To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps have been taken to encourage co-operation between local authorities and neighbourhood watch schemes over the siting of neighbourhood watch zone signs on lamp posts and other prominent places; and if he will make a statement.

The display, otherwise than on highway land, of signs for approved neighbourhood watch schemes now have deemed planning consent. Signs on trunk roads, for example on lamp posts, that do not cause a hazard to traffic or pedestrians get immediate approval from the Department of Transport. The display of signs on other roads is a matter for local highway authorities. I hope that they will follow the Department of Transport's lead.

I welcome the Government's attempts to facilitate the siting of neighbourhood watch signs. Will the Minister tell the House whether local authorities are following the Government's positive lead? Is he aware that in West Yorkshire the number of schemes in operation has increased from 160 at the beginning of last year to well over 500 and that that should make a significant contribution to deterring the would-be vandal and the would-be burglar?

A few councils, alas, are not being co-operative with the neighbourhood watch movement, and that is very disappointing. The increase in the numbers of neighbourhood watch schemes in West Yorkshire in the past 12 months that my hon. Friend has reported to the House is very pleasing. There are now nearly 56,000 neighbourhood watch schemes in the country, a phenomenal increase of some 60 per cent. over the number a year ago.

On the theme of crime prevention, and given the recent publication of further work by Professor Alice Coleman showing that the design of public housing is an important factor in influencing crime rates, will the Minister contact the Department of the Environment and urge that a great deal of money be spent on public housing, to reduce crime rates? Unless that money is spent, neighbourhood watch schemes will be merely cosmetic.

The work of Professor Alice Coleman is extremely interesting and the theme of designing out crime has been accepted by people of all political views and all architectural and planning views in this country. My right hon. Friend and I are in constant contact with the Department of the Environment. Indeed, I met my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning yesterday afternoon at 3 o'clock and that was one of the issues that we discussed. I hope that the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) is aware of the very substantial sums of money being spent by the Department of the Environment under the Estate Action scheme—£75 million this year has been devoted to crime prevention.

Will my hon. Friend call a meeting between the Southampton city council, the Hampshire chief constable and his Department to try to enable the neighbourhood watch scheme, with or without signs, to make some progress in the city of Southampton, which has a very high incidence of crime?

My hon. Friend raised that important point in his recent Adjournment debate, to which I replied. We are doing what we can to ensure that in Southampton, as in every other major city in the country, the neighbourhood watch movement continues to make the progress that this great citizens' movement is making throughout the country.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects to be able to announce the outcome of his review of the Guildford and Woolwich bombing cases.

I expect to announce my decision fairly soon on whether to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.

Will the Home Secretary comment on the transfer of the Guildford prisoner Paul Hill to Winchester gaol, the 47th such move for this prisoner, which smacks more of The Gulag Archipelago or a Kafka novel than the practice of a democratic state? Will be assure the House that when he reaches a decision on the Guildford and Woolwich cases he will announce his decision in the House so that Members can question him?

There are many operational and other reasons why prisoners are transferred from time to time and I shall not comment on Mr. Hill's transfers. The hon. Gentleman puts me in difficulty about his second point. As I have said, I hope to announce my decision fairly soon, but that does not mean within the next week. Since I told the House in January of last year that I saw no ground for referring this case to the Court of Appeal, a new matter has come forward. The hon. Gentleman knows that I have arranged for it to be investigated by the police. That investigation has now come to an end. I need to look all over again at the whole case, from the beginning. I intend to do that during the recess.

Is my hon. Friend aware that the challenges to the decisions made by our system of justice are in many cases, especially those involving terrorist offences, beginning to take on the attributes of an industry? It is always possible to question individual items of evidence in the original trial, but it was the jury's function at that time to distinguish between right and wrong. Is it not harmful to our judicial system to go on and on and on questioning individual verdicts?

It is because I agree with the general thrust of my hon. Friend's question that, like my predecessors, I have taken the clear line that reference to the Court of Appeal should be undertaken by the Home Secretary only when there is new and substantial matter that was not before the original jury.

When the Home Secretary is examining this material will be give an undertaking to the House—[Interruption.] I am sure you will agree, Mr. Speaker, that we are discussing an extremely important matter and that many people believe that there has been a very serious miscarriage of justice in the Guildford and Woolwich cases. One of the Guildford four, Paul Hill, is a constituent of mine. Will the Home Secretary undertake to look into the prison conditions of all the prisoners and carefully to examine what possible operational reasons there can have been for Paul Hill to be moved 47 times in 14 years and to have spent four years in virtual solitary confinement? Will the Home Secretary undertake to look sympathetically into the prison conditions and also to look—we hope very intently—at the evidence, which, I believe, demonstrates the innocence of the prisoners concerned?

These people have been convicted by a court. Their cases went to appeal and the verdicts were upheld. Therefore they must expect to be treated as convicted persons—neither better nor worse than other people in that category.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he intends to bring the Licensing Act 1988 into effect and if he will make a statement.

As I said in reply to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) on 14 July, it is intended that the commencement date for sections 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 16, 17 and 18 of the Licensing Act 1988 will be 1 August and that the remaining sections will be in force on or before 1 September, with the exception of sections 12 and 15, which are likely to be implemented on 1 March 1989.

Does my hon. Friend agree that under-age drinking, with its attendant hooliganism and yobbish behaviour, is a matter of increasing concern to the people of this country? How will the Act contribute to tackling that problem?

The Act tightens up the provisions of section 169 of the principal Act, in that the element "knowingly" is deleted and an offence is now committed when there is a supply to an under-age person of alcoholic drink, unless—I use loose language—the licensee or his agent took reasonable care.

Is the Minister aware that in Sheffield last week a judge remarked that violence among drinkers leaving night clubs in the early hours had become virtually endemic? What assurance can he offer the people of Sheffield in the light of the impending legislation?

The hon. Member will be encouraged to know that the Licensing Act 1988 makes provision for revocation orders in more extended circumstances and gives justices a greater power to refuse special certificates.

Is my hon. Friend aware that his answer will come as a disappointment to the licensed trade, which had hoped to benefit from the new hours during the summer season this year? If my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary are confronted by anti-social behaviour from the young, yob tendency during the summer, will they bear in mind that the vast majority of people who enjoy a social drink do so in a moderate, well-behaved and sensible way? Will the Government resist the temptation to blame everything on drink and look for the more complex antecedents of anti-social behaviour?

I am sorry that licensees will be disappointed. I accept the broad thrust of my hon. Friend's case that the majority of people who drink do so sensibly.

Does the Minister accept that there is great concern throughout the United Kingdom at the ease with which young people and less-responsible older people have access to drink through off-licences? Normal, sensible and reliable people are exposed to continuing nuisance at all times of the day and night because of open, blatant drinking in places such as sunshine bars and in remembrance parks where we pay tribute to those who served in world wars. Will the Minister consider that problem and endeavour to assist those local authorities that wish to see control exercised over the public nuisance that is created by those consuming alcohol?

I could give the hon. Member for Antrim, East (Mr. Beggs) a number of answers. I remind him of the provisions of section 169 of the principal Act, which have been tightened up by the 1988 Act, and that there are provisions in the new Act for dealing with the supply of alcohol by under-age persons employed in off-licences. The hon. Gentleman will also know that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is prepared in principle to approve a byelaw brought forward by Coventry city council, which addresses the kind of problem to which he referred.

My hon. Friend will know that the measures contained in the Act—particularly more flexible hours—are welcomed by the licensed trade. It also welcomes the more stringent regulations that will permit action to be taken against under-age drinkers, but how are licensees to know when a drinker is under age? At present, a publican serving an under-age drinker risks losing not only his licence but his livelihood and his home. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has recently been issued with an identity card by his local pub to prove that he is over the age of 18, why will the Home Office not support the move to a national identity card scheme?

That is a very much wider question, to which my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will, I believe, be making a response later. We are much in favour of the voluntary schemes that are now in place. The new Act, and particularly the amendment of section 169, will make some licensees a little more cautious than they have been hitherto. I make the point that only a minority of licensees have been acting improperly.

As under-age drinking seems to have reached epidemic proportions in many parts of the country, and as the situation will probably grow worse with the introduction of all-day drinking, when will the Minister take action on the Masham committee report, and when will he announce the Wakeham committee's recommendations on under-age drinking? Do not the events of this summer prove the folly of legislating to relax licensing laws before anything is done about drink-related problems?

As usual, the hon. Lady is mistaken. She either exaggerates or gets her conclusions wrong. The Licensing Act 1988 incorporates many of the recommendations of Lady Masham's report, and the Wakeham committee, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council, has announced its conclusions frequently.

What are the Government doing?

I hear the hon. Lady chattering from the Front Bench. One of the things that we are doing is drawing to the attention of the police and the courts all the procedures and provisions that exist in statute, and they are extremely comprehensive.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he anticipates there will be an increase in the number of uniformed police on the beat in Sussex.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will consider the application from Sussex police authority for more police officers, along with similar applications from other police authorities, before making the next allocation of additional police posts under the programme which he announced in May 1986. We cannot at this stage give an exact date for the decision.

My hon. Friend will recall that in March 1987 he issued a press statement saying that 66 additional police were to be provided in Sussex to enhance operational police strength, mainly in terms of increasing patrol cover and community policing. That statement was completely untrue. There has been no increase in the number of police on the beat in Sussex. When will my hon. Friend put the matter right?

I understand my right hon. Friend's concern, and he has always put his case with much vigour. but I have to say that I do not agree with his conclusions. Since May 1979, for example, the police establishment in Sussex has increased by 121, and the number of civilians employed by 154. Even allowing for the fact that 109 of the police officers have been allocated to Gatwick duty, there has none-the-less been a significant increase in the number of police officers available for operational duty.

Was the most recent request for extra police for Sussex met in full? Perhaps the Minister might extend it to Kent.

Order. The question is about Sussex.

If it was not—[Interruption.]

Order. The hon. Gentleman should confine the question to Sussex.

If it was not met in full for Sussex, why was it also not met in full for Cumbria? [Interruption.]

Order. It is an absolute abuse of our procedure to try to ask a question on a completely different topic.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what has been the change in the number of prisoners held in police cells since his statement of 30 March, Official Report, column 1083.

The number of prisoners held in police cells has fallen from 1,374 on 30 March to 690 yesterday. make that a reduction of 684.

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that Monday's Green Paper "Punishment, Custody and the Community" will help to reduce our prison population by providing more tough but non-custodial sentences?

I hope so, but that will be up to the magistrates and judges who pass sentence. If these ideas bear fruit, they will have a wider range of disposals, including tough punishing disposals, outside prison.

Is the Home Secretary aware that many of the people held in police cells are youngsters of 18 and under, who are held there because there are not places in many of the prisons? Some of them are held in prisons such as Armley in Leeds. The Minister told me in a written answer last Friday that two youngsters aged 18 and 17 had committed suicide there. I have been informed by the probation service that there have been three suicides during a period of a few weeks. Will the Home Secretary set up an investigation and let us know what is going on in Leeds?

The hon. Gentleman is ranging wide, but it is true that police cells are not the right places for prisoners, whatever their age, and that is why we are working, with increasing success, to reduce numbers. They have already been halved and I expect, without making any rash promises, that we shall make further progress as new prisons open—we have two new prisons opening in the latter part of this year—and as Ashford remand centre is reopened. As we develop the prison building programme and it comes into effect that will also relieve overcrowding in places such as Armley.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, with over 69,000 persons received into prison last year, his Green Paper has been received exceptionally well as one of the most thoughtful and far-reaching contributions for many decades on the complicated problem of keeping non-violent offenders out of prison and finding alternatives for those persons who might otherwise be remanded in custody? Will not ideas such as tracking, curfew orders and even experiments with electronic monitoring do much to contain the prison population and reduce the problem created by the number of people on remand?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, with his experience of these matters, for that commendation. I hope that the Green Paper will be studied by right hon. and hon. Members and, more important, by those whose responsibility it is to judge, case by case, how they should sentence those who have been convicted.

Is the Home Secretary aware that the continuation of this policy is an utter disgrace, that people who are held in police cells on remand are denied the rights that people held in prison have, and that magistrates, police consultative committees and the police themselves condemn that policy? When will the Home Secretary stop it?

The policy is to reduce and eventually do away with the use of police cells for prisoners. We have halved the number of people so held since the beginning of March, so we are half way to achieving that. Part of that policy consists of the prison building programme, which Opposition Members have consistently opposed and criticised. That has brought 6,000 prison places into being since June 1983 and aims to produce 22,000 new places in all by the mid-1990s.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, in the light of calls for membership cards for football supporters, he will re-examine the introduction of national identity cards to aid the fight against disorderly and lawless behaviour.

Membership cards for football supporters is a separate question from the issue of compulsory identity cards for everyone. We remain to be persuaded that there is a sufficiently strong case for the introduction of universal compulsory identity cards.

I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, but I am somewhat disappointed, since we have read in our newspapers that such a study is going on. Surely my right hon. Friend must agree that as we already must have various identity cards the principle has been accepted in many situations. Certainly the police in Dorset would be happy to see national identity cards as an additional aid to fighting crime. Such cards would help those football clubs that are introducing membership cards to do so correctly. They would also help a great deal in registering everybody for the community charge and in all sorts of ways, such as fighting benefit and other kinds of fraud.

My hon. Friend raises a number of points. A national identity card system would not be much use to football clubs. They are being asked to produce a selective scheme, whereas the national identity card would be universal. That means that they will want to keep out of their scheme people who would, under my hon. Friend's idea, have a national identity card. That illustrates the point. My hon. Friend has been reading the newspapers, as I have also, and what is said about my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's supposed activities is simple make-believe. It is true that I have asked the police for an up-to-date and considered assessment. Their established view has been that they do not think that a system of compulsory national identity cards, with associated powers for the police, would help them. They have thought that the disadvantages would outweigh the advantages. In view of the renewed interest in the House and elsewhere in the subject, I have asked them for their considered and updated view.

Has the Home Secretary considered the moral issues that are raised by the fact that the Government are contemplating a police computer dossier on every citizen in the country, while the Home Secretary is presenting a White Paper on official secrets that would deny to the electors knowledge about what the Government are doing? The proposed legislation will be of the kind that has concealed from public attention crimes committed by people such as Peter Wright, who describes in detail in his book crimes committed by the security service against the liberties of the subject. How does that fit in with the glorious revolution, which is supposed to have safeguarded our political liberties?

Surely that is the right hon. Gentleman's speech for tomorrow. I do not think that it arises from this question.

Will my right hon. Friend consider the issue of identity cards, not only in relation to lawless behaviour, but to enable those who have the right to seek supplementary benefit and social security to do so easily and conveniently when the new computer system comes into use? Is it not time that we thought about the issue of identity cards to do away with the degrading conditions that exist in so many social security offices?

It is perfectly reasonable that that idea should be thought about. I foresee a continued growth of cards such as the one that my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Bruce) showed the House just now, which he carries as a matter of convenience to identify himself for specific purposes. I think that such cards will increase. There is a very substantial difference, however, between those cards, which I believe will increase and which are useful, and a scheme by which everyone in the country would be compelled to have a national indentity card and in which the police had powers to compel people to produce those cards.

I welcome the Home Secretary's first answer. Like him, I believe that a system of compulsory national identity cards would not make up in its contribution to a reduction in crime what we would lose in civil liberties.

I believe that the police view is important, but it is not necessarily decisive. The matter is for Parliament to decide, of course. However, I think that it is important to discover whether the established police view, which is the one I described and with which the right hon. Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) as a former Home Secretary is familiar, is still maintained.

Does my right hon. Friend accept that one of the greatest protections afforded to the terrorist, the hooligan, the illegal immigrant and even the under-age drinker is anonymity? In an age when credit cards are commonplace, will my right hon. Friend agree to consider the matter in depth? People should be issued with identity cards, although they need not necessarily carry them. They should, however, be available.

I do not really believe that the determined terrorist with whom we have to deal would be especially detected or deterred by a system of national identity cards that did not require him to carry any such document.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a further statement concerning his policy towards the provision of concessionary television licences to pensioners.

No. The matter was fully discussed in the debate in the House on 12 July.

Now that the Government have decided to put up the concessionary television licence from 5p to £5, will the Minister seek to end the discrimination between one group of pensioners living in a small street who pay the full licence fee and others who do not? Surely the time is right for all pensioners to have a concessionary television licence of £5, as has recently been introduced.

No, Sir. The purpose of the new regulations that we brought in was to return help under the scheme to those for whom it was originally intended, who were not those living in mainstream housing. If we followed the hon. Gentleman's suggestion it would mean a substantial increase in the licence fee for everyone else—about 50 per cent. if we were to give free licences for all pensioners—and that would greatly damage some people who are not pensioners, and who are much worse off than some pensioners, such as those on income support.

Have we not just heard a classic example of SLD woolly thinking? If free television licences were given to all pensioners, a lot of very affluent people would be getting their television licence at no cost at all, while others on limited incomes and looking after children would have to pay.

Before I answer my hon. Friend's question, perhaps he could define the SLD for me. Of course it is woolly thinking, which does not try to concentrate help on those most in need. It is not a thought-out or practical policy in any sense of the word.

We know that the Government and their supporters do not like the concessionary licence scheme in any event, but will the Minister at least reconsider the Peacock committee's suggestion of exempting pensioner households which depend on means-tested benefit as a start and concentrating help in that way? Or is he saying that those of us at work would resent paying the estimated £5 a year extra that it would cost to give such help to the 1½ million pensioners who would qualify?

As I told the hon. Gentleman in the debate last week, the point behind the Peacock recommendation is that if anyone should get a concessionary television licence it should not be pensioners specifically, but those on income support. That is the point to which Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen failed to address themselves, and they have returned instead to the simple election bribe of free television licences for all pensioners.

Will the Minister look again at this question? Many pensioners to whom I have talked ask for compassion from the Government. Does the Minister accept that many pensioners live on their own, often far from municipal and shopping centres, and that their movements are restricted virtually to the four walls of their dwelling and their garden? The television opens the world to them. Will the Minister therefore grant concessionary television licences to pensioners?

I accept the hon. Gentleman's point about the importance of television to many pensioners. However, I would point out that last spring when representatives of the National Federation of Retirement Pensioners Associations called on my hon. Friend the Minister of State and my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who was then at the Home Office, they made it absolutely plain that they opposed free television licences for pensioners because most pensioners do not want to seem to be supported by such charity.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will call for a report from the chief constable of Devon and Cornwall on the use of special constables at weekends to police towns and villages in Cornwall.

Deployment of the special constabulary is an operational matter for individual chief officers. I understand from the chief constable of Devon and Cornwall that in Cornwall special constables are deployed at weekends to assist with such occasions as local carnivals and fetes and to assist with local crime prevention initiatives.

The Minister may like to know that my constituents, particularly in Truro and St. Austell, have reported considerable feelings of intimidation to me. In the light of that, I have on a number of occasions asked for more full-time constables, but the Government will not give the Devon and Cornwall constabulary the numbers that it would like. Will the Minister therefore look into the question to see whether the excellent work done by the special constabulary, whose numbers have risen recently, cannot be used to mitigate some of my constituents' worries, particularly on Friday and Saturday evenings?

I am very much in favour of the special constabulary, which can, indeed, do a valuable job. In terms of the manpower available to the force, the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that since May 1979 the number of police in his county force has risen by 133 and the number of civilians by 160. He will also be pleased to know that the force has a clean-up rate well above the national average and that the number of offences per 100,000 of the population is well below the national average.

I welcome the figures just mentioned by my hon. Friend, but is he aware that the 800 or so special constables in the counties of Devon and Cornwall between them now account for 80,000 hours of policing? Does he agree that this is a public-spirited duty, and will he do all he can to encourage people to join this excellent force?

I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend has said. I must declare an interest: I was once a member of the special constabulary. [Laughter.] When they are properly trained and doing their stuff, they are extremely useful.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will issue guidance to the fire services to provide a minimum response time by fire tenders for accidents on major trunk roads.

No, Sir. Fire authorities have a discretionary power to use their fire brigade for non-firefighting purposes such as attendances at road accidents. We are not persuaded that it would be appropriate or necessary to prescribe a minimum response time for such work.

Does my hon. Friend agree that serious risk to life is involved if there is unnecessary delay in responding to the serious accidents that often occur on dangerous roads, such as the Al in my constituency? Will he therefore reconsider his guidance to the fire authorities on the discretionary use of fire appliances in those circumstances?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I know of his concern about the number of road accidents and the service given to those involved in them on the A I in his constituency. This issue was last examined by the relevant joint committee in 1985, as my hon. Friend knows. At that stage, no recommendation such as my hon. Friend would like was made. However, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is considering setting up a new joint committee to look at the use of fire appliances to see whether such instruction about the hitherto discretionary use should be changed in some way.

Response times to fires on trunk roads are constantly reviewed by fire authorities. The major problem is not mistakes made by fire authorities or unprofessional conduct on their part, but the millions of pounds that have been cut from fire authority budgets, last year and this year. The hon. Member for Elmet (Mr. Batiste) would be well advised to support Opposition Members, who have consistently tried to improve fire authorities' resources so as to improve the times taken to get to accidents and fires and to improve the overall performance of fire authorities in the United Kingdom.

That is nonsense. Her Majesty's Inspector of Fire Services constantly monitors the service given by fire services and by all fire authorities in the kingdom.

My hon. Friend will agree that, in spite of the Government's excellent road building programme, because of the increasing congestion on our major roads it is not possible, even with the best will in the world, for our emergency services to get through to the scenes of accidents. Is it not time for a major review to examine the role of helicopters in the emergency services, such as those that are available in West Germany, where helicopters are called in as a matter of course to serious accidents on major roads?

That is kept under review as we review the workings of the excellent emergency services in this country. My hon. Friend has put his finger on a fast developing problem.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received concerning the report on Risley remand centre following his answer to the hon. Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Butler) on 30 June, Official Report, column 301; and if he will make a statement.

One hon. Member has asked a question about implementation of suicide prevention measures and questions have been asked in another place about action on the report. I have had two letters from hon. Members, and three from the general public. The required suicide prevention procedures have been carried out since the inspection and measures are being taken, as the hon. Gentleman knows, to ensure an immediate and continuing improvement in conditions at Risley.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there was a general welcome for the rigorous nature of Judge Tumim's investigation, however disturbing its consequences? Is he further aware that there was a welcome for his positive attitude to it? As the future of Risley, as he sees it, is as a local prison, will he give an undertaking that there will be alternative remand facilities in north Wales, to avoid having to send people from that area to Risley?

I shall look into that point and write to the hon. Gentleman. I am grateful for his general remarks. To use his terms, the report certainly was rigorous and disturbing, and I hope he feels that, as he said, our response to it was timely and vigorous.

Does my right hon. Friend believe that grisly Risley is a good advertisement for public sector prisons?

If my hon. Friend waits until next week he will see how I propose that we should experiment with the private management of remand prisons.

Will the Home Secretary take this opportunity to say a word on behalf of the prison officers at Risley, many of whom live in Culcheth where I live and are bitter and resentful about the way in which they have been treated by this report? Will he confirm that the crumbling, overcrowded conditions at Risley have nothing to do with the prison officers, but everything to do with the incompetence of the Home Office?

The problems at Risley are the result of the same phenomenon that afflicts many of our prisons and most of our remand centres, namely overcrowding, which until recently has been unrelieved by a decent prison building programme. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the staff at Risley have been undergoing a serious and testing time. I do not think that they complain about the nature of the report. I know that they have been disturbed by some of the headline publicity surrounding it, but I believe that they support the action that we have taken.

To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 21 July.

This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the National Union of Teachers is wrong yet again when it blames Government policies for violence in schools? Does she agree also that, as discipline starts at home, that may be difficult for some parents to achieve because they were victims of the NUT's approach to teaching in the permissive 1960s?

I agree that young children's conduct is usually laid down by the standards that are set at home long before they go to school. It is wrong to attribute violence in schools and elsewhere to any one set of causes. It is a very complex phenomenon, and we wish to see as much kindly discipline in the home as possible and to support those teachers who are trying to give discipline and good teaching in the classroom.

Will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to explain to families in Britain how a large rise in their mortgage payments combats inflation?

As the right hon. Gentleman saw the figures published yesterday, he will know that there was a necessity to tighten the money supply. I shall repeat what the Chancellor said in his Budget speech:

"Short-term interest rates remain the essential instrument of monetary policy. Within a continuous and comprehensive assessment of monetary conditions, I will continue to set interest rates at the level necessary to ensure downward pressure on inflation."—[Official Report, 15 March 1988; Vol. 192, c. 997.]

Will the Prime Minister tell the people of this country, in the plain language that they deserve to hear, how it is that the average mortgage payer, paying an extra £22 a month for the mortgage on his home, is helping to combat inflation?

If the right hon. Gentleman understood anything about monetary policy, he would not need even to ask that question. Of course an increase in interest rates, when it comes to a certain limit, puts tip mortgage interest rates. Of course that takes other pressure of demand out of the economy. Of course that helps the money supply.

I recall that in the Budget four months ago, the Government got their inflation forecast, their balance of payments forecast and their money supply forecast hideously wrong. Will the Prime Minister, who once said that steep rises in mortgage rates were the result of Government economic mismanagement, explain how big rises in mortgage payments combat inflation?

We do not take lectures on inflation from the Labour party—[Interruption.] For one month the Labour party got inflation down to 7·4 per cent., which was the lowest. Prices rose about as much in a single year during the last Labour Government as they have in the whole of my right hon. Friend's five years as Chancellor.

Without anticipating the contents of the Queen's Speech may I ask my right hon. Friend, whether she agrees that it is vital to introduce legislation in the next Session to ban experiments on the human embryo, a measure for which there would be overwhelming support in the House?

I cannot anticipate everything that will be in the Queen's Speech. I know that very strong views are held on that matter on both sides of the opinion divide and that those views are not necessarily across party lines. We shall need a very great deal of debate before we decide precisely what to put into legislation.

To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 21 July.

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

The Prime Minister and I are both London Members and we are both aware of the enormous increase in house prices in London. Can she tell first-time buyers in London, who are estimated now to have to find another £40 per month on mortgage repayments, how they are better off under her policies? Is that not yet another example of the callous indifference that she shows towards people trying, with all the difficulties of housing in London, to obtain a home while she puts yet further problems in their path?

As I said earlier, it is absolutely vital to keep downward pressure on inflation, because the worst thing for everyone would occur if we had the kind of inflation that was customary under the Labour Government. May I point out to the hon. Gentleman, also as a London Member, that the number of people who own their own houses has greatly increased under this Government and will continue to do so. We shall continue the policy of tax relief on mortgages.

My right hon. Friend will be aware of the phrase "cruel and unusual punishment" which appears in the Bill of Rights that we celebrated yesterday. Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that the Home Office might find itself accused of just that should a prisoner unfortunately be locked up in a cell with a member of the Opposition who has wilfully refused to pay his taxes?

My hon. Friend has made his point more effectively than I could. He is well aware that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has recently published a White Paper on suitable punishments.

To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 21 July.

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

Will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to explain to the House why, last night, she cast her vote to force handicapped people to pay the full rate of poll tax?

For the very good reasons that were given at the time and also because of the enormous increase in benefits that the Government have given to the disabled over the years. We have increased spending on benefits for the long term sick and disabled by more than 80 per cent. over and above inflation, to almost £6·75 billion. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, the mentally handicapped are not liable to the community charge. The physically disabled can receive up to 80 per cent. rebates at higher levels of income than other people, and if they are on income support they will receive help with the other 20 per cent.

To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 21 July.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the practice whereby an elected councillor—[HON. MEMBERS: "Reading".]

Order. I hope that we can conduct Prime Minister's Question Time in good order today.

whereby elected councillors in one borough obtain cushy jobs in a nearby borough at the expense of ratepayers, as Miss Linda Bellos has done, should be outlawed? Will my right hon. Friend take steps to ensure that the recommendations of the Widdicombe report are put into operation as soon as possible?

My hon. Friend has taken a specific example of the things of which the Widdicombe report complained and about which it made proposals to deal. A White Paper is due out on the Widdicombe proposals later today. I have reason to think that it will contain something about the point that my hon. Friend raises.

Whose view does the Prime Minister support on exchange rate management and joining the EMS—that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or that of her adviser over the water, Professor Walters? Is she satisfied to preside over a divided Government? If not, which one will she back, and which one will she sack?

I am very happy to preside over a Government who have such an excellent economic policy, which has produced prosperity at a level undreamed of before in this country. I congratulate the Chancellor on his excellent policies.

To ask the Prime Ministerif she will list her official engagements for Thursday 21 July.

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

In her busy day, has my hon. Friend had time to congratulate the Secretary of State for the Environment on the successful passage of the Local Government Finance Bill—an infinitely fairer, more just and superior system than any combination of local income tax and fresh property tax?

Yes, the new community charge is far fairer than the existing rating system. It is far fairer than any system based on domestic rating revaluation, which would have been extremeley unfair. It is infinitely fairer than any of the Opposition's proposals for an income tax and capital values, which would hit old people very much and mean that everyone would have to reveal his income to their local authority.

Does the Prime Minister appreciate that people's views of the effects of the Local Government Finance Bill will be influenced by their experience of recent legislation, such as the changes in social security? What has the Prime Minister to say to my constituents, such as an unemployed man who this week was told by the social fund officers at Erdington in Birmingham that he must live in an unfurnished flat and that he could not have a crisis loan to buy a cooker or a bed because they considered that it was not a crisis or a risk to health to be without a bed or a cooker?

I am not going to comment on things that the hon. Gentleman suddenly puts to me. He is aware that the amount that has been allocated to the social fund is very similar to that which has been spent in past years—[Interruption.]

Order. We must hear the answers that are given.

The amount that this Government spend on social security benefits of one kind or another is £50 billion—greatly in excess of that spent before.

To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 21 July.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Royal College of Nursing has set a very good example to the rest of the trade union movement in its attitude to industrial relations, especially in its refusal to go on strike? Does she consider that its attitude may have something to do with the fact that, according to today, The Guardian, it has been refused a place to set up its stall at this year's Labour party conference in Blackpool? [Interruption]

Order. The same rules apply to both sides of the House.

rose [Interruption]

Order. It is intolerable for questions to be asked but for the answers not to be heard.

I agree with my hon. Friend that the Royal College of Nursing is a most excellent professional body that sets extremely high standards. It does not believe in going on strike. It puts its commitment to its patients first. I should have thought that that would be applauded by both sides of the House.

The Prime Minister will remember a visit that she paid to my beloved Bilston, where she purchased two large hat pins. In view of her alleged disagreements with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, were they purchased for deflationary purposes?

I warmly endorse and applaud the policies of both my right hon. Friends to whom the hon. Gentleman referred. Sometimes I want hat pins to stir some Opposition Members.

To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 21 July.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the introduction of a national identity card would not only help to control crime but would help with football hooliganism and under-age drinking, and should be feared only by those who have something to hide?

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary answered a question on that matter earlier. A number of cards are used for different purposes. They may be used to purchase drink, to ensure that one is over age, and they may be needed in football grounds. I doubt whether the case has yet been made for a compulsory system of national identity cards, with all that that means. Nevertheless, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has asked the police to update their views on the matter. We would need to make a strong case, and to prove it before a compulsory system of national identity cards is ever introduced.