intervention Board's butter subsidy scheme to cover other dairy products and meat and sugar as well. This could substantially increase the amount of food used by the caring charities and by local authorities. There would thus be minimum dislocation in the market place and one would be using a method of support which has been well tested over the years. It would also be comparatively easy to monitor the scheme to see whether there had been any real increase in consumption rather than a displacement of normal purchases.

The sale of large quantities of butter to the Soviet Union—some 222,000 tonnes in 1985, at a cost as low as 15p per pound—has provoked widespread protest. If the taxpayer is to go on paying substantial sums in subsidy, we want to make sure that our own pensioners get some of the benefit on a lasting basis.

It is not entirely clear what the Minister thought was being achieved by the debate tonight. This question of intervention food to meet needy cases has been drawn to the attention of the House as suitable for further debate by the seventh report of the Select Committee on European Legislation. This was done on two grounds, to neither of which the Minister referred.

First, the Committee asked whether, bearing in mind the objectives of the common agricultural policy set out in article 39, the present proposals could be appropriately based on article 43, on which the regulations were issued in late January. The Minister had nothing whatever to say about this. The alliance view is that the objectives of the common agricultural policy are certainly not being met at this time by the administration of the CAP. They do not give a fair standard of living to the farmers, they do not stabilise markets wholly and they do not take into account a number of other factors which are of considerable importance, including the provision of food at reasonable prices to our consumers. We would wish to see the objectives of the common agricultural policy widened considerably. I need not linger on the legal point, because I do not think that it gives rise to a great deal of anxiety in the House.

On the second point to which the Select Committee drew attention — what it called the wider context in which these proposals were made and their political importance — it was presumably referring to the extensiveness of the scheme and the amount of money involved: the 50,000 million ecu or £36 million in total throughout the 12 member countries of the European Community. Again, the Minister did not refer to that, and I think it odd that he did not choose to do so.

One must therefore ask oneself why the right hon. Gentleman initiated the debate in the way that he did. It seems that his sole objective was to give himself a substantial pat on the back. So far, he has not given us any reason to believe that that is deserved. He has drawn attention to the language of the motion standing in the name of the Government, which endorses what he now calls the Government's decision. I thought that the opening part of his speech was designed to demonstrate that it was not the Government's decision but the decision of the European Community, ratified by the member countries of the Council. He went on to say that not only was it not the Government's decision but it had been laid down by the Council and he had simply to follow the lead of the Council. I understood him to be saying that that was the case and that, although it was the case, he thought that they had taken the right decision.

I say that the Minister has not deserved the pat on the back he wanted, very largely for the reasons that were given in an intervention earlier in the debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith), who pointed out the sense throughout the country that, if there is a scheme in operation, no one quite knows how it is going, whether they are eligible and, if they are eligible, whom they should approach.

There is no doubt that any scheme being operated by the charities under considerable pressure of time is bound to some extent to be hit or miss. I would certainly wish to begin my remarks by paying a considerable tribute to the charities for the work that has been done. I will single out two in particular, although they are by no means the only bodies that have played a notable part in this: the Salvation Army and the Women's Royal Voluntary Service, which have, through their national administration, greatly facilitated the distribution of food not only by their own hands but by other charities as well.

However, they are not without their criticisms of the scheme, or of the Government for the lack of consultation. I have spoken today to several of the charities involved. Among those that voiced considerable anxiety was, of course, Age Concern, which specifically criticised the lack of consultation and said that it had had to spend too much time answering inquiries from the public during the initial stages and was unable to concentrate on setting up a system of distribution.

The Red Cross said that it believed that the system would have worked better if there had been more consultation with charities, as the success of the scheme depended on all charities coming together at local level. There have been several other individual comments. To some extent, those difficulties were inevitable because the Government were under some pressure of time. The scheme is due to end at the end of March. When the Minister replies, it would be interesting to hear whether the Government believe it has been sufficiently successful to be extended beyond that date.

A ministerial answer last week to the hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin) partially gave the game away about the Government's approach and revealed how they could have done better. The hon. Gentleman pointed out that there had been a lack of liaison between the Department of Health and Social Security and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The Minister replied, oddly:

"I must warn my hon. Friend about … the DHSS."— [Official Report, 19 February 1987; Vol. 110, c. 1050.]

The implication of that warning was that it was inappropriate for the DHSS to be in any way involved. The hon. Gentleman was not saying that the DHSS should be responsible for administering the scheme—that was never in his mind and certainly is not in mine—but if anyone knows who the needy are and who falls into the categories which the Council of Ministers intended to help, it is certainly the DHSS. It is certainly in a position to advise the recipients of the assistance that it dispenses of the availability of this help and how it can be obtained locally. By setting his face against the DHSS, the Minister has not helped to extend the take-up of the scheme.

Similar dogmatism on the part of the Minister has informed his attitude to local government. Social work departments are also well placed to assist in the distribution of food to the needy. Although several have undoubtedly been involved through the work of charities, no systematic attempt has been made to use the services of local government to extend the operation of the scheme.

The scheme is somewhat limited. Not only does it not reach all those who need it: it cannot operate extensively without creating some difficulties in the market place. The disposal of stocks from intervention on a large scale would almost certainly eventually, and probably not far down the track, simply result in stocks being consumed by those who would buy them in any event.

What has been done is a welcome response to exceptional weather. I expected the Minister to give some indication of how much money had been spent or of the value of the stocks released to date. We are now five weeks from the end of the scheme and it would have been informative to know. In judging the value of the scheme, it would have been interesting to know the costs and value of what has been done, together with the costs of storage.

The Government set out in last month's White Paper on public expenditure the figures for intervention stocks held in this country. It shows a steady rise in intervention stocks of beef. In 1981–82, 11,000 tonnes of beef were held in store; the forecast for this year is 60,000 tonnes. In 1981–82, 1,000 tonnes of butter on average were held in intervention; this year the forecast is for 250,000 tonnes. The cost of that to the Exchequer is enormous. It should be stressed that the money does not go to line the pockets of farmers when goods are held in storage. The storage and related costs have risen from £15·5 million in 1981–82 to an estimated £134·2 million in 1986–87 for this country alone. That is some yardstick with which to judge the impact of what has been taken out of intervention for distribution. It is a tiny proportion of what is being held, both in quantum and in value.

The decision that the administration of the scheme should be handled by the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce was inevitable. It has not been made clear how much will be made available under this scheme and how much is being made available at present. In answer to a parliamentary question, the Secretary of State for Scotland said:

"The amounts of food to be distributed will depend on the needs established by the charitable organisations."—[Official Report, 30 January 1987; Vol. 109, c. 427.]

I hope that that remains the position. I have been informed that there is some anxiety that the amount that is available may not be limited by that consideration and that charities are having some difficulty distributing the amounts that they can identify as needed. The Salvation Army told me today that it may be reaching saturation point on inquiries and making supplies available and that it is trying to spread the burden to other charities. I hope that the Minister is in sufficiently constant touch with the charities to help to relieve those that are operating under pressure.

The second question on administration relates to how the needy are to be identified. I have already pointed out that the Minister denied charities the assistance from which they might have benefited, if the DHSS were used to inform those in need of the availability of the scheme and local points of collection.

Furthermore, have charities given priority to the distribution of food to those in institutions ? In some areas, fear has been strongly expressed that understandably charities have focused on institutions with which they are most closely connected and have not, also understandably, known how best to distribute the food quickly to those living at home. That has resulted in some food going to those less in need than those living alone at home. That was bound to be a problem with reliance almost wholly on charitable distribution.

However, these problems should now be taken on board by the Minister in case there is any question of ever utilising such a scheme in the future. There are lessons to be learnt from this, but the Minister does not appear to realise that. Indeed, his cockiness in introducing the debate was quite striking. As a reader of the King James version of the Bible and the Sermon on the Mount, I was reminded of the passage that reads:

"charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up."

The Minister would do well to take those words to heart.

The alliance parties welcome the scheme, so far as it goes. It is a modest scheme with, as the Minister has reasonably admitted, a modest impact on the problem of surplus disposal. Indeed, he even suggested that it had nothing to do with surplus disposal, although I suspect that if other suitable occasions arose for the distribution of food in emergencies, the Minister would not recoil from the thought that it would be appropriate to use such a scheme for the distribution of surpluses.

We recognise that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has recently devoted more attention to his activities in the Soviet Union—no doubt butter was on the agenda — than to helping needy people at home—[Interruption.] I do not know whether the Minister's ejaculations reflect his disagreement with the facts or with my interpretation of them. I am bound to say that it seems perfectly self-evident that butter has been on the agenda. We look forward to hearing the results of those discussions about butter because they have certainly been controversial in the past.

Come off it.

About 5 million people are living on or below the poverty line in this country. All of them could have benefited by being included in the scheme. I do not think that the Minister can tell us how many have benefited from the scheme. However, if he is to operate such schemes in the future, it would be considerably to our advantage to know that and for the Minister to conduct a proper follow-up survey of what happened.

I hope that the Minister will treat this debate not so much as a pat on the back, but as a kick in the pants, and get on with a better analysis of what has been done ex post facto so that when we next have food to spare for those most in need, we do so with greater efficiency than proved possible on this occasion.

I had intended to compliment the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) on his speech, but he spoiled it in the last few minutes. If ever there was a case of a speech that needed a little oiling, his was it — whether with olive oil or wine from the wine lake.

Although the hon. Gentleman associated himself too closely with the Opposition amendment, he drew attention to my earlier parliamentary question, and I shall pat him on the back for that. He understood what I was asking and I hope that the Minister will give us the answer for which we both hope.

I want to comment on the Opposition Front Bench speech of the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) because we have seen action and not words in this scheme.

Quite frankly, if we were to consult all the institutions that the hon. Gentleman would have wished, we would still be talking, the food would still be in the cold stores, and no one would have it. The whole point of the scheme was that it had to be put into operation during the cold weather, although we might like it to continue for a little longer than 31 March. Speed was essential and it is fully to the Government's credit that they showed that they could act.

I want to make three brief points. First, I applaud the splendid work that has been undertaken by the voluntary organisations in my part of Hampshire. Secondly, I want to identify one or two ways in which the scheme might be improved; and thirdly, I want to take up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. McLoughlin) and speak about the scheme to publicise it. I trust that hon. Members from both sides of the House will issue to the press the speeches that they now wish they had made to give the scheme wider publicity.

In my part of the country, the voluntary organisations are already doing a magnificent job in distributing the free food. The WRVS, for instance, has extended its initial order of 10 tonnes of butter for Hampshire to a total of 15 tonnes. A tonne of butter and a tonne of cheese are on their way to my constituency right now.

Age Concern should also be praised. In the Southampton area, where it looks after meals on wheels, nearly 4 tonnes of butter a week passed to pensioners, direct to their door with the daily milk delivery by milkmen from the Unigate and Vines companies. That is a good example of co-operation between a voluntary organisation and businesses that are prepared to pick up a challenge and help.

The scheme is being run by hard-working volunteers. They have had to set up their own distribution systems virtually from scratch. The voluntary bodies and their workers are usually unpaid and some of them are elderly; they deserve our warmest congratulations for having clone so well in so short a time.

My right hon. Friend the Minister has been asked by many people to publicise the scheme a little more and I ask him again to do that. Some of my constituents are still unclear about who qualifies for free food, what foods are available and where they can obtain them locally. Cannot my right hon. Friend take further steps to advertise the names and telephone numbers of participating charities on a regional basis, using the regional press, television or radio stations? My local media have shown tremendous readiness to participate. I know, for instance, that the Salvation Army is making good use of the media to spread the word. Can my right hon. Friend say whether the charities that are obliged to buy advertising space can be recompensed by the Government and repaid those costs?

My second point relates to eligibility. My right hon. Friend has told me that the assessment of eligibility for the scheme lies with the charitable organisations. It does not seem to be widely known that there is some room for discretion in the assessment of beneficiaries. Some organisations are including borderline cases in their distribution, for example, an elderly person who has not applied for supplementary benefit but who, in the opinion of the charity worker, would qualify if he or she were to apply. Perhaps my right hon. Friend could take steps to give wider publicity to the fact that some discretion can be exercised by the charities involved.

I should next like to touch on the question of abuse. I am confident that the charities in my area are scrupulous in administering the scheme according to the rules. However, I am afraid that there is potentially some scope for abusing the system as there is no way of checking that an applicant for free food has not toured around the other outlets to obtain supplies of free food from other charitable organisations. I should add that there has not been any evidence that that has happened in my area, but the potential for abuse exists. I suggest that some system of marking pension or other benefit books to denote that the holder has received free food could prevent abuse.

While the charities have been able to organise the distribution of butter and cheese, and I welcome my right hon. Friend's decision to extend the scheme to cover milk, cheese, semi-skimmed milk, buttermilk and concentrated butter, the drawback has been distribution of beef. The drawback so far has been the distribution of beef stocks. I welcome the Minister's decision to reduce the amount of beef that can be drawn from store at one time from one tonne to only a quarter of a tonne. That has certainly been extremely helpful, but the charities working in my constituency tell me that they have not opted to take any beef as much as they would like it.

I am pleased to learn that the European Commission has made payments available to charities at a flat rate per tonne for repacking large quantities of food into smaller amounts, but that still does not solve the problem of meat because it must be cooked and distributed as part of a meal. That, incidentally, is probably the reason why the two organisations most concerned in my constituency, the WRVS and Age Concern, are the two that are already involved with meals on wheels. No one else is yet involved in the business of distribution. I hope that my right hon. Friend can be persuaded by us in this debate to return to Europe and argue for the distribution of beef without the stipulation that it is cooked. That would give many more needy people the chance to enjoy food from the intervention stocks.

Finally, I shall say something about the extension of the scheme. This free food for the needy scheme is due to end on 31 March. There are no immediate plans to extend its operation, but surely there is a permanent place for that type of organisation in our welfare state. Far-reaching changes to the common agricultural policy have recently been announced and those will affect future food production. Yet, I see in Lord Bethell's recent publication entitled "Why do we sell butter to Russia?" the following figures for over-production in the Common Market:

"24 per cent, more butter and cheese than we consumed, 27 per cent, more cereals, 12 per cent, more beef and veal, 32 per cent, more sugar."

Those intervention stocks still exist, despite last December's agreement. The same publication goes on to tell us of the Russians:

"the butter they buy is 18 months old or more and much of it is used industrially, for lubricating machinery"

Which is better, to grease the wheels of Soviet industry or to spread a little bit more happiness among the needy of this country? I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will be able to persuade his colleagues in Europe to extend the distribution period beyond 31 March. This scheme is not pie in the sky. It is a sensible way of giving help to needy people which I hope will become a permanent feature of our welfare state.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin) on one thing anyway, and that is for livening up a debate which was beginning to die on its feet. The hon. Members for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart) and for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) were both pretty quickly becoming eligible for handouts. I shall return to the speech of the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. A more unctuous and self-congratulatory speech I have never heard in this House.

Not since his last one.

As my hon. Friend says, not since the previous speech by the right hon. Gentleman.

One of my colleagues commented, after the Minister had been going on for about 30 minutes, that he was making a meal of it, but I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) was more on the ball when he said that it was more of a Lord Avebury — I think that he meant a dog's breakfast. 1 believe that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West who said it.

I do not think it was, but it will do.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It was certainly an attempt to take the credit for this exercise. As we have seen with the photographs and with the publicity that the Minister has eked out of this whole exercise, it was yet another attempt to gain publicity and congratulation for himself.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I shall not intervene in his speech again. However, I should like to set the record straight because it is rather important. I said that it was typical of the Liberals that it would be their thinnest member, Lord Avebury, whom they offered to the Battersea dogs' home rather than the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith).

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend, except that he has lost me half of my audience, with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food leaving. However, I wish to make a few serious points.

As joint chairman of the all-party pensioners group in the House, and, as I said earlier, a former director of Age Concern Scotland, I have been in touch with my successor at Age Concern Scotland about the operation of this scheme and I have spoken about it with a number of the other people involved. However, I also know that the Opposition spokesmen who deal with EEC affairs, as well as my colleagues on the Front Bench today dealing with agriculture, have pressed the Government for some time to use their influence within the European Community to deal with the enormous surpluses of butter, beef and grain and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West keeps reminding us, of wine.

We have pointed out the huge cost to the European Community budget of the common agricultural policy, which is 70 per cent, of the EEC budget. A large percentage of that which supposedly goes to farmers goes to entrepreneurs and speculators who set up more and more cold stores and grain stores and other stores in the Community to store the huge surpluses and less and less of it goes to the farmers, and certainly less goes to the consumer.

What we have been arguing for and what we should have had in this case is a carefully planned, comprehensive and, above all, fair distribution of the surpluses, if we are to have them, to help the people in need. Some of my hon. Friends may argue that that is too much to expect from the European Community, and especially too much to expect from this Government. Instead we have had chaos, shambles, a large number of anomalies, delay and abuses. I agree with the hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside that these abuses have not taken place because of the charities or, I would argue, because of the individual people at whom he was pointing the finger. However, I shall mention in a few minutes one or two of the abuses.

I did not point the ringer at anyone. I merely said that the potential for abuse existed and that there should be some way of preventing it.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has pointed that out, because certainly I thought that there was some innuendo in what he said. I am glad that there was not.

The principal reason for chaos is the political dogma of the Government, as represented especially by the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It was clear to anyone that if we were to have this sort of scheme—we may all have some reservations about it; I certainly have—the most obvious bodies to distribute it effectively, those who have lists of old people and other people in need, those who have the transport ready and available to provide it, and those who have the logistic support were the local authorities. However, it was far too much to expect the Government to do anything that might give any credit to any local authority. The vast majority of local authorities — the number is increasing — are Labour controlled. Conservative Members are always attacking local authorities, undermining them and threatening them, and anything that might give them any credit whatsoever would certainly be ruled out. The social work and social services departments in England, but with the support and the assistance of the voluntary bodies, were the obvious means of distribution.

In the city of Southampton, the local authority, Southampton city council, is responsible for meals on wheels. What does it do? It gives the job to Age Concern.

I know that that is the case in some places. Where that system is operating, Age Concern can carry on the distribution, but that is not the case everywhere. In many parts of the country the distribution of meals on wheels and the lunch clubs are organised directly by the local authority. The Minister looks astonished, but I can assure him that that is the case.

The social work and social services departments distribute the food with the support and assistance of the voluntary bodies, and that support and assistance, as the hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside pointed out, vary from one part of the country to another, according to how much they are involved. But the Government did not want the local authorities to be involved in any way. Therefore, the entire burden has fallen on the voluntary organisations. I know that through my previous connection, which I have already mentioned, and because my mother, who is involved in one of the organisations making the distribution, has told me about the chaos. In some cases, as was said earlier, distributions have been made by the Church of Scotland.

Is my hon. Friend aware that in my home parish of Hutton food is being distributed to the needy people by the local parish minister of the Church of Scotland, the Rev. Mrs. Geraldine Hope, which might cause some alarm in the breast of the Minister of State but is welcome by people of all denominations in my parish?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend It is a pity that the Minister of State—not the Parliamentary Secretary, who I am sure is sensible on this issue-is not present to benefit from my hon. Friend's intervention.

The placing of that extra burden on the voluntary organisations has led to some unfortunate results. The energies of the voluntary organisations have been diverted from activities that they should and want to undertake and that they desperately need to undertake. Some of the services that such organisations should be providing to the old and needy have not been provided because they have been diverted from that task. It would have been much better in my local area for Strathclyde region to have organised the distribution with the assistance of the local authorities.

To compound the difficulties of the local and voluntary organisations, there have been confused messages from the Government. The Minister talked earlier about his meeting at 5 o'clock. He told us three times how quickly he had arranged that meeting, but he did not say that the voluntary organisations were receiving confused messages about the rules and regulations relating to the distribution of the food—that it should be distributed directly to the old person, and, as was later mentioned in relation to beef, that it could be distributed only at cooking centres. It is worrying that we should be going back to the concept which the Minister described as the meat kitchen, which we know better as the soup kitchen, to which old people have to go and, effectively, beg for the distribution of food from the EC.

The hon. Gentleman must not quote me incorrectly. I said that France had meat kitchens and used that method. I stressed that Britain has been using its own methods. The hon. Gentleman really must not say that I stressed that we have meat kitchens.

The Minister will agree that only butter is being given directly to the old people in their homes or at distribution centres. I visited the Dalmellington street wardens who were distributing only butter on Friday morning. Yet originally we were led to believe that food packages would include meat and other foods. That is not the case. My understanding is that meat is available only at cooking centres or at places where cooking takes place for the distribution of meals.

The regulations have been changing throughout the operation of the scheme and have caused much difficulty. That has resulted in a patchwork distribution of butter. Some areas are getting it, but in some areas there has been no distribution. Such anomalies have occurred.

Let me deal with the abuses about which the hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside talked. There have been abuses. People not unconnected with the Conservative party have distributed butter and talked of it being a present from the Government. I suspect that such abuses follow on from the Minister's highly publicised efforts to be seen as the centre of the distribution and taking political credit from it.

I hope that the Minister will specifically deal with abuses in Northern Ireland that have been drawn to his attention.

The hon. Gentleman has made an allegation. I hope that he has helped with the distribution in his constituency. Indeed he has mentioned that he was out earlier. Can he give me a single case in which anybody has done other than that? I should like to know and would be happy to look into it.

I made it clear that I went to see the distribution taking place by the Dalmellington street wardens, not to hand out food myself. However, Conservative Members and people concerned with the Conservative party have been handing out butter and saying, "This is your free butter from the Government." I may be naive in believing that that was not part of the purpose of the exercise in the Minister's mind right from the start.

I know that specific matters in relation to Northern Ireland have been drawn, if not to the Minister's attention, to that of his Department. The right hon. Member for Strangford (Mr. Taylor), who is also a Member of the European Parliament, alleged at a meeting in Brussels last week, attended by Mr. Tom Megahy, a vice president of the European Parliament, that paramilitaries were distributing butter in Northern Ireland. The hon. Gentleman said that he had 4 tonnes in his office which he was distributing. If that is the case, what action has been taken to stop it? If none has been taken, what action is proposed?

Let me deal with the future. I, and I think all Labour Members, wish that it was unnecessary to make such distributions to anyone. We would prefer not to have pensioners who depend on handouts. They should have an adequate pension, as the Labour party has promised. Conservative Members have not and are not providing an adequate pension. The Labour party will give an immediate increase and restore the link with earnings so that the ratchet effect increases real pensions. We also want to see a drop in the price of butter within the EEC. Then, if the pensioners have the buying power and if the butter is cheap enough, the pensioners can buy it for themselves.

Meanwhile, I hope that the Minister will tell us about the future when he replies. The hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside asked several questions. What is to be the policy? Will there be future distributions of the surpluses? I should like to see the surpluses reduced in this way. Will they include grain, as they should, because that would be helpful? Will they include uncooked beef delivered to the homes of the old people or available to them in packages? Will they include milk powder and other goods in surplus at the moment? I hope that that will be the case if the scheme is to continue.

I look forward to the day when our old people have adequate pensions and when we do not have a large number of needy people who the Government have recognised exist in Britain by the need for this distribution. The only way in which we shall achieve that is by the return of the Labour party.

I want to place on record the strong feelings of my constituents about the shambles that the scheme has turned out to be. Over the past three to four weeks, I have had many queries from my constituents about how the scheme was operating in my constituency. I found it extremely difficult to piece together what was happening and to know how best to give my constituents good advice on how they could benefit from the scheme if they qualify for it. I was so concerned last week that I put down a question to the Minister. I hoped that the Minister would give a clear picture of what was happening within the Stockport and Tameside parts of my constituency. In the reply that I received yesterday, the Minister was really saying that he did not have a clue what was going on. He only told me what was happening at a national level.

My constituents are resentful because they believe that the Government have designed the most incompetent rather than the most competent scheme to deal with the distribution. They resent the fact that we have a dear food policy in this country. They recall the period from the 1940s to the 1970s when a cheap food policy operated, ensuring that the consumer paid the lowest possible price, but at the same time the fanner was guaranteed a decent income. They persistently ask why we cannot go back to the type of system that was better for the consumer and benefited the farmer by giving him a guaranteed income. I believe that it is tragic that, because we are tied to the Common Market, we cannot return to a cheap food policy.

My constituents wish to know why the Government did not involve the retail and wholesale trade in the distribution of the surpluses. The benefit books could have been used like ration books. My constituents believe that that would have been the logical approach rather than to leave it to the charities, which already have far too much work to do, to carry out the scheme.

I have no great brief to speak for the supermarkets, but I would certainly speak on behalf of many of the small shops in my constituency. They are especially resentful of the fact that the Government and other Governments within the Community insisted that they could not be involved in the distribution of the food. Corner shops provide a social service for many pensioners and to those on low incomes in my constituency. On many occasions such shops offer credit to people on extremely low incomes and offer a welfare service to pensioners. It is of great resentment to those shopkeepers when pensioners come in to ask them to explain the chaos of the Government scheme and the shopkeeper must point out that he is not involved and has been unable to get accurate information from the charities within the area mainly because those charities' phone numbers are engaged because of the number of people who want to know what is going on.

My constituents resent the fact that the Government have not used the existing distribution system within the country, but have asked the charities to distribute the food. In my constituency, the charities already have more than enough to do because of the social deprivation that the Government have created. The Salvation Army does an extremely good job within the Greater Manchester area, but it does not have the surplus resources that it can suddenly switch to this type of distribution. Nevertheless, it has done an extremely good job in difficult circumstances.

Age Concern in Stockport and Tameside provides excellent services but it does not just have people waiting to undertake the Government scheme. The resources of that charity have been stretched and it has now discovered that it is being blamed by local people because the scheme has failed and because it has not had adequate resources to cope with the scheme. The charity feels extremely aggrieved that the Government have taken advantage of it rather than using reasonable means to distribute the food within the area.

Is there any evidence to suggest that the Government are getting rid of the existing surpluses rather than creating other surpluses? Certainly, those pensioners I have met are pleased when they have managed to get hold of their butter allocation. However, they point out that they will spend less money on margarine for that week and that, in fact, one is moving from one surplus to another. The best solution would have been to reduce the prices of all food and return the country to a cheap food policy.

I stress to the House the bitter resentment of my constituents who believe that the Government have made a shambles of the whole scheme. In future I hope that the Government will fight extremely hard for a cheap food policy in Europe. If any more surpluses are to be distributed, I hope that the Government will use the existing trade system to carry out that distribution rather than impose a burden on charities which many of them are unable to carry.

I will not delay the House long, but I have a constituency interest that I wish to represent. In Stratford, in the London borough of Newham, there are intervention stores of beef and butter. In the past, certainly before this scheme was introduced, I have often argued in the House that the Government should distribute the beef and the butter to the people of Newham because, according to Department of Environment statistics, it is the second most deprived local authority area in the country. Therefore, we have many worthy cases who should receive such food and could make good use of the obscene mountains of food held not only in Stratford but in the rest of the country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) put his finger on the mark when he said that we are not knocking the scheme as such, but what we should be debating is how on earth those huge food mountains developed in the first place. The House is aware that they came about because of the absurdity of the common agricultural policy. I support my hon. Friend in arguing for a return to a system whereby farmers were guaranteed a certain income and the market decided the price of food. When farmers, as a result of their efficiency, produced much more, it meant that consumer prices went down. That is a sensible food policy and the Government should consider returning to that policy.

There have been reforms, but when the Minister replies —[Interruption.] I hope that I can attract the Minister's attention. The Minister made great play of the changes that have taken place under the British presidency and the fact that we have a common policy as regards the food mountains. Therefore, I hope that we will not see a continuation of such mountains. I would like a timetable from the Minister that shows when we can expect an end to those huge international stores. Will they be like the poor under Conservative Governments-always with us? When will the obscenity end of these vast quantities of food that people cannot afford?

I am sorry that the Minister found my suggestion that Ministers might like to get to grips with some of the wine rather diverting. My grandmother always liked a little drop of Guinness or gin. I am not aware of the presence of any great gin lakes, but if there are any, I am sure that hon. Members are more than capable of draining them. I feel that we should consider the other food stores that are available in Europe. It may be argued that we are not doing pensioners any favours by lining their arteries with cholesterol-heavy food such as butter and beef. Perhaps we should think about distributing the cereals, because they would be far better for the health of pensioners. However, if the butter and beef is available in Stratford, we will take it.

I am not knocking the distribution of the food, because I have been pushing for that distribution for some time, but I would like to raise some of the points that have been made to me by the charities in the London borough of Newham about the way the system has operated. I am merely acting as a conduit in putting these points forward.

The national organisations are organised locally and there is no co-ordination between them in boroughs such as Newham. No money was provided for distribution. That is important, because I have been told that a number of housebound, disabled pensioners, those on supplementary benefit, missed out on the distribution of food because the food was not taken to them. They had to go to a particular place to collect it. Age Concern in Newham said it would have been far better if the whole thing had been done through local authorities. The local authorities have a great knowledge of the needs of the elderly within the area and through the meals on wheels service they could have made sure that the housebound and disabled got their fair share of the butter and beef.

The Government said that only pensioners on supplementary benefit should receive butter, but a number of organisations, certainly Age Concern in Newham, gave it away to all pensioners who asked for it. It appeared discriminatory between different groups of pensioners to control such distribution and it did cause a great deal of aggravation in the area. Therefore, it was decided to give the butter to any pensioners who came to ask for it.

A number of hon. Members said that it would have been better if the meat had gone out uncooked. 1 hope that the Minister will discuss that when he replies. One organisation in my area gave the meat out uncooked rather than cooked.

I should like to echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) on the publicity stunt element. A number of charitable organisations in the borough of Newham felt that it was more of a publicity stunt than anything else. They said that because Newham is a newly rate-capped borough. It is an amazing irony that the Government are saying, "You can have a pound of butter and a little bit of beef," but are cutting the amount of money given by central Government to local authorities. This means that boroughs such as Newham have to look to meals on wheels, one o'clock clubs and home helps as possibilities for cuts imposed by central Government. As my hon.

Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley said, instead of the 1 lb of butter and the bit of beef, it would have been far better if the House had realised that there was no substitute for a decent pension which enabled pensioners to choose what they wanted to eat and drink. Perhaps they would choose more healthy foods than the cholesterol-loaded beef and butter. I am afraid that we shall have to wait until there is a Labour Government to give pensioners proper pensions so that they can make a proper choice.

With permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I say to the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) that we expect that, by the end of this period, Britain will have spent £30 million of the available £36 million on distribution of food. There is clearly a major programme. I have already spoken to the hon. Gentleman about the problem with the figures. We have carefully considered the ones which he presented, but they do not tally with our direct information on the countries concerned. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am only going by the best figures that I have. If I turn out to be wrong, I shall be happy to apologise to him.

We tried to give out the food as rapidly as possible, so we started with the larger packages. Butter has always been available in small packs. The hon. Member for Pontypridd is probably overdoing it by suggesting that, if we only had another form of packaging, distribution would have been much better. I do not agree. Distribution has been more difficult than it might have been because butter is stored in a particular way. We have done everything possible to make the butter available in forms that would enable the local charities to distribute it.

Despite everything that the hon. Member for Pontypridd and his hon. Friends said, they did not mention that the charities almost without exception believe that we have done as well as could be done in the time available. The Commission produced its first proposals of any kind on Thursday 15 January. We agreed them at 2 o'clock in the morning of the following Tuesday. We did not even have the regulations at that stage, because these matters are within Commission competence, for the most part. Therefore, all our discussions with the charities were carried out as rapidly as possible. We have tried in every way to keep the charities informed of our information. I did as much directly as I could and I do not believe that we could have done it more rapidly or more effectively, given the circumstances. Of course I agree that, after the scheme has finished, we shall have to ascertain whether there are lessons to be learned. I am sure that there are. It is always true that the next time one does something, one hopes that it will be done better. We shall certainly do that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart) referred to the scheme. The present scheme is all that we have in front of us at the moment. No doubt we shall learn from it. We may decide that it is a sensible approach. It has to be an additional scheme. The trouble with many of the schemes to which my hon. Friend referred is that they were substitution schemes. It is easy for them to be substitution schemes, but I think that my hon. Friend will agree that, even though they do not want to make a huge contribution to reducing surpluses, we want schemes that reduce the food in store rather than merely substitute for foods which would otherwise have been bought.

The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) was less than generous. I say that not because I wanted a pat on the back but because I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman, with his charity, would understand that, if one tries to run a scheme that no one has ever run before and one does so as rapidly as possible, one has to do what one can with the regulations and arrangements to hand. It cannot be gainsaid that more than 20 million packs of butter are either out or on their way to the people who need them. We have what amounts to more than 4 million meals — taking account of the quarter of a pound of beef allocated for each meal—on the way to those who need them. At least one should say that that is good rather than bad.

I felt that there was a good deal of whingeing from the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland. He spoke in a rather miserable way. He may not like the style in which I have introduced the matter, and I agree that one is sometimes led astray by the far-fetched comments of the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley. The hon. Gentleman has an effect on me, just as he has on most spokesmen. He tends to raise the temperature of the debate without perhaps throwing light on it.

On the other hand, I think that it would be reasonable for the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland to get off his high horse, especially in view of his curious comment that he would give us, yet again, the alliance view of the common agricultural policy. I thought that the alliance was not referring to the CAP any more, ever since it was rumbled on this matter. We all now know about the CAP. We know what would happen if the alliance ever formed a Government — it would introduce a policy which would be beneficial to almost every country in the Common Market except Britain. The president of the National Farmers Union knows that. Only the hon. Gentleman appears not to know it.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. It is such a rare experience that it seems unusual. I refer him to the article in today's Financial Times by Mr. John Cherrington, a notable commentator, who speaks very highly of the alliance's policy for the future of the common agricultural policy. He has recommended that those proposals should be given wider study. I hope that, when the right hon. Gentleman has given them wider study, he will realise that there is a great deal in what we are saying.

Whatever Mr. Cherrington may have said, the president of the National Farmers Union said to the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) that he knew nothing about agriculture and that his proposals in the Bledisloe lecture, to which Mr. Simon Gourlay was listening, would be disastrous to agriculture. I know of no one who has ever said that Mr. Simon Gourlay was unassociated with the sort of ideas put forward by the right hon. Gentleman, but he blasted them to kingdom come. He listened to the lecture and worked out the figures, which show that the alliance would help 80 per cent, of corn growers in the rest of Europe but only 30 per cent, of British growers. What is more, the right hon. Gentleman told the National Farmers Union what can only be described as a "terminological inexactitude" because he said that the figure of 140 tonnes had never been used. Those were the exact words in the speech of the right hon. Member for Devonport. The hon. Gentleman, when challenged in this House, remained unmoved. I challenge him again. Did he or did he not say that? If so, why did he?

Order. We are discussing a humanitarian programme — the distribution of food. We really must stick to the subject.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving me the opportunity of countering the accusation that I told an untruth. The reality, as the Minister well knows, is that the figure of 140 tonnes was prefaced by the word "say", and that, furthermore, it was not put forward as a normative proposal. It was produced as an illustrative proposal to show the amount that would be required to remove the entire surplus from the Community. It was rather like saying, "If one reduces institutional prices by 25 per cent., one will dispose of the surplus." Now that we have set the record straight, perhaps—

Order. I allowed the hon. Gentleman to reply, but he made a 20-minute speech. We should now get on with the matters before the House.

Perhaps it will be more humanitarian if I do not subject the hon. Gentleman to that point any further, although the temptation is enormous.

My hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin) made many helpful points which I shall examine and see whether I can help. Publicity is a difficult matter because many of the charities considered that one needs to have an ongoing programme and not to overload them at any time. Certainly, I shall see whether we need anything further of that sort.

The hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley raised many points. It is peculiar to make allegations that do not appear to have any foundation in the mainland part of the United Kingdom. I repeat that I look forward to receiving a letter from him with details of what hon. Members, in what circumstances and at what times he considers were politically motivated. The food has been distributed in Northern Ireland through Age Concern, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Bryson House, the Salvation Army and one other of the six charitable organisations. Any voluntary or welfare group that wishes to distribute food does so, according to the rules, through that group. I can asssure the hon. Gentleman that, as far as I know, there has been no breaking of the rules, but I shall look into the allegations made by Mrs. Janey Buchan on that matter.

The speech by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) was so absolutely without foundation that it is not worth referring to.

In the plethora of comments made by the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), the only point that he had to make was that his local branch of Age Concern is not as happy as it might be. I do not agree that we should distribute wine. I do not think that the country would want to do that. What we have done is right.

I thank the Ministry officials who have done so much to make this scheme work and, above all, I thank the charities for making it a success.

I beg to move,

That the draft Appropriation (Northern Ireland) Order 1987, which was laid before this House on 11th February, be approved.

It might be helpful if I made it clear that the debate on the Northern Ireland order may cover all matters for which Northern Ireland Departments, as distinct from the Northern Ireland Office, are responsible. Police and the security are the principal excluded subjects.

The order is being made under paragraph 1, schedule 1, of the Northern Ireland Act 1974. The draft order has two purposes. The first is to authorise the additional expenditure covered by the 1986–87 spring Supplementary Estimates. That is dealt with in part 1 of the schedule which sets out the details for a further £99 million required from the Consolidated Fund of Northern Ireland. That is in addition to some £3,256 million which has already been approved by the House for the 1986–87 financial year and thus brings the total Estimates provision for that year to £3,355 million.

Part II of the schedule gives details of the Vote on account of some £1,483 million for 1987–88. That is a normal provision and it is necessary to enable services to continue until the 1987–88 Main Estimates are debated later in the year. Full details of all the provisions sought in the draft order can be found in the spring Supplementary Estimates volume and the "Statements of Sums Required on Account" leaflet. Copies of those two documents have been placed in the Vote Office.

In considering the Supplementary Estimates, particularly those related to industrial development, employment and unemployment, the House will wish to bear in mind the latest economic information about the Province. That represents a somewhat mixed picture. On the positive side, the United Kingdom as a whole is now into its sixth successive year of continuous economic growth. Output in the Province has responded to those developments at national level with total output of the production industries now within almost 8 per cent. of its 1980 level. Also, manufacturing output has almost recovered to its 1980 level. The prospects there are not unencouraging. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer recently outlined in his autumn statement, growth this year is anticipated to be higher than in 1986.

However, there is a negative side too. Increased output has yet to have an appreciable effect on unemployment in Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, seasonally adjusted unemployment has fallen by an average of 700 per month over the past three months. However, unemployment in Northern Ireland remains at what I think the House will agree is an unacceptably high level. In January 1987 the rate of unemployment in Northern Ireland was 19·3 per cent. compared to 11·8 per cent. in Great Britain and 16·9 per cent. in the north of England. I would like to emphasise that the Government remain determined to tackle that problem and substantial resources have been made available to finance the job creation efforts of the Industrial Development Board, Local Enterprise Development Unit and the various training and retraining schemes.

In class I of the Estimates, which covers expenditure on agriculture, fisheries, and forestry, an additional £600,000 is required for Vote 1; £400,000 of that is for agricultural science services and £120,000 is to cover the capital cost of providing accommodation for a computerised system of animal health records. The purpose of that system is to provide a more efficient information base giving the ability to respond faster to any outbreak of animal disease, thus reducing the risk of spread.

There are Supplementary Estimates for three Votes in class II. Vote 1 relates to the activities of the Industrial Development Board. A total of £750,000 is required there. Of that, some £680,000 is directly related to increased administrative costs. In particular I mention the restructuring of the business development division. The strengthening of that division by the addition of 12 staff reflects a change in emphasis by the IDB already outlined in its own strategy document. In future it will take a closer and much more active role in its ongoing relations with Northern Ireland industry in order to encourage the expansion of existing businesses within the Province. That also enables the IDB to develop its sectoral campaigns and, therefore, to concentrate resources on specific areas of industry which show the most potential for development.

For Vote 5, "Functioning of the Labour Market", the additional provision sought is £3·78 million. That is made up of additional expenditure of £6·37 million less savings of £2·59 million. Of the additional expenditure, some £3·43 million is for the action for community employment scheme—ACE. As right hon. and hon. Members will no doubt already be aware, ACE provides temporary jobs for the long-term unemployed. In line with the Government's continuing efforts to respond positively to the special problems of the long-term unemployed it has been possible to increase, during this financial year, the number of jobs provided through this programme. The original target was 5,400. We have increased this by 750 places to 6,150. Increased provision of £1·24 million is also required for expenditure on Government training centres mainly For additional running expenses attached to the setting up of the restart programme for the long-term unemployed, and to carry out necessary maintenance to training centre buildings.

Under the new arrangements for the training on employers' premises scheme, a grant of £65 per week will be paid in respect of each additional eligible employee who is under 25 years of age, or who was unemployed, or unavailable for work, during the previous 12 months. A grant of £52 per week will continue to be paid to all other categories of additional employees eligible under the scheme. This revision to the scheme will cost an extra £200,000 this year and provide assistance at the higher rate to companies during the costly initial training period for new employees. I hope that it will encourage employers to recruit more young people and the longer-term unemployed into new jobs. Also in subhead B4, the new pilot manpower training scheme, which became operative in June 1986, requires £400,000 for this year. This scheme is aimed at developing a cohesive package of training assistance geared to the specific needs of individual Northern Ireland companies operating in the international market place. The early indications are that the scheme will make a positive contribution to the local economy.

A further £678,000 is required for management training. This is a crucial area which is fundamental to the economic well-being of the Province. The aim is to improve both the quantity and quality of resource management. The provision now sought will enable Government to maintain and indeed increase activity in this area. Hon. and right hon. Members might wish to note that the Estimates also provide for the introduction of four new employment measures requiring a total provision of £420,000 at subheads C7 to C10 respectively. Of particular interest is the restart programme. Good progress has been made in this programme since its introduction on 1 July 1986. In the first six months some 31,000 people had received a counselling interview and we are on schedule to achieve our target of 60,000 for the year.

Moving on to Vote 6, which covers the administration and miscellaneous services of the Department of Economic Development, a net increase of some £2 million is sought. During the course of the year, my noble Friend, the Secretary of State for Employment announced a number of initiatives aimed at assisting the long-term unemployed such as the provision of in-depth counselling interviews. These initiatives were applied in Northern Ireland at the same time as the rest of the United Kingdom and additional resources were therefore provided to DED to ensure that the long-term unemployed in Northern Ireland benefited to the full extent.

Before moving away from class II, Vote 5, may I draw the attention of the House to one unfortunate typographical error in the provision for subhead A1 in the Estimates volume? The figure of £10,330,000 in respect of YTP trainee allowances should in fact read £10,200,000. I should make it clear that this does not affect the draft order.

Turning to class IV, Vote 1, which covers the Northern Ireland roads service, a net additional provision of £6·9 million is required of which some £1·9 million has been earmarked for capital works and nearly £4 million for essential road maintenance. The sum of £1·5 million relates to the construction package announced by the Secretary of State last October, and the remainder will further assist the construction industry in the Province. The emphasis within the roads programme continues to be placed on the management and maintenance of the road system. This is right and proper, bearing in mind the importance of a well-maintained road network to the economic and social fabric of the Province. In Vote 3, ports, the further provision of £700,000 is required to fund the upgrading and modernisation of port facilities throughout Northern Ireland under the port modernisation schemes.

Moving on to class V, Vote 1—housing services—a token provision of £1,000 is sought to bring hon. Members' attention to additional expenditure of some £5·5 million to finance increased activity on the general housing association programme and to meet the demand for renovation grants. However, this additional expenditure has been more than offset by a combination of additional housing association receipts from equity sales, surplus rental income and by savings on the revenue grant for the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. These savings arise mainly from a reduced requirement for maintenance and from closer control of the level of vacant dwellings.

In class VI, Vote 1—water and sewerage services—the net additional provision is £2·5 million. This includes £1·9 million for capital works. In Vote 2—improvement of the environment — additional expenditure of some £5·6 million relates, in the main, to an extra £3 million for the urban development scheme, £800,000 for grants to the National Trust and £600,000 for the repair and maintenance of historic buildings. However, this additional expenditure has been offset by savings within the Vote and by receipts from the sale of land, leaving a net requirement of £600,000.

For Vote 4 — rating, records registrations, surveys and administration — the net increase of some £1·1 million is attributable largely to additional expenditure on computer systems and running costs, which have been partly offset by savings on the purchase of survey equipment and increased receipts.

Class VII has only one Vote, protective sevices, which covers expenditure on the fire service. An additional £500,000 is sought to cover the cost of an increased allowance to operational staff of the Fire Authority for Northern Ireland.

I come now to education, class VIII, where Supplementary Estimates are being sought in Votes 1, 2, 3 and 4. In Vote 1, a net additional £4·2 million is sought, and £4·6 million is required to meet the increased cost of school teachers' salaries arising from the April 1986 salary award and from the balance of the 1985 award. Hon. Members will be aware that it is established practice for Northern Ireland teachers to maintain parity in respect of salaries and conditions of service with their counterparts in England and Wales.

A further £300,000 is required by voluntary grammar schools for books and practice materials for the new general certificate of secondary education examination. There is a saving of £700,000 on capital grants to voluntary schools where progress has been slower than expected on a number of major schemes and on gas conversion work.

In Vote 2, a token estimate of £1,000 is sought to bring hon. Members' attention to increases which relate in the main to capital expenditure. Increases totalling £1·2 million are required to cover equipment and capital grants to the two Northern Ireland universities. Similarly, capital expenditure at the two teacher training colleges, including investment in new information technology equipment, will require an additional £200,000. These additional requirements are offset by savings of about £1·4 million in the recurrent grants to the universities partly as a result of lower than anticipated rates payments by Queens university, and partly following a revision of block grants on the recommendations of the University Grants Committee. The committee advises the Department of Education in Northern Ireland on the level of funding for the Province's universities based on the principle of parity of provision with elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

Under Vote 3 — miscellaneous services and administration—an additional £2·4 million is sought. The additions required cover a wide range of services. In the main they reflect allocations as part of the Belfast urban programme, which were made after the 1986–87 Main Estimates were finalised, and the further measures taken by the Secretary of State in October last to aid the local construction industry.

The final education item is Vote 4, which covers grants to education and library boards. Of the total of £14·9 million sought, £11·5 million is required to cover the cost of a backdated revaluation of the rates on school property.

This follows a recent decision by the Lands Tribunal about the method of assessing schools' rateable value in circumstances where the premises are not fully utilised because of falling enrolments.

Responsibility for the education of mentally handicapped children transfers to the education service on 1 April 1987, and £2 million is required in advance of the transfer to enable boards to carry out essential preparatory work such as the provision of accommodation and the purchase of buses. Increased capital resources of just over £3 million are required for minor works including projects related to the Belfast urban programme, gas conversion and the youth training programme.

Under class IX—health and personal social services—an increase of some £10·6 million is sought in Vote 1. About £6 million of this is for capital expenditure. This substantial increase will enable work to begin on a number of major capital projects, including additional and improved facilities for geriatric patients in Armagh and additional day care provision for mentally handicapped persons in Londonderry and Banbridge. Again, this capital expenditure will have the added benefit of boosting employment in the construction industry. An additional £4·1 million is sought of which £2·3 million is to supplement the provision already made for the pay awards recommended by review bodies for doctors and dentists, nurses and paramedical staff. The balance is to fund service developments at the Belfast City hospital and at Altnagelvin hospital in Londonderry as well as grants to voluntary organisations, and expenditure arising from a major campaign aimed at reducing the incidence of coronary heart disease in Northern Ireland. In Vote 2—family practitioner and other services—a further £3·8 million is sought, mainly to meet the additional cost of dental and pharmaceutical services, where increases in demand as well as in fees and costs have exceeded earlier expectations.

In the social security programme, additional provision of £33·5 million is required in class X, Vote 2, to meet increased expenditure on invalid care allowance, supplementary benefits and housing benefits. The increases are offset by a reduction of £1·7 million in the requirement for severe disablement allowance. I assure the House that I am coming to the end of the extensive list.

In class X, Vote 4—administration and miscellaneous services—an additional £4·7 million is required mainly for salaries and wages and social security adjudication costs. A further £1·7 million is required to accommodate a shortfall in the amounts to be appropriated in aid in respect of administrative costs of the national insurance fund. These increases are offset by a reduction of £768,000 in earlier estimates of requirements, mainly of the amount of the grant to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive for its costs of administering the housing benefits scheme.

And finally, moving on to class XII, Vote 1ߞoffice and general accommodation services—provision is being sought for an additional £2 million to cover the purchase of office accommodation in central Belfast.

In these opening remarks I have tried to cover the main features of the draft order and to draw the attention of the House to a number of new items of expenditure. I know that as usual on these occasions right hon. and hon. Members will wish to express their views on both these and other matters. I shall listen with great interest to the points raised and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will reply in due course.

I commend the draft order to the House.

We are grateful to the Minister for that exposition of the Government's requirement. I am not sure that I totally endorse the picture which he seemed to be painting at one time, but it deserved to be addressed to a wider audience of both sides of the House.

I have not attempted to count the number of times I have taken part in debates on appropriation orders and supplementary appropriation orders. It is so many that one merges into another in my mind. I no longer embark on these debates with the same sense of adventure with which I once did. Each time, hon. Members refer to the proposals in class II of the schedule and draw attention to the same unhappy stories, the same depressing statistics, the same human problems. Each time, the Minister responds to such of the points raised as time permits, and each time nothing else changes, except that the stories become more tragic, the statistics more depressing and the human problems greater.

Throughout the United Kingdom, those long-term unemployed to whom the hon. Gentleman referred find that the period since they worked becomes longer, the clothing which they cannot afford to replace becomes more threadbare. But it is true that the actual number unemployed as measured by the Government's 18th method of calculating the figures has not increased in the last 12 months. I hope that the Minister will concede that a 12-month period can be less misleading than a three-month period. Many, admittedly, are participating in schemes designed to keep them off the register, but the number has not increased, except in one region—Northern Ireland, where the number unemployed, on the Government's own method of calculation, has risen in the last year from 17·9 per cent. of the population to 19·3 per cent., and it is not confined to any one kind of work.

Each year the Financial Times publishes a league table of universities according to the success of their graduates from the previous year in finding employment. The last annual survey shows that Queen's university, which for many years was well into the top half of the table, is now 40th out of 44 universities. Of its 1985 graduates, 16·4 per cent. had failed to find work in the year following their graduation, against the United Kingdom average of 11·7 per cent.

Those are the figures. They represent a lengthening list of companies where it used to be thought that if one had a job there one was safe for life. Now their names are associated with lay-offs. In the last seven years, 64,000 jobs have gone. Since August of last year, Gallaher records '700 job losses, Hughes Tool 40 job losses, Blue Circle 150 job losses, Harland and Wolff 800 job losses. Metal Box up to 174 job losses, Van Heusen and National Supply Company an unspecified number of job losses. Now, we have reached the point where there are more people officially recorded as unemployed than there are people working—a distinction unique in the whole European Community.

When we speak of the annual subvention to Northern Ireland, it is only fair to point out that the people of Northern Ireland are not allowed to earn the income which would enable them to meet the expenditure of the Province. In 1985, in consequence of the north-south divide in Great Britain, the gross domestic product per head in the south was 109·6 per cent. of the United Kingdom average, as against 93·9 per cent. in the north of England. In the other north, the north of Ireland, it was 74·6 per cent. of the United Kingdom average. And there is little comfort for those in work. The earnings of male workers in Northern Ireland were only 89·7 per cent. of the United Kingdom average.

The Minister very fairly referred to the problem of unemployment but, if I may say so without disrespect, he referred to it as one might refer to some natural, unavoidable calamity such as the eruption of a volcano. It might have been thought that, since those 64,000 jobs have been lost in the last seven years, this had something to do with the policies of a Government who were elected eight years ago. But we are always assured in these debates that none of this is the Government's business. Even in the debate on the supplementary appropriation order last year, the hon. Gentleman — I am sure that he will be informed of what I have said, because at the moment his attention is distracted—had this to say:

"The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West and other hon. Members alluded to the level of unemployment that we must endure in Northern Ireland. We cannot counter unemployment by Government action alone. We need efficient, competitive and innovative employers in Northern Ireland if we are to tackle the problem. I do not see the outlook for employment in Northern Ireland as being particularly encouraging at present. There are still industries under threat and they may have to endure further redundancies."—[Official Report, 4 December 1986; Vol. 106, c. 1125.]

It did sound a little as though the hon. Gentleman was saying that, if companies cannot sell their goods, that has nothing to do with the economy; it is the fault of employers. May I try once more to explain to him that, if United Kingdom shipowners have no British goods to carry in their ships, they are not likely to order further ships from Harland and Wolff. If farmers cannot afford to buy so many tractors from Hyster, it will not require castings from James Mackie. If people cannot afford to buy the products of Gallaher, it will not order machinery from Molins. Obviously, no industry should be content to rely wholly on the home market, but it is hard for any industry to survive completely without a home market.

A frequent pattern is for a company to cost its products, taking account of development costs and overheads, so as to make a small profit on the anticipated home demand. The substantial profit, which it is hoped will support futher investment and guarantee the company's future, comes from overseas sales. Unless demand can be generated at home, that process is not possible. Either the company must cost its product at an uncompetitive level or, at best, the price of the exports will simply be swallowed up in the break-even process.

I turn to class V of the schedule. Last year the 15th annual report of the Housing Executive revealed a new and disturbing pattern. A decade ago, it was possible to point to the large number of dwellings which lacked some essential amenity—about a quarter of the total dwellings in Northern Ireland. Now an additional problem is developing. Dwellings which do not lack amenities are nevertheless deteriorating for lack of repair. That is particularly true of houses in owner-occupation. People are finding it increasingly difficut on reduced incomes to provide for the necessary repairs to their houses.

The report indicated that 15·5 per cent. of the housing stock required at least £2,500 to be spent on repairs. If those sums are not spent, the stock of modern, properly equipped houses will be at risk. That expenditure on repairs can be achieved only if the Government are prepared to make money available to owners through repair grants and to the Housing Executive through budgetary provision. The estimated sum is £50 million, but far from increasing the money available by that amount, that was the very sum by which the Government cut the budget of the Housing Executive for 1985–86.

In addition, there is still a great need for public sector building. The Housing Executive has nearly 25,000 families on its waiting list. Assuming there are no additions to the list, at the present rate of building some of them can expect to wait until the year 2000 before they are given accommodation.

This year is designated by the United Nations as International Year of Shelter for the Homeless. The Simon Community estimates that there are 7,500 homeless individuals and families in Northern Ireland. They are not people with defective homes, not people facing the problem of housing repairs and not people who are finding it hard to pay their rent, but people who have no home. There are young couples and families, but in terms of numbers the problem seems to be worst among young single people.

In Northern Ireland there is no legislation which recognises their right to a home and no equivalent of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 of Great Britain. I hope that the Minister can tell us when he replies that it is proposed to remedy that.

The burden of what I am saying is that one does not provide homes for the homeless simply by writing down some words and calling the paper on which they are written a statute. One can provide homes only by building them. There are construction workers eating their hearts out for funding to bring the two parts of the equation together.

I realise that in Northern Ireland the construction industry has different problems. We know that there are paramilitary organisations which, even if they cannot agree on anything else, agree on how to divide building contracts — either by territorial demarcation or by allocating the bricklaying to one, joinery to another and electrical installations to a third. We have heard that a contractor with his labour force ready to undertake the work is told, "You won't employ those men. We will provide you with a labour force." Unless he is able to resist the pressure, good workers waiting to do a job are laid off so that their work can be done by the protéges of a paramilitary organisation who will hand over a proportion of their earnings to their protectors. We heard recently of ways in which those groups provide themselves with a bonus by organising frauds with tax exemption certificates, the proceeds of which no doubt also find their way into the coffers of those organisations.

The tragedy is that money is desperately needed to build homes for the homeless, to repair houses that are falling into disrepair and to povide amenities for houses that are unfit. I make no comment as to whether those practices should have been addressed earlier. It cannot be easy for officials who are at risk: gathering evidence is never easy, and police manpower is not always available. However, the Opposition support whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the money goes where it is needed.

I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will recognise not only the additional measure to help the construction industry that was announced by my right hon. Friend towards the end of last year, but the fact that, in much of what I announced today in terms of additional provision, there is a substantial construction element that will help to reduce unemployment in the construction industry.

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his support on the issue of paramilitary activity. I am under no illusion that it will be possible instantly to choke the paramilitary exploitation of rackets on building sites or elsewhere. However, I can give him an absolute undertaking that the Government are determined to do their best, recognising that, as we choke one channel, the paramilitaries will seek other sources of finance. However, I am grateful for his expression of support for our efforts to prevent them from using existing rackets for their own purposes.

I, in turn, am grateful to the Minister for his comments. I recognise that some of the funds that we are discussing tonight will assist the construction industry. We must be grateful, I suppose, for a crust, even if we cannot have half a loaf. I hope that he will forgive me if I say that there is still a great deal to be done on both sides of that equation.

One effect of the housing problems that arise from underfunding is that more people need advice about housing problems. Giving people rights is futile unless we also give them the help that they need to understand their rights and make them effective. Last year Shelter (Northern Ireland) asked for help to fund a housing aid service. It applied to the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Wiltshire, North (Mr. Needham), who replied that it was not necessary because the Housing Executive already operated a mobile housing advice unit for its tenants. That strikes me as a rather naive answer. First, it is not only the tenants of the Housing Executive who need advice-more to the point, advice sought by the tenants of the Housing Executive is about their rights relating to the Housing Executive.

It implies no criticism of the Housing Executive to say that public confidence in any advisory service is not enhanced when it is perceived to be operated by the very authority whose obligations may be in question. In fact, part of the problem of what is sometimes called alienation is the feeling that one cannot get past "them". Even if one asks for advice as to how one can, one finds "them" there, because only "they" can advise one. Perhaps the Under-Secretary will think again about his response.

Still in the context of employment I invite the Minister to pay attention to class IV(2). Does it include any provision for any phase of the York road-Central station link that would make an important difference to the comfort and convenience of travellers and to the efficiency of industry and commerce? It would also offer employment to a substantial number of people who are now unemployed.

On class VIII, there is no time this evening to embark on a debate on whether the Government are providing more or fewer resources for education, given the additional expenditure arising from salary settlements. I simply invite the Minister to turn to the evidence which is there for all to see. No figures and statistics are persuasive to school crossing patrol personnel, school cleaners and meals helpers when they are told that they will lose their jobs. Teachers also have been threatened with job losses. Across the public and voluntary sectors, the figure of 300 teaching posts has been canvassed—187 in the control sector. That will not contribute to high morale among the teaching force. There is no greater sense of optimism among university teachers or among university technicians and library staff and those who offer similar services.

I understand that it sometimes makes sense to take a synoptic view of the services provided to the students and to research in a particular geographical area by the universities as a whole. The Chilver report did not meet with a great deal of opposition when it suggested that there should be a body with the knowledge and resources to coordinate and help to plan higher education in Northern Ireland.

There can be no complaint that the Butler working party was given the limit that it was. It is fair to say., too, that the universities were represented on the working party. There is a feeling among teaching staff generally, and among those doing other work in the two universities concerned, that representation by distinguished academics does not necessarily constitute representation of all the interests involved. If animals are represented by the cat, the mice may feel that their view could possibly have been overlooked. It is hardly surprising that such a working group should tend to reflect the establishment. I make no complaint about that. I understand that the working group received written evidence from the trade unions involved, and that there is a feeling that there was no discussion with those interest groups and no meeting of minds before the interim report was published.

I hope that there will be Fuller consultation at the next stage. However, even that will not allay all the fears, if the recommendations in the interim report are intended to close a range of options, and if they themselves are now regarded as beyond further discussion.

Finally, I turn to another service which raises, yet again, the question of employment which I understand is included in the provision for the Department of Economic Development, class II. Item 5 of class 11 makes provision for schemes that are centred on and directly benefit and are part of local communities. At the same time it provides employment for those with something to offer the community who would otherwise be denied the chance to offer it.

On 12 February 1987, during Northern Ireland questions, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) asked about the funding for Action for Community Employment schemes and the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers), seized the opportunity to say how popular ACE schemes had been. He was quite right to say that. He was then asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood and by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) and myself about six ACE workers at St. Matthew's community centre in Short Strand whose funding had been withdrawn. The only reason given by the Government was that it was not in the public interest.

The Under-Secretary of State reminded us of the statement of the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on 27 June. I hope that he will forgive me. He said 25 June, but he meant 27 June 1985. That statement referred to groups having

"sufficiently close links with paramilitary organisations to give rise to a grave risk that to give support to those groups would have the effect of improving the standing and furthering the aims of a paramilitary organisation". —[Official Report, 27 June 1985; Vol. 81, c. 449.]

I doubt whether that will ever be awarded a Nobel prize for literature, but it is clear that that form of words was obviously very carefully formulated. Clearly, no one wishes to see public funds used to benefit paramilitary organisations, except possibly the paramilitary organisations themselves.

The problem is that a reference to that formula gives no indication to those who manage the groups or the scheme what is alleged against them. They cannot defend themselves or explain anything which may admit of explanation or correct any mistakes because they do not know what the Government have against them.

On the face of things, it is startling that an Irish language nursery school should be regarded as a back-up for paramilitaries. It seems that a scheme can simultaneously benefit from the Belfast area needs programme and be refused funds by the Department of Economic Development.

The nursery school in question is housed in premises provided by the Belfast area needs programme. That is not all. It has been told by the Government that its funding will be terminated unless it moves from that accommodation and transfers to other accommodation. The Government funding is dependent on the nursery school leaving the premises provided by Government funding. There are no other premises in that locality, even if it were somehow possible to raise additional funding to rent them.

But even that is not all. The very vagueness of the Government's reasons leads to further problems. When it becomes known that Government funding has been withdrawn under that formula, others may believe that there is no smoke without fire. Other sources of funding will dry up and teachers will find it impossible to obtain other employment.

I understand that the Government cannot always give details of sources of information in these matters, but does it have to be left that the Government's reasons are completely beyond challenge for those at the receiving end and completely beyond scrutiny by anyone? Will a Minister at least visit the area and meet some of the people concerned, or is this another instance of people being left to feel that there is no redress or even a listening ear within the constitutional process?

In the Committee discussing the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Bill we have been debating paramilitary finances and the introduction of a scheme of certification to prevent money from flowing to paramilitary organisations through bogus security firms. I think that in our discussions there the right hon. and learned Gentleman accepted that there could be no appeal and that that had to be an act of the Executive. That was what the then Secretary of State was setting out in his statement in another context. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will take it from me that, as the Minister who was responsible for bringing the Bunscoile Gailge in Belfast into the state system, I can say that there is no hostility to the concept of people being taught through the medium of Irish at any level in Northern Ireland. I can also say that, if the representatives of the nursery schools are prepared to have informal conversations with officials within the Northern Ireland Office, they will get the best advice that is available to them as to the way in which they can rectify their position.

I am grateful for that intervention. I do not suggest that the Government have some political prejudice against the Irish language school. I am not sure that I accepted in Committee—I am still reflecting on it—that it is not possible to build in some way of taking further a refusal by the Executive. But that is not quite what I was suggesting at this stage in this place. I was hoping that someone would listen. I should be grateful if officials would listen. I am not for one moment saying anything against the dedication and open-mindedness of officials, but it would appear to those concerned to be better if a Minister would listen and perhaps even visit the premises and show them what is going on, which is something that I hope to do myself in the fairly near future. I only invite the Minister to reflect on that and I shall not seek to take it further this evening.

I suspect that when the Minister replies he will accuse me of moaning. The purpose of appropriation debates is for hon. Members to have a moan. They are based on the principle of redress of grievances before supply and this is an opportunity to express the grievances of those who have approached us. I draw these matters to the attention of the House because in a parliamentary democracy that is the proper forum to discuss the redress of grievances. If discussion in the House does not lead to their redress, there will be those quick enough to argue that there is no future within constitutional politics and to suggest to the susceptible that other methods may be better. That is why I beg the Government to listen to the debate with an open mind and to demonstrate that it really can lead to change.

The House will be relieved to know that I do not propose to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) in his wide-ranging and agreeable speech, but I shall respond to his invitation to have a moan. It is a moan that I have indulged in before now. I do that in relation to class VIII, paragraph 3 — expenditure by the Department of Education on various services including sports and allied services. The sum involved is £2,387,000. I am not sure what is meant by "allied services", but perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will enlighten me when he replies.

I presume that that sum includes grants paid by the Northern Ireland Sports Council through district councils to the Gaelic Athletic Association in Northern Ireland. I have periodically queried that expenditure but not out of any prejudice against its sports. The Government and the House are right to encourage the Irish language, and the House will have noted what the right hon. and learned Gentleman had to say about that and the Minister's response in his intervention. It is right to encourage the Irish language, the Gaelic culture and Gaelic sport in Northern Ireland.

Unionists as well as nationalists used to play a part in the old Gaelic league until it became biased towards one political opinion. I tabled an early-day motion applauding the opening of the BBC's Irish programmes. I join the Opposition in congratulating the Gaelic Athletic Association on its centenary. More recently, at the instance of Sir Oliver Flanagan. T. D., with whom I had the pleasure of being associated briefly in the Council of Europe, I raised the vexed matter of the Gaelic Athletic Association's field at Crossmaglen with my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), who was then Secretary of State for Defence.

In 1981, I first raised the offensive rule 15 under which the Gaelic Athletic Association bans from membership those who serve or have served in the British Army, Navy or police. The rule is too antique to have taken any account of the Royal Air Force. When I attempted to correspond with the hierarchy of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Dublin. I received no reply. I am not the only person to complain of its attitude. There are those in the Republic who have questioned the bigoted behaviour of people at the top of the Gaelic Athletic Association. Attempts have been made to change the rules, but in vain. It has made no difference that Mr. Peter Barry has appealed to Northern Ireland Catholics to join the Royal Ulster Constabulary and that members of the SDLP have praised that gallant force. In The Irish Times of 16 January an article by Mr. Michael Finlan entitled, "Has the GAA got a persecution complex?" described the Gaelic Athletic Association as "prickly".

As my hon. Friend the Minister knows, I referred this abuse to the Northern Ireland standing advisory commission on human rights. The commission has not yet reported on this and the other instances of discrimination which are before it. I understand that the grants made in Northern Ireland are on a reduced scale precisely because of that discrimination. I ask whether the grants should be continued at all, unless the Gaelic Athletic Association can give an assurance that steps will be taken to lift this unjust and bigoted ban in respect of Northern Ireland.

It is a shame that there are not more hon. Members present to scrutinise these formidable powers which have been delegated for some years by the House in the matter of expenditure to the Northern Ireland departments. There is the formidable spending power in total under the territorial block formula and a quite formidable administrative power within that total to switch resources between departments.

I want to raise three points. If my hon. Friend the Minister does not wish to reply, I should be happy for him to comment later. First, what is the overall expenditure policy of the Northern Ireland departments? My hon. Friend the Minister of State confirmed the other day that public expenditure in Northern Ireland is well over 70 per cent. of the Province's gross domestic product —probably nearly twice the Great Britain figure.

Secondly, in terms of public spending per head, according to the latest territorial analysis, spending in Northern Ireland is now 52 per cent. higher than it is in England. The higher figure of 52 per cent. suggests that, within that total, there are huge differences.

I am aware that spending on industrial support, energy trade and employment is now 340 per cent. higher per head in Northern Ireland than it is in England. Spending on housing is 362 per cent. higher in Northern Ireland than in England. For that reason I was rather puzzled by the remark of the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) that Northern Ireland had to be grateful for the crusts that it received. If those figures represent crusts, I believe that there are those in England who would be grateful for a few crumbs.

The figure of expenditure of 300 per cent. has increased in the past five years—in 1982 the figure was only 200 per cent. How does the territorial block formula work for Northern Ireland? Are such huge differences accounted for simply by the automatic operation of the formula or are they bargained for, quite correctly and fairly, by Northern Ireland Ministers on the basis of genuine need?

Thirdly, in relation to part II of the order, what compensatory arrangements will he made in the allocation of expenditure between Departments for the financial years in which the international fund for Ireland begins to operate? I understand that at least two of the three purposes of the fund may be classified as purposes of public expenditure. Therefore, I wonder whether we will see from the Northern Ireland departments compensatory reductions in the appropriations that are prescribed under the departmental headings in those two categories.

The nature of an appropriation debate tends to be wide-ranging; and tonight's debate has been no exception. Whilst its purpose is to approve the Supplementary Estimate of £99 million for this financial year and a further £1,483 million on account for the next financial year, it affords the opportunity for the House to discuss a wide range of subjects related to Government expenditure.

Public expenditure in Northern Ireland is, of course, high in comparison with the rest of the United Kingdom. That has been noted by my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Fallon). That expenditure reflects the special needs of the Province and must also be recognised as a tangible sign of the Government's commitment to Northern Ireland.

My hon. Friend the Minister of State, in opening the debate, spoke briefly about the state of the economy, productivity and employment. As the Minister responsible for industry and in the light of the speech made by the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer), may I add some comments on our strategy in approaching the economic challenge. We are, of course, seeking to reduce unemployment, but that is only one aspect of our work and by itself it is a negative concept.

If we were to restrict ourselves to that mode of thinking we would be condemning Northern Ireland to continued economic vulnerability, in danger from fluctuation in world trade and in need of continued dependence, on a long-term basis, upon the crutch of Government support.

We shall, of course, continue to alleviate unemployment, and greater resources have been made available to expand the restart and the ACE schemes. However, in a fast changing world, the reduction of unemployment cannot be an end in itself, nor does it constitute a complete and sufficient policy. To be successful in the long term we need a much bolder and more determined approach.

Our industrial policies in Northern Ireland are much more ambitious and much more positive. Our policy is to go for further growth in areas of expansion and to do that by the pursuit of excellence in products and services. That requires a comprehensive approach with many components. I will give only some examples.

We must look for engines of growth through new technology and growth multipliers through better marketing. We need to promote stronger links between education and industry to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit and harness scientific skills to industry. It is fundamental to competitiveness that products should be well designed for economic manufacture and to international standards. There must be a firm insistence on quality and total consistency. We must get out and pursue world markets and make sure that our products are market-orientated.

Increasingly, our policies and schemes are shaped to achieve these aims. We have put greater emphasis on training and re-training to keep the Province's work force tuned to the requirements of local and incoming industry. Government want to help industry to help itself, not simply through financial support but by working with industry and the financial and educational institutions to identify key factors for success and to help strengthen the Province's performance in such areas.

I give some examples of the practical application of these general policy objectives. The Industrial Development Board has launched its quality initiative which has been well received by industry. Similarly, we recently announced a design competition in schools, because design and high quality are essential if Northern Ireland goods are to penetrate export markets. To encourage the development of marketing, the IDB has the 40/30 marketing plan which, in the past 15 months, proved so successful that 65 per cent. of its client companies have taken it up. Innovation in industry is being promoted by IDB's research and development scheme and by the establishment of the Northern Ireland Technology Board. Bright young graduates are being encouraged to go into industry and to start up their own businesses through the graduate attachment scheme and the graduate enterprise scheme. In a similar vein, IDB has established a master in business administration course in industrial development—a unique course—to encourage graduates to address their skills towards the opportunities for economic regeneration. Through the efforts of the Local Enterprise Development Unit and the opportunities afforded by the enterprise allowance scheme, the economy is being renewed by the constant growth of new small companies, many of which will not only survive but grow. The local enterprise programme povides a vehicle for small community-based groups to offer premises and advice for small businesses. LEDU's enterprise grant scheme produced 441 business start-ups in the last financial year.

In parallel with all these Government initiatives I am able to report some significant successes for Northern Ireland through industrial investment. Recently, Lucas Stability in Antrim set up Northern Ireland's first silicon chip factory, providing 200 extra jobs. BIS/Beecom has set up a hi-tech operation in the new science park at Antrim. The Province now has two Japanese manufacturing companies, which will employ almost 300 people at Balleymoney and Mallusk. RFD, a manufacturer of marine rescue equipment, has moved its headquarters to Northern Ireland. Shorts has won major contracts for its aeroplanes and for its high technology Javelin and Star Streak missiles. Temtech, in Bangor, in conjunction with Medphone of the United States, has recently successfully carried out the world's first heart defibrillation by telephone.

They are just some examples, but important ones, and there are many more to show that Northern Ireland's economy should not be viewed in negative terms. I accept the points made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman that unemployment is a serious problem in Northern Ireland—of course it is—andthat this matter should be grasped, but I should like him to balance that judgment with the points that I have made.

The economy of Northern Ireland has endured a great deal over the past years, but there are grounds for optimism that the future could be much brighter.

A number of points were mentioned during the debate, and I shall try to deal with all the specific points that were raised. The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West commented on housing expenditure in Northern Ireland and the unfitness of housing. I shall give some examples, in addition to those that have already been given by my hon. Friend in opening the debate, and some facts to put with those that the right hon. and learned Gentleman put before the House.

It is a fact that unfitness levels have continued to fall and now stand at a little over 10 per cent. compared with over 14 per cent. five years ago. The proportion of dwellings that lack basic amenities was halved in the same period and the urgent waiting list for housing was reduced by over one third since 1981.

Private housebuilding as soared to about 2·5 times its 1981 level, reaching record levels in 1983 and 1984 and maintaining its buoyancy in 1985 and 1986. Spending on the improvement of the public housing stock has increased three times since 1981, while grant aid for the improvement and repair of private dwellings in 1986–87 is twice the 1980–81 level. Similarly, expenditure by housing associations in 1986–87 is three times the 1980–81 level. These changes have been made possible by levels of funding for the housing programme that have enabled gross expenditure to rise to a level that is 60 per cent. over the 1981 level. I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to put these facts with those that he put before the House.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman also asked about improvement and repair grants. Meeting the demand for 6,000 improvement grants and 6,000 repair grants on the worst of the private stock, which is either unfit or otherwise likely to deteriorate, was part of the 1986 strategy review for housing, and that has been fulfilled.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked specifically about the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977. I can give him some assurance about that. Following a review of the situation in the Province by the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Government accepted its recommendation that Northern Ireland should have legislation that will place a statutory duty on the Housing Executive to secure accommodation for certain categories of genuinely homeless people. It is intended to publish a proposal for a draft housing order about mid-1987. It will contain homelessness legislation that will be broadly similar to that for Great Britain, and it will include a number of miscellaneous provisions derived from the Housing Act 1985 and the Housing and Planning Act 1986. It is the Government's intention to bring the legislation into operation early in 1988. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will accept that assurance.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman pressed again his point about the funding of the Irish language nursery school that is run by the St. Matthew's tenants association. It is extremely difficult for Ministers to comment on specific cases, but I understand why he commented on the very straight bat that I played to questions at Question Time the other day. My hon. Friend the Minister of State intervened and made some points about consultation. There has been consultation. There is an open door, in terms of discussing the difficulties.

However, the decision that has been taken about the St. Matthew's tenants association has nothing to do with the teaching of the Irish language. At present the Government provide support through the action for community employment programme for eight Irish language nursery schools, located in different parts of the Province, including West Belfast, Omagh and Londonderry. I cannot say more on that subject at the moment.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked about the advice given to tenants and owner-occupiers and specifically about the Housing Executive and the Belfast Housing Aid Society. It provides a service to people with a wide range of housing problems. It is particularly effective in the private rented sector by representing the tenants at rent assessment panel hearings. The Department annually contributes 90 per cent. of the approved running costs of the society, and in the current year has also given a capital grant towards the cost of the society's move to new premises. Similarly, the tenants' participation advisory service that was set up in December 1984 provides an information and advisory service to landlords and tenants in the public and private housing sectors and encourages and develops tenant participation in housing management. The Department has agreed to grant aid 100 per cent. of the cost of the service for a three-year trial period.

Nevertheless, despite these facts, which I hope will be found to be reassuring, the point made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman about the lack of opportunity for Shelter to provide advice was new to me. As he has raised that point in the debate, I think that it would be right for me to draw that part of the debate to the attention of the Under Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Wiltshire, North (Mr. Needham) who has responsibility for housing matters. I am sure that he will do his best to take account of the representations made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West asked about job losses in the education sector. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, who opened the debate, referred to job losses in education and the general level of available resources. There can be no question about the Government's commitment to the education service in Northern Ireland, which is receiving its highest level of funding at more than £670 million this year. The effective deployment of those resources may sometimes lead to the need for rationalisation in certain activities. That is a matter for the providing bodies, especially the education and library boards.

The reductions in the number of teachers have been considerably less than those that would have been created by the rate of decline in school enrolments. As a result, pupil-teacher ratios have improved significantly from 19:1 in 1979–80 to 18·5:1 now. Examination results also bear testimony to the quality of education in Northern Ireland, something about which we can be very proud. A higher proportion of pupils gain A-level passes than in England.

My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Sir J. Biggs-Davison) raised an important issue.

At the risk of being tiresome, is the Under-Secretary of State able to respond to my point about the York road—Central station rail link? If he is not able to do so, can he write to me later.

I will do that immediately. I am advised that consultants are undertaking a review of the present transportation strategy for Belfast as an integral part of the preparation of the Belfast urban area plan. The review, among other things, is re-appraising the position on the York road—Central station rail link.

My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest raised the issue of grants to the Gaelic Athletic Association. The Government have frequently voiced their abhorrence in this House of the Gaelic Athletic Association's rule 15, which inhibits the admission of certain individuals, chiefly members of Her Majesty's security services. Let me once again stress that the Government take account of that in assessing the level of grants and the Gaelic Athletic Association receives a significantly lower level of grant on that account. We continue to hope that wiser and more moderate counsels will soon prevail within the association and it is fair to say that there are already signs of that within the association.

My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington raised a number of very wide points about the funding of the Northern Ireland exchequer. He was kind enough to say that it would be agreeable to him if I wrote to him on those subjects. As the points that my hon. Friend raised were so completely fundamental to the issue of Government funding for Northern Ireland, that would be a sensible idea and perhaps we can have discussions outside the Chamber. However, I can tell my hon. Friend that the funding of the Northern Ireland exchequer is a matter for discussion between Ministers at the Treasury and the Northern Ireland Office. Matters are not decided on a formula basis and are always under review.

Within my limitations, I have tried to answer the points that have been raised during the debate. In commending the order to the House, may I thank the House for its patience in allowing me to make this, my maiden speech, from the Dispatch Box.

Thurrock has about 500 of the 1·5 million prefabricated concrete houses and flats which were built during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. More than 200 of them have been sold to tenants and about 300 are still owned by Thurrock borough council. The types of concrete house involved include Airey, Cornish unit, Lecaplan, Stent, Unity, Wates and others.

The problem with concrete houses, as the Minister well knows, is that the concrete gradually crumbles away, steel reinforcement erodes and cracks appear. The pre-1960 houses are, of course, deteriorating rapidly. The Housing Defects Act 1984, now part of the Housing Act 1985, was supposed to deal with those problems, but from the start the Labour party asked for extra money to be given to councils to enable them to assist owner-occupiers and council tenants, for whom the Government did not allow in the legislation.

Councils such as Thurrock are struggling to meet their obligations to owner-occupiers under the legislation. First, to give some indication of the problems, I want to refer to a letter sent by the council's consultants, M. Dysons Associates, to the council's housing committee on 20 January this year. Tenders had been requested for the repair and reinstatement of Wates houses at South Ockendon. There are approximately 40 houses and the cost of repairs varies from just over £800,000 to just under £1 million depending upon the tender. In fact, the highest tender, curiously enough, came from Wates Ltd. for the structural reinstatement for Wates houses and comes to just under £1 million.

The grant applications based on one of the tenders, the cheapest in fact, mean that the council anticipates grant applications of the order of £23,000 per basic house. That is above the nominal £20,000 expenditure limit and the reinstatement costs of some houses would cause a further increase. There are two reasons for that. First, the houses are in Essex where the highest prices in the country are being obtained as a result of the volume of work available to contractors in the area. Secondly, the party wall construction of this variant of the Wates houses is the most expensive to deal with. Comparisons are made with similar Wates houses in the north midlands area and the cost there comes to just over £20,000 for repairs.

According to M. Dysons Associates, a 15 per cent. loading for work in Essex seems in proportion. The facts on the tenders received by M. Dysons Associates on behalf of the council for 15 contracts for Wates house repairs throughout the country have been reported to the Department of the Environment. Therefore, hopefully the Minister will have information available about the fact that the cost of reinstatement, even at the expenditure limit of £20,000 per house, is sufficient to cause the borough council considerable struggle. However, the costs in terms of the tenders submitted in the Essex area are above the expenditure limit, and that merely makes the problems even worse.

Some notion of the extent of the problems is given again in the state of applications given by the borough council as of January this year. A total of 42 Cornish unit style concrete houses are the first to be reinstated. The value of the potential grants is estimated by the council to be £522,000. The Minister may well say that the cost of reinstatement was taken into account in the housing investment programme allocation last year, which was £606,000 above the previous year.

When one looks at the costs of reinstating 42 of the houses. The addition made last year was insufficient to meet Thurrock's problems. The council made clear that the total costs of all potential grants to the owners of concrete houses in Thurrock is over £4 million. The inclusive amount of the council's HIP allocation for 1987–88 is £2 million, which takes account of the 20 per cent. cut on last year's allocation which the Government have just announced. The chief executive of the council said in a letter to the regional controller of the Department of the Environment:

"My council faces a substantial problem in complying with the legislation to PRC dwellings. There are 240 such dwellings in the borough eligible for reinstatement grants"

and these will lead to potential grants to the owners in excess of £4 million. Obviously, with the kind of HIP allocation of Thurrock borough council and the costs of reinstating these dwellings, it will be a long time before people have their houses repaired and are able to sell them again.

I am well aware that the Government have requested bids for a share of the extra £14 million from local authorities set aside for the repair of concrete houses and that these bids should come in by the end of this month. Thurrock will put in its hid. I have already indicated the scale of the problem that Thurrock faces, as do many other district housing authorities. The sum of £14 million will not go far in dealing with essential repairs. If Thurrock council would like £4 million, that would leave only £10 million for other authorities which have similar and even more extensive problems in some cases.

The first Government statement about the state of these houses was made in November 1983. Many eligible owner-occupiers have been waiting for more than three years for their properties to be repaired, placing many of them in an extremely difficult position. They need to sell those houses and they cannot expect to sell them because would-be buyers would not ba able to get mortgages on them.

I refer to a different problem concerning Lecaplan and other large panel concrete houses which are not covered by the Housing Defects Act. A letter I have received from the Building Research Establishment says that

"there is no presumption that these large panel systems are faulty but rather that any remedial needs should be assessed on the basis of a proper understanding of the issues and the best available information."

Lecaplan houses are not necessarily faulty.

The problem is that we are still waiting for the BRE report. As long ago as 1985 I received a letter from the Building Societies Association saying that it would be extremely helpful if that report was published as soon as possible. The report is to be published, I understand, in early summer. Therefore, the delays go on and we are still waiting for this extremely important report which will make it easier for us to press building societies to lend on these properties.

My constituents tell me that a number of major building societies will not lend on these properties. Constituents have had difficulties locally in selling these houses because would-be buyers have been unable to obtain mortgages from the Abbey National, the Leeds, Nationwide, Woolwich, Town and Country and the Halifax building societies. Leading building societies will not lend on such properties. My constituents who live in them and other similar properties, however, are waiting for repairs and suffering greatly. The Government are supposed to favour owner-occupiers, but these owner-occupiers are in a miserable and desperate situation.

Many of my constituents have invested their life savings in houses which they are unable to sell. Repairs cannot be carried out because the Government will not make money available or allow councils to spend their capital receipts, despite requests from Thurrock to do so. They have also received requests for more flexibility in parliamentary questions that I have tabled.

This matter has been raised with the Minister in debates before, but he has failed to give a satisfactory answer. All that the Government have done so far is to pass a law and fail to provide the money necessary to meet the responsibilities which it implied local authorities should take on. They desperately need additional funding for such responsibilities.

It is plainly impossible for Thurrock council to assist my constituents out of its funds for housing. It needs more money. My constituents need to be able to sell their homes and move, either to get a job or for personal reasons. Their inability to do that puts a great strain on them — so much so that some couples tell me that their marriages are under stress as a result. That is intolerable.

I want to hear three things from the Minister. First, I want to know whether the Building Research Establishment report on large panel houses will be brought forward quickly. Secondly, will the Minister ensure, as far as it is possible for him to do so, that building societies understand that these types of house are not necessarily faulty and that they should be willing to lend on them? Thirdly, will the Minister say what money will be made available so that Wates houses and other concrete houses in my constituency can be repaired as soon as possible?

I commend the hon. Member for Thurrock (Dr. McDonald) on giving the House the opportunity to discuss these important topics. I would like tonight to cover three aspects which I know are of particular concern to her — first, the Housing Defects Act 1984 and how it is working in Thurrock; secondly, the position of owners living in properties not designated under that Act but who are concerned about saleability and mortgageability; and, thirdly, repair work for properties remaining in Thurrock's rented stock, and the overall resources available.

I should like to repeat two basic but very important points about the Housing Defects Act which, as the House will know, is now consolidated into part XVI of the Housing Act 1985. First, the Act attracted all-party support when we took it through Parliament in 1984. We must not lose sight of that fact when we discuss any problems that may have arisen since. It was always accepted that we would need a reasonable period to carry out the assistance programme. That is why the designations allow 10 years for owners to obtain assistance. I must remind the House that well over seven years still remain, so no one need feel that they are running out of time.

Thurrock district council, along with certain other authorities, has quite a variety of different designated prefabricated reinforced concrete types—Airey, Cornish Unit, Stent, Unity and Wates. The good news is that there are now National House Building Council approved repair methods for all those types—and others, too. In fact, PRC Homes Ltd.—the NHBC's subsidiary, set up to approve repair methods and provide a warranty—has now approved 28 repair methods for eight different PRC types; and these cover over 60 per cent. of all designated properties. More proposed repair methods are in the pipeline. So, once again, we are making progress.

The hon. Lady has described some of the difficulties in her constituency. I do not think that it would be appropriate tonight to get into the details of particular cases, though I will of course respond in writing to the points which the hon. Lady made and to any other points she wishes to put. What I would like to stress is that the Act allows the local authority, the owners and the repairers a reasonable degree of flexibility, for example, on the procedures for getting repairs done. My Department has issued guidance on this, first in 1984, when the Act first came into force, and then again last summer, when we put out a circular explaining how local authorities and owners might tackle reinstatement and how this meshed in with the NHBC approval and warranty procedure. But I must stress that final decisions on how to implement the legislation—and therefore on the handling of particular cases—must rest with the local authority concerned.

I am aware of problems concerning the repair of Wates houses in Thurrock and, in particular, that there are differing views on an appropriate repair method. Under the Act the council has to specify the works to be done and the amount eligible for grant. We look to authorities and owners to reach sensible understandings on actual repair methods to be used: if the council has in mind any particular repair methods—especially one not approved by PRC Homes Ltd—it will need to be satisfied that it meets the requirement of subsequent mortgageability. I understand that in the cases she mentioned of the Wates homes we may be approaching agreement.

We look to authorities to operate the Act in a reasonable way; and we look to owners to be patient. One approach worth serious consideration, particularly where resources are tight—as I acknowledge they may be—is for the council, owners, and indeed repairers, to achieve an understanding on a likely timetable for assistance, spread over a reasonable period. This allows everyone to plan sensibly and to know where they stand. Obviously, any hardship cases can be dealt with quickly, through repurchase as necessary, as provided in the Act itself. Beyond that, where owners would like repair — and I know many do—a sensible understanding on how it is to be spread over time can be a great help to everyone.

I should like to turn now to the position of those owners whose properties are not designated under the housing defects legislation. I know that the hon. Lady is concerned on behalf of the owners of the Lecaplan large panel houses. As the hon. Lady knows, properties can be designated under the housing defects legislation only if they are inherently defective by design or construction and if there has been a substantial fall in value by virtue of that fact becoming generally known. Designation is therefore a major step and not one to embark upon lightly. Indeed, many owners do not look forward to the notion of their house being declared as defective, even if there is a scheme of assistance to follow. So far as Lecaplan is concerned, I can reassure the House that we have no current plans to designate.

What we have done—as the hon. Lady knows and has mentioned—is to commission our Building Research Establishment to carry put a thorough study of large panel buildings generally. Lecaplan is of this large panel type. This research is going well and a major report, which includes structural appraisal, should be complete by early this summer. The hon. Lady has said that originally we had a somewhat earlier date in mind, but it has, quite understandably, taken BRE a bit longer to assemble all the important material it needs. I am sure that the House would agree that we want a thorough and helpful report and that it is sensible to take the time needed to achieve that.

That report should be valuable to all large panel owners, both local authorities and, of course, their tenants, and owner-occupiers. Also—and this is very important — it will be useful for building societies and other lending institutions when they are deciding whether to offer a mortgage advance. One of the problems we have seen following the PRC issue is very regrettable widespead blight on non-traditional properites in general, even of types that bear little or no relation to those designated under the housing defects legislation. We are concerned in the Department to see this blight removed wherever possible. Good research and the resulting increased understanding all round certainly helps, but we are also talking directly to the Building Societies Association on this matter: and I understand that it expects to issue further guidance to its members in the near future. I hope that that will reassure the hon. Lady to some extent, as that was one of the points she mentioned.

Again, I have to stress that individual societies or other lending institutions must decide on and take responsibility for their own lending policies. That cannot be a matter for the Government. But I would certainly encourage owners who are having difficulties with the mortgageability of their properties to shop around. Not all societies, or indeed banks or other lending institutions, take the same view.

If there are technical problems or uncertainties, the local authorities may be able to help with information. They usually commissioned the properties and have maintained the rented ones ever since, so they will have a great deal of local knowledge, which may be very valuable both to owners and to local building societies.

I hope that what I have said is helpful to the hon. Lady and, of course, to her constituents in Thurrock. My hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and I would be extremely grateful if she could keep us informed of any developments on Lecaplan in her constituency, because we realise that the owners have genuine concerns.

I turn now to another area of great interest to the hon. Lady and that is the question of Thurrock's rented stock and HIP resources. The Government are concerned about the condition of local authority rented housing. That is why we commissioned the 1985 stock condition inquiry. Indeed, we were the first Government to conduct such a systematic survey, which helped to give individual authorities a better picture of their property. That is why we initiated Estate Action, previously called the Urban Housing Renewal Unit, to work up specific projects for some of our worst affected urban estates. As the House will know, we have made available £75 million for such projects in 1987–88, which is a 50 per cent. increase on 1986–87.

Indeed, local authorities generally are spending an increasing proportion of their resources on renovation. National expenditure is now running at some £2½ billion a year, which is split broadly 50: 50 between capital and revenue. These are large sums in anyone's language. and we must not forget the role of the private sector. Authorities need to be willing to tap private sector expertise and resources.

For 1987–88 we have increased the gross housing expenditure provision by £390 million and we expect to see even greater spending on renovation. Obviously, we have to operate within the constraints of the existing capital control system. For example, we must acknowledge the large spending power that has accumulated nationally through capital receipts. Our decision on the overall resources available for HIP distribution had to recognise that fact. Nevertheless, we were able to honour the assurance given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his predecessors that allocations for 1987–88 would not be less than 80 per cent. of those for 1985–86. I am sure that the hon. Lady will agree that we were absolutely right to do that. Moreover, we have retained, in addition to the £75 million for Estate Action, a national reserve of £14 million for authorities facing particular difficulties with housing defects obligations. We have asked for bids by the end of this month and hope to make the additional allocations by the end of April.

I hope that I have answered some of the hon. Lady's points. This is only a short debate and we do not have time for much detail. I should like to close on the thought that, whether it be the Housing Defects Act 1984, non-traditional dwellings or local authority rented stock, we are making progress. With patience and good will, that will certainly continue.