Commons Chamber

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House Of Commons

Wednesday 19 July 1995

The House met at Ten o'clock

Prayers

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Adjournment (Summer)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House at its rising today do adjourn till Monday 16 October.—[ Mr. Streeter.]

10.4 am

Before the forthcoming Adjournment, I think it right to draw the attention of the House to the unsatisfactory and deteriorating situation at the Liskeard junior school.

I am obliged to remind the House that this is not the first occasion that I have felt it necessary to raise the subject on the Floor of the House. Indeed, the first occasion was in March 1971. On that occasion the Under-Secretary of State for Education who replied was one William van Straubenzee. Sadly, the position has altered little since then.

I should add that during the late 1970s and the 1980s there was relief on the numbers and space at Liskeard junior school as a consequence of the construction of a new Church of England primary school serving the town. However, the advantages gained by that development have now been exhausted. In practice, we are back to the situation of the early 1970s except that the problems are now greater through the combination of higher pupil numbers and the fact that the various buildings that comprise the school, to which I shall come in a moment, are also 25 years older.

The school has a classic market town centre situation. The main buildings were constructed in 1880. They comprise four classrooms, the library, the administrative accommodation and the special needs area. From the 1970s onwards, a series of temporary buildings have been constructed, but, as is so often sadly the case, they have assumed an air of permanence and, because they were constructed as temporary buildings, over the years their maintenance has not been to such a high level as one would have wished and they themselves are causing problems.

I am sure that that set of circumstances is mirrored in all our constituencies. Every time one builds more temporary accommodation to house growing pupil numbers, one cuts down on the playground space. In other words, the position at Liskeard is very unsatisfactory.

The school is centred in the town, adjacent to a main road on a cramped and confined site. I should also mention in that context that, in addition to inadequate space, in recent years there have been problems with the boilers at the school, the hall is totally inadequate and the sports field provision is located away from the school site and there have been times when, for the children's safety, the head teacher and his staff have felt it necessary temporarily to suspend sports field activities.

The number of pupils at the school is roughly 300. During the next three years it is projected that that number will rise to 352.

There is projected housing development in Liskeard. Over the past eight years, on average there have been 100 new dwellings constructed each year. The structure plan for the area allows for a greater increase in housing development. Pressures are being exerted on the school from all sides.

I turn now to the financial position. The school had been allocated, over the next three years, the sum of £220,000. That is part of the basic need bid that the Cornwall county education committee made this year. From my description of the school, its site and its inadequate facilities, I think that the House will realise that it would be futile to spend scarce financial resources on those deteriorating buildings.

Earlier this year, a responsible campaign was undertaken by the parents, in conjunction with the headteacher and his staff and the parent-teacher association. Pressure was put on Cornwall county council. A number of visits to Liskeard were undertaken by county councillors and, as a consequence, they agreed to give Liskeard junior school top priority. In the 25 years that I have been dealing with the county council in my capacity as a Member of Parliament, I have never known it to move so quickly. That testifies to the current unsatisfactory position.

Cornwall made an application to the Department for Education for a supplementary credit approval. A site has been allocated for a new junior school. The total cost of that project will be of the order of £1.6 million. We all recognise that, with the existing constraints on public expenditure, there is no chance of our being successful, in one go, for the whole bid.

Therefore, the school governors have drawn up a rolling new-build project. We are looking for £580,000 for the first phase. Last week, the previous Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), announced that there was to be an allocation of £20 million for supplementary credit approval. Liskeard was allocated just £38,000. I shall not bore the House now with the predictable response to that paltry figure, which was clearly inadequate and, in many ways, an insult.

We are now in a genuine dilemma. Over the next three years, a total of £258,000 has been allocated to Liskeard junior school—a sizeable sum that we do not wish to waste. The purpose of my raising the subject here this morning is to ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House two specific questions that I am sure he will convey to the Department for Education and Employment.

First, I gather that in the autumn further supplementary credit allocations are made by the Department. Will he ensure that the Liskeard application features in that list even though we were successful to the tune of a very modest £38,000 last week? We must keep the project rolling forward. The momentum has been created and the only satisfactory outcome is an allocation of a meaningful amount so that we can start the first phase.

Secondly, during the past few months I have kept in touch with my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch who was the Minister responsible for the financial allocations. We now have a newly appointed Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan). I have already extended an invitation to her to visit Liskeard. I hope that I have been able to impress on my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House the urgency of the situation. I hope that he will support me in trying to persuade my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State that she should visit Liskeard as early as possible in the forthcoming autumn 1995 term.

10.14 am

I am delighted to have been called to speak this morning as I wish to raise the subject of the Coxhoe medical practice in my constituency and the events that have occurred over the past few days, which are nothing less than an absolute disgrace.

It is important for me to give a brief history of the medical practice. Until two years ago, seven doctors served 12,000 patients in a newly formed budget-holding practice. The practice served the villages of Coxhoe, Cassop, Kelloe, Quarrington Hill, Bowburn, which is in my constituency, and West Cornforth, a village in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair).

Within six months, three partners left the practice and the other four doctors separated. One, Dr. Pollard, set up a practice in the village of Bowburn. Another, Dr. Drew, set up a practice in West Cornforth. The other two doctors, Dr. Woods and Dr. Shami, remained in Coxhoe with the bulk of the practice—about 8,000 patients. From a state-of-the-art surgery, with all modern facilities, Dr. Pollard moved to Bowburn, to a room in the local community centre with virtually no facilities. Dr. Drew moved into one room in a house in West Cornforth, again with few facilities.

Dr. Woods and Dr. Shami have apparently struggled to keep the Coxhoe practice going, with nearly 8,000 patients between them. I am told that that is an impossible workload and they have finally had to accept that they are overwhelmed and cannot cope with the number of patients. The maximum that any general practitioner is allowed to have on his or her books is 3,500 patients.

The practice in Coxhoe has survived with a number of locum doctors who have now all left. The Coxhoe doctors have tried in vain to find new partners, or even locums, to keep the surgery and the practice ticking over. It appears that there are just not enough doctors to go around—the Coxhoe surgery is two short. On making investigations, I have found that the rest of the county of Durham is a further 18 doctors short. I am told that, nationally, there is a shortage of literally hundreds of general practitioners.

The two vacant posts have been advertised four times, including once in the "Irish Medical Journal". Four candidates were interviewed when the first advertisement appeared in the papers and one was appointed. She subsequently took another post elsewhere and did not turn up for the job. Six doctors responded to the second interview, but eventually all withdrew. The third and fourth advertisements produced no response.

As a consequence—and the reason why I desperately needed to address the House this morning—the Coxhoe doctors announced that they have asked the family health services authority to remove 2,500 patients from their lists and find new doctors for those people. The practice has identified the 2,500 patients to be removed from the list. The only exceptions that will be made in those areas, which include Kelloe and Cassop, will be terminally ill patients.

Although all the patients removed from the list will be found other doctors, it is a deplorable situation. Many people will have to travel long distances to find a new doctor. Many mothers with children, and pensioners, will have to go by foot or catch a number of buses, and will have to travel much further than was previously necessary. Those people's local surgery, which many of them raised funds to develop, will no longer be theirs. Many have been patients at the surgery for 40 to 70 years or more and it is outrageous that they have been dumped, thrown off the lists.

It should not surprise hon. Members to know that the affluent parts of the practice have been retained and the less affluent parts have been dumped. Some patients removed from the surgery have received letters and others wait in trepidation for their letters to arrive. As hon. Members can imagine, wholesale panic has set in, and old people in particular are worried sick about the situation because they do not know whether they will be able to see a doctor—if they ever can.

Questions must be asked about how this situation arose and who is to blame for it. At the weekend I was never off the telephone. I spoke to the chairman of the family health services association, I met members of the Durham health commission and I spoke to the doctors. I have had about 30 constituents at my surgery. Anyone who listens to the arguments can draw different conclusions. The doctors of Coxhoe, the FHSA and the county Durham health commission say that there is a desperate shortage of doctors. Therefore, according to them the blame lies with the Government. They tell me that cuts that were made some years ago in the Government programme for training doctors have resulted in a desperate shortage of doctors. Also to blame are the Government changes in the funding arrangements for general practices. Those were changed in 1990 to encourage doctors to set up clinics and other services. Disastrously, not enough money was allocated to cover all the new services that were set up.

The doctors and others have told me that the expectations of newly trained doctors "have moved with the times". That is a nice way of putting it. Doctors do not expect to be on duty at all hours of the day and night or for unbearably long periods. I am also told that they are not attracted to country practices such as those at Coxhoe, Kelloe and Cassop but are attracted to the lush suburban practices that are favoured by the latest funding arrangements of the NHS.

Taking a different perspective, because I sit on the fence on this issue as I do not know who is to blame, is it not strange that a large, successful practice, one of the first to accept the bribes to go fundholding—those are not my words but those of one of the partners some years ago—should disintegrate within six months? I am told that some of the partners do not speak to each other and that the office manager was ignored by some of the doctors because they disliked her so much and that they communicated with her only through a third party. I am told that one or two of the doctors left the surgery because of her and that the atmosphere was so bad that other doctors would not work there or wanted to be away. If that is accurate, is it any wonder that the practice cannot get recruits?

Was it the disunity and incompatibility of the doctors that broke up the practice and led to the eventual catastrophe that my constituents have had to suffer? The dreadful consequences are that patients have been dumped from the list and do not know whether they have a doctor. Internal squabbles in the practice should not have been the first issue: the first issue for any doctor or practice should be the patients that they serve.

Out of 12,000 patients in a state-of-the-art practice fewer than half now enjoy the facilities. Some 2,000 do not know who their doctor will be and the others are seen in substandard conditions compared with what they were used to for many years. It is important that the practice remains intact: it must not be allowed to disintegrate. I urgently request the Leader of the House to take the matter up with the Secretary of State for Health and ask him to intervene, perhaps along with the regional health authority, because it is now clear that the FHSA and Durham health commission are not prepared to intervene. That is not a criticism because they have done their best to get doctors. Unfortunately, they have not been able to do that and now the matter must be subject to ministerial pressure and perhaps the help of the regional health authority.

We must ensure that adequate temporary cover is found so that the practice can continue without kicking out 2,500 patients. Temporary cover should continue until new, permanent appointments can be made to the practice to enable it to continue as before.

I ask the Leader of the House to request an investigation to see why the events that I have outlined have occurred. It is in the interests of the Government to do that because their policies are being blamed for the disaster although, as I have explained, as far as I can see there are two sides to the story. I am not making any judgment whatever, but there should be an investigation to find out exactly what happened and why this tragedy has occurred. Some 2,500 people have been disregarded by the doctors whom they trusted. Those people need help and only the Secretary of State for Health and the Government can halt this despicable situation.

10.26 am

I should like to make five brief points that I hope the Government will bear in mind before we adjourn because it would be scandalous if we adjourned without looking at them. The first item, which I hope the Government and all hon. Members will consider seriously, is the simple fact that spending on agriculture is once again out of control and will continue to get worse.

It is rather sad to hear hon. Members speaking with great feeling and passion about the needs of the education authorities for more money for schools when at the same time an appalling amount is poured down the agricultural drain. That situation is getting worse every year, although the House tries to confuse and mislead itself that things are getting better.

I have a copy of the European Community's general budget for 1996. It contains precise, clear figures and it should be available in the House next week. It shows that spending on agriculture by the EC on the common agricultural policy has increased by 25 per cent. in two years. The figures show that the amount spent is £90 million a day, which is £630 million a week or £2.6 billion a month. What worries me is that we are consistently told by the Government that reforms are coming and that changes are about to occur. But everyone knows, clearly and precisely, that there is no possible way in which we could reform this filthy, evil policy which is no more than a protection racket and an invitation to fraud.

I appeal to the Government and to the Liberal Democrats, who have always fought for people and their rights, to say what the blazes we are to do about the policy when the figures show that it is out of control. Sometimes the Government say, "Their spending has gone up and ours has come down." That is again absolute codswallop because every hon. Member who takes an interest in agriculture, as some do, knows that national spending is higher since we joined the EC and that it continues to rise. The situation is getting considerably worse.

Every hon. Member who pleads with the Government to spend money on hospitals, schools, doctors or anything else should realise that we are pouring enormous amounts of money down an open drain, that the drain is becoming larger every year and that there is absolutely no possibility of the policy being reformed. That cannot happen as a result of people sitting around a table and at some stage we will have to face it.

Secondly, I appeal to the Government to stop what I regard as a conspiracy of silence on European Union information. Over the past 48 hours I tabled two questions, one of which asked for information on the amount that we had spent on agriculture over the past 10 years. That seemed a simple question.

I asked another question about the amount that we have paid in net to the European Union in the past 10 years. The Government have rightly said that Members should not be allowed to table questions about information that is freely available in the House of Commons Library. The sad fact is that to get that information I would have to ask the Librarian to look up 10 separate documents. What was meant to be a protection against abuse has now simply become a means by which factual information about the European Union that the Government do not want to be revealed no longer appears in official publications of the House of Commons.

Why on earth should we not tell people what money we have contributed to the EU in the past 10 years? Why should we not tell them about our expenditure on the CAP?

The third issue to which we must face up is border controls. Once again, I believe that the House is deliberately seeking to evade the straight facts. Some hon. Members may say that I am rather obsessed about border controls, but I appeal to them to reread the announcement about our entry into the exchange rate mechanism. Then, every single Member said that that was wonderful news, which would bring stability and create jobs. If anyone had studied the announcement with common sense they would have realised that it was complete economic nonsense.

On border controls we are simply jumping up and down and saying that we will veto any EU measures. We have said that we will make absolutely sure that we retain our border controls. The plain fact is we simply cannot do that. As we know, our border controls are fading away almost every month. Whereas we used to require people to show their passports at the border, because of the problems of legislation, we agreed that we would operate only what is called the Bangemann wave, whereby people wave their passport at the control. We then agreed that we would let people in with identity cards. The unions who control our borders have said that more than 50 per cent. of all illegal immigrants come from the EU.

What about our remaining border controls? The Government are well aware, as is every Member, provided he or she faces up to it, that our only border protection is the declaration attached to the Single European Act. If that has any validity, can the Government tell me why Commissioner Monti published three directives which will effectively remove all British border controls? He could not have done that if the treaty law was clear. There is only one thing we can do: simply ask that the declaration attached to the Single European Act is transferred into a treaty clause at the intergovernmental conference next year.

If we want to keep our border controls we must make it clear that nothing can be discussed until the issue has been clarified. The Government tell us that those wise, delightful and sensible people all signed the declaration and that we must take their word for it. Their word does not count for anything before the European court. The Government are well aware that proceedings have been initiated by the European Parliament against the European Commission, which issued those directives. Although the Government say that they will stand firm and throw those directives out, individual legal actions will involve the payment of massive damages. It will not be possible to keep people out of the United Kingdom unless we have the courage to say we will try to enshrine our border protection in treaty law.

My hon. Friend suggests that there should be a treaty change to make our control over our borders absolutely total and uncontroversial. If there is a treaty change, that treaty must then be ratified by every country in the European Union. Is my hon. Friend optimistic that such a treaty would be ratified?

No, I am certainly not, and that is the problem. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the other member states will not want to ratify it. All we are asking is that something at the back of a treaty should be put at the front of it. We are not advocating any change in wording, but just to transfer those words from one place to another.

Other member states such as Belgium and Holland will not support such a change. At next year's IGC the Government should ensure that there is no discussion on anything until the issue has been resolved. Hon. Members may say that that is not a helpful way to solve things. They may ask why we cannot sit round a table to discuss it. We hear that request every five years or so, when we are told that we should adopt a positive approach. Quite frankly, unless we demand that change, border controls will be kaput, as we will find out when the matter is discussed before the European Court. We must wake up to that fact.

What on earth are we going to do about fixed exchange rates? Hon. Members will be well aware that we had a bad experience with the ERM. Under the Maastricht treaty, the next time we go into the ERM, there is no way out of it. That decision is irreversible and unchangeable. Even if that led to massive unemployment and the borrowing of lots of money, we would have to stay on in the ERM. I have been trying, deliberately and precisely, in every way I can to get an assurance from the Government that before we opt again for fixed exchange rates, that decision will be subject to a decision in the House of Commons. I even asked the Prime Minister yesterday

"if it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to advise the House and seek its advice before a decision is made to act as though sterling was in a fixed exchange rate arrangement under the EMU arrangements set out in the Maastricht treaty;"

He referred me to a delightful answer given by the Department of Trade and Industry, which simply said that we might have a referendum on a single currency.

The Leader of the House is a straight guy and he knows what the score is. Basically it does not matter two hoots about a decision on a single currency in comparison with fixed exchange rates. Once we are in such a mechanism all we will have is the equivalent of a Scottish pound note. Before we break for the recess, surely we should decide that before we go back into the ERM, the House of Commons will be asked to decide on that. If we cannot have that assurance, what the blazes is the point of having a democratic Parliament?

Has my hon. Friend forgotten that the Prime Minister has made a commitment not to join the ERM under any circumstances before the next election?

I am well aware of that statement. My hon. Friend should recall a previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, who gave us similar assurances. He joined the ERM unofficially, which one can do. What is wrong about having a clear statement from the Government—I should be grateful for a similar statement from the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties—that before any such move is made, the House will vote on it? The ERM is not fun. Our entry last time created half a million extra unemployed. Decent, honourable people of our country were made unemployed because idiots approved of the ERM.

I should just like to put on the record that some of us on the Conservative Benches have no dispute with the principle of entry into the ERM. It is possible that we joined at the wrong level. We were certainly at the wrong level by 1992, when our membership of it so was mismanaged by the then Chancellor, who has since become a hero to my hon. Friend's wing of the party.

I do not think we can solve the problem by attacking Ministers. It is most unfortunate that when some of us try to deal with a real issue, some of my colleagues simply tried to indulge in party disputes and assault Ministers. We should stop that silly political nonsense of saying, "He's a baddie and she's a baddie." We should look at the issue. My hon. Friend must know that half a million decent people in Britain were put out of work because of the appalling ERM. I am sad to say that the majority of the House voted for our entry into it, although I voted against. All I am saying to the Government is, "Don't do it again without asking us."

I hope that the Leader of the House will accept that we simply must have a chat about the problems of transport to grammar schools. The Government are aware that those schools are controversial—some people think that they are a good idea, others think that they are bad. My right hon. Friend is also aware that some of those schools operate a 6 per cent. entrance policy, which basically makes them minority schools for up-market people. In some places, such as Southend, however, 25 per cent. of our kids go to them.

I am sad to say that Essex county council has today abolished free transport for children who go to grammar schools. Some of the Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors are decent people. The leader of Essex county council, who is a Liberal Democrat, is one of the nicest people I have ever met. The council has been misled on the basis of a couple of cases where children travel miles and miles and cost the council a fortune. The council has asked why it should pay for them.

I live in Southend-on-Sea and my kids have all gone to the council schools and done very well. There is no problem where I live, because pupils can walk to the grammar school, as my daughter does. One part of Southend, Shoeburyness, is miles away from the grammar schools. The council's declared policy will simply mean that children from one part of Southend will have to pay for their transport to school. That will be expensive and those children may be deprived of the opportunity to attend a grammar school, unlike children in other areas of Southend. That seems completely wrong. I hope that the Government will take the view that where there are grammar schools—where the local people decide that they want them—every child should have an equal opportunity to attend them. It is not right that some people, like me and my kids, can walk to the grammar schools, while others are prevented from attending them simply because they live too far away and are too poor to afford the necessary transport.

We should think about poor people. I say to the Labour and Liberal Democrat members of the Essex county council, "Please think about the poor families in our area who are being deprived of a great opportunity. Please remember your duty to them."

10.40 am

I want to spend a few minutes suggesting some thoughts, reflections and priorities that should occupy some of the time of our new Secretary of State for Wales during the recess. No one should underestimate the strength of feeling that has been expressed to me, not about the personality of the new Secretary of State, but about the way that he was appointed. People are fed up of being pawns in some internal Conservative party game. It is the most important political appointment made in Wales, but we do not believe that the Prime Minister sat down and asked himself who would be the best person for the job and, indeed, what jobs he would want him to do in Wales. We do not believe that those factors played any part in the appointment of the new Secretary of State.

Having said that, I must tell the Leader of the House that we have worked with successive Conservative Secretaries of State and, in some respects, harmoniously. I even worked with the previous Secretary of State—my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood)—and although we were ideologically poles apart, we still managed to get on with the business of working together to foster the common good of the communities that I represent.

I hope that the new Secretary of State will come to Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney—his predecessor did so on more than one occasion—where he will find a curious, enigmatic mixture of our experiences under successive Conservative Secretaries of State. He will see a great deal of development, such as important infrastructure changes and the development of the A470. He will hear our hopes for making the A465 a dual carriageway. He will also see one of the most important and expansive land reclamation schemes in Europe to remove the backlog of 150 years of industrial dereliction.

The right hon. Gentleman will find a vigorous partnership between local authorities, his Department and other agencies trying their best to remove the locational obstacles to development, which have been such a problem to and a burden on communities such as mine. He will find many good things happening in my constituency—I have always acknowledged that—as a result of the working partnership between the Welsh Office, the local authority and other agencies. He will find a local authority which, because of the persuasive character of myself and other hon. Members, is to enjoy the restoration of Merthyr's proud county borough status. We managed to persuade the previous Secretary of State to be a listening Secretary of State in that important respect.

Unfortunately, below the appearance and even the actuality of the developments in my community, serious issues are causing problems and they desperately need to be addressed. Quite frankly, the appearance of development conceals the cumulative growing social and economic problems faced by families and by the community as a whole. Far, far too many people are without jobs; far, far too many people—men in particular—are economically inactive. One estimate based on the 1991 census suggests that up to 40 per cent. of men of working age in my constituency are economically inactive. That is not healthy, it is not right and it cannot be ignored.

Despite all the modest improvements in local employment, there is still a massive problem. We have to live with the fact that far too many people are out of work. I was in the House in 1972—I am not sure whether the Leader of the House was—when a Conservative Government rightly panicked because the unemployment total had hit 1 million. They had to introduce an emergency budget because there were 1 million people out of work. Now, we have to live with the fact that more than 3 million people are out of work.

My constituency has an especially high unemployment rate, so the first problem that the new Secretary of State will have to deal with is the sense of resignation, even fatalism, now felt not only by young people but by the middle aged, who believe that they will never get a quality job again. The Secretary of State should talk to people in employment in Wales because I am afraid that there is no feel good factor among them. Many of them feel that they are working harder for less money. Low pay in the community is as demoralising as no pay at all. It is a serious issue.

I was fascinated and, indeed, impressed by a lecture given by the right hon. Gentleman's previous boss, the Secretary of State for Social Security. He said:

"This widening of earning differentials between the skilled and unskilled does not just affect unemployment. It lies behind, or is intertwined with, many of our social problems. It may play a major part in the break up of families, the growth of lone parenthood, and a growing welfare dependency. It may even play a part in explaining delinquency and crime."

There are certainly wide earning differentials in my community.

The Government have said that they want to roll back the state and remove its power from people's lives. I am sad to tell the new Secretary of State that during my political lifetime the state has never been more intrusive than it is now in the lives of people in my constituency. It is one of the saddest and most ironic consequences of economic developments during the past 15 to 20 years. People are now more dependent on the state. The state is more intrusive in their lives because they are dependent upon it for benefit because of redundancy and unemployment. We do not want that. The image that we actually like such dependency is nonsense. Indeed, the measure introduced by the right hon. Gentleman in his previous job to introduce a new incapacity test and remove people from invalidity benefit will have a dramatic effect on purchasing power in my community. He will be able to see the effects of those changes on the people in Wales.

What should be the new Secretary of State's priority? He must try to break through the resignation and fatalism felt by so many about the chances of getting a decent job. I am glad to say that he succeeds to a Welsh Office that has never really bought Thatcherism. It has done its own thing under successive Secretaries of State. It has the capacity and power to manipulate skilfully. It can use its powers to work with other agencies to create jobs and attract inward investment.

Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman's first priority must be to put the Welsh Development Agency back on track. The Leader of the House will be aware that it has suffered a sad, distracting and debilitating series of problems, which in my opinion arose partly because the agency had taken its eye off the central need, which is to create jobs, especially in the manufacturing sector. Recent figures show that inward investment has fallen. We do not know whether that is directly associated with the WDA's performance, but it certainly cannot have been any help.

When people say to me, "Where will the jobs come from? Jobs can't be created any more", I say to them that they are already in south Wales. All along the M4 corridor, from Sony to National Panasonic, are large and major assembly plants. Components pour into those plants; a series of manufacturing services are required to maintain them. It must be a major new priority to change the source of an increasing proportion of that component work and manufacturing services and channel that into neighbouring communities, such as mine, which are adjacent to the great assembly plants that have been attracted by inward investment. In other words, the jobs are already there; we need simply to ensure that a higher proportion of component and manufacturing needs are served by local companies in south Wales. That should be the Secretary of State's priority.

I have argued with successive Secretaries of State that we should have not only a "Source Wales" but a "Source Valleys" campaign. We need more than words and glossy brochures; we need the Government to use their powers to attract and develop component making and manufacturing services for our great assembly plants. Although there have been many good efforts, the results are rather poor. The new Secretary of State should set himself and us targets for the future development of jobs of that kind which will break through the fatalism and sense of resignation still felt by so many communities.

10.49 am

I thank you, Madam Speaker, for calling me to speak on what I believe to be an important subject, one that the House should debate before the summer recess. I am referring to the imminent sale of 51 per cent. of the shares in Birmingham airport to Lockheed, the American company. During questions on the business statement last week, I asked the Leader of the House for a debate or statement on this topic. I am therefore grateful for this opportunity to raise the matter before the recess.

The airport is currently in public ownership and owned jointly by the metropolitan boroughs in the west midlands. My interest is that of a Member of Parliament for one of those boroughs. You, Madam Speaker, also have a constituency interest in the future of the airport. Dudley is one of the boroughs involved, and it is interesting to note that the Labour leader of the council in Dudley is also the chairman of the company that currently owns the airport. One of my constituents also wishes to be given the opportunity to purchase the airport. He is Roy Richardson, a large business man in the black country.

Following my request last Thursday, I was rather surprised that the chairman of the airport company, Councillor Hunt, should tell me not to interfere in the future of the airport but to look after my constituents. That is exactly what I am doing and what I intend to continue to do. It seems that the Labour council leaders involved enjoy their ownership of it and treat it as a toy that they, like children, refuse to give up.

I raise this issue at a time when it is accepted that the airport's future financing depends on its being able to attract private sector investment. That has been clearly stated and accepted by the councils involved. The former Minister for Aviation and Shipping, Lord Caithness, advised local Labour councillors how to go about raising more money for future development and told them the Government's view some time ago.

My first question is why are we selling only 51 per cent. of the shares? Surely it would be for the benefit of the councils and the taxpayers to sell 100 per cent. of the holding currently in the public sector. Many airports are currently run efficiently and successfully in the private sector. They do not need worthy councillors interfering with commercial decisions; they decide on commercial grounds how to run those airports and do so with great success. Whether the sale is of 51 per cent. or 100 per cent. of the holding, it is essential that it is completely above board and not decided over sandwiches in a smoke-filled room. For the benefit of the public purse, the councillors should get the very best price for the assets that they hold.

I wrote to the Department of Transport asking what the Government's view was. On 11 May, I received a reply from Viscount Goschen who was by then the Minister for Aviation and Shipping. I was advised:

"It is up to the local authority owners to decide how privatisation should take place, though they will of course be mindful of the need to satisfy their auditors that they have obtained the best price."

It is important that the best price is obtained for the public good. I question whether speaking to only two foreign companies, which are presumably offering the councillors an agreement as to how the 49 per cent. holding will be handled, will necessarily obtain the best price.

In the west midlands, there are three potential purchasers, all with local interests—National Express, West Midland Travel and the Richardson brothers. They have not been given the opportunity to be considered or told exactly for what they should be tendering. I do not wish to make political points although Opposition Members suspect that I may be doing so. However, I shall quote briefly from a newspaper article written, not by a Conservative, but by Graham Findlay in The Birmingham Post on 14 April. The article is headed "Politics leaves bids grounded", and a secondary heading reads,

"Graham Findlay blames 'old Labour' for the row over Birmingham Airport's sell-off'.

The article states:

"There is a sinister political sub-text to the reasons given in public for refusing to consider three Midland bidders for Birmingham International Airport.

The three who are being left out in the cold are National Express, West Midlands Travel and the property developers the Richardson twins…

Officially, the councils say they want the 'internationally-recognised and relevant strategic skills' which the Irish and American buyers could provide …

But behind the plausible reasons for wanting foreign partners at the airport lies what appears to be blatant political prejudice on the part of the seven councils.

At the end of last year West Midlands Travel and BZW, advisers to the councils, were involved in some preliminary talks over the deal.

But then it became apparent that the sale of WMT to National Express would make WMT's managers a great deal of money …

And it is said that once news of the payments became known, several Labour councillors insisted they would have nothing more to do with WMT or National Express as potential partners at the airport …

Meanwhile, Don and Roy Richardson have also fallen foul of the Labour cabal."

These are not my words but those of Graham Findlay in The Birmingham Post. The article continues:

"The Richardsons have had faith in the West Midlands through lean years as well as fat, investing in new projects during the recessions of the early 1980s and the early 1990s.

Yet they are not wanted at the airport. As Mr. Roy Richardson says: 'They are happy for us to do the dirty jobs but when the juicy ones come up, we are left out.'

Once again, we see the local Town Halls' avoidance of successful examples of successful local capitalists.

But for many Labour councillors, the Richardsons face another prejudice. They have been known in the past to lend their support to the Conservative Party.

That alone would almost certainly prove too much for some Labour councillors to stomach."

We now know why they are excluded from being considered for future ownership of the airport. The other two potential purchasers are in no way political, but the whole issue needs to be tackled before the recess. It is especially urgent that the matter be discussed now because the local councillors who currently own the airport are likely before the end of the month to accept a bid from Lockheed to become their partner with a 51 per cent. holding.

I should like to ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House what can be done, first, to stop the political fiddling; secondly, to ensure that everyone—especially those actively involved in industry in the west midlands—has a fair opportunity to bid for the airport; and thirdly—this is important for all our constituents—to ensure that we obtain the best price for the sale of this public asset.

10.58 am

May I take the Leader of the House away from the tribulations of Birmingham airport to the more tranquil setting of the River Tweed in Roxburghshire? Before I do so, I must say that Scottish Members owe him a great debt for enabling the House to go into recess relatively early this year. Scottish Members who might have had difficulties greatly appreciate the additional scope that we now have for taking family holidays before school begins again in August.

Before we adjourn for the long summer recess, I ask the House to consider the system of allocation of capital borrowing consents which are to be used by the new Scottish unitary authorities after 1 April next year. As the House will know, in April 1996, the number of Scottish authorities—currently nine regional councils plus three islands authorities—will be increased to 32 unitary councils consisting of 29 unitary land-based authorises and three islands councils. One does not have to be an accountant to recognise that, by virtue of that fact, a larger number of authorities with smaller capital budgets will lead to potential difficulties in paying for unusually large capital projects.

It is a matter of concern across parties that a new system for allocating those important capital borrowing consents has not yet been finalised. A rumour is going around that there will be a system of allocating 75 per cent. of the budgets to the local councils with a residual 25 per cent. being top-sliced and kept in a central pool for allocation on a national basis to larger capital projects.

Whether or not that is true, the planning processes of a number of larger capital projects are being stymied because of the uncertainty. If the matter is not soon resolved by proper consultation with the local authorities concerned, that inevitable confusion and uncertainty will serve to delay further the start of the larger Scottish capital projects involved. Certainly, to go through the long summer recess without that matter being resolved will cause great concern.

To illustrate the point, I shall cite the case of my own roads authority—the Borders regional council—which has had a project ready and awaiting capital borrowing consent for more than two years. The local authority in the Borders region sees an urgent need to build a new road bridge across the River Tweed down river of the Rennie-designed road bridge which joins the two halves of the town of Kelso. The Rennie bridge is a grade A listed building. It was built many years ago, it is an exceptional piece of architecture and any sensible system should preserve it on an architectural and heritage basis for the benefit of future generations. It was certainly never designed to cope with the volume of traffic or, indeed, the size of vehicles today, 12,000 of which cross it daily.

The road platform on the bridge is extremely narrow—it is not up to modern standards—and it is far too narrow for safe pedestrian use. Indeed, a recent tragedy occurred when a fire engine travelling across the bridge went through the parapet wall and fell the long drop into the River Tweed killing one of the fire crew which was responding to an emergency call. That underlines the danger of the Rennie bridge being the only one available to the population and the local community.

The intolerable traffic congestion which is building up because of the bottle-neck Caused by the bridge is inconvenient to the point of interfering with the normal economic life of the town. The local roads authority has paid careful attention to that factor in identifying the need for a replacement bridge. In addition, the fabric of the environment of the centre of Kelso is being knocked to bits by the through traffic, which is forced—because there is no other route—to go through the town centre to cross the Tweed over the Rennie bridge. If anything happens to cause the bridge to close, as was the case with the fire engine tragedy, the diversions required to get to other bridges which cross the Tweed are totally unacceptable, involving detours of some 20 miles in total. A new road bridge would provide relief on all those fronts and is now long overdue.

Public initiatives have been sponsored by the people of Kelso to make their anger and frustration known to Ministers. They included a massive petition which I presented to Ministers and a delegation which I led to see the Scottish Office Minister with responsibility for roads. However, the people of Kelso now feel dismay bordering on outrage because Scottish Office Ministers refused to sanction the necessary consents for the project for the second year running in April this year.

The Borders regional roads authority has an annual capital allocation of just over £4 million. The Kelso road bridge replacement will cost around £8 million. One does not have to be an accountant to appreciate how difficult it is to pay for an £8 million project out of a £4 million annual budget. The galling thing is that almost £1 million of capital expenditure had been committed by the Borders regional roads authority to financing public inquiries, initial survey and design work and acquiring the land to enable the new bridge to be built. That money is tied up, serving no useful purpose and it will have no effect until central Government consent is forthcoming to start building the new Kelso bridge.

In addition, and compounding local anger, Scottish Office Ministers have been unfairly leading on the local authority by appearing to agree the consents necessary for the new bridge in principle when the project appeared in the on-going transport forward planning documents required by statute to be lodged by the local authority. The documents have been submitted and approved by Ministers without demur or comment. The implication is that if the plans are in the three-year rolling programme, they will be given capital consent approval when their time comes. Yet now, although the bridge is ready to be built, Ministers are actively withholding the additional £2 million borrowings needed by the local authority in each of two consecutive years to allow the new road bridge to be built.

I give due notice to the Government and Scottish Office Ministers in particular that the people of Kelso will persist in raising this issue on a regular and frequent basis until the Scottish Office recognises the urgency of the need for a new bridge at Kelso. In the meantime, I urge the Leader of the House to draw the matter to the attention of the new Secretary of State for Scotland. The Secretary of State has a new ministerial team and the chance to look afresh at the merits of this case. I make. two pleas. First, urgent steps should be taken to agree a new system of allocating borrowing consents for all the new councils in Scotland after next April, because it is delaying important planning of unusually big projects.

Secondly, and particularly, urgent reconsideration should be given to the approval of borrowing consent for the building of a new road bridge for Kelso. I would be much obliged if the Leader of the House could take whatever opportunity he has to raise those matters urgently with his colleagues in the Scottish Office.

11.7 am

As we enter the long recess, I want to air a few matters on my mind before summer atrophy sets in to political and parliamentary life. The first matter is Bosnia. It is right to hold an emergency debate this evening on that subject. I asked to speak in this debate before I knew that there would be an emergency debate. So, since a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and having been called, I shall speak on Bosnia in this debate as I cannot guarantee being called in the later debate. I hope that the emergency debate might even prevent us from being recalled during the recess to react to yet another dangerous escalation of activity in that region.

Whatever happens, however palpable the failure of the central purpose of the United Nations and NATO mission, there seems to be no sticking point at which Her Majesty's Government say, "That is enough, we must change direction." Lately, we appear to be driven by French taunts of appeasement. They are taken more seriously by us because of our relations in the European Union and our efforts at foreign and defence policy co-ordination. Those efforts will be soured if we give the French a dose of realpolitik rather than indulge their spirit of moral crusade, which is frankly indistinguishable from the ravings of Gladstone over a century ago, and as damaging to British interests.

The comparison by President Chirac concerning appeasement in the 1930s is a ludicrous historical analysis. The threat of Hitler's Germany was wholly different, not least in directly and vitally affecting the peace and security of this country as well as of France.

Facing the challenge confronting us in the former Yugoslavia, we desperately need a clear and accurate historical perspective. Every now and again during the past century and a half, the eastern question, which is centred on what to do about power struggles and atrocities in the Balkans and the pot-boiling interventions of interested nations, stirs demands for some definite action. Most people are relieved that they are not asked to understand, let alone to unravel, the intricacies of a geographical and historical tangle that is more complex than the Gordian knot. On occasions—now is one of them—matters become deadly serious for our country.

We are ordering our service men to risk their lives for the present policy of supporting a United Nations operation, ostensibly with the laudable peacekeeping humanitarian objective of saving lives and bloodshed, but increasingly risking the waging of war in furtherance of those aims. The truth is that there is no peace to keep in the war zones of Bosnia and no agreement between the warring factions that is likely to bring it about.

The British interest and the limits of British power need to be clearly understood and defined. It would be madness for us to attempt, whatever the shadow Foreign Secretary urges us to do, with the French and whoever else joins us, to pick sides and to impose peace. There is no overwhelming public support for fighting such a war. The United States has no intention of committing ground troops to Bosnia for anything but aiding a general withdrawal of United Nations troops once it has seen beyond question that the peacekeeping mission has run its course. Withdrawal, even with full air support, is no easy task and will undoubtedly involve the abandonment of military equipment. It will also mean lifting the arms embargo.

Withdrawal and lifting the arms embargo would have the catastrophic consequences to which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister referred yesterday. But our objectives must be limited to our power to carry them out and that applies to the whole United Nations and NATO effort. There is no ignominy in withdrawing when we have decided that our humanitarian efforts are no longer sufficiently succeeding. Every moment longer we remain, we shall be held responsible by both sides for what happens. We shall be associated with the bloodshed and we shall face impossible demands from both sides to act or to cease from acting.

At present, we have a classic example. The Bosnians say that they will use United Nations personnel as human shields unless NATO air strikes are called against the Serbs. The Serbs say that they will kill United Nations personnel if air strikes are used. It reminds me of the dilemma faced by Elizabeth Bennett in "Pride and Prejudice" over the marriage proposal from Mr. Collins. She was told by her father:

"From this day forward you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins and I will never see you again if you do."

Our policy on Bosnia should now be to recognise that direct negotiations between the warring parties will not happen in the foreseeable future. The United States will not get involved with ground troops and without United States involvement in a world crisis of this kind, we certainly cannot make substantial headway. We should direct our diplomatic and military efforts, with the United Nations, to contain the fighting and to prevent it from spreading into peaceful parts of the former Yugoslavia or over the borders into other countries. That has been our traditional historical role in the Balkans and to that role we should return as soon as possible.

I turn briefly to more domestic politics and I shall look well beyond recent troubles and the unnecessary bloodletting of the recent leadership election. The Government now require a coherent strategy based on clear policy and decisive, competent action. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister must capitalise—a good Conservative word which I hope is back in fashion—on his victory in the recent leadership election by delivering decisive and competent action. Our constituents must be able to recognise it.

In recent days, the words of Southey about the battle of Blenheim have been running through my mind and I want to share them with you, Madam Deputy Speaker. He wrote:

"Everybody praised the Duke Who this great fight did win. 'But what good came of it at last? Quoth little Peterkin. 'Why that I cannot say' said he 'But 'twas a famous victory.'"

Good must indeed be seen to come at last to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and to the fortunes of this Government, and the electorate must be able to identify with it and to feel it.

We have a reshuffled Government in place, the most noteworthy creation being the new post of First Secretary of State and Deputy Prime Minister, with a flexible job description to give ample scope to the energies of my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). In speculating on the likely success of such a creation, it is interesting to note the words of Rab Butler in his excellent autobiography, "The Art of the Possible". In referring to the relaunch of the Conservative Government after the night of the long knives in July 1962, he wrote:

"I was named First Secretary of State and invited to act as Deputy Prime Minister, a title which can constitutionally imply no right to the succession and should (I would advise with the benefit of hindsight) be neither conferred nor accepted."

We must wish my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley—and ourselves—every good fortune with that job. My right hon. Friend certainly has work to do in it.

I do not detect in my constituency any hunger for a Labour Government. Frankly, that is so whatever the notoriously unreliable and ephemeral opinion polls and local election reversals might suggest. It is not difficult to identify the policies on which our political recovery will be based. They are not complicated, they are traditional Conservative ones and they have been aired most notably by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) in recent weeks. Those policies include lower taxation, support for the prudent pensioner, especially those, mainly women, now in their 70s and 80s, support for small businesses through tax and rate changes, a reduction in public expenditure and the bureaucracy that underpins it, strong defence and the maintenance of our traditions.

We should not, for instance, be proposing to cease Royal Navy mast manning and field gun exercises which continue to have real relevance to training, fitness and morale, and which cost peanuts compared with the expenditure on desk jobs in the Ministry of Defence and other Government Departments, which inspire no one in Portsmouth or anywhere else with a sense of the glory of our military traditions. What Conservative Minister with any pretensions to a soul could consider signing such a demolition order and consigning such useful traditions to untimely collapse? Instinct alone should stay his hand. We must stop doing such things if we are to regain the respect and trust of the electorate.

The same goes for agreeing to shut or amalgamate successful and popular small schools or hospitals. To those who believe that it is impossible to cut public expenditure by significant amounts, I refer the excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington (Mr. Townend) in last Tuesday's economic debate. If I had time, I could add to it and I will certainly do so in due course. I refer those who scoff and who say that it is impossible to cut taxation—certainly not to the extent of £5 billion—to the statements by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and by Government sources to the press about the abolition of inheritance and capital gains tax and the possible introduction of transferable tax allowances. Those changes together amount to well in excess of a mere £5 billion.

Is my hon. Friend not encouraged by the fact that the Prime Minister is already making headway in his commitment to do away with capital gains tax with regard to share options? Tax on those has now been transferred to income tax.

I am very encouraged by what the Prime Minister is saying at present about taxes and I hope very much to see action resulting from it in addition to that to which my hon. Friend refers. Of course we can and we should cut taxes and of course it takes the will to do so. The Government must demonstrate that will and restore their credibility with the electorate with low taxation, which is a crucial difference between us and the high-spending, high-taxing Labour party.

I repeat that there is no appetite for Labour, new or old, or for what passes as its policies. Nor is there appetite for the Liberal Democrats, the ultimate beneficiaries of disillusion, protest and abstention. The vacuum is on the Opposition Benches. We do not need further lengthy consultation exercises on every policy under the sun. I hear that the latest is contained in a 10-page document sent by central office to my constituency, with no copy to me. I merely represent my constituents in this place and could certainly let the Government know, to the best of my ability, of some of the ideas that would represent my constituents.

The new Government, even fresher than new Labour, have the initiative at present and right up to the general election. They must keep that initiative. We must all use the time left in this Parliament to secure the best for our constituents and the best for our nation.

11.19 am

I will not be tempted to follow the route taken by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Martin). I do not wish to intervene on the internal grief of the Conservative party. That grief has been displayed openly in recent weeks, and it is not worthy of any further discussion on this occasion.

I wish to take the opportunity briefly to talk about certain events in my constituency and to raise a more general issue that relates not just to inner cities, but to our political system as a whole. Last week in the Hyde park area of Leeds, there were two nights of what the media referred to as rioting. The Hyde park area is partly in my constituency, and partly in the constituencies of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle) and the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson).

The problems in the area are typical of those of an inner city; high unemployment—particularly among young people—housing stress, changes in the traditional family and family breakdown. The problems are more acutely felt in a city such as Leeds which has done extremely well economically in recent years. There is a real social and political problem when pockets of deprivation lie alongside noticeable pockets of affluence, as people feel that they are missing out on what they consider to be their rightful stake in society.

There is a problem in the way in which our political system discusses inner-city issues. There is a great danger in the House that although we talk about the problems and exchange statistics, we are simply failing to relate to the key players. For many of my constituents—this may be a result of my own failures—the political debate is totally alien to the immediate day-to-day problems that they face. If we in this House do not get a grip on those problems, there is a real danger that we will allow an underclass to fall outside our political system. Those people will not be represented, and may become extremely dangerous to our long-term political stability.

Let me give one fact about last week's events that struck me as one of the most frightening statistics that I have come across for some time. When I talked to the various agencies directly involved in the events—the police, the local authorities and others—it was suggested to me that, on the first night, somewhere between 100 and 150 young people were involved in the activities on the street. They were not organised, nor were they bussed in from other cities. It happened spontaneously, and they were in direct and open conflict with the police. They threw stones and razed a pub to the ground. Cars were burned and other activities took place in which some 100 to 150 young people were directly involved.

Hyde park is an area where there has been a good working relationship between the police, the voluntary agencies, the local authority and the local community. If one wants to look for an inner-city area which has achieved many of the things talked about in the House and elsewhere, Hyde park is one. Yet we still have a large number of wholly disaffected young people.

I do not believe that we can simply attribute to those young people some innate evil that makes them behave in that way. I suspect that a relatively small number of those 100 to 150 young people are involved in organised or regular crime. But we cannot simply say that the majority of those young people are evil or naturally criminal, and that they must be written off.

We have a problem, because it is too easy just to write this off as a law and order issue. It is a much more difficult problem than that. I fear that in my constituency—I suspect this can be replicated up and down the country—we have a generation of young people who are lost to and lost in our society. Unless we relate to those young people, we will have deep and long-running sores in our society.

What can we do? First, we as politicians must recognise that there is no magic formula or panacea. While there is no answer that we can give from on high, there are things that we can do. It might sound economically deterministic, but I think that jobs are crucial. If we do not provide jobs for young people, they will have no hope or no expectation of a stake in society. We must think radically about how we provide jobs.

There is a worrying culture developing in our inner cities in which work no longer has a central part. In many parts of my constituency, people simply do not have a disciplined structure to their lives because they have no role in the labour market. Jobs are crucial. I do not know whether you, Madam Deputy Speaker, or other Members have been following an excellent series of articles on the subject in The Guardian. What came through from one of those articles was a sense that our young people— including those in our school system and primary schools—are saying that they have no hope, no ambition and no expectations.

My hon. Friend has touched on a most profound point for this country and for the House. There is no expectation among our young people not only for themselves, but for their friends and for the future of their families and our society. Does my hon. Friend agree that the primary duty for all parties in this House and those outside is to try to get an economic policy—wherever it may come from—which centres on the need to distribute employment in society so that the sense of expectation can be revived and maintained?

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. I shall digress briefly by relating some personal and anecdotal evidence of some problems in the inner cities. I visited one of the secondary schools in my constituency a few years ago. I may have been full of the middle-class work ethic, a sense of achievement and a belief in our educational system. I remember saying to one streetwise 13-year-old that I hoped that he was working hard and doing all that was necessary to get good GCSE results to enable him to go on from there. He looked at me as if I came from a totally different world and said, "If I work hard, I finish up on a scheme. If I do not work hard, I finish up on a scheme." He had worked out that equation, and decided that he might as well enjoy himself at that stage because—whatever happened to him—he would finish up on a training scheme. My fear is that, in a few years, he might not even have the ambition to finish up on a training scheme.

We must seriously relate to these issues across the political parties. Jobs are important, but a change in our style as politicians is also needed. We must listen more. All of the institutions and agencies operate from the top down and are too top-heavy in terms of solutions. The ideas move from us to them, whereas we should be allowing them to come up with their own solutions. I recognise that if we allow young people much greater control of their own lives, we take risks. But if we do not allow young people that responsibility, there is a real danger that they will simply fall outside our structures.

Following the events in Hyde park, people said to me that what was needed was a new youth club in the area. That suggestion was made with all the best intentions in the world, but those who made it have failed to understand where we are. We must find flexible, informal and creative ways of relating to young people. It is not just about jobs. We must also tap into their culture and give young people a sense of hope.

I should also like to raise the issue of drugs, a subject that is difficult for us as politicians to deal with. Hon. Members who represent inner cities—the problem may be more broadly spread now—will share my concern and fear about the explosion of criminal activity and violence surrounding the developing drug culture. It is difficult for my generation to understand and relate to the drugs problem; it is easy enough to be frightened by it, and to feel that it is alien.

Time after time, experienced, level-headed and sensible senior police officers in the Leeds and west Yorkshire area have told me that some 80 per cent. of crime in the area is drug-related. There is the problem of trafficking, which can be serious; much more relevant to us as citizens, however, is the fact that a large amount of crime is committed to pay for the addiction that exists in the inner cities. I could take hon. Members to any part of my constituency tonight, and they could see young people using drugs. It is frightening.

How should we respond to the problem? It is difficult for us, as politicians, to produce a response. We are in danger of scoring cheap political points at a time when important issues surround young people. If we do not respond, however, the criminal spin-off from drugs will change not just the lives of the individuals directly concerned, but all our lives. Any hon. Member representing an inner-city constituency will have tales of crimes committed against innocent constituents simply because people have been under the influence of drugs, or need money to pay for them.

I can offer no easy solutions, although I have no hesitation in saying that the hard core of drug traffickers should be locked up for a long time, and I am sure that all hon. Members agree. The majority of decent young people, however, pose a different problem: for them the gratification side of the drugs equation is known and experienced, but the risks are ignored or unknown. We must talk to those decent, ordinary youngsters who have been pulled into the drugs net.

This may be partly based on hope, but I think that we could do more. We could listen more to young people; we could condemn less, and devote more time and effort to conveying the message that drugs pose too great a risk for people to become involved with them. Let me issue a plea to the Leader of the House: we need to adopt creative, radical methods to put that message across. If we do not tackle the problem, much of what we know as life in the inner city today—with all its problems and brutality—will continue to deteriorate. I am sure that the Leader of the House is sympathetic; I hope that the Government, with the support of all political parties, will provide more education about drugs and so promote greater awareness.

We need more resources to provide drugs education, jobs and housing. That plea is heard in many debates on the inner city; let me add that we, as politicians, should relate more to the problems of the percentage of society who are increasingly disaffected and falling through the net. We must understand the depth of the change that has taken place in our inner cities. We cannot afford not to allow our fellow citizens to be part of our political debate, and to gain from it.

If we do not relate to the problem, there will be political, economic and moral costs for us all. There will be economic costs because we are wasting the talents and resources of many of our fellow citizens, especially members of the next generation. There will be political costs because, if we do not relate to the problem as politicians, our system will be weakened and grounds will be provided for extremism of all kinds, which will be very damaging in the long term. Finally, as an affluent society we cannot morally justify the fact that a percentage of our fellow citizens have no right to a stake in that affluence. All hon. Members enjoy that affluence, and I feel that we have a moral responsibility—whatever we say in politics—to try to ensure that our fellow citizens enjoy the same affluence and personal well-being.

11.34 am

I am sure that my constituents would not want the House to adjourn without my having the opportunity to raise an issue that I have raised numerous times over the years: the state of the water industry in the west country.

The facts are reasonably well known by now. We in the west country are responsible for cleaning up about a third of the beaches that were found to be deficient under a European directive. Local resources have had to be used to clean some 130 out of 455 beaches. It is easy to say, with 20–20 hindsight—a piece of equipment that I, as a politician, will always use when it is to my advantage—that the Government should not have privatised the water industry in the way that they did, given that we now know that the beaches had to be cleaned up. We did not know it then, however. The fact is that 1.5 million people—or, more probably, about 900,000, given the number who actually pay water charges—are responsible for cleaning up a third of the nation's beaches.

The pressure on prices in the west country is stunning. It has been said that the average annual water charge is about £300 per household because of the high rateable values in the area. It is by no means uncommon for an elderly single person in relatively modest accommodation to pay well over £400 a year, and before long what could be described as an affluent household in the suburbs may be paying well over £1,000—in some instances, as much as £1,800 or £1,900.

It is all very well for those who can afford such charges to say, "It is just one of those things; we must cope with it." For many people in the west country, however, the situation is frightening. In the not too distant past, residents have seen their water bills rise by up to 20 per cent. per annum. They are paying for the one staple of life the use of which they cannot possibly control.

I hope that I can say, without sounding unduly and uncharacteristically flippant, that it is not much consolation for an 80-year-old widow with a zimmer frame to know that surfers in the west country are able to enjoy amazingly clean water. Such people have rather more pressing concerns, and they are having to pay massive bills.

What can be done? A great deal has already been done over the years. At long last, as a result of hon. Members' efforts, Ofwat has been prepared to recommend that the huge year-on-year increases in the west country should not continue, and that increases should be pegged to the rate of inflation. Some say that we should consider reductions in charges; that is a nice idea, but it was never going to happen.

It would have been something if charges could have been pegged so that people at least knew what they were having to budget for. That was a definite prospect last year, when Ofwat made its recommendation. South West Water has appealed to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, saying that it has not enough money to perform its statutory functions; apparently, however, it had nearly £1 million to devote to the effort to overturn Ofwat's judgment. I do not know whether that figure is accurate, but when I put it to South West Water it was not contradicted. I dare say that South West Water has better things to do.

As I have said, people are paying massive charges for a staple that they cannot control, and seeing no end in sight. That is the general background; I have gone into much more detail in the past. An interesting fact that I have discovered during a life in politics is that things can always get worse—and if they can get worse, they probably will.

One weekend recently, people in the higher-lying parts of the west country found that, when they turned on their tap, nothing happened—no water came through. In certain parts of Cornwall, people found that what came through the tap was obviously unfit to drink. Having paid the highest water charges in the country, they suddenly found that the process of turning on a tap did not produce the water that they were paying for.

Not everyone connected with the south-west and the consumption of water on that weekend suffered the glum reality of water not coming through. One person who was able to consider that in a rosier way was none other than the managing director of South West Water, Mr. Fraser. He was revealed in the Sunday Times to be watering his garden—a marvellous occupation, if you have the water to do it. Doubtless, while watering his garden, he was contemplating what he would do with his latest pay rise—a pay rise of £67,000 per year—a remuneration package. Mr. Fraser subsequently wrote to me, saying that that was not a pay rise as such—it was not him but one of his minions; obviously he would not write to a Member of Parliament about that sort of thing—but a total package of about £67,000. He was quizzed about that by a journalist—it is interesting to meet someone who is paid even more than a journalist—and he said:

"My salary has been frozen for some time. This was a modest rise."

Let me make one thing clear. I am not some latter-day Leveller and I have no difficulty with the payment of high salaries. I would have no difficulty in conveying a message to my constituents that, to retain the best people for a difficult job in a competitive world, it is necessary to pay the rate for that job. I understand that, and I understand the language that says that an organisation must pay whatever is necessary to recruit, retain and motivate.

However, the problem is that, often in the water industry, it is not an issue of bringing people in who bring their great expertise to bear because of the salaries available; they are the same old shower who were there in the first place.

To be fair to Mr. Fraser, he was actually brought in from outside, but a great many people would have asked themselves, that weekend when they had no water in their taps and they saw the spectacle of that gentleman in Surrey watering his garden, contemplating what to do with his extra £67,000, why it was necessary to pay that money. I do not know.

Perhaps, for the rest of the year, head hunters were beating their way up the path, past those lovely, well-watered flower gardens, to present themselves at Mr. Fraser's mansion, saying: "You are such a successful person that we shall offer you plenty of money to leave South West Water." That may have happened, but a cynicism born of many years in politics suggests to me that that may not be true. I have asked, but I have not yet been able to discover any head hunters for Mr. Fraser—scalp hunters, yes, about 1.5 million of them, but no head hunters.

I could be wrong. Perhaps it is necessary to pay a massive sum to retain Mr. Fraser's services, but I should be interested to know what the going rate is. What is the going rate for a pay rise for a managing director of a water company that is incapable of delivering water? I may be displaying the naivety of a politician. Perhaps one really does have to pay an extra £67,000 to someone to do a job that he is proving incapable of doing, but I doubt it, and so do a great many of my constituents.

It was an increase of £67,000 and a total remuneration of £200,000. If we were here with Mr. Court, the chairman of South West Water, today, perhaps round at his place enjoying a pleasant glass of 1983 Chassagne-Montrachet, he would probably say, as we sip that wine in his well-watered garden, "It is a drop in the ocean compared with what South West Water is actually paying", and he is right—it is. However, a sense of fairness matters, and it is the last straw for people in the west country when they find that the directors of that rapacious water authority, paying themselves mega-salaries, are not even able to deliver the service that they are paid that money to provide.

What can we do about that? Obviously, something must be done. It is not sufficient to say, if anyone were to say it, "It is all very difficult, but in the end, in free commerce, the market must decide."

It is a monopoly.

I shall give way to my hon. Friend, if he wants, in a moment.

There is no market in water. It is all about the magical ingredient H₂O. One cannot do without it. The same criteria do not apply to Marks and Spencer, to any grocer or to any other firm in a competitive industry. It is completely and utterly different. The language of the marketplace, which, in my opinion, justifies to the hilt salaries of, in some cases, £200,000—or £2 million, for that matter—cannot possibly apply to the monopoly utility.

I shall say in a few moments, when I have given way to my hon. Friend—[Interruption.] I shall not give way.

I made my point.

One aims to please.

What shall we do about it? It is always easy, yet it is always difficult, to draft legislation on one's feet. The shape of what must be done is obvious.

When the chief executive or managing director or senior board members of a company such as South West Water are recruited externally, the company should be required to file with Ofwat a statement of what salary it intends to offer and its grounds for saying that that salary is necessary to attract people of a sufficient calibre. As far as internal reward is concerned, documents should be filed with Ofwat, showing why it is necessary—let us take the case in hand—to pay Mr. Fraser £67,000 a year more than previously. The documents should say who has tried to poach him, who has beaten a path to his door—why it is necessary to pay that sum of money. Then the public can be satisfied.

If it turns out that it is necessary to pay that sum of money to ensure that water does not come through people's taps in the west country, I am sure that the British people, who are fair, will consider the evidence and say that that must be entirely right. Until that is done, however, they will be extremely upset.

Is it a trivial matter? I do not believe so. Every now and again, one comes across a defining issue—an issue that drives people round the bend, an issue that infuriates people almost beyond reason. In the west country, the salaries that the senior personnel of South West Water pay themselves are that defining issue. It goes against every single canon of fairness.

When someone as naturally right-wing and acquisitive as me is compelled to say that figures such as that are an outrage, the matter needs to be tackled. I hope that, if my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has the opportunity to say a few words about my contribution today, even if he cannot offer any direct solution, he will at least acknowledge that, yet again, a west country Member is bringing on to the Floor of the House of Commons the pre-eminent issue in the west country today. I should also like to think, because I have a great deal of confidence in him, that he might be able to say something that will give people some cheer that that sort of outrage will one day cease.

11.46 am

I shall briefly comment on the speech that we have just heard. I am sure that all of us, whatever part of the country we represent, will fully agree with what the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) said. He spoke about the west country, and obviously the problems that he and people who live in that part of the country experience, but the problem exists throughout the country. It is not only water charges, which, as the hon. Gentleman said, cause people to drive themselves round the bend with hopelessness, but the size of salaries. I and, I am sure, many other hon. Members of the House might tell similar stories to the one that the hon. Gentleman related.

This is a matter for the Government, because I do not believe that it should be a political issue, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said. Water is one of the essential commodities that everyone needs, and the Government must urgently consider the matter.

The subject that I would like to speak on for a few moments concerns the Latham committee report on the construction industry. That was published a year ago and the report was commissioned by the Secretary of State for the Environment and prepared by Sir Michael Latham, the former distinguished Member of the House whom I am sure that many of us recall.

The report was well received by all with interests in the construction industry. It was welcomed by companies working in the industry. There are thousands of them, large and small; indeed, about 10 per cent. of the country's gross national product comes from the construction industry. The report was also warmly welcomed by trade unions who have members employed in the industry. I must declare an interest, as the trade union that sponsors me, the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union—which has thousands of members working in the industry—also fully supports the Latham committee report.

The construction industry is vital to this country, but it has faced many problems over the years. They included the late payment of money, the abuse of payment after work had been completed, and arguments about cost and the kind of work that companies had done. Those problems often led to drawn-out and expensive disputes and, in the end, the companies and their workers invariably lost out.

The Latham committee report considered all those issues. It recommended measures to improve relations between clients, contractors and subcontractors which would lead to improved efficiency within the industry. As I have said, the report was received very warmly. Early-day motion 557, which appears on the Order Paper, deals with the need for a construction contracts Bill. It has been signed by more than 200 Members from all political parties, including some very senior Members and those who do not often sign early-day motions in this place. I think that that illustrates the support that the proposal for contracts legislation has within the House.

In all constituencies there are construction companies that employ local people, so I believe that the entire country would benefit from such legislation. I impress upon the Leader of the House that it is not a political issue. Sir Michael Latham's proposals are warmly supported by all political parties throughout the country. Members of Parliament and the representatives of the construction industry and companies in our constituencies want to see such legislation introduced in the next parliamentary Session.

The House goes into recess this week and those of us who have been in this place for some time and those who have held positions in Government know that in the next few weeks Ministers and their Departments will be finalising the legislation that they would like included in the forthcoming Queen's Speech. Sir Michael Latham and those involved in the industry—be it the contractors or the trade unions—hope that such legislation will be included in the Queen's Speech.

Tomorrow a major conference will be held at the Queen Elizabeth conference centre. The topic of discussion at that conference will be "Latham: One Year On". We know the nature of the discussions that will take place as there have been many such meetings in the past year. I have with me this morning publications from the Department of the Environment reporting on Latham and his proposals and I have also received similar correspondence and publications from the Construction Industry Training Board.

The early-day motion to which I have referred will obviously be discussed at tomorrow's conference, as will the parliamentary questions that have been asked in the past year. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have asked about the Government's intentions in that regard and I am sure that those questions will figure in tomorrow's discussions. I am sure that the overriding concern, to which speaker after speaker will refer, is when a construction contracts Bill will be presented to Parliament.

One year has passed since the publication of the Latham committee report and, to the Government's credit, it has not been pigeon-holed and forgotten. I pay tribute to the Secretary of State for the Environment for the active role that he has played in the discussions that have taken place about the report. We have a right to look to the Government to make an early announcement about legislation.

When the report was published a year ago, I spoke in a debate similar to this one. Even in those early days, I supported the report, and it was clear from the response of hon. Members on both sides of the House that the Latham proposals enjoyed widespread support and that they believed that legislation should follow. In the past few days, the construction industry has also agreed to the Latham proposals. I understand that the Secretary of State was waiting for that expression of support from the industry. His attitude was: "I am not unsympathetic; but does the industry agree to the proposals?" I have been informed that that is certainly the case.

In conclusion, I hope that the Leader of the House will convey to his right hon. Friend the urgency of the matter. A statement must be made as soon as possible. Many hon. Members—the hon. Member for Teignbridge, who has just spoken, is one of the sponsors of the early-day motion to which I referred—seek the introduction of very clear legislation based upon the Latham proposals.

The industry and its trade unions do not want to see those proposals incorporated in other legislation. The Government of the day often say that, although they are not unsympathetic to a particular case, they cannot introduce a separate Bill to deal with the matter. Therefore, they incorporate the proposals in another piece of legislation from the relevant Department. We want the Government to reach an early decision about introducing a Bill to deal specifically with the construction industry. The proposal has the support of many hon. Members as well as the construction industry and the trade union movement. Therefore, I earnestly request the Leader of the House to convey my comments to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment so that we may know as soon as possible whether contracts legislation will be included in the forthcoming Queen's Speech.

11.58 am

I shall follow the example of my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Martin) and refer briefly to Bosnia before I return to issues of domestic politics.

This year we commemorate, among other things, the discovery of the full extent of the Nazi holocaust. This generation will censure those who carried out those atrocities and those who collaborated with them. The President of France recently recognised the tragic and awful contribution of French people to the holocaust and we are aware that other things could have been done to avert it. We must resolve to do what we can to prevent any repetition of that tragedy, wherever it may occur in the world. One thinks of what happened some 15 years ago in Cambodia, only recently in Rwanda and particularly of events in Bosnia, which is on our continent and only a few hundred miles from the borders of the European Union, with some many consequences for general peace in the area. We heard the difficulties described by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South and later we shall hear further of the considerable practical difficulties that lie ahead in Bosnia. If the United Nations—which I fear is rather like the Holy Roman empire in the 18th century—scuttles from Bosnia and leaves people there to an awful and tragic fate, history will say harsh things about us.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South pointed out, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and others have made useful points in recent weeks. That internal debate has helped in certain respects, and the Government can pursue various proposals. As to the way in which the national press handled that matter, I intervened in a moving speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth) last week, when he spoke about the concerns of inner cities and difficulties in our society—similar to the speech made this morning by the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett). In my intervention, I said none of my hon. Friend's points—any more than the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls)—were debated in the national press during the important political contest of a couple of weeks ago. Instead, many newspapers subjected us to a catalogue of lies, half-truths, distortion and crude propaganda. It is not sufficient for most hon. Members to ignore such stuff or that many of our constituents appear to have become immune to it. Indeed, some of my constituents have changed their newspaper orders as a result, although I am sorry that the remaining choice is hardly immense. Damage is done to our political system, the Government and the Conservative party's standing if such half-truths and propaganda are believed.

Some years ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon was director of the Conservative party research department. Both my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and I have worked in that distinguished and honourable department at various times in our careers. I refer to an article by Dr. Robin Harris that appeared in The Sunday Times on 9 July, so it is hardly ancient history. That article was not written by an 18-year old scribbler or someone who has just returned from Patagonia. Dr. Harris is also a former director of the Conservative research department and made a considerable contribution to winning the 1987 general election—although Lord Tebbit or Michael Dobbs may contest that claim—and was a member of the Downing street policy unit. His remarks in The Sunday Times will have been read by hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country, so I make no apology for quoting them now—and they were outrageous. The headline, which was probably the contribution of The Sunday Times, stated:

"The sooner defeat comes, the sooner the right will inherit the Tory party, says Robin Harris".

I am sorry not to hear cheering by Opposition Members because if that comes about, they can extend their mortgages and take their managers to champagne lunches. If those two events occurred, Labour would enjoy the fruits of office for years to come. Dr. Harris then wrote:

"Kenneth Clarke is safe to promote the European single currency. Malcolm Rifkind is free to place Britain's foreign and security policies further under European Community control."

That assertion is absolute rubbish. It ignores our Cabinet and parliamentary procedures.

It is true.

I am sorry that my hon. Friend disagrees, but I hope that he will allow me to proceed because he might actually agree with something that I will say later.

Dr. Harris continues:

"And the Prime Minister, able at last to express his guilt-ridden loathing of his predecessor and all her works, has the pleasurable prospect of showing his true colours as a big-spending social democrat."

What extraordinary rubbish, and I take the opportunity to repudiate it. As to Dr. Harris's remark about public expenditure, the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridlington (Mr. Townend) contained useful proposals about illegal immigrants and areas of public expenditure that might be curbed. But most of the specific proposals made in recent weeks, if they stand up to examination, would probably not save large sums of money.

The past year has seen considerable debate on education spending. If it had not been for careful management, a degree of patience and various commitments for the future, that debate might have created difficulties for the Government on the Floor of the House. I do not think that there is any possibility of a similar education spending settlement passing through the House next year, so there will almost inevitably be an increase in education spending. We know of concerns about the battle for law and order. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) celebrated the Government's success in that struggle in Prime Minister's Question Time yesterday. If that success is to continue, there must be further spending on the police and associated areas. Difficulties will arise in cutting spending in other areas, such as health, community care and defence.

And agriculture.

I promised my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) that I would make a point about Europe. Of importance in the Conservative party debate about the European Union is that nothing is predictable. There are no hard lines between right and left or between Eurosceptics and positive Europeans. Despite my earlier intervention, I believe that my party's Eurosceptic wing has made and can continue to make an important contribution. A number of my hon. Friend's points deserve replies, because it is a basic right of hon. Members to receive accurate and effective responses to requests for information. Sometimes, the Eurosceptics aim at the wrong target, because the single currency—which may or may not come about—could bring particular benefits. But I support the Eurosceptics in concentrating their fire on some of the legal and constitutional invasions of our country's affairs. It is not satisfactory that the European Court is able to overturn specific decisions of the British Parliament.

I received in this morning's post a letter from a constituent, Mr. Keith Ross, proprietor of The Tantivy in my nearest town of Dulverton, expressing concern about a report in Asian Trader headlined:

"Brussels sets scene for newspaper VAT".

The leader in the same issue comments:

"European Commission President Jacques Santer has made it clear that at next year's Maastricht conference"—

although I am not sure that the intergovernmental conference will be held again in Maastricht—

"the EU will push hard for Britain to give up its right to set its own indirect taxation in order to harmonise levels across Europe."

That will mean VAT on newspapers, perhaps on water services and even on food. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is aware that there is not a shadow of doubt that such a proposal would not get through the House. It would be resisted by Conservative Members whether they are positive Europeans, Eurosceptics or anything else. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to make that clear. I hope also that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary will make the matter clear in succeeding weeks. Further, I hope that I have the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East in making that point.

I shall bring my remarks to a close. I am sure that that will please my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Knapman). No recent appointment to the Government gave me more pleasure than his elevation to the Whips' Office. He is enough of a countryman to know the saying about setting a poacher to operate as a gamekeeper. I am sure that he will be successful in the Whips' Office. I am sure also that if he and other members of the Government take note of my concerns—I try to be positive in the struggle about Europe—we shall be a more unified, effective and successful party in the next 18 months.

12.10 pm

This three-hour debate is a substitute for a form of procedure that produced a formal motion for the adjournment of the House. Under that motion, many of us could argue that the House should not adjourn before certain matters had been debated.

The Jopling proposals, comments on which were received at 11 o'clock from the Select Committee on Procedure, confuse sitting hours, which we all wish to be reasonable, with sitting powers. For example, we cannot extend today's sitting because a decision was taken forthwith yesterday. Reductions in the powers of Back-Bench Members are being recommended—in my view wrongly—by the Procedure Committee. They include the elimination of an amendable motion on the sitting of the House. The House should control how long it sits after receiving Government proposals that are amendable and on which we can vote. It is proposed also to eliminate second Adjournment debates and speeches on Ways and Means resolutions, which relate to the fundamental powers of expenditure and taxation. As I understand it, it is proposed also to eliminate private Member's motions. There would be a major reduction in Member's powers and of those of the public who send us here.

I challenge any member of the Procedure Committee, including its Chairman, to debate the recommendation that the entire Jopling package, as adopted, continue to be considered in the next Session.

If a motion had been before us, I would have tabled an amendment to the effect that we should not adjourn unless and until two topics had been debated. The Government have put these topics high on the list of publicity over the past few days. They will be debated and reported upon in the press accurately or inaccurately, as the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson) said, for the next two-and-a-half months. These topics are the Government's plans for sport and for nursery education and/or education of the pre-school type.

Until yesterday's announcement, we were due to have a debate on the Prime Minister's proposals for sport, which do not necessarily involve public expenditure. It is a bit rich because, since 1979, the Government, through their powers and legislation, have closed 5,000 playing fields. Physical education colleges have been closed. Extra-curricular sport has plummeted as teachers struggle with the administrative burdens of the national curriculum. The Government have done more to reduce opportunities for healthy sport and recreation at schools and elsewhere than any previous Government. Having been involved with sport for 14 years before coming to this place, I looked forward to participating in the debate about the Prime Minister's proposals, but we have been denied that debate.

I am sorry that the Lord President gave a rather misleading reply to my question yesterday. It would have been possible to suspend the sitting rule tonight to have a two or three-hour debate on sport, perhaps concluding it at 1 am. There would have been no vote because it would have been on the Adjournment. As things stand, we are not able to have that debate. That is in tune with the Government's approach of having publicity outside the House on issue after issue and restricting debate in the Chamber. No wonder the public do not think very much of us if there is media comment on the Radio 4 programme "Today" and on television shows and a lack of debate in this place. The decline in the reputation of Parliament may be something to do with that. The Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), who will obviously play an important part in Government information and propaganda services over the next four months, will have to be watched in that context.

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) on his remarks about drugs and recreation. On Sunday, I was on the Victoria dock in my constituency. I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) is in his place. There were young people on the dock. Twelve or 13-year-old boys were pushing out a boat, asking permission to row it. They were not able to do so. They may be able to row in future, but thanks to the lottery, not the Government. What satisfaction can those boys get from life? I am talking of a life that produces a sense of well-being within society and a sense of achievement. Many young people who look naturally for well-being and achievement will get them only from the artificial stimulation that is produced by drugs. My hon. Friend was right to draw attention to that.

On 6 July, when the Prime Minister replied to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, he said:

"I confirm that, on a phased basis, I look for the introduction of nursery education for all four-year-olds and my right hon. Friend"—

the Secretary of State for Education and Employment—

"will announce this afternoon our plans and the phasing."

The Secretary of State made a statement a few moments later. She opened her statement by saying:

"With permission, Madam Speaker, I will make a statement about pre-school education."—[Official Report, 6 July 1995; Vol. 263, c. 512–17]

We have not had a debate on that subject, although there has been comment in the press and throughout the country. It seems that there is confusion about, and non-recognition of, the major difference between nursery education as we know it and pre-school education. Apparently, the Prime Minister does not understand the distinction between the two. He talked about nursery education for all four-year-olds. The Secretary of State's statement was not about that. The plans are not about that. There are plans for vouchers for pre-school education, of which nursery education is a part.

Did the Prime Minister say what he did knowingly? I use "knowingly" with point because we shall later debate the Nolan report and the responsibility of Ministers. Did the Prime Minister knowingly say what he did when it is not true or was he misled by officials? I cannot believe that he was misled. I cannot believe either that the Prime Minister did not know the difference between nursery education, as defined in current statute, and pre-school education, which includes play groups. I acknowledge that some play groups are extremely good, but the range of pre-school education is different from nursery education. Relatively few people throughout the country understand the difference.

I shall put on record one or two questions and answers, which I have tabled and obtained. They show that the Government are on a collision course with the public and themselves. I do not believe that they have thought out their plans. It is clear that the Secretary of State for Education and Employment is not keen. Some time ago, the Prime Minister poured cold water on the proposal for nursery education for all three and four-year-olds because of expense. I presented a petition on the issue on 19 November on behalf of 106,000 petitioners. They asked for nursery education to meet demand. I introduced a Bill on the subject on 18 September 1994. It was talked out by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland), who later claimed that she did not know that she was destroying the Bill. All that it would have done was place a duty on local authorities to ascertain need.

Administration will be extremely difficult. Questions have been tabled to try to ascertain exactly what will happen. I received some answers yesterday. They are not yet in Hansard so I cannot provide a reference. I asked in what manner the Secretary of State for Education and Employment expects to advertise the terms of the contract for the firm that will run the vouchers. The answer was:

"I will reply as soon as possible".

It is clear that the Department does not know, or if it does know, it is not saying, despite having announced the scheme.

I also asked what steps the Secretary of State for Education and Employment

"expects to take to ensure that levels of staffing in existing local authority nursery schools will not be prejudiced by the establishment of new nursery schools by a provider offering improved remuneration".—[Official Report, 17 July 1995; Vol. 263, c. 978.]

Clearly, there will be none.

Areas such as Newham, where 60 per cent. of young children go to nursery schools, will be prejudiced by the free market in qualified nursery teachers. Nursery schools in suburban areas will probably be able to offer more by virtue of the £1,000 which some people will be able to expect. A free or semi-free market in nursery education is being opened up which may prejudice areas of greatest need, such as the London borough of Newham.

I asked what number of the 74 bodies listed in a written answer some time ago had been consulted on the Government's plan. I was told:

"The … task force on under-fives wrote to the majority of the bodies listed on the day of the announcement requesting their views."

So, there is to be consultation, but it will not be very good because the proposals have been only half announced.

I asked what was to be the cost of administration of the voucher scheme in the next two years. The answer was:

"I will reply to the hon. Member as soon as possible".

I asked

"if there will be changes in the statutory instruments defining the qualifications of teachers in nursery schools and those relating to their premises."

One of the problems is how the Government will carry out their plans with the limited number of qualified teachers and premises which are statutorily defined as being capable of supporting genuine nursery education. I shall not read the whole answer but it is a classic for, "Yes, Minister". The reply stated:

"My right hon. Friend has no plans at this stage to impose any new qualification requirements for staff in any institutions which register to exchange vouchers for pre-school education."

A casual reading of that might suggest that there will be no change, but I emphasise the words

"has no plans at this stage to impose".

That does not mean to say that the requirements will not be relaxed, and I suspect that that is what will have to be done in order to achieve their objectives.

My last point on the matter, which will cause a great deal of trouble, relates to a series of three questions that were answered yesterday, after a fashion, about the logistics of premises. I have particular views about the regulations of the Department for Education and Employment relating to school premises. They are wholly inadequate, although I do not have time now to give examples to show why that is the case. It appears that there will be a review of all regulations relating to premises and equipment of schools registered to exchange vouchers for pre-school education. The reply says:

"In addition, my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Education and Employment and the Secretary of State for Wales announced on 14 July their intention to consult on a new set of school premises regulations. These regulations apply to all maintained schools, including maintained nursery schools. They will continue to do so."—[Official Report, 17 July 1995; Vol. 263, c. 977.]

It did not have the honesty to point out that a written answer of 14 July sets out a change in all school regulations relating to premises. It is too long to read it all, but it says that it has been concluded that

"the regulatory burden placed on schools by the Education (School Premises) Regulations should be significantly reduced."—[Official Report, 14 July 1995; Vol. 263, c. 829.]

So there will be a change not just in the regulations relating to nursery schools, which it is important should be maintained in order to provide the necessary environment in this prized and highly regarded area, but in the already inadequate regulations for schools. That was not made clear by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment. She referred in her statement last week to a change in the regulations, but she did not make it clear that that was what she had in mind.

At the moment, the Government are using the House of Commons less as a means of announcing their proposals and using the Order Paper and the procedure of the House and more as a means of ensuring that matters are not debated. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) mentioned the future generations—children in nursery schools and youngsters wanting sporting facilities. Why is it that we are now to adjourn for two and a half months before both those crucial matters can be debated? It has been impossible to do so, an omission for which the Government are responsible.

12.25 pm

We have had a great deal of debate and discussion on European policy within the Conservative party, but it would be wrong for the House to go into recess without the Government, and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House in particular, pointing out the appalling implications for the United Kingdom of the Labour party's European policy.

After all, as we know, the matter has been resolved in the Conservative party. We now have a policy with which we in the party and the country can be totally at ease. We are winning the arguments in Europe. We will be able to maintain, because the Prime Minister said so, our immigration controls. We will not agree to any further increase in qualified majority voting as the intergovernmental conference progresses. The United Kingdom will not agree to any deepening in Europe. As we are winning the arguments, we will be gaining more control over our affairs through subsidiarity. Things are moving our way.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) looks a little concerned, but I can promise him that in an election within the Conservative party a fortnight ago, 89 of our colleagues, including, no doubt, my hon. Friend and I, voted for a programme and a platform which said that Britain will not have a single currency and for the fact that we will not bring before the House any measures to give more powers to any European institutions.

You lost.

The hon. Gentleman says that we lost the vote, but 89 people voted for that platform. It is inconceivable that this Conservative Government, let alone the next Conservative Government, when many of the positive Europeans will have retired and the people coming in will have come in on a Thatcherite bandwagon, will bring any of these measure before the House. That is fact. That is given. We are secure. No Conservative Government will deepen Europe or introduce any measures to bring about a single currency. They would not do it. It would not work. It would not succeed. They would not have a majority.

The first thing that the Labour party would do would be to embrace the social chapter. What does that mean? Any good employer will want to ensure that his people are well looked after, but to do that he needs a succesful and thriving business. He must be competitive. Anyone who embraces the social chapter will have to embrace the on-costs, the paraphernalia of all the other European countries who will want to stuff it down the throats of our industries to make our industries as uncompetitive as theirs are becoming. Not only will we have bad employment practices and bad employers, but we will lose a great many jobs.

Like the Germans.

The hon. Gentleman cannot resist his asides. Germany is yesterday's story. It is the United Kingdom that will be today's and tomorrow's story.

The next point that the Opposition want to embrace is the single currency—a single currency in Europe with all those diverse economies, with the same interest rates, with the same inevitable levels of taxation, socialist bureaucratic levels of taxation, high levels of taxation. The people who motivate European policy are motivated by schemes and plans and by building up their own empire. We cannot afford that. Let the rest of Europe crucify itself with a single currency and with high levels of public expenditure. Let us be clean and distinct and apart. Let us have the strong currency of Europe while others have the weak one. Let us have the Japanese—Nikko Europe and others—investing in Britain rather than in the rest of Europe because they feel that Britain will be more competitive outside the single currency.

I should like to make one further point about the desperate implications of the Labour party's European policy. Agriculture is controlled by Europe; trade is controlled by Europe; little things, like the quality of our water, are controlled by Europe; our weights and measures are controlled by Europe. The Labour party wants our money to be controlled by Europe. Everything will be controlled by Europe.

The Opposition want a policy for devolution, with more powers going to Scotland and Wales. They have power, if they are given more power, they will seek more power and the remainder of the power will lie with Europe. What is the point of Westminster? Do the Opposition want to break up the United Kingdom? That is what they will do.

I should be grateful if, before the recess, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House explained loud and clear the devastating implications of the Labour party's policy on Europe for the United Kingdom.

12.30 pm

There are two subjects that the House should consider before the recess. I understand hon. Members' concerns about Bosnia, but one of my constituents, a student called Paul Wells, is currently one of the hostages in Kashmir. I should have thought that it was inappropriate for the House to depart for the summer recess without even a statement about the current state of negotiations on the release of those hostages.

The main issue that I want to raise today, however, is Motability. It is a remarkable organisation, for which I have nothing but praise. It is a registered charity that brings mobility to disabled people. The Queen was recently able to hand over the 500,000th vehicle to a disabled person, due to funding for this scheme through the Department of Social Security. Motability is a truly wonderful charity.

I cannot say the same about the system of financing that exists behind the scenes at Motability. There is an important distinction to be drawn between Motability the charity and Motability Finance Ltd. I am greatly concerned about a series of reports that have been percolating out to the public and press of late about serious wrongdoings in the structure of financing through which Motability Finance Ltd. delivers vehicles to disabled people.

I shall put the matter in context. The charity Motability has a turnover of about £3 million a year. But the supplier of finance, Motability Finance Ltd., has a turnover of £375 million a year. Motability Finance Ltd. is not a charity; it is a private company. It is set up as a partnership of six main banks. It is a profit-making business, which now has assets in excess of £1 billion. It also has access to £1.5 billion-worth of credit each year from the six banks which are the partners in MFL.

On 15 June this year, in the other place, Lord Carter raised a number of his concerns about what was happening in Motability Finance Ltd. He said:

"the Government pay Motability Finance Ltd … £360 million of disabled people's social security benefits. Motability Finance Ltd. is the only lender in the world to have no bad debts. The money is guaranteed by the Government because it is a social security benefit which is paid over. Yet the rates of interest it charges disabled people and its car leasing arrangements are not that advantageous."

That is my first concern.

Lord Carter illustrated some of the concerns that had been raised with him. He said:

"I understand that over the years a number of officials"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 June 1995; Vol. 564, c. 1931.]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but there is a rule in this place against quoting from a Member speaking in the other place, unless he or she is a Minister in the current Session.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Lord Carter referred to a number of acts of minor fraud that worried him, and should also worry the House. The essence of the matter is the returns required by the major banks that are participants and partners in the Motability Finance scheme.

The simplest thing is for me to quote from a report drawn up by accountants KPMG on the financing of MFL. The concluding paragraph states:

"We have carried out a comparison with the Return on Capital … which would be earned in a typical lease to that which is earned in practice by the partners and other leasing companies … The typical lease scenario envisages a ROC of 14.6 per cent. The average ROC of a number of leasing companies for 1992 was 13.1 per cent. However a Motability lease gives a ROC of 30.9 per cent., substantially higher than that generated by a typical lease or that earned by other companies."

We are talking, then, about a private cartel of six major banks, headed by someone who is also involved as the chairman of Motability. The cartel is mackerel fishing for money from public funds that properly belongs to disabled people. The rate of return required for no-risk access to that finance is almost twice that in the private market.

A report was also commissioned by the DSS about the goings-on inside Motability Finance Ltd. The catalogue of events that have taken place have seen a large number of Motability staff leave in recent years. Last October, the assistant director, Mr. Robin Taylor, left. The following January, the then director, Mr. Simon Willis, who had been seconded from the DSS, had his services withdrawn at two weeks' notice. The following March, the finance director, Mr. Graham Moss, left, and now the fund-raising director has decided to leave.

Many of the departures revolved around conflicts with the chairman of Motability, Lord Sterling of Plaistow, who is perhaps better known, not only as the chairman of P and O, but as a generous benefactor to the party in government.

The most damning matter that the House needs to address urgently concerns a report commissioned by, I think, the DSS, called the Bircham report. It details the serious improprieties that exist within MFL. I shall give two quotations from the report, which should form the basis on which the House should take urgent action.

Paragraphs 9 and 10 of the report state:

"KPMG, of which Mr. Acher is the senior audit partner, are auditors to the National Westminster Bank Group, including Lombard Finance, which participates in the Motability scheme, the Midland Group, including Forward Trust, which similarly participates in the scheme and P and O, of which the Chairman of Motability, Lord Sterling, is also Chairman. At the same time the Chairman of MFL (Mr. Brian Carte) is … both a governor of Motability and a director of Lombard Finance.

Save for out-of-pocket expenses, Motability's Royal Charter of Incorporation prohibits the payment of salary, fees or other remuneration to any governor under clause 4. Mr. Gerald Acher is both governor and Vice-Chairman of Motability on the one hand and a senior equity partner in KPMG on the other. Since he became a governor, KPMG have been paid substantial fees by Motability for professional services rendered, a share of which must pass to or otherwise benefit Mr. Acher in some form. In these circumstances Mr. Acher must account to Motability as a constructive trustee of the gross fees paid to KPMG under the self dealing rule."

The Bircham report details conflicts of interest, improprieties of action and a serious overcharging of the disabled by a banking cartel that is simply fishing money at no risk out of the pockets of disabled people, out of the purse specifically provided by the House to allow disabled people to be mobile around the country.

The House must demand a public examination of the financial structure of Motability Finance Ltd. We need to have a debate on the Bircham report in its entirety. I shall place a full copy of the Bircham report in the Library after the debate. We must demand that the DSS conducts its own root-and-branch overhaul of MFL to ensure that disabled people receive the fairest deal for their, or our, money that goes into the scheme. We must not allow a sleazy bunch of bankers and benefactors to make themselves a fast buck through a no-risk, monopolistic scam, perpetrated on the backs of the public and the disabled—and we need to do that overhaul urgently.

12.39 pm

It is useful to have debates of this kind. The changes to which my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) referred have not been unanimously welcomed in the House. However, they have been helpful overall, especially for Back Benchers, as this morning's debate demonstrates.

I am always reluctant to disagree with my hon. Friend on matters of procedure, but I must say that some of the procedures which were changed by Jopling and about which he complained have fallen into disuse and become difficult to defend. They fell into disuse not least because newer Members had not been as assiduous in mastering the procedures as my hon. Friend. The Jopling changes of which he complained have been helpful to the majority of hon. Members.

It is not always possible for every hon. Member to attend on Wednesday mornings. Rather unusually, I should like to mention to the Leader of the House one colleague who could not be here—my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Keen). He lost an Adjournment debate on Monday through no fault of his own, but he had told the Minister exactly what issues he wanted to raise. I think that he gave the Minister a copy of his speech, which was on European co-operation. I hope that the Leader of the House will accept my hon. Friend's apology for not being here this morning, and will be able to arrange for the Minister to give my hon. Friend the reply that he would have had if he had been here.

Obviously, we cannot deal in detail with all the issues that have been raised, some of which will be the subjects for the debate later today on Bosnia. This morning's debates were unusual because so many Conservative Members spoke about internal Conservative party matters.

Perhaps, in view of what has happened in recent months, that should not surprise us. The hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson) invited us to sympathise with his comments about how the press has treated his party in recent weeks. At last he now knows how it feels, because we have been subjected to that kind of treatment for many years. It was interesting to see the tables turned.

These debates are always useful for hon. Members who wish to raise constituency matters, as did the hon. Member for Cornwall, South-East (Mr. Hicks), and not for the first time, as he pointed out. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) raised some serious matters about his constituents, who must feel very insecure because the basic services provided by general practitioners are threatened in the way that my hon. Friend described. I hope that Ministers have taken his concerns on board, and that the Leader of the House will make sure that they are followed up.

The hon. Member for Teignmouth (Mr. Nicholls) spoke about the concerns of his constituents following water privatisation. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is not in his place. When the Bill for water privatisation was going through the House, many of us suggested that prices would go through the roof and that the salaries of directors would be increased to ridiculous levels. The hon. Gentleman complained that a monopoly utility was allowing one of its executives to have a salary increase of £67,000, but such suggestions were described as scaremongering when we complained about water privatisation.

In such debates, some matters are raised which could be described as regular. Not for the first time hon. Members such as the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) raised the issue of European Union policy, and especially the common agricultural policy. I agree with many of the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Southend, East about the CAP. The slowness in moving to reform must concern hon. Members in all parts of the House. The speech by the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) was somewhat unusual, in that the hon. Gentleman attacked Labour party policy on the EU rather than that of his own party. Perhaps we should put that aside this morning.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) again spoke about the Latham report. Perhaps the Leader of the House will be able to respond to my hon. Friend's information about the construction industry's agreement to the proposals.

The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) spoke about local government settlements, a topic that has been mentioned on other occasions. He was right to acknowledge the need to take account of such vital issues as family holidays when the Procedure Committee considers when the House should sit. Perhaps I will not be popular with all my colleagues when I say that I told the Procedure Committee a few days ago that there was scope for considering whether the House should sit for some weeks in September as a means of keeping us in touch with what is happening and avoiding such long gaps between our activities.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South raised some topical issues about the need for a debate on sport. I raised that with the Leader of the House during business questions yesterday, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to tell us when it might be possible to have such a debate. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's every word about nursery education. When he was speaking about that, I thought of the earlier speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), whose constituency I have visited.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney about jobs and development. People in his area are working hard to attract development, and perhaps some of them feel that they are running hard just to stand still, because of all the factors that are stacked against them. My hon. Friend's remarks coincided with what my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) said. He highlighted one of the main concerns of all of us about the future of young people and what is happening in our constituencies. It was in my hon. Friend's constituency that riots took place, but we are all aware that they could have taken place in many other areas.

The comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central about the problems of young people and those of unemployment, deprivation generally and deprivation being side by side with affluence, and many young people feeling that they have no stake in society, must be extremely worrying to us all. If young people have no hope, no expectations and no aspirations, the future is bleak, not just for them and their families, but for society as a whole. That is because we are all threatened by such lack of hope, and by youngsters who can turn to crime. As my hon. Friend said, unfortunately they often turn to drugs. In political terms, if they turned to anything, they would probably turn to some form of extremism. My hon. Friend was right to remind the House and the Government of those dangers.

I was reminded of the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central during the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South, because there is clearly a link between nursery education and aspirations and achievements later in life. There is overwhelming evidence that the best action we can take for our young people is to give them the best possible start by investing in nursery education.

The evidence shows that, if we spend more on nursery education, we shall get a return for the money, because there will be less crime, young people will grow up with more opportunities, and there will be fewer teenage pregnancies. Those are all direct benefits.

I wish I could say that the recent Government initiative on nursery education will provide, as the Prime Minister has promised, nursery education for all four-year-olds. In itself, that is not good enough, because our three-year-olds should also be entitled to it. I fear that the voucher scheme will be a third-rate imitation of a proper comprehensive policy for nursery education for all three and four-year-olds whose parents want them to have it.

I hope that the Leader of the House will be able to respond in detail to some of the important points that have been raised. It is useful to have such debates, and I hope that we will continue to provide opportunities for hon. Members to raise issues in this way, because that is valuable to our constituents and to the House.

12.50 pm

I note that the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) expressed the hope that I would be able to respond in detail, in 10 minutes, to 14 speeches—15, including her own—on a wide range of matters. I must tell her that that would be a triumph of hope over experience, and over practicality. I shall do my best. I shall, of course, consider what the hon. Lady said about her hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Keen). Given the circumstances that she described, I shall see whether I can get him a written reply from a Minister.

Although I cannot speak for the hon. Lady, I suspect that she would agree with me that this debate is one of the pleasures of the job of Leader of the House. I learn an enormous amount in a short time. I am provided with endless briefing notes, which I digest, I hope, at least to some degree, in the relatively short time available. I am offered a guided tour around the United Kingdom.

As the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) said to me informally outside the Chamber—I hope that he will not mind me repeating it—today we travelled from Liskeard, to Kelso, by way of Merthyr Tydfil. That is surely a testament to the flexibility and efficiency of the Government's transport policies.

We have heard wide-ranging and entertaining speeches from everyone, but some speeches have been wider ranging than others, in particular those of my hon. Friends the Members for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Martin), for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) and for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson). I am sure that they would not expect me to range as widely as they did over the policies of the Government towards the world in general and Europe in particular.

I particularly agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South about the current policy vacuum in the Labour party, which certainly was not filled this morning. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) made an impressive speech about one definite part of the Opposition's current policy. I think that I would be right to say that it was probably his most helpful speech in many years. He drew attention to the dangers of the Labour party policies towards the European Union, and I wholeheartedly agreed with his every word.

Give him a job.

My powers do not extend that far, but they extend to giving him the encouragement to make frequent speeches along those lines.

I shall make necessarily brief comments on some of the specific points raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, South-East (Mr. Hicks) raised important points about Liskeard junior school in his constituency. I shall certainly draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends.

My hon. Friend also asked me to encourage one of my hon. Friends, who has been most recently appointed to the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), to visit that school at some stage this year. I have received a characteristically cautious briefing note from the Department of Education, which states:

"Ministers of course do receive a very large number of invitations to visit schools and simply cannot accept them all. I am sure, however, that my hon. Friend would be willing to consider a visit if that could be fitted into a wider programme."

I hope that that gives at least some modest encouragement to my hon. Friend. I shall also have a more informal word with the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment to draw her attention to what he said.

The hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Steinberg) raised a important and difficult problem, which he would not expect me to answer in detail, about family practitioner services in part of his constituency. He acknowledged, as I have been told, that County Durham health commission is taking urgent steps to help residents in the Coxhoe area to identify alternative doctors, and has set up two help-lines for patients to ring. The hon. Gentleman also made it clear, however, that the problem required further examination. I shall bring it to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East made a wide-ranging speech, but he also referred to a matter of considerable importance to my constituency and subject to many protests from my constituents—the policies of Essex county council, under Labour-Liberal control, towards transport to selective schools that still exist in Essex. My hon. Friend said that his children went to those schools, so perhaps I should declare a past interest in that both my daughters went to Chelmsford county high school for girls, which will subject to the same problem.

I share the concern that my hon. Friend has expressed about the effect on less well-off able children in the county. I hope that the people of Shoeburyness, to whom he referred, will make their views clear in the by-election that will take place, tomorrow, 20 July, for a county council seat.

The hon. Members for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) and for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney made impressive speeches about their areas. The speech of the hon. Member for Leeds, Central was one of the best that I have heard in Adjournment debates for a long time. He will know that I, too, am concerned about drugs. I have worked with the chief constable of West Yorkshire, Keith Hellawell, on producing a new Government strategy on drugs, "Tackling Drugs Together". That places greater emphasis than in the past on prevention and education. I certainly hope that it reflects some of the thoughts that the hon. Gentleman expressed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Hawksley) gave me notice that he intended to raise a complex problem. He made some important points. I understand that, alongside the correspondence he has had with previous Transport Ministers, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has written to him this week on that very subject. I understand that my hon. Friend has not yet received that letter, but I assure him that it is on its way, and I hope that it will be helpful to him.

The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) spoke about a problem in a pleasing town in his constituency, Kelso, where I had the pleasure to holiday a few years ago. On that occasion, I ran into the former leader of the Liberal Democrats. I note the points that the hon. Gentleman has made, but I am sure that he would not expect an off-the-cuff answer from me. I shall make sure that his remarks are drawn to the attention of Scottish Office Ministers.

I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) that I shall draw to the attention of my right hon. and hon. Friends the fact that a west country Member has yet again raised the water industry, which is significant and important to his constituents. I hope that my hon. Friend was encouraged by the Government's response to the Greenbury report.

My hon. Friend will be aware that the Director General of Water Services has set new and tighter price limits for South West Water, which have been referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission at the company's request. We have to await the outcome of the commission's determination of price limits for South West Water. The problems to which my hon. Friend referred are being considered.

I may have inadvertently encouraged the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) to take part in the debate, because I reminded him of it when I bumped into him in the Corridor yesterday. He duly took up that invitation, and spoke about the Latham report. He will be aware that, in the past few weeks, I have regularly made what I have described as sympathetic noises from the Dispatch Box about relevant legislation. I cannot anticipate the Queen's Speech, but, as I said to someone last Thursday, the hon. Gentleman can take my comments as a sympathetic noise.

I think that I have come close to running out of time, so I dare not embark on commenting on any other speech. I have noted the points made by the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing). If any other speech remains unmentioned, or if any hon. Member is dissatisfied, I shall make efforts to remedy that in some way.

Meanwhile, I hope that I have given universal pleasure and have caused universal enthusiasm by creating a position in which, later today or early tomorrow, all being well, hon. Members on both sides of the House will be able to enjoy a short break from the duties that they have so assiduously pursued on behalf of their constituents this morning.

French Nuclear Testing

1 pm

A week last Monday, Madam Speaker was in the Chair when a few hon. Members raised points of order about the French nuclear testing proposed for September and about the seizure of the Greenpeace ship, which had happened the previous day. Madam Speaker was kind enough to say that, if Lady Luck smiled on me or perhaps another of those hon. Members, we might have an Adjournment debate. Had it not been this particular Wednesday, when three hours have been devoted to discussing the summer Adjournment, we might have had an hour-and-a-half debate, and many of my colleagues would have been able to speak.

I hesitated before applying for this debate, because I was not that sure that it was the sort of subject with which I could deal. I used to be a big mate of Bob Cryer, and I realised that if he had been here, he would have got to the Chair faster than me. It was his subject—he knew about nuclear weapons and nuclear testing better than anyone else in the House. He had spent 20 or 30 years of his life travelling around Britain speaking to thousands of people. I hope that my comments will accord with his beliefs, although I shall not be able to give them quite the same treatment.

On the day that I asked for this debate, I and some of my hon. Friends had been to a hastily arranged wreath-laying ceremony at the French embassy. Apart from the fact that all Labour Members are hostile to French nuclear testing and the seizure of the Greenpeace ship, I detected among the demonstrators the feeling that the vast majority of British people abhor the idea of the French going to the south Pacific, doing as they like and attacking a Greenpeace ship—which, in many ways, was standing up not just for the people of New Zealand, Australia and other parts of the south Pacific, but for the people of Britain.

I am staggered by the fact that this House has not debated the French decision to resume nuclear testing. A mere half hour is hardly adequate to deal with the issue. I can only assume that, when the Prime Minister met Mr. Chirac at Cannes—a summit meeting that he reported on to the House—he gave Chirac the nod and the wink to do as he liked. Indeed, he confirmed that in an answer to a parliamentary question last week, when he was asked, deliberately and directly, why he would not join those protesting against French nuclear testing. He said that under no circumstances would he do that.

That does not excuse the fact that we have not had a debate—

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should ask his Front Bench why not.

I accept that. There should have been a debate.

There was a debate on a similar occasion—although not as dramatic as this—on 2 July 1973. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)—who might get two minutes in this debate if I hurry—spoke from the Front Bench.

Can anybody believe the change that has taken place since then? My hon. Friend was actually on the Labour Front Bench when 266 Labour Members of Parliament went into the Lobby on a three-line whip. My hon. Friend forced Jeffrey Archer, as he then was, to say that, if there was a vote on the Labour motion, he would join us. In fact, he did not, but that is another story. I read his speech, which was very clever and typical Jeffrey—now Lord—Archer.

The important point was that we had a debate, and we protested to the French. We cannot have a proper debate before the recess, so I call upon my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, together with other members of the shadow Cabinet, to send a letter of protest to Chirac, making it plain where we stand. I would have said that at the parliamentary Labour party meeting if I had had the chance.

I know that many of my hon. Friends want to speak, and I shall try to accommodate them, but it will not be easy.

The problem is the colonialist mentality. When I went to school, Britain used to have lots of pink pieces on the map. The French had some, but not as many as us. There was an idea that the south Pacific could be picked out, as it was by Britain and then by France, and that we could do our bit among the Polynesians. It is all about old-fashioned imperialism and the colonialist mentality. The French cannot do it in their own backyard.

During that debate in July 1973, some of my colleagues—who are still Members—said, "Why can't they drop it in the bay of Biscay?" Charles Loughlin said, "What about the English channel?" I thought that that was getting a bit too close. What I am trying to show is that, 22 years ago, people were determined—

Is my hon. Friend aware that it is only 10 years since French Government agents murdered members of the Rainbow Warrior crew? It is a disgrace that, when they returned to France, those agents were given orders of merit by the French Government. Will my hon. Friend join me in calling for the maximum protest possible outside every French embassy between now and September, and for a boycott of all French products, to force the French to stop these monstrous tests?

I am absolutely in favour of doing so; indeed, it is what I was doing last Monday. I said then that, had it not been for what the mining industry calls a basket Monday, just before a holiday, some other Members of Parliament would have been at the demonstration. Had it been a Tuesday, another 20 or 30 of them would have been there. Many hon. Members travel to the House on a Monday.

When we debated the issue of the common market in 1971, we were told, "Don't worry, we'll look after the Commonwealth. New Zealand, Canada and Australia will be looked after. The common market will not affect that." It has.

When the Prime Minister gave the nod and the wink to Chirac and turned his back on New Zealand, Australia and the other areas in the south Pacific, he was showing that despite the protests from the Tory Government, he has more in common with Chirac, the right-wing President of France, and with the Common Market than he has with the old-fashioned Commonwealth. I have reason to believe that Jim Bolger—not a friend of mine, but the Prime Minister of New Zealand—has written to our Prime Minister in protest. The Minister has a duty to tell us the Prime Minister's answer.

Nuclear proliferation is a problem. For a long time, certainly since the- collapse of the Berlin wall, many people have said that we can all live happily ever after. I have never accepted that naive, innocent view of life. The net result is that countries such as Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel and China are developing nuclear weapons.

We in the Labour party, and many others across the world, have been telling them not to develop nuclear weapons because we are moving into a new era and trying to stop nuclear proliferation. As part of that, we said, Britain and America were not going to carry out tests. That was our argument, but it will break down.

Iraq and the other countries will be emboldened by the fact that nobody cares tuppence what the French are doing down in the south Pacific, and will say, "Anything goes; we can have some, too." The world will become a lot more dangerous. Someone said to me—I had better be careful how I choose my words—that there could be an Islamic fundamentalist nuclear bomb. It certainly makes one wonder.

The French argue that they are not doing much, anyway. They say that they are merely engaged in a bit of extra testing, but nothing new. The information that some of us have received—it might be revealed a little later by one or two colleagues—is that the French are up to something else. It is said that they are going to develop a new type of nuclear warhead, and that at least one of the proposed tests is dedicated to that. I was going to read out some comments about that, but I do not have the time.

We were all very worried about Chernobyl and the radiation that spread for several hundred miles across many countries. How do we know that the ocean currents are not roughly the same as the air currents? Will the results of the nuclear tests be as dramatic as the effects of Chernobyl? I do not know, but it crosses my mind that it is quite feasible that the radiation in the south Pacific will in some way affect the food chain and contaminate some species. It is a major problem for all of us.

Many years ago, when Mrs. Thatcher came back from an environmental conference in Rio, I explained to her that the environment was a socialist issue. Not all green issues can be dealt with by market forces, and no individual can resolve the problem. The solution must be collective action, not only in the common market but throughout the world. It is a world problem, which means people banding together to solve it. When she went on about the hole in the ozone layer, I told her that she would not patch it up with a man, a bike, a ladder and an enterprise allowance, but that the solution had to involve the will of literally millions of people banding together.

It is therefore a matter for us; it will be a matter for new Labour, with all the added ingredients. It will have to deal with the problem, so it might as well get used to it. I hope that, at the conference on Hayman Island, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition listened to the people of Australia and New Zealand, and took note of what they said. I hope that many people bent his ear as they said, "G'day, Blue." What should we do now? I have suggested what the Labour party and the Labour leader should do, and I do so in all friendliness.

Millions of people in Britain who are not necessarily Labour supporters agree with us. All the people in the animal lobby are not protesting only on behalf little furry creatures. The fact is that there is now a new level of understanding about the food chain, the environment and animal life in general; people's interest goes beyond simply saving a few creatures. They can see what is happening. I call on the Government, even at this late stage, to protest before 1 September, and to have the guts to tell Chirac what the British people really feel.

There should be an independent health inquiry into the population in the south Pacific. The least we can do is ensure that such an inquiry is held to monitor the effects of the proposed tests and those that have taken place, because the people we met in a Committee Room upstairs feel that they are on their own.

I support Greenpeace and what it did in trying to sail its ship into the area. The members of Greenpeace were brave. We saw some similarly brave people last Friday—disabled people in wheelchairs, who parked themselves in front of moving buses. Greenpeace did the same sort of thing.

There are some things that we remember for ever. I can still hear the voice of Stephanie Mills, the lass from New Zealand, on the Greenpeace ship a week last Sunday, squealing in passion, hoping that someone could hear her as the French moved in with tear gas and commandeered the Rainbow Warrior. That powerful voice should have registered with everyone in the Labour party. It is high time the Government understood what is needed. Let us stop the tests now, and take steps to save the planet, not destroy it.

1.15 pm

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) for allowing me to ask three technical questions of which I have given notice to the Foreign Office.

The first concerns coral reefs. The French spokesman said that not one fish would be harmed by the tests. That is not true—one coral reef at least will be destroyed. Has the Foreign Office been in touch with Ghillean Prance of Kew, who has substantial evidence that it is the nature of coral reefs to fertilise one another at a distance of 200 miles or more? Are we not creating mayhem in a specific part of the south Pacific? The effect of the destruction of coral reefs on fish stocks is important and must be borne in mind. Has the Foreign Office a technical opinion on what could happen?

Secondly, may I repeat a question that I asked on 2 July 1973 on behalf of the official Opposition. I said:

"Does the right hon. Gentleman"—

I was speaking to Julian Amery—

"deny the presence of strontium 90, and does he further deny the connection between strontium 90 and bone cancer and leukaemia? Does the right hon. Gentleman deny the presence of caesium 137, which has a longish half-life of 30 years, and does he further deny the connection between caesium 137 and many forms of cancer, a connection which has been proved by work which has been undertaken by scientists in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Does he deny the presence of iodine 131 and its attendant dangers to the thyroid gland? "—[Official Report, 2 July 1973; Vol. 859, c. 48.]

My final question relates to an assertion made in The Guardian on 11 July under the byline of Tim Radford and David Fairhall. They said:

"In one notorious episode, a nuclear device jammed halfway down the shaft, and had to be detonated prematurely. This is believed to have opened up fissures in the basalt, and caused submarine landslides. In another episode, a typhoon tore across the atoll and ripped away a bituminous seal that had been covering irradiated spoil. A large area was contaminated with plutonium and other radionuclides."

Is that true? If so, things could go tragically wrong again, with disastrous ecological effects.

1.19 pm

I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) not only on securing the debate but on the manner in which he opened it.

I want to report to the House that, when he was requesting the debate, I was representing the House in Ottawa at the plenary session of the parliamentary assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. At the end of the week, the plenary session considered its declaration. It goes through it paragraph by paragraph to ensure that it has got it right. When it got to the paragraph that had been hard fought in the security committee and which condemned the French decision to resume nuclear testing and the French reaction to the Rainbow Warrior, the French naturally opposed it.

The OSCE parliamentary assembly is made up of 52 nations, plus the Holy See. There were almost 1,000 delegates there. The only delegates who supported the French in the objection were some of the UK delegation. Yet when the full declaration was put to the full assembly, the UK declaration voted to a man along with it to condemn the action, and it was carried nem. con.

If the Government need some backbone, all they need to do is look to their colleagues in the OSCE, including America, Canada—indeed, every nation there—which condemned the French decision and action in relation to the Rainbow Warrior. I hope that the Government, and our Opposition in response to the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover, show the same backbone.

The French in the past have been very dismissive of health effects. Their memorable line is:

"You do not consult the frogs when you are draining the swamp."

If anybody were as dismissive as that and agreed with such dismissiveness, I would point them in the direction of the work done by Dr. Sister Rosalie Bertell, who conducted a major health survey, very much in line with that called for by my hon. Friend, which proved beyond all doubt that a serious genetic impairment resulted not only from the previous tests of the French, but from our previous tests and America's previous tests. Such impairment goes on for generation after generation, it affects the seed stock of the whole of humankind, and it can never be put right.

If we believe anything at all, we should do our utmost to bear properly the responsibility that God has given us. The world has been entrusted to us. In their decision, the French are betraying that trust.

1.21 pm

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) on obtaining this debate. His new-found interest in defence matters is welcome. He is no doubt responding to Bob Cryer's interest in it in the past. I welcome, too, the apparent broadening of his horizons to such distant climes as the south Pacific. Unfortunately, I do not welcome the thrust of his speech. It was remarkable, if unsurprising, for three reasons. Where we needed logic, we got populism; where we needed analysis, we got invective; and where we needed facts, we got hyperbole.

I shall deal first with the incident that the hon. Gentleman led on, in which the French forces boarded the Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior II on 9 July. With respect, the hon. Gentleman, not for the first time, missed several points. First and foremost, he referred in his familiarly colourful manner to an incident in which the French Government acted entirely within their rights in French territorial waters. The hon. Gentleman too, of course, is within his rights in raising the matter, but it is another matter to suggest that the British Government are somehow guilty of some outrageous crime just because we have refused to join the Greenpeace-led chorus of disapproval.

I make the point again quite clearly: we support the French Government in their right to defend sites of national security importance in their territorial waters. I think that the House would prefer me to enunciate a policy which is rather more responsible than the arguments that we have just heard, and I shall talk about that in some detail.

I remind the House of the facts of the incident, as we understand them. The boarding took place not only in French territorial waters, but in a 12-mile exclusion zone which the French Government had declared, as is their right under international law. The captain and crew of Rainbow Warrior II had been warned not to enter the exclusion zone, and that the French authorities would if necessary enforce the exclusion zone. Rainbow Warrior II none the less entered the exclusion zone in defiance of that order. The French authorities then took action to enforce the exclusion zone.

We have seen no evidence to suggest that the French actions were illegal. The press and the hon. Gentleman have made much of the alleged French heavy-handedness. He must address any detail questions on that to the French authorities; it is not for me to answer. However, so that the House is not misled and hon. Members do not think that the French authorities committed great atrocities on 9 July, I should make quite clear what happened and what did not happen.

From the information that I have, I understand that no injuries resulted from the boarding of the Rainbow Warrior II, and there were no injuries to the British people present on the ship. The ship and her crew have now left the Mururoa atoll. I, for one, certainly hope that they do not seek to return.

I turn to the difficult and very real issue that we have to face up to: nuclear testing. We have not criticised the French decision, and I do not intend to start now, but I shall explain to the hon. Gentleman, and any others of his persuasion, the position that we have taken and why we believe that it was right to take it. In doing so, I shall deal with some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell).

It might be helpful first to remind hon. Members of some further facts, particularly what President Chirac said when he announced France's decision to resume testing. On 13 June, President Chirac stated that France would undertake a final series of no more than eight nuclear tests at Mururoa, between September 1995 and May 1996 at the latest.

Will the Minister give way?

I am afraid not. I do not have much time to conclude my remarks.

Importantly, President Chirac confirmed France's commitment to the conclusion of a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty by the autumn of 1996—[Laughter.]—and France's intention to sign such a treaty once concluded. The laughter from the Labour Members sitting below the Gangway shows how seriously they are taking this matter, as against their rhetoric on it.

First and foremost, President Chirac made it clear that he took the decision because he considered that France's national security needs could not be met in any other way. I do not believe that it is for us to seek to second-guess his judgment on this. National security—our own and that of our allies—means something to Conservative Members. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Bolsover seems to dismiss it so lightly.

Hon. Members heard a characteristically detailed speech from the hon. Member for Linlithgow, who has a long and honourable interest in this area and has some expertise in it, so in a second I shall come to the points that he raised. But in first addressing it, I reiterate that President Chirac has offered a clear assurance that a testing programme will not harm the environment. Indeed, we are told by the French Government that, despite the fact that more than 150 tests have been conducted at Mururoa, the level of radiation in the south Pacific is lower than natural levels in some parts of mainland France. The French Government have made it clear that all the tests will take place underground.

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting and important point about atolls. I assume that he means that the atolls are linked biologically rather than physically. In fact, he talked to me earlier about seeding. Even so, from the scientific evidence at our disposal, I do not believe that there is the kind of problem that the hon. Gentleman suggests.

If I understand his argument correctly, the risk would reflect two things: the product of the differential in radiation at the source point, and the mass transfer between the points that he is discussing. Both those numbers will be very low. However, I will look into it in some detail, since he has raised it rather too late for me to study the matter further.

Will the Minister ask Foreign Office officials to view the television programme "Coral Grief", which gives pictorial evidence of inter-reef fertilisation?

I shall make sure that we write to the hon. Gentleman, because I take his concerns seriously. I think that they are ill founded in this case, but I take them seriously.

The hon. Gentleman also raised the point about caesium 137 and strontium 90 in a debate in July 1973 about atmospheric testing. As the hon. Gentleman is aware, all the French tests will take place underground on this occasion, and there is no reason why such elements should be released from those tests. On that occasion in 1973, he received a response from the Attorney-General, which I think stands.

President Chirac has issued an invitation to experts to visit the area—we have had a call for an independent study—to check his assurance on the effect on the environment.

Will the Minister give way?

I ask the House to consider whether President Chirac would have been prepared to give such an assurance if he was not fully confident that it would be proved justified. I leave it to the House to draw its own conclusions, but the matter seems fairly clear to me.

President Chirac has explained that the limited programme of tests will be designed to enable France to take advantage of computer simulation techniques to ensure the safety and reliability of its nuclear deterrent, once a comprehensive test ban treaty comes into force. If the hon. Member for Bolsover reflects on this, he will see that the latter point is good news.

We wholeheartedly share the desire for the comprehensive test ban treaty to be concluded at the conference on disarmament. The French decision and their reiterated commitment to a CTBT are a constructive contribution towards achieving that goal. The French are saying that they want to work for a comprehensive test ban treaty, that they want to sign one and that they are prepared to work to put themselves in a position to do so in a—

Order.

Mr Stephen Spayne

1.30 pm

I know that it is highly unusual to raise the case of an individual in the House of Commons, but there appears to be little alternative. I have already raised the case with the leader of Cleveland county council and it has become clear that an investigation must come from outside the council. I also raise this matter because people should be told what goes on in their local municipal buildings and how their money is being spent. No one at the county council seems to be interested in tackling the issue properly, although I understand that this morning, an extensive press statement has been issued which attempts to explain the position.

I shall run through the situation. This case relates to my constituent, Stephen Spayne, who works as a shift supervisor in the computer department at Cleveland county council; he has been working there for 21 years. In 1988, Mr. Spayne discovered a rather suspicious document purporting to be an invoice from KN Consultants to a man called Ted Stafford at Rank Xerox. For ease of reference, I have the document here. It is dated 16 May 1988 and it is for £350 for two days' consultancy, travel, subsistence and incidental expenses.

Mr. Spayne noticed that KN Consultants happened to have the same address as his immediate superior, Mr. Kevin Narey, in the computer department. Mr. Spayne recalled the wording of the code of conduct which bans private work except in very exceptional circumstances. He went to see the chief executive of Cleveland county council to report what was prima facie evidence of corruption.

Mr. Spayne also took with him two further letters, which he has given to me. The first is a letter from Mr. Narey to Rank Xerox which says:

"I am returning the cheque which eventually arrived last week in the hope that you can have it amended for me. As you will see, it is made out to KN Consultants. I need to have it in my own name and hope that this can be arranged. If it is any use to you, I enclose a second invoice in my name only. Sorry for the inconvenience."

The second piece of paper is from Mr. Kevin Narey of the same address. It is in respect of

"two days' consultancy, travel and subsistence and other expenses."

Mr. Bruce Stevenson, the chief executive of the county council, who is also my constituent, assured Mr. Spayne that he would deal with the matter thoroughly and that he need not trouble him with it again. Mr. Spayne then received a visit from his union branch secretary. He was clearly told not to mention the matter outside the county council and specifically not to go to see me, his Member of Parliament.

Following this action by Mr. Spayne, his working environment rapidly deteriorated. Mr. Narey came to see him, accused him of shopping him and started to harass him at work. His life became difficult. He was, for instance, booked on to a management training course while Mr. Narey was away and he received a start date. On Mr. Narey's return, the course was cancelled. There were complaints about every aspect of his work, even about the way in which he parked his car and about a range of other matters.

Mr. Narey, meanwhile, was promoted to head of the computer department and Mr. Spayne's life became even more unpleasant. Finally, in September 1993, the situation culminated in Mr. Spayne being issued with a disciplinary notice for dereliction of duty. Understandably, Mr. Spayne appealed and refused to speak to the people who were harassing him without a union representative being present. A report was prepared for the appeal tribunal by an investigating officer who was appointed by Mr. Narey. The report did not, however, uphold the case for suspension and Mr. Narey sent it back for redrafting. Mr. Spayne's colleague at work was approached to give evidence against him and was asked, in effect, to lie about him. On 18 January 1994, Mr. Spayne was suspended from his post.

An independent inquiry was launched by a Mr. Dokes from the education department of the same county council. After a few weeks, my constituent was taken off suspension and put on leave of absence with pay. In May, he returned to work but was given menial tasks in another department, the printing department. From October last year, he went on sick leave as his new job was getting him down.

Meanwhile, Mr. Dokes had rapidly concluded his investigation and had written a 23-page report substantially supporting Mr. Spayne and drawing on the long history of events, going back to the discovery of the invoices in 1988. It was submitted to the chief executive, Mr. Stevenson, who apparently ordered it to be suppressed and another one to be written. Mr. Dokes said to a Mr. Slater of Unison of his first report:

"If anyone requests this report I shall deny even writing it, because I have my own position to think about."

There were witnesses present who wrote those words down. A new report was written; it was heavily jargonised and it did not come out with clear conclusions.

Late last year, Mr. Spayne came to see me. I regard allegations of corrupt practices as extremely serious, especially when the chief executive is alleged to be covering them up. I went to see the leader of the Conservatives on the county council and she directed me to the leader of the council, Councillor Paul Harford. After going through the facts and discussing Mr. Stevenson's role in all this, Mr. Harford agreed with me that there should be an outside investigation. He asked the county secretary, David Ashton, to receive a report from Mr. Spayne and to set up the necessary action. Mr. Spayne saw Mr. Ashton in December. In January, Mr. Spayne was suddenly recalled to work. He had a two-minute meeting with Mr. Wright of Unison and Mr. Stevenson. Mr. Stevenson said that there was no reason why he should not return to work immediately in his old job. However, he refused to discuss why Mr. Spayne had been off work for nearly a year. My constituent then returned to work and wrote to the personnel department asking for written reasons why he had been away from work, but he was given none.

Following the meeting with Mr. Ashton, the county secretary wrote to Mr. Spayne and to me in April this year saying that the matters had been investigated. I am afraid that the explanations offered do not amount to very much. There is to be no outside investigation.

First, Mr. Ashton appears to believe from what has been said by Mr. Wright of Unison that my constituent's grievances were being pursued through the normal channels when that was patently not the case. They have not been pursued by anyone, let alone Unison which seems, incidentally, to act as an arm of the county council.

After all, it was another union representative who informally offered Mr. Spayne £20,000 to leave the county's employment.

Secondly, Mr.Ashton has taken advantage of Mr. Spayne's understandable reluctance to speak to superior officers in his own council about his allegation to discern that Mr. Spayne does not allege misconduct on the part of the chief executive. Yet the reason why I went to see the leader of the council and asked for a proper outside investigation was precisely because such an allegation had been made. I do not believe that it is in the interests of my constituent, Mr. Stevenson or the county council simply to brush the matter aside. If senior officers can accept outside payments from companies dealing directly with the county and can then have the matter hushed up, the council tax payers in my constituency should know about it.

The explanation of the events leading a senior officer of the council to invoice Rank Xerox has no substance at all. The matter was apparently referred to an internal auditor who sent a report to the chief executive who decided to take no action. Mr. Ashton—another servant of the council—has apparently read the report and is happy with it, but he will not say what is in it. However, I understand that in the light of today's debate, a statement has been issued to the press which offers some explanation.

Mr. Ashton has said that the personnel director stated in 1974 that, from time to time, chief and senior officers were requested to give informal or formal talks on particular aspects of the work of council, and that expenses for travel and subsistence and a fee could be paid. So why was Mr. Narey not open and above board about it? What about the company called KN Consultants, which apparently disappeared overnight? Apparently, it was resolved by the council that permission could be given for such talks if the appropriate chief officer was consulted. But no suggestion has been made that anybody was consulted in this case.

Why was Mr. Narey so angry about being shopped? Why was Mr. Spayne hounded, nearly out of his job? Why was the report on Mr. Spayne's employment quashed and sent back for a redraft? If the matter was all in order and above board, why did not Mr. Stevenson just tell Mr. Spayne that? Why is Mr. Narey now telling my constituent that he has no chance of redeployment when the computer department moves over to the new unitary borough of Middlesbrough? Is Mr. Narey, along with other officers, free to accept payments from contractors and then harass his staff if they question his doing so?

I suppose that it is possible that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this, but justice has not yet been done, nor has it been seen to be done. There are, I suspect, only two alternatives. Either something very shady is going on in the county council and there has been a cover-up for some reason, or it is just a very badly managed institution which treats its staff poorly and has terrible internal communications. Either way, I am not confident that Cleveland county council is the efficient organisation it has pretended to be to stave off its own abolition.

I hope that the Minister will use what powers he has to have Mr. Spayne's case properly investigated by an outside authority. I would also like to see an independent report on Mr. Narey's activities with regard to the dummy invoices, and a clear statement from Cleveland as to the circumstances in which officers' private arrangements with outside companies are deemed to be corrupt.

Since these events happened, Cleveland county council has revised its guidance on private work and general conduct for staff. Under the heading "General Conduct" in both the old and new versions, it says clearly:

"The Council must be in a position to rebut with confidence any allegation that the integrity of its administration is being impaired because of the leisure time activities of any of its staff. Implicit in this is the requirement that there must be no question of staff undertaking activities in circumstances which might lead to suspicion of undue or improper favour being granted, or undue or improper influence exercised, in relation to contracts or any kind of consent, permission, licence etc., which members of the public seek from the Council."

That is a clear statement which, in the circumstances, I do not think Cleveland council can live up to today.

Finally, it is beholden upon Cleveland county council to apologise to my constituent for the appalling way in which he has been treated, and to offer some token compensation. Once again, we see evidence of how the internal dealings of Labour-controlled councils leave a lot to be desired, and how difficult it is to bring such circumstances out into the light.

1.43 pm

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin) has classically presented his case with typical clarity. Those of us with an interest in these matters will wish to consider carefully what he has said and consider their response to his analysis of these issues. However, I am sure that he will appreciate that it is not for me to comment on the specific case or the specific allegations. As my hon. Friend is aware, Ministers have no direct role in such cases, nor do they have powers to intervene. Nevertheless, the Government condemn all forms of impropriety and corruption in public life, wherever it occurs. We have done much in the last 16 years to promote good conduct in local government. I can offer my hon. Friend some general comments and some general guidance on how he might take this matter forward.

Historically, local government in this country has been characterised by a tradition of propriety and public service. However, there is always the potential for misconduct or fraud and we must not be complacent. Central Government's role is to ensure that there is a framework in place to provide a safeguard against such misconduct. In 1982, the Government established the Audit Commission to arrange for the audit of local authorities. The Audit Commission oversees the work of councils' external auditors, who have an important role in the fight against fraud.

In 1985, the Government set up the Widdicombe committee of inquiry into the conduct of local authority business. We responded to the committee's report with legislation providing for a number of measures to ensure the good conduct of local authority business. In particular, we introduced a head of paid service, responsible for making reports on—among other things—the proper appointment and management of staff and the introduction of the role of the monitoring officer to make reports on the contravention of the law or maladministration.

Other measures introduced by the Government since then have contributed to the improvement of the conduct of local government by encouraging authorities to root out waste and bureaucracy and to remove obstacles to the provision of efficient and effective services. I am thinking obviously of the disciplines imposed by the extension of compulsory competitive tendering to greater areas of local authority business and most recently the requirement to publish performance indicators.

However, the primary responsibility for the prevention and detection of fraud within their areas of operation rests with the local authorities themselves. As responsible employers, councils should uphold the highest standards of probity among their own employees. In the great majority of cases, they do. Where fraud is found, the authority should root it out. However, my hon. Friend is clearly dissatisfied with the response he has received from the council in this case. I would advise him that he, his constituent and others concerned about this case have two alternate avenues to explore.

In cases where there is a suspicion of criminal activity, the matter should be referred to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. However, I am not aware that such allegations have been made in this case. Alternatively, matters relating to misconduct, fraud or the loss of public money can be referred to the council's external auditor. I am not in a position to say—nor should I comment—on whether the allegations referred to by my hon. Friend have some substance, but the nature of the allegations suggests to me that they are of the type which would fall within the remit of the district auditor. My hon. Friend may wish to consider this course of action, if indeed it has not already been done.

District auditors are independent of the councils which they audit, and they have significant powers to investigate allegations of wrongdoing and take action. Their powers extend wider than those of a commercial auditor. They not only audit the council's accounts, but advise on matters relating to value for money and good financial management. They guard against fraud, misconduct and the loss of money, and if they find transgressions they can surcharge those responsible for the repayment of money.

District auditors are overseen by the Audit Commission. Its statutory duties include the preparation of a code which prescribes

"what appears to the commission to be the best professional practice with respect to the standards, procedures and techniques to be adopted by auditors".

The code is subject to approval by Parliament and hon. Members with an interest in these matters will know that a Standing Committee of the House considered and approved the latest version of the code only last week.

Auditors have a duty to comply with the code in carrying out their functions, and therefore it plays an important part in the fight against fraud. The code makes it clear that it is the responsibility of auditors to review the adequacy of the measures taken by councils to combat fraud, to test compliance with these measures and to draw attention to significant weaknesses or omissions which they may identify. According to the code, any person may at any time give information to auditors which concerns the accounts of the relevant councils or is otherwise relevant to the auditors' functions, and auditors must—I emphasise that—consider such information. The relevant auditor in the matters referred to by my hon. Friend would be obliged to consider information passed to him.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, I sympathise with my hon. Friend's frustration in this case, and I hope he will not be disappointed that I have to say—in all fairness, I think he already realised this—that I cannot pursue the matter on his behalf. However, I have explained the framework within which local authorities and their external auditors must operate, and I have offered him some guidance on the future action he must take. I can do no more than wish him the best of luck.

rose—

Order. This is an Adjournment debate, and the Minister has spoken.

As both the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel) and the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office are present, we shall now move to the next debate.

Burma

1.49 pm

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the important question of British Government policy on Burma. On Monday, I was able to welcome and congratulate the new Minister; let me do so again now. No doubt this is the first of many foreign affairs Adjournment debates that he will have to answer.

The Minister inherits one excellent policy: what has been described as the "good governance" policy of Her Majesty's Government over the past two or three years. We shall all miss the leadership shown by the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd) over the years, and I have always given my full support to Baroness Chalker when she has spoken on the subject. Indeed, I shall begin by quoting from her Chatham house lecture of a year ago. She said:

"The United Nations charter lays a duty on all of us to promote respect for human rights everywhere."

That encapsulates the theme of my speech.

In 1988, the National League for Democracy in Burma won the general election. Its victory was inconvenient for the military, which promptly staged a coup and established in its place the infamous SLORC—the State Law and Order Restoration Council. As with so many military coups around the world, the theory was that this would be a transitional phase prior to an orderly handing over of power to a democracy. That has not happened, however, and many of the Members of Parliament who had been elected were thrown into gaol. Since then, the legitimate Prime Minister of Burma, Dr. Sein Win, has been in exile. He is currently in Washington, and I had a long discussion with him there a few weeks ago.

The daughter of the Independence Prime Minister, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been the most noted figure of opposition to the military, and has been awarded the Nobel peace prize. We all rejoiced when she was released last week after six years of house detention. She became a symbol of resistance to oppression around the world, but life could have been so easy for her: the regime was perfectly willing to release her provided that she left the country to join her British husband and family in Oxford, but she realised that she would never be allowed back and volunteered to remain under house arrest. That is a tribute to her steadfastness and courage.

In her famous essay "Freedom from Fear", Aung San Suu Kyi wrote that courage could be described as grace under pressure—

"grace which is renewed repeatedly in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure."

That definition could very well be applied to Aung San Suu Kyi herself. She has been a symbol of hope to the people of Burma, whether they are in the country or—as many are—in exile around the world. I was glad to hear today that she was able to attend the martyrs' memorial ceremony; we wait to see what other freedoms she will be allowed following her release.

We in the Liberal international movement decided to give Aung San Suu Kyi the 1995 prize for freedom. We award the prize annually to a figure who has made a contribution to world freedom, and I can think of no more appropriate recipient this year. Only a few weeks ago, the SLORC authorities refused me permission to travel to Burma and present the prize. Given the new circumstances, I have asked permission again, and I hope that it will be granted in the near future.

I do not think that Aung San Suu Kyi would have been released but for the pressure exerted by many Governments around the world, including the strong words of our own Prime Minister in an answer to me at Question Time only three weeks ago and the pressure from the visiting Japanese Foreign Minister. All those factors have helped, but there is a danger that, because Aung San Suu Kyi has been such a symbol of the victimisation and oppression of the Government, the fact of her release may lead people to believe that things will be well in Burma from now on. I hope that they will, but the House should be aware that 16 elected Members of Parliament are still in gaol, and that there are an estimated 1,000 political prisoners in Burma—including nine students who were arrested only this year while attending the funeral of one of the Independence leaders.

The regime has been universally condemned for its human rights abuses over the past few years. Successive annual resolutions of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the third committee of the United Nations General Assembly have been increasingly critical of SLORC, and the sub-commission on prevention of discrimination and protection of minorities has also been extremely critical of its oppression of minority groups in the country—notably the Karen minority on the border with Thailand. No doubt the Minister is aware of a recent television documentary that produced some evidence that biological warfare had been used by the regime against the Karen people. That in itself deserves international condemnation.

All the UN resolutions have consistently called for an end to summary executions, torture and forced labour. I have just been reading the International Labour Organisation's report on forced labour. It estimates that some 800,000 people have been used for that purpose under legislation that allows Burmese local authorities to requisition citizens for public works. It states that the Government are is using forced labour in a strategic and systematic way to develop holiday resorts for tourists. For example, workers have been conscripted to clean out with bare hands the Mandalay canal, 10 km long and more than 3 m deep. Houses bordering the canal have been demolished and local people forced by the military to work 24-hour shifts, and 2,000 prisoners in chains have been brought in to assist. The report goes on to claim that some 30,000 workers have not been paid for work at the new airport in Basang, and that hordes of men have been seen cleaning streets and historic buildings in Mandalay.

The regime has responded that the allegations of forced labour are false and are being made by people who want to denigrate it. It argues that international critics do not understand the culture of the people; the voluntary contribution of labour to building shrines, temples and so forth is a tradition that goes back thousands of years.

That superficial argument has been rejected by, among others, the United States Government representative to the ILO, Julia Misner. She has pointed out that, while the United States Government respect the tradition of voluntary community service in Burma, there is clear evidence that people have been forcibly conscripted, taken from their villages and farms and made to work—often without pay or food—under threat of heavy fines, and subjected to severe physical abuse. She said:

"Some of these workers had died as a result of mistreatment and some had been murdered. What was unacceptable and alarming was not only had the Government failed to suppress the use of forced labour, but apparently had even promoted the spread of this practice".

When we speak of good governance, we are not talking only about obscure parliamentary traditions; we are talking about the way of life imposed on the people of Burma by the present regime.

What should we, in the outside world, be doing about that? Of course we have no aid programme to Burma because of the human rights record, yet Burma is a very poor country. The per capita gross domestic product is only $235; that is half of India's per capita GDP and less than that of Bangladesh. Only 10 per cent. of homes have electricity. Obviously, therefore, Burma is a country which in normal times would be a very worthy recipient of international aid assistance.

Given that that aid has been denied to them and given their inflation rate and their levels of poverty, the Burmese authorities have been developing what I can only call "economic diplomacy". A Japanese trading company recently signed an agreement on major infrastructure joint ventures and it is widely believed that the Japanese Government are now considering the resumption of an aid programme. Britain held a trade promotion week last year, and the World bank is currently preparing a report on economic reforms.

It is believed that Burma may announce other palliative measures following the release of Aung San Suu Kyi. She herself has answered a direct question on her release. She was asked by Time magazine:

"How should the international community react"

to your release? She replied:

"The authorities should be given credit for releasing me, but I think people should wait a bit to see what follows. There is no use rushing in and thinking everything is going to be hunky-dory from now on."

I think those are wise words.

I suggest to the Minister that our policies should be roughly as follows.

First, we must use our position in the World bank and the International Monetary Fund to ensure that major economic benefit lending is not resumed to Burma without a dramatic improvement in human rights. I believe it is essential that we use our. influence in the international financial institutions in that constructive way.

Secondly, I do not believe that any further trade or investment delegations should be sent to Burma until the UN resolutions have been complied with.

Thirdly, I hope that Her Majesty's Government will support the UN machinery to establish a contact group which could encourage dialogue between SLORC and the National League for Democracy. It is interesting that members of the National League for Democracy—at any rate those that I have met—are not wild-eyed revolutionaries. They are making a reasonable suggestion that in Burma there might be, as an interim measure, a shared administration between the present regime and the NLD, pending the construction of a proper constitutional conference.

I believe that that is a sensible and moderate suggestion, which the UN is ready to encourage and which Her Majesty's Government should support.

We must make it clear to the regime that unilateral constitutional tinkering on its part will not be acceptable. The present so-called "constitutional convention" is already in draft and proposes, for example, a major continuing role in the democratic assemblies for the military. It proposes, for example, to disqualify from standing for presidential office anyone married to a foreigner; a more blatant piece of manipulation intended to exclude Aung San Suu Kyi is difficult to imagine.

Obviously, it is unacceptable that the existing regime should itself revise the constitution. There must be some process of dialogue, of constitution-building on a consensus basis. I suggest that the international pressure, especially the pressure from Her Majesty's Government, which was applied to the Banda regime in Malawi and produced exactly that type of constitutional dialogue leading to democratic elections, is what is required in Burma.

I hope that the Minister will confirm that not only shall we ourselves not resume an aid programme until there are changes of a more fundamental type in Burma, but that we shall talk firmly to our allies in the Japanese Government to try to ensure that they do not do so either.

I freely recognise that one of the problems facing the Government in promoting the good governance policy is that pressure through withdrawal of investment or trade is not effective if it is unilateral. It must be on a multilateral and co-operative basis. I argue that that co-operation should begin in the European Union. It may take us a long time to move to the so-called common foreign policy outlined in the Maastricht treaty, but whatever our opinions may be in the House on that subject there can be no denying that, on the issue of trade and investment pressure, a common policy is exactly what is needed. Otherwise, one country's sanctions become its neighbours' business opportunities. I hope very much that the policy of good governance will be pushed forward, especially in the European Union.

In the past few days, we have had the sad example of Nigeria. Strong statements were made about Nigeria by the Minister and by Lady Chalker, and the Nigerians have reacted against that and called in the heads of the British oil companies to warn them against what they regard as interference in their affairs. We are exposed as an individual country unless we work together with our allies to increase the pressure on those totalitarian regimes and persuade them to return to civilian Government.

I realise that I have not used up all the extra time that you have generously allowed us, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as a result of the shortness of the previous debate, but I have never believed in occupying space for that reason alone. I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in reply.

2.6 pm

I am most grateful to the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel) for initiating the debate. It is certainly very timely for the House to focus on Burma slightly more than a week after Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was released from the house detention to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. She had indeed endured that house detention for almost six years, and it had long been a policy priority of this Government to secure her unconditional release. I am sure that all hon. and right hon. Members of the House will wish to join the right hon. Gentleman and myself, especially on such a significant day, in welcoming that courageous lady back to freedom.

July 19 is martyrs day in Burma, commemorating not only Daw Suu Kyi's father, but the other Burmese leaders who were assassinated just before Burma achieved its independence. Earlier today, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly said, Daw Suu Kyi joined the State Law and Order Restoration Council—the SLORC—in laying wreaths for her father. The ceremony passed peacefully, and I believe that we should take that as a good omen for a united future for Burma.

I wish to begin by expressing my heartfelt admiration for Daw Suu Kyi. The citation for her Nobel peace prize in 1991 described her contribution as one of the most remarkable examples of civilian courage in Asia in recent decades. I am pleased to hear of the additional honour to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.

Throughout her detention, Daw Suu Kyi remained untainted by bitterness, and was rightly regarded as a fitting symbol of the non-violent struggle against oppression. Since her release, that courage has been complemented by a remarkable magnanimity and self-restraint. She has indeed been an example to all democrats. In a moving statement that she made to the press on her first day of freedom, she spoke, not of triumph, but of forgiveness and reconciliation. Now she is free, and is turning her efforts towards working with the SLORC for the good of the Burmese people. As I say, I cannot praise her enough and I should also pay tribute to the fortitude shown by her family.

We must also welcome the decision of the ruling military regime in Burma, the SLORC, in finally agreeing to remove the restriction that it had placed on Daw Suu Kyi. A long detention without trial was against all the principles of justice. We appreciate the SLORC's acknowledgment of her right to liberty at long last. By agreeing to her unconditional release and expressing its desire to work with her for the peace and stability of Burma, it has acted in its country's best interests. We warmly welcome its action and hope that it represents the first step in an irreversible pursuit of progress towards a prosperous and a democratic Burma.

As no one appreciates more than Daw Suu Kyi, that will be no easy task. But now there is hope for change. Burma is one of south-east Asia's least developed countries, with vast unrealised natural and human resources. The SLORC has asked Daw Suu Kyi to participate in the creation of a peaceful and prosperous country, and has expressed its hope that national reconciliation will be achieved. We encourage the SLORC to recognise the rights of all Burmese people to participate fully in the political process, and to heed the call for dialogue.

Encouraging such dialogue and cooperation has been a key. aim of our policy since the SLORC came to power, and it will continue to be so. As Daw Suu Kyi has already pointed out, the positive resolution of political problems throughout the world in recent years has been achieved primarily through dialogue.

We have been heartened by the SLORC's stated intention to achieve reconciliation, and by its recent release of many political prisoners. But, as the Secretary of State said in his message marking the release of Daw Suu Kyi, there are many more people still detained in Burma. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments in that regard and for confirming the magnitude of the existing problem. We hope that the process of formulating a new constitution will become a truly consultative process involving all ethnic and political groups and that all those still detained for voicing their hopes and aims for a free and democratic Burma will be released to take part in that process.

Of course, civil liberties are not the only important rights. The welfare of the Burmese people continues to concern us. As the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned, the human rights situation in Burma is distressing by any standards. We are aware of reports of forced labour and military porterage, and of the displacement of entire communities. The plight of the Karen people on Burma's border with Thailand must not be overlooked. As the right hon. Gentleman said, there has been graphic evidence of that in recent television programmes.

Freedom of speech and association are still denied in Burma. We have condemned such human rights abuses and will continue to do so, both bilaterally and in international forums. We support the activities of the United Nations in promoting democracy in Burma and we would consider carefully any proposal for a contact group. But there is hope for change. The SLORC has at last realised that the removal of constraints from Daw Suu Kyi can help it to achieve a prosperous and a peaceful Burma. We must work with others to persuade it to realise that the same benefits will come from respecting the human rights of all the Burmese people, including the ethnic minorities.

We are committed to helping Burma develop into a peaceful and prosperous nation with which we can enjoy productive relations. We endorse Daw Suu Kyi's call for the healing of divisions to stabilise Burma and we are encouraged by the SLORC's request that she work with it for the peace and stability of the country. Internal stability is a vital prerequisite of the political and economic development that is essential if Burma is to play a full international role.

We recognise that Burma's neighbours have direct concerns which affect the formulation of their policy. But we urge them to consider carefully the implications of moving too quickly. Daw Suu Kyi and the right hon. Gentleman referred to the advantages of a quiet and careful approach. We should not rush into things, assuming that everything is, as Daw Suu Kyi said, "hunky-dory". We all want Burma to play its full part in international and regional groupings. But before Burma can fulfil wider roles satisfactorily, the SLORC needs to be encouraged to apply principles of good governance. I am grateful for what the right hon. Gentleman said in that regard. The principles of good governance require a Government to be legitimate, competent, accountable and to respect and promote human rights and the rule of law. We can all do much to encourage that.

All those Governments with an interest in the future of Burma are reviewing their policies following Daw Suu Kyi's release. But the watchword is caution. We shall all be watching closely to see if the SLORC takes advantage of the situation that it has created. Burma stands to benefit greatly if it does.

Aid is an important aspect of our policy, as the right hon. Gentleman highlighted. We shall be considering carefully the direction that our aid policy should take over the coming months. Aid is a valuable tool in exercising international influence in Burma, and we must be careful that it is used to support reform rather than undermine it. We shall discuss the way ahead with our European partners. We are already in agreement that we should reward reform in Burma by providing aid.

We consider it vital that the SLORC should cooperate with the UN bodies and other aid and humanitarian agencies working in Burma, whose efforts we strongly support. It is only in that way that the Burmese people will be able to benefit from the help that we all wish to provide.

Burma is in desperate need of economic development, as the SLORC has recognised. We should be doing the Burmese people a grave disservice if we were to ignore that. Daw Suu Kyi has also expressed her support for measured economic development country wide. But we must proceed with caution. As part of our critical dialogue, we should let the SLORC know that progress with economic assistance will be conditional on both economic and political reforms. They must be radical. In particular, Burma needs a stable fiscal framework and a new currency policy. She should address urgently the problem of her foreign debt.

We shall also be reviewing the means by which we assist British companies to prospect the Burmese market. It is a market that could develop quickly should real reform come. We need to ensure that British companies will not be at a disadvantage when competing in those conditions. The competition will be intense. Through trade, we can help to reinforce rather than undermine our policy in other areas. Through increased commercial contacts with democratic nations such as Britain, the Burmese people will gain experience of democratic principles. So I do not share the view of the isolationists who contend that trading with repressive regimes only brings them succour.

I shall refer to the right hon. Gentleman's comments about the trade fair. British week proved extremely successful. It was a small scale affair, but one which aimed to give British firms a chance to assess for themselves market opportunities in Burma. It was not just a trade event; it included cultural and information elements that aimed to correct the distorted image of the United Kingdom in Burma. We do not have any plans for future events, but I believe that the trade fair achieved all of its aims.

Overall, we aim to provide the strong and sympathetic support that Daw Suu Kyi asked for from the international community, working bilaterally with our European partners, Burma's neighbours and other nations. The continued interest shown by the House reflects the genuine wish of people in Britain to help to achieve the aims that she has represented for so long. We must impress upon the SLORC our interest and potential to contribute, but we must emphasise our continued insistence on the removal of the many abuses and restrictions that remain. It is truly critical to maintain our dialogue.

I can summarise our current attitude as cautiously optimistic. We are looking at our policy options but will not rush ahead. We must allow the dust to settle and the dialogue between Daw Suu Kyi, her followers and the SLORC to develop. We must do our best to aid the progress of dialogue and reconciliation by recognising and rewarding moves in the right direction. Daw Suu Kyi has warned the Burmese people

"not to expect too much too quickly",

but her positive attitude gives hope for progress. She pointed out that the differences between the regime and the Opposition in Burma are nothing like so great as the gulf that divided black and white in South Africa. If South Africa can resolve its differences and proceed as a united country, there is hope for Burma. We shall do all that we can to encourage the fulfilment of that hope. Again, I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale for raising the issue in the House today.

2.19 pm

Sitting suspended.

2.30 pm

On resuming—

It being half-past Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, pursuant to Order [19 December].

Private Business

Accommodation Level Crossings Bill Lords(By Order)

Order for Third Reading read.

To be read the Third time on Thursday 19 October.

City Of Westminster Bill Lords (By Order)

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [26 June].

Debate to be resumed on Thursday 19 October.

Oral Answers To Questions

Environment

National Park Authorities

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received regarding the new national park authorities. [33371]

Our conclusions in response to the many representations we have received are reflected in part III of the Environment Bill.

The Secretary of State will be painfully aware of the extent to which Britain's conservation bodies feel cheated by his decision to remove "quiet enjoyment" rather than accept the definition tabled by the Opposition on Report. When will his revised guidance be published, as promised? Will he give us his word that that guidance will make it crystal clear that a special quality of all national parks is their peacefulness and tranquillity?

I am sorry that the hon. Lady should not have read with care reports of discussions in Committee, when it was made clear that, although the Government sought to find a way both to retain "quiet enjoyment" and to ensure that people could continue to do in national parks what they have done and want to continue to do, there was no way in which either the Opposition or the Government felt that that could be achieved. We have removed "quiet" and I have stated in the guidance, which I hope to publish as soon as possible, that we shall ensure that the tranquillity that is suitable for national parks is maintained while enabling people to continue to lead their lives in a reasonable manner. I think that that is reasonable, and most bodies agree with me.

Does my right hon. Friend accept that his decision to increase the number of local people on national park authorities, especially parish councillors, has been warmly welcomed, particularly in the context of the Northumberland national park? Will he dissociate himself from the remarks made by an Opposition Front Bench spokesman in Committee to the effect that parish councillors are overly parochial and accountable to no one?

I was surprised to read of the Labour party's assertion that parish councillors are accountable only to themselves. I was surprised also by the dismissive and contemptuous way in which they were treated by the Labour Front Bench. I hope that parish councillors notice that the Labour party does not consider them to be representative of local parties and does not believe that they are elected. I hope also that parish councillors will know what to do in future when the Labour party woos them.

Does the Secretary of State agree that there are many people who enjoy walking in national parks? Will he encourage national parks to negotiate access agreements to increase the areas in which people can walk? Will he urge all national parks to achieve the target set out in the Edwards report by ensuring that, by the end of the year, all rights of way in national parks are free of obstruction and are signposted where they leave the highway?

I am obviously pleased by the way in which we have improved the opportunity of access during the past few years. I know that most national parks are trying to do precisely what the hon. Gentleman has urged. We must recognise, however, that there is a balance to be achieved. Many other functions of the national parks must be carried out properly, such as conservation of habitat, protection of birds and improvement of agriculture. All those factors must come into the balance as well.

Building And Construction Industry

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his latest assessment of the prospects for the building and construction industry; and if he will make a statement. [33372]

I commend to my hon. Friend the latest state of the construction industry report, produced jointly by my Department and representatives of the industry, which was published on 13 July. Copies have been placed in the Library.

Does my hon. Friend agree that a thriving building and construction industry is usually a great contributor to economic recovery and should be a political imperative for a party that has always championed the idea of a property-owning democracy? Given the present flatness of the housing market, has my hon. Friend any ideas in mind, such as the upgrading of our substandard housing stock, which would revitalise the industry and restore the cachet of home ownership?

I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of the construction industry. Of course we want to encourage it in every way possible to become more efficient and cost-effective so that it will continue to have an important place not only domestically but in terms of exports, which are going well. My hon. Friend should not forget that, despite gloomy pictures on the part of the construction industry, there are some better prospects and, in particular, exports are going well.

Does the Minister accept that the prospects for the building and construction industry are extremely gloomy because, in the public sector, the Government will do nothing to release local authorities' capital receipts which could lead to jobs and homes being built and, in the private sector, the Government are impotent and can do nothing because the real problem is the British people's lack of confidence in the Government and in Britain's economic prospects while they remain in power?

The hon. Gentleman behaves as though the receipts that accrue to local authorities are sitting under councillors' beds. A proportion is used for housing investment and much is used as a substitute for borrowing or lent on the money market. If that money was spent all at once, it would exert upward pressure on interest rates as well as causing other problems.

Does my hon. Friend agree with the Prime Minister who, when addressing the Manufacturing and Construction Industries Alliance on Monday this week, said that, with interest rates and inflation under control and with falling unemployment, housing has rarely been more affordable, and that the only stumbling block was lack of confidence? What does my hon. Friend believe he should do to get over that stumbling block in order to encourage the first-time buyer, thereby enhancing the prospects for the construction industry?

I read my right hon. Friend's excellent speech and I commend my hon. Friend's husband, the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), on his role in that organisation. My hon. Friend refers to the 20-year low in the ratio of prices to incomes and therefore rightly highlights the fact that housing is more affordable. Instead of talking down the housing market, Opposition Members should be emphasising that fact to encourage sales.

Will the Minister now come clean? In the past week we have seen figures from the National House-Building Council that show that starts in the first six months of this year are 15 per cent. down and figures from the Corporate Estate Agents showing sales down by a similar amount. Everyone in the industry knows that the house-building industry is in difficulty and that confidence has been further weakened by the crass decision to cut the income support safety net. When will the Government face up to their responsibilities? There was nothing in the White Paper to restore confidence in the market. When will the Government come to the help of the hard-pressed house-building industry and the millions of home owners who are in difficulty?

No one has any illusions about the fact that the house-building sector is going through a difficult period which will be overcome only as confidence continues to gain strength. That depends on how the economy performs and on how the message—that private sector housing has not been as affordable as it is now for 20 years—is put across.

House-Building Industry

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the business prospects for the house-building industry. [33373]

The Government remain firmly committed to a policy of sustainable home ownership and we anticipate recovery in the house-building industry as the wider economy continues to grow.

The national interest and the Conservative party's interest depend on a flourishing housing and building industry in the widest possible sense—home ownership and encouraging mobility. Does my hon. Friend agree that the present situation—which has complex causes, notably the over-borrowing of the late 1980s—is not sustainable for long? It is desirable for the reasons that I have given that my hon. Friend's Department should work closely with the Treasury to bring forward specific, urgent and early measures to encourage the house-building industry.

I shall certainly draw my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor's attention to my hon. Friend's point, but I return to the fact that the health of the house-building industry depends crucially on the performance of the economy as a whole. As my hon. Friend says, it would serve no one any good if we returned to the days of hyper-inflation in house prices.

In view of the Minister's new responsibility for health and safety, has he yet had time to look at the appalling health and safety record of building workers in the house-building industry? What will he do, particularly about the deregulated sector, commonly known as the lump?

The hon. Lady sounds like a voice from the 1960s. We are, of course, keen to see improving safety standards in the construction industry. As someone who worked in that industry, I am more aware of the matter than most, and we will continue to place emphasis on it.

Does my hon. Friend agree that a key factor in the house-building industry is the level of interest rates? Does he applaud the action taken by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 5 May when he resisted increasing interest rates? Will my hon. Friend try to ensure that, like the Chorley building society, other building societies do not always put up their rates when the larger ones do?

I am pleased to hear about the building society in my hon. Friend's constituency. My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor has to balance all the considerations, including the climate for inflation, as well as the performance of the economy as a whole. As I am sure my hon. Friend knows, that is not an easy balancing act.

Houses In Multiple Occupation

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on his reasons for deciding not to introduce a national licensing scheme for houses in multiple occupation. [33374]

The rules that we are proposing will permit effective action to ensure safety where that is necessary without imposing universal rules that may not be necessary everywhere.

Will the Minister admit that three out of every four people who responded to the Government's consultation paper supported the case for a national licensing scheme for houses in multiple occupation? By refusing to introduce such a scheme, are not the Government putting their ideological hostility towards regulation ahead of the proper concern for public safety and the need to save lives?

It is true that a large number of people wanted a licensing scheme, but they wanted different things—there was little agreement on the shape of the scheme that they wanted. We have decided to build on the powers that local authorities have rather than impose duties on them. There are parts of the country where there are relatively few problems, and it is not necessary to introduce a compulsory universal scheme. Where it is necessary to introduce a scheme, local authorities already have the relevant powers, and we shall give them enhanced powers.

Can my hon. Friend assure me that he will advise local authorities that houses in multiple occupation are precisely that and that the term should not be applied to large houses that have been converted into a few flats with relatively few residents?

We shall exempt from the regulation places such as long-term leasehold blocks, houses with self-contained flats and university halls of residence. They will be caught by different regulations that achieve the same purpose.

Air Quality Monitoring

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many monitoring stations capable of recording levels of PM₁₀s or lower provide information for his Department. [33376]

There are currently 16 stations. Another nine will come on stream by the end of 1996. On top of that, local authority sites will be integrated to increase the coverage.

I welcome the Minister to his new post, but I am extremely disappointed with his reply. Professor Seaton's report in The Lancet in January established a direct fink between the number and level of PM1Os in the atmosphere and high levels of death as a result of cardiovascular problems and respiratory disease. I understand that the expert panel on air quality standards will report later this year. Is not the number of monitoring stations wholly inadequate? Does the Minister agree that his plans do not address this serious problem?

The hon. Gentleman should take into account the fact that, in addition to the automatic monitoring stations, there are 250 non-automatic stations around the country. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that particle matter causes concern. That has been recognised by the expert panel, which is taking the matter seriously. No doubt particle matter will be one of the pollutants that we shall aim to reduce as part of our national air quality strategy that will be put in place by the Environment Bill. That strategy will be taken seriously; certainly it will be put into force.

I warmly welcome my hon. Friend's appointment. I am sure that he is aware that pollution causes particular difficulties for those with health problems such as asthma. What further action can his Department take to ensure that existing laws and those that are passed in this Session are used to try to reduce the number of lorries and buses that belch out filthy black smoke?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind comments, as I am grateful to the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Ainger) for his. My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. Diesel exhausts, buses and cars are responsible for a large volume of the pollution he describes. He will be aware that tighter standards are coming into force in 1996. They will result in a reduction of that type of pollution in the way that other measures, including the introduction of catalytic converters, have reduced other forms of serious pollution. All those measures will help to achieve the high standards for which we aim.

Homelessness

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what additional new measures he proposes to take to combat homelessness. [33377]

There will be a further rough sleepers initiative in London and we are considering how to apply the experience of the rough sleepers initiative outside London.

Is not it the case that, during the past 16 years of Tory government, homeless households have more than doubled and housing for rent has fallen to its lowest level? There are no real programmes offering homeless people what they really want—permanent homes. Why will not the Government let local authorities build affordable social housing?

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is trapped in a time warp. That comment is typical of the whole Labour party, which wants only to build council houses and does not seem to take any interest in any other aspect of housing policy. The Government have shifted the emphasis for construction to the housing associations because we think that they do the job better than local authorities. We have also shifted the emphasis towards getting an increasing number of houses for rent available to people by making sure that we have vacancies for them.

We have encouraged people to move into their own property if they can afford it so as to liberate that property, and we have a campaign to deal with the problems of empty property. We have achieved a much better balance in housing than existed before. Those policies offer to homeless people, specifically through the rough sleepers initiative and through the programmes that will be in the housing White Paper, a far better balance in housing policy across Britain as a whole.

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the ways in which to tackle homelessness is through a thriving housing market? Given the current difficulties in that market, and especially its low margins, does he sympathise with the significant concern of the housing industry about the draft part M building regulations and about the additional cost brought about in particular by the insistence on ramp accesses for every new house? Those measures will inevitably impose costs on the housing sector and that will be completely against the interests of those who want to own their own homes and, ultimately, act against the interests of the homeless.

We are not insisting on that. That is merely one of the options.

Housing

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement about the advantages of large-scale voluntary transfer of housing stock. [33378]

As my hon. Friend will know from the recent transfer of Maldon's housing stock to the Plume housing association, large-scale voluntary transfers mean more investment in housing stock and better services for tenants.

My right hon. Friend mentions the transfer of Maldon district council's housing stock. Is he aware that, following that transfer to the Plume housing association, tenants will this year pay a rent increase of 3.9 per cent. rather than the 12 per cent. that was projected by the council and that the council has benefitted by £21.5 million? Is not that an excellent demonstration of the way in which large-scale voluntary transfer can benefit council tenants, the local authority and the council tax payer?

I agree with my hon. Friend. Perhaps he shares my experience. Now that LSVTs have been made in Suffolk Coastal, I receive from council tenants in a year the number of complaints that I used to receive every month. The improvement in the management of housing and the money available for improvements in housing stock have had a remarkable effect. I hope that other local councils will take heart.

While we welcome the moves towards greater mobility in the housing market, is it true that housing association are permitted by law to sell tenants their own homes, or are they forbidden from doing so? I am not speaking about special purpose housing, but normal housing.

The constitutions of some charitable housing associations have arrangements that make it impossible for them to sell, but, for the most part, associations can, if they wish, sell to their tenants. We are encouraging that. In future, housing associations that receive money from central funds will get it on condition that they provide a right to buy. The money that they make from those sales could, of course, be recycled immediately into new housing.

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, if Labour and the Liberal Democrats had had their way, local councils would have had no capital receipts because no council houses would have been sold?

My hon. Friend is perfectly right. He may also notice that the Labour party has been extremely careful not to say, were it in power and were it to allow local authorities to spend their capital receipts, that it would maintain the same amount of capital allocations as we now provide. What the Labour party is saying is entirely untruthful. It might well allow capital receipts to be spent, but it would ensure that the same amount of money was not handed out by the Government to the councils that really needed it.

Disused Mines (Water)

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what access his Department has to studies on the effects of the cessation of pumping at disused mines conducted by British Coal before privatisation. [33379]

British Coal has discussed with the National Rivers Authority the implications for the water environment of potential mine closures, and has made available any studies relevant to the responsibilities of the NRA.

I am grateful to the Minister for that answer, but that conflicts with what I and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson) were told when we recently met members of the NRA and local business in my constituency. We learnt that the NRA is finding it difficult to gain access to the impact studies that were conducted following the closure of each colliery and that they did not have access to the mine plans. Will the Minister ensure that the NRA and the new Environment Agency, which will take on that duty next April, have access to those mine plans and the impact studies carried out by British Coal?

I am happy to talk to them about that. The hon. Gentleman will of course derive reassurance from the fact that the Coal Authority has confirmed that it will continue pumping operations at abandoned mines where the NRA considers it necessary. It is doing just that at a former pit, Wooley colliery, in the hon. Member's constituency. My hon. and noble Friend Viscount Ullswater gave an assurance that the authority will go beyond that and seek the best environmental outcome in the circumstances.

Is the Minister aware that the Coal Authority has said that it does not consider itself to be responsible for the pollution from abandoned mines? Given the problems of the NRA not having access to certain information and insufficient resources to deal with the problem, the Government should devote more resources to combat pollution, which is causing a great deal of concern in former mineworking areas.

I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman has put that interpretation on what the Coal Authority has said, because he is completely wrong. As I said, the authority has guaranteed to continue pumping operations. It is clearly important that it should do so. The hon. Gentleman is aware that those operations are continuing at a number of pits, including some close to his constituency.

Home Energy Efficiency Scheme

10.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to extend the remit of grants available under the home energy efficiency scheme. [33380]

This year, about 600,000 homes will be insulated under the scheme. Since 1993–94, we have increased the money going into it by 185 per cent., and we are now seeing whether there are any further ways in which to make it more effective.

However welcome the home energy efficiency scheme is, does the Minister agree that, if the Government gave wall insulation grants as well, it would help the environment and help to fight fuel poverty?

I agree that cavity fill is worth considering. There are many cases where it might be more effective than other forms of insulation. It is one of the areas that I want to consider during our review.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his recent promotion, which was richly deserved in view of his sheer brilliance and because of the time and attention he has given to the City of Chester, which he visited recently in connection with this very scheme.

Will my hon. Friend confirm that the scheme will benefit 600,000 homes in the coming year? Will he further confirm that the people whose homes in Chester I visited are saving several pounds a week in fuel costs since taking advantage of the scheme, as well as enjoying greater comfort?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind comments. It is sad that we are discussing this subject so soon after the death of his predecessor, who was a leading figure in the home insulation sector and president of the neighbourhood energy action group.

I confirm that we estimate that 600,000 homes will be insulated this year, bringing to well over 1 million the number that have benefited from the scheme.

Social Rent Homes

11.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the total number of social rent homes which will be started in 1995; and what were the figures for 1979. [33382]

In 1995–96, we estimate that about 46,000 new social rented homes will be started or released by home ownership grant schemes, together with a further 4,000 shared-ownership properties. There were about 77,000 starts in 1979–80.

The Minister is being evasive. Why does not he face the fact that the Government's housing programme has been a shambles? In the first five months of the year, housing association starts were down by 31 per cent. Does he accept that the output of new houses for rent is the lowest since the end of the second world war?

Will the Minister confirm that his Department's estimate of housing need shows a requirement for between 60,000 and 100,000 new houses for rent each year? However, new starts this year will be only half of the bottom end of that range. Does he admit that his housing policy has been a disaster and does not meet the country's needs?

To equate housing need and housing starts is a wholly false comparison. What matters is how many people acquire homes as a result of policies. Housing starts are obviously part of that equation, but so is people's ability to move into empty property, people taking up the incentive schemes and people taking shared ownership. I can think of no Government who would calculate the figures purely on the basis of housing starts. The hon. Gentleman should look at the entire pattern of the housing programmes to see what is being done to help the private rented sector and appreciate how the housing associations have been given a much greater role in the provision of housing. He should also look at the provisions in the White Paper, which are intended to bring greater capital into the programme. I am sure that he will find that, far from being what he described, the Government's housing policy is coherent. We are all waiting for the Opposition's housing policy. We have been told that it is about to be announced, but I suspect that, yet again, they are having a spot of trouble with Gordon.

Is not the most effective way for local authorities to promote the construction of social housing—and, indeed, to release housing capital receipts—to adopt the large-scale voluntary transfer of council housing stock? They could then pay off their debts and invest their housing capital receipts in new construction, in conjunction with housing associations.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The large-scale voluntary transfer programme provides one of the avenues through which significant resources can be released for the benefit of the tenant and the local authority. I draw his attention equally to the Government's recent proposals on the creation of housing companies, which will provide another avenue. We are anxious to find as many ways as possible to provide the sort of houses that people want and to get the best value for money in providing them.

Given that housing need and homelessness are greatest in inner-city areas, will the Minister please confirm that Labour-controlled inner-city councils are mismanaging many thousands of empty houses and flats, to the detriment of people in real need? The Opposition want to run the country, but they could not even run a bath.

My hon. Friend is right. Some inner-city authorities forget that the basic management skills involved in filling voids, doing repairs and keeping people moving up the waiting list are essential in the provision of homes. If they do not have those management skills, they are not likely to be able to embark on any of the more ambitious programmes.

Behind all the Minister's waffle, is it not the case that, in the first five months of the year, there were only 11,000 council or housing association starts and that we are therefore heading for the lowest number of such starts in any year since the second world war? Is it not a bit rich for the Minister to announce suddenly that the Government have seen a blinding new way to deal with the demand and need for housing when their predecessors took the simple-minded view that if there were people with nowhere decent to live, it would be a good idea to build them some houses? Is it not a fact that the Government's housing policy is letting down people who have nowhere to live and people who live in overcrowded conditions? Is it not also letting down owner-occupiers by the million through the record level of negative equity and mortgage arrears and, now, record low levels of house building? It is all very well for Ministers to laugh, but the fact is that, whether people are renting, or buying, or have nowhere to live, the Government are letting them down, and the recent housing White Paper offered no solutions to any of the problems.

Before the hon. Gentleman gets too frantic, and before he turns his attention to persuading the shadow Chancellor to allow him to publish his own housing proposals, for which we are all waiting with bated breath, perhaps he might consider what is actually in the White Paper. It is amazing that, even when a document is leaked, the Labour party cannot understand the leaked version.

We have significant proposals for the development of the role of housing associations; we have proposals that will help the development of the private rented sector; we have proposals for the diversification of tenure; and we have proposals to bring new money into the social rented sector and the private rented sector. [HON. MEMBERS: "That is privatisation."] There is a great deal to be said for privatisation. The hon. Gentleman overlooks the fact that in, for example, our proposals for housing companies, we intend to allow local authorities a significant stake. I noticed that one of the Opposition's Treasury team speaking at Harrogate—at the same conference at which the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) spoke—said that we should not expect the Labour party to allow local councils to have a majority stake in housing companies because it does not believe that they should. When he reflects on things, the hon. Gentleman will have great difficulty seeing anything in his document apart, of course, from proposals for more council houses built by the same councils on the same old dreary estates.

Rented Accommodation

12.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps are being taken to encourage the availability of affordable rented accommodation. [33383]

This year, public funding will produce 70,000 new social lettings. Around 250,000 existing tenancies become available for reletting each year.

Does the Minister not realise that what he has said this afternoon to my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) and other colleagues does not alter the fact that tens of thousands of families are being punished—there is no other word for it—because they cannot get a mortgage and are unable to obtain a council house, as a result of Tory dogma? Why should those people be punished and have to live in the most dire circumstances, often in a single room, or even be homeless with their children, while Ministers have perfectly adequate accommodation? Is it not time that we allowed local authorities to build again, thus giving people who cannot afford a mortgage the opportunity to live in the kind of accommodation available to Members of Parliament?

I would be rather more concerned about the hon. Gentleman's indignation if I felt that he was being a little more useful in tackling the situation in Walsall, where the incoming Labour council is seeking to overturn a tenants' ballot in favour of taking the management of the estate under its control, not to speak of management changes that have even the Labour unions protesting against the Labour council. When he has addressed himself to the problems on his doorstep, he might be more qualified to address the problems of the nation.

Does my hon. Friend accept that, in Hackney, the Monklands of the south, some 9 per cent. of the housing stock is empty? Is he aware that many Labour-controlled councils have a large number of empty council houses and that also they have not collected huge amounts of rent and rate arrears? If they collected rents, would they not be able to do something about improving the housing stock? Does he also accept that many people welcome the proposals of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary to deprive illegal immigrants of the right to social housing?

I am sure that my hon. Friend is right on all counts. It must be the first task of local authorities to ensure that they manage their stock correctly. That means that they get down voids, they manage their repairs, they move people through on the waiting list and they collect the rent. The rent which is not collected is simply a resource being ignored, and that means that somebody suffers. Usually, people who are in the worst circumstances suffer from those inefficiencies.

Is it not difficult to justify paying housing association grants to private sector providers of social housing, as the White Paper proposes? If the Government insist on proceeding with that proposal, will the Minister confirm that such private developers will be subjected to exactly the same requirements as housing associations and local authorities on the selection of tenants and being required to accept nominations from local authorities, and so on? Do the Government have any concrete evidence that the private sector can provide social housing more efficiently than housing associations, bearing in mind that, of course, it will take its cut of profits?

The hon. Gentleman should realise that if private-sector builders enter this process and therefore get Government subsidy, they will have to sign a contract with the Government that will govern the conditions under which they receive grant, get tenants and quit the sector and it will govern what happens to any profit that they might make over the very long-term from that activity. It is our absolute intention to ensure that housing associations and private developers in that sector are put on an exact equal basis and that the standards of the properties that they are required to build will be the same.

Does my hon. Friend accept that there is an unfairness because tenants of social housing and private rented accommodation qualify for housing benefit, and those who are in protected tenancies do not? Does not the landlord of the protected tenant have to subsidise that tenant, whereas taxpayers and council tax payers subsidise tenants in social and private rented housing?

I am sure that my hon. Friend understands that one of the central purposes of the White Paper is to encourage more landlords to come into the housing sector. The evidence is that a large number of landlords—many owning few properties—would like to be able to rent their properties but they are concerned about whether they would get possession of the security. Being given rent guarantees, having an intermediary who can act on their behalf and being given the assurance that if things go wrong they will be able to get their possession, for example, is an essential and important way of ensuring that more properties are made available for people to rent. A vigorous private rented sector is an important aspect of a successful economy because of the sheer mobility that it can introduce into our labour market.

Social Housing (London Docklands)

13.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what policy guidelines he has given to the London Docklands development corporation concerning the provision of social housing within its area of jurisdiction. [33385]

The London Docklands development corporation is not a housing authority. As part of its broad regeneration remit, the corporation works in partnership with the local housing authorities, housing associations and others, to assist the provision of new and improved social housing.

Does the Minister nevertheless agree that it is the Government's remit to regenerate the whole London Docklands development corporation area, which must involve provision of housing and social housing for which it has recognised an arrangement with the London borough of Newham? Why is the new urban village confined to 25 per cent. of social housing, a figure which on the Isle of Dogs caused a good deal of community difficulty and, as he knows, had political consequences?

On this subject, the hon. Gentleman always shows the truth of the old saying that there are none so blind as those who cannot see. The evidence is on his doorstep. The success of regeneration, especially in housing, depends on mixed tenure, and mixed tenure has been the success of this area. Some 19,000 housing units have been completed and one third of them are essentially for rented and shared ownership—social housing. Some 7,700 local authority dwellings have been refurbished. Before 1981, 95 per cent. of housing in the area was local authority owned and was in poor condition in the hands of the Labour local authorities.

Will my hon. Friend confirm that the London Docklands development corporation is a great success story? It has transformed the face of docklands and has brought in £6 billion of private investment for the good of the local community.

I recognise that my hon. Friend knows the area well, especially from the past. She has obviously seen the positive results and she is correct to say that £1.6 billion of public investment has drawn in £6 billion of private investment.

I think that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) has flown over the area.

Before the London Docklands development corporation is wound up, will the Minister look urgently at the fact that, as yet, within the area that the corporation controls, in which it is the planning control authority—

That's right.

and where it owns much of the land, it has not nearly met the housing needs of the different local communities?

That's right.

Many of the people who bought their homes from local authorities are trapped with massive bills which they cannot pay. People are in shared ownership from which they cannot escape—

That's right.

I have never had such consensus. Most important of all, after 15 years of the development corporation, we still have among the highest unemployment rates in the country and most of the jobs in building local homes do not go to the local community.

That's right.

If I were the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), I would be concerned about taking advice from the hon. Members sitting behind. [HON. MEMBERS: "That's right."] I think that there is a bit of mimicking going on. The reality is that the area is dramatically different from what it was in 1981. Many jobs have been brought in and jobs are available for the local people to utilise. In addition—this cannot be assessed—the difference in the economy between now and 1981 is absolutely dramatic, and that has had a knock-on effect. The hon. Gentleman referred to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland). She has close knowledge of the area; it is not a case of flying over. She knows the area almost as well as the hon. Gentleman does.

Dredging (Wash)

14.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he next expects to meet representatives of the National Rivers Authority to discuss dredging activities in the Wash. [33386]

I have regular meetings with the NRA.

The Secretary of State will be aware that, in the near future, he will consider a number of new dredging licence applications for the extraction of sand from the Wash for use in the beach renourishment scheme on the Lincolnshire coast. Is he aware that, when dredging took place last autumn, there was serious damage to the brown shrimp fishery in the Wash? Will he confirm today that if, as a result of the new dredging applications, there is serious damage to the fishery, the dredging will stop? Will he also confirm that if there is any loss to the local fishermen, they will be paid proper compensation?

Last year, it was necessary to take material from the Race bank to ensure that there was no damage by storms on the Lincolnshire coast. I think that my hon. Friend will agree that we need to use the soft protection increasingly effectively. He will know that I am determined that the use of this material should not destroy the environment or the fisheries. Although this is overwhelmingly a matter for my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, I will ensure that the environment is the first part of any decision that is made. I assure my hon. Friend that I shall do my best to protect his constituents' interests.

Waste Recycling

15.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress has been made towards the Government's target of recycling 25 per cent. of reusable household waste. [33387]

Measures in the Environment Bill will significantly boost the recycling of household waste.

I congratulate my hon. Friend, and it is good to see him where he belongs—on the Front Bench. Does he agree that the proposed landfill tax will boost significantly the minimisation and recycling of household, industrial and community waste?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and he is absolutely right about the impact of the landfill tax. The tax will improve the minimisation of waste, and will also aid the recovery and recycling of waste. What is more, it will do so without imposing regulations or extra costs on business. It is a green measure which justifiably bolsters the green reputation of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Will the Minister explain how he knows more about the recycling and saving of waste in the packaging industry than the people who operate in that industry? Will he accept that the proposals from V-WRAG—the Val Pak working representative advisory group—which are supported by 50 companies in the packaging industry, are better than the proposals made by his Department? Will he accept those proposals, and let us get on with salvaging waste in the packaging industry?

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is not doing justice to the ambition that industry has shown to assist in the process of waste minimisation and the recovery and recycling of waste. The Government will listen to what the industry has said, but it has set ambitious targets and the hon. Gentleman has not done justice to the industry.

Will my hon. Friend take into account what the industry's representative body, V-WRAG, has had to say about the implementation of the European packaging directive? Will he look carefully to see if a multi-point implementation is better than a single-point implementation?

Yes, my hon. Friend is right. It is important to listen to the industry, and we shall do so.

European Nuclear Waste Repository

16.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received on the development of a European nuclear waste repository. [33389]

We have received no recent representations on this subject.

My question has nothing to do with Nirex and the Minister need not answer in that context, as the Secretary of State has a quasi-judicial role to perform in the matter. Why cannot there be a European solution to a European problem—there is a problem in every member state in the EU—or an international solution to an international problem?

I am not entirely clear what the hon. Gentleman means by that. If he means that there should be scope for co-operation and for a pooled use of experience, that is a sensible point. If he wants us to turn our backs on our policy of self-sufficiency, I do not agree with him.

Water Supply

17.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will arrange to meet the chairmen of the water companies to discuss quality and reliability of water supply. [33390]

Only last week, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State met leading figures in the water industry who reconfirmed the high reliability and quality of British water supply.

Does the Minister realise that more than 12,000 consumers per year have their water supplies disconnected because they cannot afford to pay their water charges? Is he aware that that number has increased by 86 per cent. since privatisation, while the fat cats on the water boards have laughed all the way to the bank with massive salary increases and other perks? Will the Minister intervene to stop that scandal? Will he consider introducing legislation similar to that in Scotland, where it is illegal to disconnect people's water supply under such circumstances?

The hon. Gentleman should be aware that disconnection takes place only as a last resort, that the numbers involved are very small and that supplies are usually disconnected for a very short period. The hon. Gentleman's question, which included hostility towards the water boards, illustrates the pathological hatred that the Opposition have towards the water industry. They completely disregard the industry's success in improving reliability and quality—both of which are now of a very high standard—and its overall success in winning business abroad and increasing investment at home. The real answer to the hon. Gentleman's question about quality and reliability is that both are good.

May I draw my hon. Friend's attention to a water authority that does not fit that pattern, South West Water Authority? On one particular weekend, the authority gave an increase of £67,000 to its managing director while ensuring that many people in my constituency could not even get water to come through their taps. Do not exceptional cases such as that bring the whole system into complete disrepute?

My hon. Friend echoes comments that have already been made. As he must know, South West Water has special circumstances; the overall picture of the water industry—with which Opposition Members are unable to live—is of success, and improvement in water quality and reliability.

Atmospheric Pollution

18.

To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what new proposals he has to reduce atmospheric pollution. [33391]

The Government have brought forward provisions in the Environment Bill to implement a new framework for air quality management, and later this year we will publish our proposals for a national strategy for improving air quality.

Is the Secretary of State not ashamed of that answer—the answer that was also given to my hon. Friend the Member for Pembroke (Mr. Ainger)? Some 17 months ago, a Select Committee drew the House's attention to the dangers of PM₁₀s. It was suggested then that they would cause 10,000 additional deaths each year—three times as many deaths as are caused by road accidents. There is also the problem of photo-chemical smog, which has caused three major incidents in this city over the past four years, and all the other problems of vehicle exhaust pollution. Is it not an utter disgrace that, after 16 years of this Government, hundreds—almost certainly thousands—of people in this city are being killed by the air that they breathe?

The hon. Gentleman really ought to get the facts right—they are very clear. The amount of pollution in the air is falling, and we now have a European framework directive as a result of action led by this country. That directive is crucial. Much of the pollution caused by traffic in this country is blown over the channel, so we must make sure that it is seen as a European problem. We also have the Environment Bill, which gives us the power to act. Moreover, we are giving local authorities much more power to deal with the matter locally. The hon. Gentleman must know the facts before he stands up and pontificates.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that most people, especially those affected by asthma, are praising the lead that Britain has taken? Having secured the regulations, however, will he try to ensure that the regulations are observed and properly monitored, and that when they are broken, prosecutions are quickly brought? Is not what worries many people the breach of regulations—even those that already exist?

Volume 263: debated on Wednesday 19 July 1995

House Of Commons

Prayers

Adjournment (Summer)

French Nuclear Testing

Mr Stephen Spayne

Burma

Private Business

Accommodation Level Crossings Bill Lords(By Order)

City Of Westminster Bill Lords (By Order)

Oral Answers To Questions

Environment

National Park Authorities

Building And Construction Industry

House-Building Industry

Houses In Multiple Occupation

Air Quality Monitoring

Homelessness

Housing

Disused Mines (Water)

Home Energy Efficiency Scheme

Social Rent Homes

Rented Accommodation

Social Housing (London Docklands)

Dredging (Wash)

Waste Recycling

European Nuclear Waste Repository

Water Supply

Atmospheric Pollution