I am sure that all hon. Members wish you, Mr. Speaker, a well-deserved rest during the recess.

I have initiated this debate because the Secretary of State for Industry made a major statement just over a year ago announcing Government changes in regional policy. Those changes sought to reduce the level of expenditure on industry in the regions. There was an announcement in that large package of measures to the effect that the Edinburgh travel-to-work area would be downgraded from a development area to an intermediate area and ultimately to a non-assisted area. The announcement covered not only Edinburgh but also East Lothian and Midlothian, which are in the Edinburgh travel-to-work area. Thus, when I speak about the Edinburgh travel-to-work area I include East Lothian and Midlothian.

The decision was devastating for Edinburgh and the surrounding area. Enormous damage will be done to our prospect of securing the expansion of locally generated industry and to our prospect of attracting industry from outside. An objective analysis of the evidence will show that the changes are not only wrong and indefensible on local grounds but mistaken and unjustifiable in the context of the United Kingdom and regional policy as a whole.

Let us be under no illusions about the impact of that policy. Last Friday—just a week ago, and in that respect the debate is timely—we saw the first stage of the descheduling. From last Friday, industry in Edinburgh is no longer eligible for the 15 per cent. tax-free regional development grants. That in itself is an enormous disadvantage. But there are related considerations. For example, let us consider the special temporary employment programme, from which adult men in Edinburgh have benefited. As a result of the downgrading, there will no longer be a STEP programme in Edinburgh, because the Secretary of State for Employment announced some time ago that the programme no longer applied to non-development areas. We also lose the assistance for the unemployed.

Even more frightening is the fact that, if this position continues, eventually we shall lose all entitlement to grants, even section 7 selective assistance, which is still being used and is of great importance to modern industries in Edinburgh. That will be lost in two years' time if the policy goes ahead. We shall also lose all eligibility for EEC regional development grants. We will even find that assistance to the tourist industry is affected by the decision. Now that the first stage of the downgrading has begun and we are losing grants for our industry, we are seeing the enormity of the decision and the impact that it will have on Edinburgh's employment prospects in future. Only now is that fact being appreciated in our area.

I said earlier that I believed, from looking at the evidence available to the Secretary of State and his Ministers at the time the decision was made a year ago, that that decision was wrong and could not be justified. Unemployment figures tend to be used—and rightly so—as a general indication of an area's need for regional development assistance. I want to be objective, and I do not think that it helps to present highly selective statistics or to make out that the position is more serious than it is in relation to other areas.

However, Edinburgh—and I have had the pleasure and the privilege to represent an Edinburgh constituency for more than 10 years—has a very large service sector and associated with it is a high level of demand for female labour. Traditionally, we have had low levels of female unemployment, but this, too, is changing and it is now much harder for a woman to get a job and female unemployment has risen sharply. As a corollary to that relatively low female unemployment, we have had an overall employment rate which has masked a disproportionately high rate of male unemployment.

I have received various batches of figures from Ministers over the past few months. If we take the figures for June 1979—the latest figures available to the Secretary of State for Industry when he made his decision about Edinburgh—we see that the rate of male unemployment in the Edinburgh travel-to-work area in the 10 years prior to that decision was higher than the rate for the United Kingdom generally. That was not just in June either. For the whole of the 10 years prior to the decision, male unemployment in the Edinburgh travel-to-work area was consistently higher than male unemployment in the United Kingdom generally. The comparison must be with the United Kingdom as a whole, because that is the context in which these decisions are made. Secondly, within that travel-to-work area there are areas of really high unemployment—localities in which there are large numbers of unemployed, some of them in my constituency.

Let us look at the overall level of unemployment between 1965 and 1980. In that period United Kingdom unemployment rose by 280 per cent.—roughly the same. However, in the Portobello area it rose by 671 per cent. The Portobello employment exchange centred on East Edinburgh, the area that I represent. In the adjacent area of Leith, unemployment rose by 344 per cent. For those purposes I have used the February figures. I do not wish to make a meal of statistics. All I am saying is that it is untrue to say that Edinburgh has very low levels of unemployment. Certainly it is untrue that we have low levels of male unemployment.

I concede immediately that there are areas which have higher unemployment. There are areas in Scotland and England with significantly and sharply higher rates of unemployment. That is not in dispute. It is also true that in the past year other parts of Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole have suffered far more than my area. In the last month, however, unemployment has risen in Edinburgh at an even faster rate than it has risen in the United Kingdom as a whole. But to justify the downgrading the Government must be able to prove that Edinburgh is doing better than the United Kingdom as a whole.

The most important point is that in the Edinburgh area we have the potential to make a great contribution to industrial growth, for the benefit of adjacent areas where unemployment is very high. I urge the Minister to consider the map of the United Kingdom in relation to regional policy and the very high unemployment in the North of England, West-Central Scotland and Fife and Dundee. These areas impinge on the Edinburgh travel-to-work area.

The simple thrust of my argument is that we have modern and advanced industries. Our manufacturing base is disproportionately small in relation to our total employment, but what we have is modern and has the potential to make a significant contribution, both for our benefit and for the benefit of other areas which deserve greater regional development assistance than we do. For example, we have Ferranti, a firm which has figured prominently in our debates recently. Ferranti accounts for a large proportion of our highly advanced and skilled technological teams in the Edinburgh area. We also have ICL and Racal-MESL—companies in the electronics sector in growth areas. In the Lothian region some years ago there was a study of employment in our manufacturing industry which showed that proportionately we had three times as many qualified engineers in manufacturing industry as Scotland as a whole.

Our modern industry should not be declining, because it has the potential to grow. It is wrong for the Government to take away the encouragement to invest. Let us make no bones about it—firms become less competitive when the Government say that they will no longer receive the tax-free regional development grant and then two years later say that they will not even receive any selective assistance. Because of that, we are unable to take full advantage of the area's potential for industrial growth.

I have a strong constituency interest in the issue. For the past 10 years I have had the pleasure to represent Edinburgh, East. It is clear that the major issue in the area is the loss of jobs on the east side of the city during the past two or three decades. Collieries on the outskirts of Edinburgh have closed and breweries have closed, as have a host of factories.

We desperately need new industrial development on the edge of Craigmillar and at Newcraighall, Musselburgh and Leith. After many years of campaigning and fighting, we are now beginning to make progress. Thanks to the previous Labour Government and the Scottish Development Agency, a new industrial estate involving many hundreds of thousands of pounds of investment is under way at Peffermill and a new industrial estate is being developed at Inveresk. They were both derelict sites. A small development is taking place at Newcraighall, which could become a larger development when the coal bing is removed. Our goal is to achieve a thriving industrial estate at Peffermill, a large industrial estate at Newcraighall in place of the existing large coal bing, and a thriving industrial estate in Musselburgh and Inveresk. It is also important that new industrial development should take place at Leith, on the edge of my constituency.

The tragedy is that having achieved investment in a new industrial estate at Peffermill, with advanced factories erected, and having achieved the same progress at Inveresk, with land acquired and investment from the Scottish Development Agency and the East Lothian district council, we find that suddenly the grants are removed. No one will deny that the removal of the grants will make it harder to attract industry to those factories. It is crucial to our campaign that we reverse the job losses on the east side of Edinburgh and that we attract new industrial development, with the help of the city bypass to be built in due course. It is essential that we transform that side of the city.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who has the privilege of representing the other side of the city, will acknowledge that the east side of the city needs to secure industrial expansion and regeneration. There has been a great deal of industrial development at Sighthill and on the west side of Edinburgh. There is a strong case to encourage the same industrial development on the east side.

I shall touch on one point about which I have corresponded with the Minister. However, I do not wish to go into detail about individual firms. I raised this matter more than a year ago and have raised it at intervals since then. The matter is now urgent. I refer to the position of firms that are in the process of making investment, erecting buildings and installing new equipment but which, through no fault of their own, have failed to install that equipment in advance of the 1 August deadline. The Minister wrote to me at some length. He made it clear that there could be no exceptions to the deadline. Last Friday the hammer came down, and there will be no more regional development grants. It does not matter that the equipment was ordered a year ago. It does not matter that the equipment was delayed because of a strike at a supplier's factory on the other side of the world. There will be no exceptions to the rule.

But there is a way in which the Government can help, namely, through the section 7 selective assistance, for which we are still eligible. The Minister acknowledged that in his letter. I hope that he will give an encouraging response. I hope that the officials of the Scottish Office will take a sympathetic approach to the firms which, through no fault of their own, failed to meet the deadline. In at least one instance investment is threatened, and the work may go to Ireland if we do not obtain some help. There are other examples, but I do not wish to quote them today—not even the one about which I have corresponded with the Minister in the past two weeks.

I wish to make it clear that people in the Edinburgh travel-to-work area—especially those in the east side of the city, which has some significant unemployment black-spots, such as Craigmillar, Musselburgh and even East Lothian—cannot accept this decision.

It is not the first time that Edinburgh has been penalised in that way. When the grant areas were created in 1966, Edinburgh, Leith and Portobello were excluded. That was a mistake. I believed that it was a mistake then, and subsequent evidence has proved that it was a mistake. We campaigned to reverse that decision, and it was reversed. We acquired full development area status for the whole of Edinburgh. But it took us about eight years to achieve the full reversal of that decision. We cannot wait eight years this time. The matter is too serious and the stakes are too high. We are not prepared to accept the downgrading for anything like that number of years.

I know that the Minister will not announce a sudden change today, because it is not within his power to alter the statute book, but I warn him that we shall campaign to secure the reversal of the decision because it is unjustified. Both sides of industry in Edinburgh are opposed to it. They recognise the seriousness of the position. I think that it is fair to say that those in local government—the Labour-controlled Lothian regional council, the Conservative-controlled Edinburgh district council and the Labour controlled East Lothian district council—are opposed to the downgrading. They recognise how damaging it will be to their areas. They will recognise that even more in the months ahead now that it has finally happened and we have the first instalment of the downgrading.

I believe that we shall achieve our objectives. We shall persuade the Government that we cannot wait. I strongly urge the Minister to take on board the fact that we cannot accept this damaging decision. We shall oppose it as vigorously as necessary to secure a complete reversal.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) is to be congratulated on having secured this opportunity, on the last day of the Session, for an examination of the problems facing Edinburgh city and its assisted area status—especially that part of the city to which he drew specific attention. He asked me whether I would undertake a reexamination of the map of assisted area status, but, as he rightly said, Edinburgh is not unique. There are many other parts of the country with similar problems.

The hon. Member recognised from our past correspondence that it is difficult to examine a certain area in isolation without recognising the implications of changes for other areas with similar or even worse problems. No doubt that is why, with considerable perception, the hon. Gentleman asked me to look at the whole of the United Kingdom map.

We did that last summer. Our purpose is not to have continual changes of the map. If we were to do that, it would destroy the stability of decision making, which is essential in the planning of forward business decisions. Of course, that does not alter the relevance of the hon. Gentleman's argument that one has to look at a coherent policy affecting the country as a whole. When we came to office, we found that 44 per cent. of the country had assisted area status. More alarming, on the basis of the criteria then in existence, about which I make no comment, virtually the whole of the West Midlands would have been eligible for that status. The thought of the heartland of Midland industry requiring to become an assisted area has a streak of the bizarre about it.

We should have found that the map was encroaching. If we had accepted the position of the Midlands, we should have had to accept the case of almost the whole of the West Country. We should have ended up with only London and the South-East not being assisted areas. Indeed, it was apparent during the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill on Monday that many Labour Members want London to be an assisted area. That would have left us with only Kent and Sussex.

Any Government considering where a continuance of existing policies would take us would have to regard that as an unacceptable situation. We should be taking money out of everybody's pockets in order to put it back in everybody's pockets, having washed it through a bureaucratic machine with all the overheads involved en route. That would not have been sensible.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State decided that the right way to deal with the matter was to look at the need. The whole basis of a policy of assisted area status goes to the heart of the fact that there are areas that have had the most serious structural problems in their industry, giving rise to substantial, sustained and unacceptable levels of unemployment, which have persisted since the 1920s and 1930s. The first inklings of movements towards some form of assistance for such areas—depressed areas, as they were then called—came during that period, yet those are still the areas at the heart of the problems of high and sustained unemployment.

We felt that rather than spread aid so thinly that it would be ineffective we should concentrate it on the areas of greatest need. I am seeking to carry the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East with me in my explanation of the thinking behind our decisions.

The idea was to concentrate on reducing the area of the country that had assisted area status from 44 per cent. to 25 per cent. In carrying out that reduction, we have focused on the parts that have had the longest, most sustained and most worrying levels of unemployment, and meet the other criteria set out in the Industry Act 1972. That is an important basis from which to start. We give assistance to the areas that need it most. After all, we are dealing with taxpayers' money and with money taxed from the business sector.

Our second aim was to give the worst affected parts of the assisted areas that have been retained a much bigger margin of advantage over the other assisted areas. We have helped the special development areas in Scotland—I think particularly of Glasgow, with its 60,000 unemployed—by opening up from 2 per cent. to 7 per cent. the differential between a special development area and a development area. We have sought to concentrate aid on a restricted part of the country and, within that part, to give the greatest assistance to the areas that need it most.

I turn to fit Edinburgh into the scene. The hon. Gentleman asked me to look at the map as a whole. I hope that I have explained our reasons for approaching the problem as we have. Edinburgh is a travel-to-work area. The hon. Gentleman drew attention to Portobello and, by implication, to Leith, but I am sure that he will accept that they are integral parts of Edinburgh and cannot be taken in isolation.

We have to consider the whole travel-to-work area. People do not work at the end of their own road in Edinburgh, any more than in any other major city; they go to work within reasonable travelling distance. Edinburgh had a 7·2 per cent. rate of unemployment in July 1980. The average for Great Britain is 7·7 per cent. The hon. Gentleman is asking me to give assisted area status to a part of the country that is better off for employment than the areas from which money would have to be taken to give that assistance.

How am I to go to the business men of Glasgow or to a region that does not have assisted area status but is worse off than Edinburgh and say "You must give money to help an area that is better off than your area"? That would put me in an intolerable position.

We have tried to look at the matter as a coherent whole, in which we concentrate assistance on the worst areas. Am I to go to areas with 8 per cent. or 9 per cent. unemployment but which do not have assisted area status and say "The business men of this town must contribute towards taxes that will be given to an area with a lower level of unemployment"? I could not do it, and if the hon. Gentleman, who is a fair-minded man, were in my place he could not do it.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the risk of mobile industry going to Glasgow instead of to Edinburgh. That is only to say that our policy is in danger of being effective and that it will attract industry to the areas in most need of it. However, that is not the whole story. There is a message of confidence here. The proportion of mobile industry is a great deal lower than it was. The largest part of the job creation that we may expect in Edinburgh will come not from foot-loose industry, which is scarce these days, but from home-grown industry—from people in Edinburgh who start up businesses there.

That is why I believe that our policies for helping the start-up of business and for helping small business, and especially a provision that we are making for increasing the availability of premises for small businesses by means of tax allowances and in other ways, will be of considerable assistance to cities and towns such as Edinburgh, where there is an incipient very large small business potential which we should encourage to develop and flourish.

Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland and, therefore, it is natural that it should have a smaller manufacturing sector than Scotland as a whole. It has only 16 per cent., compared with the Great Britain average of 32 per cent. A capital city is always heavily weighted towards the service industries. It would be surprising if that were not so in this case.

But, looking at industry, especially at smaller industry, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not fail to ensure that full recognition is given to the opportunities that section 7 of the Industry Act can provide in the way of assistance during the intermediate phase until 1982 for investment in industrial projects in the city.

I have a feeling that the continuance of that assistance is not sufficiently recognised. I do not intend to be unkind, but it may be that in trying to portray my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry as a hard-faced man, when we all know that he is not, and in trying to feed that picture to the outside world, some Opposition Members have given the impression that the compassionate approach to concentrating assistance on the areas most in need has not been adopted. They may even have left the impression that no assistance is now available to industry. In the circumstances, the hon. Gentleman could do much good by advertising the fact that at least for another two years there is available to all small firms with new projects the opportunity to apply for section 7 assistance.

I cannot, of course, comment on the specific case referred to by the hon. Gentleman in which the deadline has been passed in respect of a project that should have been completed by 1 August. There are certain limited areas where section 7 assistance can be of use if a project is in jeopardy. I suggest that any firm in such a position contacts the Scottish Office.

There is an additional bright light. I am able to tell the House that I have secured agreement from the European Investment Bank that it will lend money for a suitable manufacturing project at 10 per cent. with a small insurance premium of 2 per cent., which the Department of Industry will provide, against movements in the exchange rate. It will be possible to borrow money in Edinburgh, therefore, at a fixed rate of 12 per cent. for seven years, and that will be for half the value of a project. Another piece of important news that the hon. Gentleman will be glad to hear is that we have managed also to reduce the minimum amount of loan from the European Investment Bank to £15,000. In other words, if a project is for £30,000, £15,000 of it can be borrowed from the bank at 10 per cent.

The hon. Gentleman drew attention to the role of the Scottish Development Agency. This is, of course, a proper way to deal with problems within an area where there are pockets of greater difficulty than there are in other parts of the country.

I listened carefully to the case presented by the hon. Gentleman, and I have read carefully the reports of the earlier discussions that I had with representatives from the area. We are not seeking to make constant swings of areas in and out of assisted area status. That would be damaging. However, we are prepared to continue to look at the assisted area gradings in areas where there is definite evidence that major long-term changes in local circumstances relative to other areas have taken place. We shall continue to watch the hon. Gentleman's area and Edinburgh as a whole in the light of that.

My message to the city of Edinburgh is that it should take courage and pride in its circumstances. Assisted area status is not a virility symbol. The future of industry in the city will depend, as it always has done, on the determination and flair, to say nothing of the energy, of the enterprising people of that city. Large parts of the country do not depend on assisted area status for their prosperity. I am sure that in the future Edinburgh will be able successfully to emulate them.

I am delighted to have this chance in an Adjournment debate to raise the subject of safety on school buses.

In discussing the subject, I have to tell the House that there is, alas, a considerable shortage of precise information about the accidents that occur on school buses in any one year. Before starting to prepare my speech, I tabled a question to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science on 21st July asking him whether he could give me figures of how many children carried on school buses in 1977, 1978 and 1979 were killed and how many were injured. In the reply, I was told by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State:

"I am unable to provide the information requested since the number of children killed or injured as the result of accidents to school buses is not collected centrally."—[Official Report, 21 July 1980; Vol. 989, c. 45.]

That is a very disappointing answer. It is a matter of fact that about 400,000 of our children use school buses daily during term time. It is also a matter of fact that a fair number of those children—fortunately, a very small number—are injured, some, alas, fatally, as happened to the son of two of my constituents, Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, of Lambourn, whose son John fell from a school bus and was fatally injured.

With the lack of information, it is difficult to know whether I am talking about a large or a small number of children. But if the Department of Education and Science does not possess centrally collected statistics, the Department of Transport at least has figures for children who have fallen from coaches, and it is reasonable to assume that some, if not all, of those relate to children who have fallen from school buses.

The latest figures of the Department of Transport are for 1978. In that year, it is said that one child was killed and 361 were injured, 32 seriously. Information that I have received privately suggests that there are four fatal accidents a year as a result of injuries sustained in some way when travelling on school buses. Of four Home Counties that I have approached, three—Berkshire, Bedfordshire and Surrey—each reported a fatal accident in the past four years. I was told by Hertfordshire that a child had been knocked down but not seriously injured. The Inner London Education Authority also reported a death.

It might be reasonable to extrapolate from four Home Counties to the figure that I have suggested of four fatal injuries a year, but I repeat that without centrally collected statistics my figures must necessarily be tenuous, and I think that the time has come for local education authorities to supply to the Department of Education and Science their figures for injuries and fatalities during the year among those travelling on their buses. I repeat that I believe the number of accidents to be very small, but they exist. So long as they exist, there is room for improvement.

Looking at the subject of school buses and safety, one sees that there are a number of common factors. Perhaps the single most conspicuous factor is that although we call vehicles school buses, pupils travel in a coach which, when not carrying them, carries farepaying passengers on all kinds of outings.

What is more, those coaches come in a variety of sizes and shapes. Many of them are quite old, and none of them are specially adapted to carry schoolchildren, nor are they required to be. Only a small number of coach operators mark that fact by putting up a sign saying that they are carrying children and that the coach is at that moment a school bus. Such a sign might at least make some motorists aware of who was travelling in the bus in front of them. It is on record that no education authority in the country uses a custombuilt school bus, though it is true that ILEA has a specially built bus for carrying handicapped children. I do not think that there is a custombuilt school bus on the roads. Such researches as I and my assistants have been able to make suggest that there are few manufacturers in Western Europe who provide a specific design for a school bus. The only one that we could unearth was a French company called Heuliez. That company offers what it describes as a Scolair Bus X57.

It is an interesting vehicle. The designers have clearly used all their ingenuity to produce a bus which embodies as many safety features as one might reasonably require. However, I recognise, and I do not seek to press the point, that it would be unreasonable to expect local education authorities to provide such vehicles, particularly at this time of economic stringency. Therefore, for the foreseeable future school buses will be coaches hired from private companies.

If that is the case, I think that it is reasonable to suggest that coaches, when they become school buses, should conform to certain safety standards. In my investigations into this matter, it was apparent that there is a particular point in the bus that might be described as the most dangerous place in the vehicle. That is the area around the exit and the doors.

John Hawkins, who lost his life, was standing with a number of other boys on the steps near the doors of the school bus that was taking him home. As the bus neared its destination, one of the other boys—I do not know which one—opened the manually operated doors. All the other boys surged forward, pushing John down the steps to his death. He fell, and the bus ran over him. Clearly, if that bus had not had manually operated doors John Hawkins could not have fallen to his death.

Manually operated doors on school buses are a regrettable means of exit. Not only is the kind of case to which I have referred a real possibility—indeed, a practicality, as in the case of John Hawkins—but there are cases of impetuous children who open the doors and, before it stops, run off the bus. One of the deaths to which I referred concerned such a child, who ran into moving traffic beside the bus and was killed.

There is the case of the bus which, with its door open just as it reaches its destination, has to make an emergency stop. The children gathered around the exit are thrown through the doorway. Those are three examples of the dangers of manually operated doors when children are allowed to gather round the bus exit.

Driver-operated doors would go a long way to obviating the problem. However, I have to add that even driver-operated doors are not entirely foolproof. It is true that driver-operated doors through which the driver can see—that would mean full-length perspex doors—and where there is a driving mirror to enable him to see who is near the bus before it moves away, would very nearly guarantee total safety.

However, I can recall the case of a child who could not be seen through the driver-operated doors but whose coat had been caught in the door as it closed. The bus moved off and the child was dragged under the vehicle and killed. Therefore, it is not enough even to say that driver-operated doors would entirely remove the risk unless the kind of alterations that I have suggested, including full-length see-through doors and a driving mirror, were introduced.

I must tell my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that before preparing this speech I went to the school from which John Hawkins set out on his last journey. I went to look at the buses as they waited for the children and went through many of them. Some of them had manually operated doors and some had driver-operated doors. I spoke to the drivers, who struck me as being responsible people concerned with the safety of the children. By the same token, most of the buses seemed to me to be highly efficient vehicles and well designed for the carriage of passengers, and, presumably, schoolchildren.

Curiously enough, the most dangerous of those buses was one with driver-operated doors. When I asked the driver of that vehicle if he would close the doors for me, he was unable to do so because the mechanism was broken. When the bus left the school fully loaded with children, the doors were wide open. I could not help asking how it was possible that a bus whose doors were known to be inefficient, if not incapable of being closed, could have been sent to pick up children, with the attendant danger to them.

I come now to the extremely patchy quality of the mechanical supervision exercised by local education authorities over the contractors who supply the coaches. Whether the local authorities should provide supervision, whether they should lay down an absolute routine or whether the driver himself should be made to sign a document to say that the vehicle that he has taken for the carriage of children is 100 per cent. mechanically sound would be a matter for the Department of Education and Science or for local education authorities, but the situation as it is now, where some education authorities stipulate rules and regulations and others do not, is unsatisfactory.

I have referred to the most dangerous place in the bus, where children are most at hazard. Since the death of John Hawkins, a local education authority in Berkshire has given a great deal of thought to improving safety. As I have suggested, properly functioning driver-operated doors ensure some safety but at present it is not possible to insist that every contractor who provides a school bus provides a vehicle with driver-operated doors.

Until that time comes, Berkshire and its head teachers have agreed that the best way to ensure safety is to place a prefect on the school bus in a seat close to the doors. The task of that prefect would be to stop any child from standing at the top of the steps leading to the doors. But, as one driver told me, safety would depend upon the prefect. If a responsible, conscientious prefect were prepared to sit in that seat, there would be no danger. On one of the school buses that I went to look at, I called down the bus "Who is the prefect?" and the pupil who answered was sitting on the last seat at the back of the bus. That bus was about to travel with no prefect to restrain any child who chose to stand in the doorway. Thus, the danger that I have outlined was very real.

It is not enough to hope that the young person who may have been appointed a prefect will always be sufficiently conscientious to sit in the place where he should sit, so it is not enough to pin our hopes that these accidents can be ruled out simply on the belief that telling a prefect that he should sit by the door and stop children standing there will mean that that will happen.

It would not be fair for me not to say that some education authorities, including Berkshire, provide escorts on buses when they are carrying handicapped children, or children under 12, but Berkshire at least relies on the prefect monitoring concept for those at comprehensive schools. In a letter to me, the director of education for Berkshire agreed that the education authority lacked any legal power to appoint coach prefects or to delegate responsibilities to them. He went on:

"However, in the general interest of promoting safety, I have advised head teachers that they should consider nominating a senior pupil on each coach who could report to them any breaches of school discipline."

However well intentioned that sentence may be, he therefore accepts that the LEA and the contractor have no legal powers to appoint coach prefects. That is another point that I would commend to my hon. Friend.

If it is not enough to rely on the mechanical excellence of the vehicle and on prefect monitoring, is it not conceivable that some restraint could be placed across the gangway by the steps leading down to the door? I have been told that to put a metal drop rod across the gangway would be against public service vehicle regulations, but the American community schools in this country have got round that problem by placing a leather strap across the gangway. Apparently, that satisfies the regulations. If it can be done on those buses, I wonder why we are not insisting that it is done on school buses operating for LEAs.

Of course, a child could duck under the strap, but such a restraint produces the psychological effect of a physical barrier. Something so simple, which could be put in place by the driver, would have a considerable effect on any child rushing up the bus past the prefect, to take his place at the top of the stairs. If the American community schools can produce such a restraint, I suggest that we should look at the possibility of asking LEAs to do the same.

I have referred to the buses and, in passing, to the drivers to whom I spoke. I want to say something more about drivers of school buses. Those I met in my constituency were all extremely responsible people, who were clearly as concerned about the safety of the children travelling in their buses as anyone could be. But it is a fact that not one school bus driver in this country is required to have any special training to do the job.

In a reply to a further question of mine on 21 July, when I asked about driver training, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport replied:

"There is no special training required for public service vehicle drivers responsible for school buses. All drivers of large passenger vehicles, including public services vehicles, are at present required to be over 21, but the Transport Act 1980 will reduce this to 18 in certain circumstances: there is no upper age limit.

Applicants for PSV driver licences are normally required to pass a stringent practical and oral test in order to demonstrate their ability to handle vehicles of the size and type in question before being granted such licences. Applicants must also meet character and health criteria. No distinction is made between different types of service.

Drivers of school buses belonging to local education authorities are not required to hold PSV licences. The reduction in minimum age will not apply to them. It is for local education authorities to determine whether any special test or training is required."—[OfficialReport, 21 July 1980; Vol. 989, c. 106–7.]

One may argue that that system has served us reasonably well over past decades, but that answer is in sharp contrast to the attitude taken in North America. I have been given some material produced by a researcher into safety on school buses, Mr. G. D. Massey, in which he makes some interesting comments about the North American attitude:

"In North America, the school bus driver is considered the key figure in both the operating safety and the discipline of the passenger load. The driver is almost invariably specially selected for attitude and aptitude and given special training in operation of the vehicle. There may well be opportunities for in-service training and career development."

He goes on:

"That no European operator has given special attention to either driver selection or specialist training is difficult to explain. Even if no training is given the use of simple aids to improve the pupil-driver relationship such as notes of guidance for drivers and hints on discipline would be inexpensive and effective."

I agree with those comments. The driver has an enormous responsibility. I am concerned to think that someone as young as 18, who might just have passed his driving test, could be given the responsibility of driving a vehicle with 10, 20 or 30 children on board.

I have referred to bus safety, driver training and the variety of approaches followed by LEAs in their attitude to the regulation of school buses. I have given some of the statistics that I have been able to gather, both centrally from the Ministry of Transport and, more specifically, from four Home Counties. None of those counties issues written instructions about safety, although Berkshire says that it is preparing a new document. I have yet to see it.

I hope I have shown that the current situation is far from satisfactory. The time has now come for the Department of Education and Science to be actively involved in this matter.

I suggest that the Department should collect centrally statistics about accidents on and relating to school buses. That is the only way to get an accurate assessment of the size of the problem. Secondly, the Department should consider the production of a code of practice for circulation to all LEAs, laying down guidelines about safety on school buses. I recognise that the types of buses used vary enormously, but common safety factors could be introduced. Therefore, a code of practice would be the right way to approach this problem. Such a code should cover the mechanical safety of the bus, the training of the driver, the rules to be obeyed by those using the school bus, and the principles to be followed by head teachers and others responsible for the children who use the buses.

I end my speech as I began. The number of accidents is small, but one boy in my constituency is dead because he fell off a school bus. If some of the measures that I have dealt with had been applied—if the manually operated doors could not have been reached by one of those boys standing around John Hawkins, or if there had been some form of restraint across the gangway—John Hawkins could well be alive this morning. I hope that I have been able to persuade my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that it is time that the Department took a greater interest and further involvement in the matter.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) has raised an important subject, which we all take seriously. I congratulate him on his diligent research. The debate will have made a significant contribution to bringing to light the deep anxieties that exist. I extend my sympathy and that of my right hon. and learned Friend to my hon. Friend and his constituents in the tragic loss of their child.

The safety of the children who are carried on school buses is as important as it is for children and adults who travel on public transport. Attendance at school is a legal requirement. When parents entrust their children to the care of the local education authority or its agents, they are entitled to expect that the children's safety will be ensured as far as is humanely possible. The country has a tradition of maintaining high standards of safety for the travelling public, and they are constantly being improved. Nevertheless, accidents can and do occur, and we must always be ready to ask ourselves whether anything more can or should be done towards their elimination. The points that my hon. Friend made will be considered urgently by my Department and the Department of Transport to see whether there is need for further investigation or analysis to further that elimination.

It is necessary to keep the matter in perspective, although my hon. Friend's references to the number of injuries and his diligent research among local authorities were of great interest. On the evidence available to my Department, fatal accidents involving children travelling on school buses are rare. We are not complacent, because the death or maiming of any child is a tragedy that shatters a family and deeply affects a community of any size. Everyone concerned with safety must seek to prevent such accidents. The question is whether there is anything more that the Government should do.

About ½ million children are believed to be carried free on school buses every day. About the same number are believed to be carried free on public transport under arrangements made by local education authorities. The number of children who travel on public transport at their own expense is not known by my Department. The vast majority of school buses so used are provided by commercial operators and are subject to normal controls that apply to vehicles used for hire and reward. Nevertheless, there will be variation in the calibre of operators and drivers and in the standards of the vehicles used. My hon. Friend referred to that. It is difficult to monitor or control.

The safety of children on their journey to and from school is the general responsibility of the parents and the operators of the vehicles concerned. There are practical implications for local education authorities and schools, and, by extension, for my right hon. and learned Friend. It is the responsibility of the local education authority, where it employs an independent contractor, to take reasonable steps to ensure that the work is undertaken competently. In the relatively few cases where the authority is itself the operator, it is directly responsible, as operator, for ensuring that the service is conducted safely.

I hope that it is some consolation to my hon. Friend to know that there is close collaboration between local authorities and the police. Each local education authority keeps in close touch with the authority's road safety officers. Her Majesty's inspectorate, in the course of its normal activities, is alive to the need to ensure safe working in and around schools.

The Department of Transport is responsible for matters relating to the safe operation of public service vehicles. Regulations exist that define certain circumstances when, for example, the driver of a vehicle must be provided with some means of knowing whether a person outside the vehicle has been trapped by the closure of a door. Various regulations exist, but they do not cover all circumstances. There are acknowledged shortcomings. I shall draw many of the points that my hon. Friend raised to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport.

The traffic commissioners also have an interest. In at least one case, they have drawn the attention of local education authorities and public service vehicle operators in their areas to the circumstances of a fatal accident involving a pupil travelling on a school bus.

My hon. Friend referred to supervision on school buses, which is a difficult area. The safety of children on school buses is the subject of guidance in the Department of Education and Science booklet "Safety at School: General Advice", the second edition of which was published in February. Copies were sent to all local education authorities. The passage that deals with travel on school buses is part of a section called "The Journey to School" and draws attention to a number of potential hazards associated with travel on buses. It states:

"There are particular dangers to children when alighting from vehicles and crossing roads near schools, and when standing at bus stops or on pavements or roads while waiting to be picked up. Where this is felt to be a significant problem (perhaps because of the numbers of pupils or because of the local road and traffic conditions) schools normally give special attention to reducing the danger to pupils, either directly or in the course of more general road safety instruction."

The passage concludes:

"Pupils using buses should be reminded of the hazards of misusing automatic entry doors, tampering with emergency doors and getting on or off moving buses."

Although the Department does not know in detail what precautions are taken by individual local education authorities to ensure the safety of pupils using school buses, it knows from ad hoc inquiries that precautions are taken. For example, local education authority proposal forms for school transport tenders may specify conditions regarding vehicles, operator's insurance and liability. Although there is no requirement on local education authorities to report accidents to a central authority, traffic accidents, particularly fatal ones or those involving children travelling on school buses, are reported in the local press and represent a useful source of information. My hon. Friend made this point graphically.

In addition, I understand that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport plans to include in future published statistics information about the number of accidents to pupils on journeys to school, including journeys by bus. Everyone feels from an emotional point of view that, if only one life could be saved, any effort involved in increasing safety would be justified. However, as soon as we start to consider what would be involved—and in particular the restriction on individual freedom of action and the probability of success in preventing fatalities—it becomes much less clear that present evidence would justify our going further than we do at present.

However, supervision on buses causes many people disquiet. I have read the reports of the tragedy in my hon. Friend's constituency, including the summing up of the coroner, who rightly drew attention to the fact that supervision on the school bus should be co-ordinated by the head teacher. The provision of a prefect or senior pupil is of paramount importance. However, there are problems about the effective control that that individual has over the size of the bus and the individuals on it and the question of age. My hon. Friend was talking about secondary schools, but we also have to consider primary schools and the number of smaller children who are travelling.

If I do not reply to all the points that my hon. Friend raised in detail, I shall ensure that they are drawn to the attention of the appropriate authority.

Without doubt, local education authorities know more about problems and possible ways of dealing with them than does the Department. My hon. Friend's speech will have gone a long way to illustrating some of the points that local authorities must now acknowledge. In order to compile advice, it would be necessary to conduct a comprehensive survey to identify the problems and how authorities would deal with them. It would also be necessary to extract those points, if any, that seem to be not generally recognised. It would be difficult to make the advice that is already contained in my Department's booklet very much more specific in a way that would make a useful contribution to reducing the possibility of accidents. It would certainly be impossible to give advice that would cover all eventualities, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will acknowledge that.

Accidents are often the result of horse play or boisterous or thoughtless behaviour. I am sure that my hon. Friend understands that. That can occur even when an older pupil or adult is being carried on the bus to keep order. Furthermore, the nature of the vehicles varies enormously. The design of entry and exits was referred to by my hon. Friend, and I was interested in his comments about the area of danger on the bus and whether the controls should be driver or manually operated. I was also interested to hear of the design which the American community schools had discovered by using a leather strap to provide a form of barrier. That is something that I shall draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport.

In practice, a substantial amount must inevitably be left to the awareness and foresight of the schools for them to decide, in the light of the circumstances, what provision or instruction is needed. The existence of central guidance cannot guarantee that accidents will be avoided.

Even though we do not maintain a detailed check on accidents and local education authority precautions to avoid them, the information available to us from other sources does not suggest that there are serious shortcomings in what we or local authorities do. In suggesting this—and I do not want to be accused of being complacent—the major responsibility naturally and inevitably rests with the individual local education authority, and we would be concerned if there was reason to suppose that it was not discharging it satisfactorily.

Fatal accidents that have occurred in the past are undoubtedly tragic for all families concerned as well as for the communities, and it does not diminish that concern in any way if we take the view that their occurrence does not justify more detailed control over, or guidance to, local education authorities. Nothing suggests that the standards adopted by the local education authorities vary so much that action by the Department would serve a useful purpose. However, I want to make it clear to my hon. Friend that we would do well to draw a number of points that he raised to the attention of the local authority associations and to the other Departments involved.

This has been a useful debate on an important subject. I made it clear at the outset that we take it extremely seriously. I hope that the points that my hon. Friend has made will be acknowledged by the authorities themselves. I dare say that I have not totally satisfied my hon. Friend in what I have said, but I hope that the points that he has raised will be acknowledged. I have no doubt that he will approach my Department and the Department of Transport if he feels less than satisfied. It is perfectly right and proper that he should do so, and I can assure him that what has been said in the debate will be carefully read by those two Departments.

I turn to the points that my hon. Friend raised in detail. He referred to the fact that local authorities should provide figures centrally for recording by the Government. Having acknowledged that the figures should be co-ordinated centrally, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport will now publish those figures. Along with my right hon. and learned Friend, I shall consider whether action is now required to bring this matter under central control. I note what my hon. Friend said about custom-built vehicles for the conveying of young people to and from school and the remarks that he made about specific design. I shall ensure that that point is brought to the attention of the Minister of Transport.

My hon. Friend also referred to the research work that he had carried out on the buses near to the school that John Hawkins attended. I was concerned about the possibility of inefficient operation and mechanical supervision. The competence of coach operators is of crucial importance. Again, I shall ensure that the Minister of Transport is made aware of that point.

I did not know that Berkshire had given some thought to the problems of road safety and that supervision on the buses is now to be a detailed co-ordination by head teachers. I am sure that that point will be acknowledged when we bring the debate to the attention of the local authority associations. I was interested in the aspect of legality relating to the letter from the director of education which my hon. Friend quoted. Perhaps my hon. Friend will be kind enough to supply me with a copy of that letter, because it is important.

I turn to the question of special training for young drivers. As I understand it, the recent Transport Act 1980 reduces the age from 21 to 18, but none the less drivers must undergo a rigorous test for aptitude and attitude. I have read the correspondence and exchanges between my hon. Friend and the Minister at the Department of Transport. I have no doubt that those points will be fully acknowledged. We regard this matter with a great deal of concern.

My hon. Friend referred to the figures in recent years. There have been 361 people injured, 32 seriously. There have also been four fatal accidents. The article in The Times was read with deep concern by officials at the Department of Transport and my own Department. Certainly, these points will be well analysed in the light of my hon. Friend's remarks.

As to the way forward, my hon. Friend has done a great deal to draw attention to these worrying trends. The next step forward for my Department is to consult the local authority associations on whether there is a need for further inquiry and guidance on the subject of safety on school transport. There are many important lessons for both Departments and the local education authorities to learn, but, no matter how much we try centrally to co-ordinate everything and no matter how rigorous the application of all the regulations and controls that exist, it comes down to the attitude of individual head teachers, the coach operators in providing efficient, well maintained and constantly checked vehicles and the young people themselves.

The points that my hon. Friend made indicate that he has gone into this matter rigorously, with thorough research, and he is to be congratulated on so doing. He has done a valuable service to my Department and the Department of Transport. I appreciate that I have not fully acknowledged many of the other points that he raised. That was because of lack of time and also because they are not always the direct responsibility of my Department. I shall certainly ensure that all his points are brought to the attention of my colleagues in the Cabinet. I hope that I can acknowledge some of the matters more fully by writing to him, and I am grateful that the subject has been brought to the attention of the House.

Were it not for the events of yesterday evening, the next three-quarters of an hour would constitute a somewhat acrimonious debate. It will not be quite as acrimonious, although I cannot promise the Under-Secretary that I shall let him off entirely scot-free. I gather that last night, in Committee B, the university pay claim was settled to the satisfaction of all parties, but not in a way that leaves the university teachers feeling that over the whole period they have been justly treated.

University teachers are a small group of workers. Their somewhat esoteric profession is such that they do not necessarily have the full backing of public opinion in all that they do. From time to time, like university students, they come in for their share of obloquy. I cannot now recollect chapter and verse, but I am sure that the Minister has joined in that from time to time. Nevertheless, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that the university teachers are an essential part of the country's work force. Their job is vital to the future of the country.

If we have low standards in our universities, we shall have low standards in all the professions that depend on university teachers in order to initiate higher standards throughout industry. Therefore, it would be wrong to deprecate the contribution that university teachers make to the future of the country. That applies not only in the more abstruse realms of Greek literature. It is also fundamental to our industrial base and to the industrial prospects of the country.

I make no apology for raising again the issue of university techers' pay. I did so once under the Labour Government. It is not those facts or any special connection that I have with universities that prompt me to raise the matter. It is true that there is a university just outside my constituency, and when their pay settlement is in dispute university teachers are prone to writing to all Members of Parliament in the area. One of the labours that we have to bear is to reply to those letters, and, like many hon. Members, I have that burden to bear.

But even that is not my main concern. My concern is that at a particular stage of pay policy during the course of the Labour Government university teachers were caught by a change of policy, and I tried to reassure them that in due course their concern would be met at the next stage of pay policy. It was not. They were crushed by the inexorable path of another type of pay policy, and the promises that had been made to them were brushed aside by a Minister who has now deserted us for the Conservative Benches. I felt angry at the sense of injustice that they felt, and I also felt that I had let down my teachers by giving them assurances that were not met. As a result, I have been drawn into the discussion about the way in which we have treated university teachers. It is a deplorable story.

Since the beginning of pay policy in 1968–69, university teachers have been caught more often and more unfairly than any other group of workers in the country, except possibly Members of Parliament. They have had a succession of totally misjudged decisions which have caused them to feel that because they have no industrial clout and no safeguarding machinery they are simply thrust on one side so that other more powerful groups can be placated. That is intolerable. It is wrong that, because a group of workers cannot exercise that sort of industrial pressure, they should be treated so cavalierly by successive Governments. My complaint is not only about this Government but about the Labour Government and Governments of both parties going back to 1968.

On this occasion, the story is about as bad as it can be. The university teachers put in a pay claim in the spring of 1979, at a time when many other public sector workers were putting in claims. They said that during the course of pay policy the public sector, contrary to the illusions fostered by the present Government, had fallen behind the private sector and that if appropriate comparisons were made between the work done in the public sector and that done in the private sector it would be seen that the gap was substantial and that there should be a catching-up exercise. But because so many other public sector workers were making the same claim the Government of the day appointed the Clegg Commission to consider those comparisons. It was agreed by the Department that the teachers' claim would also be put to the Clegg Commission.

Again, the university teachers suffered since Professor Clegg was not able to deal with their pay claim because of the priority that he had to give to other groups of workers. He took the view that an initial exercise could be carried out to try to get the university teachers back to their position of 12 months previously but that it would take 18 months. Only then could the commission begin the longer investigation into the appropriate pay for university teachers in comparison with other occupations. That would have taken so long that everyone agreed that it would be unjust to the teachers.

On 9 May 1980 the deputy secretary at the Department of Education and Science wrote to the chairman of the negotiating machinery to indicate that the Department would be prepared to allow the withdrawal of the reference of university teachers' pay and for a settlement to be made between the university vice-chancellors and the teachers in a way that met the conditions in the letter. The letter said:

"In these special circumstances we would not wish to raise objection to the withdrawal of the reference and negotiation of an October 1979 settlement, phased as already agreed, within the present cash limits instead. Such a settlement could not be regarded as the result of a full comparability exercise; though the negotiations would no doubt take account of the earnings of other groups in broadly comparable work, including teachers in further education following the Standing Commission's report on their pay. It would be essential that the outcome firmly and finally subsumed all claims up to and including 1 October 1979."

That letter was written in May 1980. Within a few weeks, two and a half months ago, Committee A reached a settlement which met all those conditions. It was within the present cash limits, and it did not indulge in a strict comparability exercise, although it took account of what other people were earning. It was agreed that all outstanding payments for catching up would be accepted. That settlement was then sent to Committee B, and because of the circumstances it was expected that Committee B would rubber-stamp the agreement as it had met the terms of the Department's letter.

We have been waiting for two and a half months for that to happen. The original meeting scheduled for Committee B was postponed, and all subsequent letters to the Minister have received the somewhat unrevealing answer that the agreement would be sent to Committee B as soon as possible. We all knew what was happening. The Treasury had raised questions even about this settlement, and the Prime Minister was going to get her oar in somewhere. We are happy to know that the Secretary of State, who is rapidly getting the sobriquet of "Maggie smasher", is the man who has turned the table in the Cabinet. I give him full credit for that, but it is not good enough.

The Government cannot go on saying that they do not have a pay policy, that they do not regard pay policy as a reasonable way of settling the pay claims of workers in our society, that it should be left to management and men to settle their own pay claims and that they will intervene in the public sector only by establishing the limits wherein that bargaining can take place. If that is Government policy—it has been adumbrated since this Government took office—there is no reason why the settlement that was agreed two and a half months ago should not have been confirmed immediately because it was within the cash limits. It was an agreement that was satisfactory to both sides, and it did not involve any greater extension of public expenditure than had already been accepted under the existing cash limit. Therefore, it was within the Government's policy.

But even last night the Government were not prepared to accept the full agreement made two and a half months ago. That was for a catching-up exercise of about 19·5 per cent. What has been agreed is about 17 per cent. So not only was there a cash limit; there was a pay policy. There was a deliberate attempt to cut down the amount which had already been agreed and which was well within the Government's existing policy. That is what the Government are now doing—not in the private sector but in the public sector. What they are doing is cutting down bit by bit, in an ad hoc way, whatever anyone agrees. That is what they did with us, and that was the presage to the same kind of attempt with all the other public sector workers.

Our pay claim was settled by Boyle at 14·6 per cent., as a figure out of the air, and that in itself took about 6 per cent. off the rate of inflation. Then the Prime Minister comes along with another figure out of the air and it goes down to 9·6 per cent. Since then, she has been trying to get everyone in the public sector cut down by a few percentage points. It did not matter what the percentage points were; they had no particular relevance to the conditions of work or the necessity for recruitment in the area that we were considering. If it were possible to get a few percentage points off whatever was agreed, we would reach a figure which the Prime Minister was willing to accept.

But that is the pay negotiating position of the Arab market. What we are doing is to keep on knocking down until we can get an agreement that is acceptable. That is not justice, and it is not likely to be seen to be justice. Whereas one can screw Members of Parliament who are daft enough to take it, and one can screw university teachers because they do not have the industrial power to resist, one will not be able to do it in the coming winter with the public sector workers who have the power to resist. It will not be enough simply to say "We can screw them because we shall be putting them out of jobs anyway."

The truth is that we must have a policy which is seen to be fair to all sections of society. Otherwise, the policy will be decided by the pressure groups and the exertion of their pressure throughout society. If the Government are to go for a pay policy, albeit in the public sector, they should say so. They should give the criteria by which that pay policy is to be exercised. They should be able to say in every area of the public sector "We are applying the same kind of conditions and the same kind of test to you as we are applying to anyone else." Then, they may get a degree of acceptability, although I suspect that what they will do is to build up a problem for themselves in the second and third years.

The Government have argued consistently this year that part of the price that they have had to pay for pay policy in the past has been the catching-up exercise in the public sector and that this year they want to get away from that, and that is why they are talking about getting settlements below the level of inflation. But, if the private sector is getting a settlement that is substantially higher than that in the public sector this year, that catching-up exercise will take place inevitably, because, even if it does not take place as a formality within the negotiating groups, it will take place because people will leave the public sector and the public sector will not be able to recruit staff in order to meet its commitments. Already there are difficulties even within the universities in recruiting into some engineering departments, and increasingly that will go on throughout the public sector if people are not properly paid.

Therefore, it is not good enough that the Government settled yesterday; they should have settled a good deal earlier and within the policy that they were setting forth, which was supposed to be the Government's policy. If the Government go on like that in the future, there will be problems not only with the university teachers but with other public sector workers.

I conclude by asking what the Minister foresees as being the machinery in the future. We cannot go on like this. Will there be some way in which the university teachers will have a satisfactory negotiating machinery which they can trust and which will assure them that if they make a settlement within the existing Government policy it will be honoured, and honoured on time?

I concur with the remarks of the hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) about the importance of universities. I am very grateful to him for making that point. I put on record myself my view of the importance of universities in both teaching and research in a modern society—indeed, in any society. The universities bear the main burden of the passing on of knowledge and, we trust, the extension of knowledge. It is within the universities that the development of the undergraduate and the graduate as individuals takes place. There is also the response of society to highly qualified people who are able to train at universities and to put more back into society from that. Universities should be, and generally are, centres of excellence, which are essential for a civilised and economically prosperous society.

As regards the university teachers' pay claim which we have dealt with this year, as is generally known, the existing negotiating machinery for university teachers' pay provides for two stages. Initially, the Association of University Teachers and the university authorities' panel—largely the vicechancellors—which represents the employers, meet in Committee A to agree a joint proposal. This proposal is then negotiated collectively with my Department in Committee B. The proceedings of the negotiating committee are confidential unless the parties agree otherwise.

I come to the current situation and the pay claim that was settled and accepted last night. As part of the agreement reached by the committee last December, the pay, terms and conditions of university teachers were referred to the Standing Commission on pay comparability, with any resultant increases payable on 1 April and 1 October this year.

Reference to the Clegg Commission was allowed on the understanding that Committees A and B would engage in substantive negotiations and would not attempt just a straight transliteration of the percentage pay increase recommended by the Burnham committee for the futher education teachers, and that it should be taken into consideration—the hon. Member read a letter making many of these references—that after the recommedations there would be genuine negotiations in Committee A and in Committee B, where the Government are the ultimate funder and come into the negotiations.

Delay occurred with Clegg. Originally it was expected that Clegg would report by September of this year and that by the middle of this year, and certainly by September, we hoped to have the situation sorted out. In April, however, as the hon. Member has said, the commission indicated that in view of the work entailed it could not expect to issue a report before the late summer of 1981. Instead of its being a six-months comparability exercise, it turned into an 18-months exercise.

The Government then accepted that the new time scale substantially altered previous expectations. They advised the negotiating parties that they were willing to consider proposals for a negotiated settlement instead of proceeding with a reference to the Standing Commission.

There was no delay in that decision on the part of the Government. When it was realised that it would not be a period of six or eight months but would be one of 18 or 20 months before there was a report from the Clegg Commision on the comparability of teachers' pay, there was no delay in the Government agreeing that there should be other direct negotiations.

At that stage Committee A met. The university interests put forward joint proposals for increases averaging 19·6 per cent. on 1 October 1979 rates of pay. That proposal, which involved such large increases, needed careful and thorough examination by the Government. That inevitably took time, but, as I have said in many letters, of which the hon. Gentleman has had copies, there was no unnecessary delay.

In Committee A the employers and employees, the vice-chancellors' representatives and the AUT, reached agreement on their proposals within the constraints of the cash limits on the grant to universities, as the hon. Gentleman correctly said. However, the Government have a part to play in the negotiating machinery. I think that the hon. Gentleman used the phrase "rubber stamp", but it is not the Government's job to rubber-stamp proposals put before them by the university interests. If that were so, there would be no point in having Committee B; all that we should need is a man with a rubber stamp. We go to Committee B with the Government's view, and there we meet the two sides.

I recognise that the universities' existing cash limits are a matter of primary interest and importance to the university authorities. However, this is only one of the many factors that the Government must take into account in formulating their counter-proposals. We also need to consider whether proposed salary increases can be justified by comparison with those for other groups and to consider possible repercussions in other areas. In addition, as one would expect from a responsible Government—here I think the hon. Gentleman will cheerfully agree with me—we must view the increase against the background of the present economic situation.

I think that the hon. Gentleman said that the debate was more amicable than it would have been if a settlement had not been reached last night. Agreement was reached at about 8 pm, and I tried to get a message to the hon. Gentleman immediately so that he would not make the wrong speech this morning. I should hate the hon. Gentleman, who fulfils a vital function here, to have arrived with the wrong speech this morning. He might have been celebrating last night or have gone to bed early, after the long nights this week, and have had no time to read about the settlement in the newspapers. It would have been most discourteous of me not to inform the hon. Gentleman so that he would not come unprepared this morning for a different situation. It gives me greater pleasure to reply to the debate because agreement was reached last night in Committee B.

With regard to the comparison with further education teachers and others, most public sector employees fell behind their comparators—I did not realise that we had such a noun before; I recommend it to one and all—during the years of pay policy from 1975 to 1979. That shortfall was remedied as a result of comparisons made by the Standing Commission on pay comparability, review bodies or the like. A wide range of catching-up increases was given. This settlement falls within that range and is seen to be very much in line with the overall increase awarded to teachers in schools and further education colleges when one adds together the figures for the past two or three years.

We have had almost a conversational style of debate. Having spent so much time on the negotiations, one has moved to that form of approach. I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree that we should thank the AUT and the vice-chancellors for the negotiations and commend the AUT's responsible attitude throughout. I know that there were strong feelings among university teachers. One can almost measure by the yard the length of the letters that were received. There was also a lobby of the House, but throughout the prolonged negotiations, which took about two and a half months before settlement, the behaviour of the university staff, the vice-chancellors and the AUT has been most commendable.

I pay tribute to the work done in our universities, which we may sometimes underrate. Last autumn the AUT brought out a booklet about the research work done in the universities and the benefit that it gives—directly in many cases, never mind indirectly—to the British economy.

The Clegg Commission disappeared this week, or, rather, it will have done when it has tied up its loose ends. If the commission had remained and the matter had been left to it, there would not have been an earlier settlement. That is one point in favour of what has happened in the negotiations and in defence of the Government's attitude. The settlement compares honourably with other settlements with similar bodies of teachers in the public sector. It is honourable to both sides.

Why did the Minister knock off 2½ per cent.? What was the relevance of the 2½ per cent.?

I cannot go into details and analyse how that 2½ per cent. was made up. The confidentiality of our side must be maintained, as must the confidentiality of Committee B. The Government's representatives had to go to that committee bearing in mind how the figure that has been quoted compared with what had been given elsewhere. Certain newspapers will undoubtedly work out the figures before long. The Government's representatives also had to consider how the figure fitted with the economic situation. The question of comparisons over the period since the last settlement was most significant.

The hon. Gentleman asked about future negotiations. I am well aware that there has been a long period of dissatisfaction, not with what Committees A and B have done but with the carry-through. It goes back to 1968, and there was a particularly unpleasant occasion in 1975. I am glad that there has been no recurrence of that this year. The university teachers fell heavily behind, and it was two and a half years or three years before they got their comparability back. I was concerned, as were many other people, to ensure that that situation did not recur.

If the university teachers at any time consider that there should be a different form of negotiation, we are always prepared to receive representations. Committees A and B seem to work satisfactorily, to judge from my first personal experience of them. Once the committees have convened, they have come to a conclusion. But if, as a responsible body, the teachers and the vice-chancellors consider that they should adopt another means of negotiation, we shall certainly consider any suggestions, though I can give no promise that we shall agree. I can say no more.

I am delighted that this debate has taken place after last night's settlement. I trust that the hon. Gentleman will have a good recess and that he will be welcomed by his university staff at York—possibly at the station, or wherever, by the music department. I am glad that the debate has been held in much more amicable circumstances than might otherwise have been the case.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Perhaps you could give the House some explanation of why the House should be suspended in a debate on the Adjournment simply because the Government are not competent enough to keep Ministers here. Apparently the House was suspended simply for the convenience of the Government so that they could get the Royal Assent to their Bills.

Perhaps the hon. Member will be good enough to look at the Order Paper. If he does so, he will see that the debates are strictly timed, and that we are following that timetable.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I understand that the basic motion is "That this House do now adjourn." The timing of Adjournment debates is printed for the convenience of Ministers and hon. Members concerned. But normally, if the business of the House collapses and the hon. Member who has the Adjournment debate is not in his place, that is the end of the matter and the House adjourns. What is different about today?

I have followed the procedure that has been followed in the House for many years.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise this matter in the House and to bring to its attention one of the most depressing problems facing my constituency at present. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment for changing his holiday arrangements to be here to reply to the debate.

While in many ways I shall echo much of what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) in his Adjournment debate on 29 February this year, when he referred to the effect that the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 was having on his borough of Wandsworth, and similar complaints of other Members, I wish to emphasise how much the Act is the cause of real difficulties for district councils in areas such as Bournemouth and Dorset which attract many people from elsewhere in the country. With this in mind, I shall refer to some constructive suggestions which have already been submitted by Bournemouth to the Secretary of State as part of his review of the workings of the Act.

My first complaint is the length of time that that review is taking. In reply to my question in April last year, my hon. Friend's predecessor, the right hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Armstrong), said that he had invited local authority associations to let him have their views on the operation of the Act. That had been the position since he gave a similar reply the previous February. Shortly after, my borough council wrote to me about the effects of the Act and referred to the results of that review which were still awaited.

Sixteen months later, in his most recent reply, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said that the review had still not been completed. This is a very long time, particularly in view of the distress that the Act has been causing. I hope that in his reply today my hon. Friend will give a firm indication of when he plans to complete his review, when we can expect the statement of his intentions resulting from that review and whether amendments are being contemplated in the light of representations made to him and of the experience of the Act. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross), who is in his place today, and his hon. Friends who sponsored the Bill did so with the best of intentions. But I wonder whether they contemplated the sort of problems that the Bill has created in many areas and the consequences that have proved disastrous to so many families.

I wish to emphasise that Bournemouth, along with other seaside resorts, immediately appreciated the adverse effects that the Bill would create for them because of their special position. They warned against the Act from the start and have remained consistently opposed to its basic provisions. That is not to say that Bournemouth is an unhelpful authority or unsympathetic towards the homeless. Its record shows that the borough has always been ready and willing to act in cases of genuine homelessness. I draw the attention of the House to the fact that, during the 12 months preceding the implementation of the Act in December 1977, 109 cases of families facing homelessness in Bournemouth received the attention of the housing department, 80 of which were provided with accommodation.

Because of the discretion then enjoyed by housing authorities, it was possible to deal only with genuine cases. It became quickly known throughout the area that only the genuine need apply. The provisions of the new Act quickly became known in a similar way. The previous modest total of homeless families jumped within the first year of the Act's operation to 414 applications, of which about 200 had to be provided with permanent accommodation.

It was especially galling for the ratepayers of Bournemouth to read in their daily papers in March last year—and I quote from The Daily Telegraph of 10 March 1979—the headline

"Homeless Fraud Family Got Free Seaside Holiday."

The article stated:

"A Birmingham council house tenant obtained a free holiday for more than three weeks on the rates with sea-front accommodation at Bournemouth for himself, his wife and their three children, a court heard yesterday. The case is believed to be the first prosecution under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act which imposes a duty on local authorities to house people who are homeless or threatened with eviction.

Mr. X was charged with falsely representing that he and his family were homeless and had a priority need and not disclosing that he was the lawful tenant of a three-bedroomed maisonette.

Mr. Royston Griffey, prosecuting, told the court: The Act is new and in some circumstances it could have the effect of jumping the housing queue, so there are stringent safeguards."

It is the effect of jumping the housing queue which is of most concern to my constituents. Many of the applications that Bournemouth housing department is having to satisfy have little, if any, substantial connection with the borough or the area. It must be unjust that people from outside the area, having lived for only a limited period in Bournemouth, should be offered accommodation at the expense of those who have lived locally for many years—in many cases over the heads of those who have had their names on the local housing list for many years. During that time they waited patiently, often in inadequate accommodation, for their turn to come. The effect has been to cause the greatest possible distress for many deserving local people, especially young couples and elderly people in need, who have had their hopes continually dashed as outsiders are given greater priority when homes become available.

Two months ago the chairman of the Bournemouth housing committee reported that, because of its obligations under the Act, families joining Bournemouth's housing waiting list would have to wait up to nine years for a vacancy. Those in the worst category included the elderly retired with no medical need. I cannot believe that it was the intention of the Act to produce that position.

I wish to refer briefly to four cases that are fairly typical of the constituents who have written to me, often in desperation, asking for my help to obtain better accommodation. One constituent who wrote to me in March said:

"I am writing to you to ask you if you could help me. I am an old-age pensioner, disabled, confined to a wheelchair and unable to walk. I am in an upstairs flat. I have lived here for 37 years. I am trying to get a downstairs flat from the corporation. I am not successful. I have been indoors since September. My doctor has suggested that I should write to you. I want to keep in this area because my son and friends live here. I do hope that you can help."

I received another letter earlier this year which began:

"As you are our local Member of Parliament we hope that you might be in a position to help us because so far we feel we are banging our heads against brick walls. My wife and I and small son of 10 months have been living in rented accommodation for the past 2 ½ years. We have had our names down on the council housing list for 2 ½ years. Although we appreciate that there are a lot of people to help house, for example, refugees, it would be nice to know that this country could look after its own first. Our flat is a ground floor one but we consider the conditions we live in are disgusting. We have rising damp on every wall including interior walls. We have white mould on our bedroom carpet which runs alongside our bed …

All we want is just a comfortable dry house that we can bring our son up in safely without the fear of him catching pneumonia because of the damp conditions. He is only 10 months old and has already suffered bronchitis. Our GP has also written a letter to the council concerning our son. The last time we telephoned we were told that we were a hardship case but we still have to wait some time before we are rehoused."

Another constituent wrote:

"I know that you have sympathy with the elderly and ailing. I want to ask you if you are aware of the position of housing priorities reported at present in Bournemouth. I understand that 100 may be rehoused in Bournemouth this year out of 11,600 on various council housing lists in Bournemouth. In other towns newly arrived couples or families from other areas are temporarily housed until their turn becomes a practical possibility on the local list. It seems in Bournemouth priority does exist first for them and then the others are kept waiting. As reported in the local paper the Bournemouth Echo on June 4th 1980, nine years is not unknown as a waiting time."

My final reference is to a letter which said:

"In reference to the enclosed cutting from the Bournemouth Echo I would like to inform you of the case of my husband and myself that seems pretty hopeless. Although our application was placed on the priority list over a year ago for reasons of health, supported by my doctor, my husband who retired two years ago and is now 67 years old suffers from angina, but still has to climb 60 stairs to our third floor flat every time he has gone out at great risk to himself each time. Unfortunately I am a sufferer from bronchial asthma which means placing extra strain on my husband when I am incapacitated during an attack."

The newspaper report referred to in the letter is headed "Johnnies Come Lately Get Homes Under This Act So Locals Wait". It states:

"Only 9 per cent. of the casual vacancies in Bournemouth's housing stock last year could be used for local people on the town's lengthy waiting list, because the other 91 per cent. had to be used for so called homeless persons, many of them with no real ties with the town at all."

That is the tenor of a bitter complaint that Bournemouth council is making about the Act.

rose—

I shall not give way. I have a great deal to say on behalf of my constituents. I realise that the hon. Gentleman wishes to comment, but this is a timed debate and I must continue.

There is a limit to what one can reasonably tell constituents in that sort of position by way of explanation as to why they should wait longer than those who do not, or did not, live in Bournemouth.

The position in Bournemouth and other seaside resorts is exacerbated by the large number of holiday flatlets which are let subject to short-term winter letting agreements expiring in the spring. That creates an intolerable burden. People from outside the area have taken such lettings knowing at the very outset that they will be subject to eviction on the expiry of the agreement and expecting immediate priority for housing.

I know that the problem is appreciated by the holiday flat owners. Their constant worry is that tenants staying for the winter will refuse to leave at the end of their contracted period, in order to be evicted and rehoused by the council in accordance with the Act. The Bournemouth holiday flats association has suggested to me that tenants would think twice if the courts made them pay the loss that the flat owner has to accept when he is successful in winning his case in the county court.

The local authority is faced with two courses of action, having regard to the Act's code of guidance. If a family is declared unintentionally homeless, it has to be housed at the expense of those on the waiting list. If the family is intentionally homeless, the authority has to provide temporary accommodation and give advice and assistance. That is done at the expense of the local ratepayers.

The voluntary code of conduct between local authorities on the procedure for referrals has been improved with the length of residence requirement being extended from six months to eight months without security of tenure before a local connection has been established for responsibility for rehousing to be accepted. However, considerable problems remain, although I am not arguing in this debate that exclusion from security of tenure of those who live in out-of-season accommodation should be altered, because of the many other side issues that that would raise.

Another area of considerable difficulty arising out of the Act concerns local authorities with ports and airports in their area. That has been highlighted recently by the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) to amend the Act in relation to persons without a local connection. Such local authorities have to accept applications for accommodation from families who arrive from abroad, often with only the flimsiest of local connections, and it is normally difficult, if not impossible, for the local authority to make meaningful checks on their reason for leaving Australia, South Africa, the Middle East or wherever.

Hurn airport is partly owned and managed by the borough of Bournemouth, though it is in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley), and there is a fear that housing authorities in the Bournemouth area will face further burdens as a result of the recent judgment of the Court of Appeal in the Hillingdon council case.

A further exasperation being felt by housing authorities is the reduction in housing investment programme allocations for this year, in accordance with the Government's policy of reducing local government expenditure. I agree with that policy, in view of the national economic situation, but the reduction has not been accompanied by a corresponding reduction in the statutory duties on housing authorities, particularly the duties imposed under the 1977 Act.

Bournemouth council's new house building programme has been cut back in line with the reduced allocation, at a time when the number of applications on the housing waiting list is not decreasing. That list remains relatively unchanged, because about half of all the properties available for letting have been allocated to persons with a priority need under the Act. Last year, 91 per cent. of all casual vacancies in Bournemouth were allocated to homeless persons, so it is the normal applicants on the housing list who will suffer from the reductions in expenditure.

Particularly in view of the reduction in housing expenditure imposed on them, it is with particular urgency that hard-pressed district councils such as Bournemouth request the Government to afford them some relief from the burden of their responsibilities for homeless persons. Earlier this year, the leader of Bournemouth council, Councillor Roy Thomason, who is also chairman of the Dorset county branch of the Association of District Councils, wrote to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary about the effects of the Act on Bournemouth. He suggested that if the Act were not to be repealed, which he would prefer, a fairer balance between competing deserving interests should be arrived at.

Councillor Thomason made a number of suggestions. The first was that the onus of proof of homelessness and priority need should be placed on the person claiming to be homeless and not, as at present, on the local housing authority. That would also have the advantage of saving staff time and, therefore, expenditure in making the extensive appropriate inquiries that are now required, at considerable expense.

Secondly, the priority needs category under section 2 should apply only to persons resident within the United Kingdom for at least the preceding 12 months. Thirdly, local authorities should be relieved of the duty under section 4 to give continuing advice and assistance to persons adjudged intentionally homeless or those not within priority need.

Fourthly, local authorities should be relieved of the duty to secure accommodation for persons in priority need who are being rendered homeless from fixed-term lettings of 12 months or less, which were subject to the signing of a written agreement at the commencement of the tenancy. Finally, the code of guidance that accompanies the Act should be redrafted so that, in general, the bias in cases of doubt is not weighted so heavily in favour of the applicant.

I end by emphasising that the problems that I have referred to as being experienced by Bournemouth and other South Coast resorts as a result of the Act arise particularly because of their specially attractive situation. That may not always be appreciated by other members of the ADC or sufficiently reflected in its representations as part of the Government review.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will indicate that he accepts that and will aim to amend the Act to recognise that local people have as much right as others, if not more, to local housing.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) for initiating the debate and providing another opportunity for discussion of the Act, this time of its effects on Bournemouth.

I feel that the implications of the Act for any one area, however significant they may be, cannot be considered in isolation. It is important not to lose sight of the wider perspective. It is particularly helpful for me to have received a broad range of opinions on many aspects of the implementation of the Act.

As the House is aware, the Government have for some time been engaged in a comprehensive review of the operation of the Act. My hon. Friend referred to answers given to him by my predecessor. I have not had the benefit of seeing the advice tendered to him and, therefore. I can accept responsibility only for the review that has taken place since we took office.

We are looking at the operation of the Act and its associated code of guidance and we are nearing the point when we hope to be able to announce our conclusions. In the course of the review, we have had helpful contributions from a wide variety of sources, not least Bournemouth council.

The local authority associations, as well as the principal voluntary organisations most closely concerned with the practical effects of the Act, were invited to submit views and they have provided a valuable range of comments. I am grateful, too, for the opinions received from a number of individual authorities. All those views, together with the points made by my hon. Friend, will be given careful consideration as we reach our conclusions on the review.

I hope that I shall not disappoint my hon. Friend when I say that I must repeat the point that I made in the Adjournment debate on the Act in February of this year. Although I will try to respond as fully as possible to the comments that have been made today, my hon. Friend will, I am sure, appreciate that it would be quite wrong for me to prejudge the outcome of the review while we are still deliberating and before our conclusions are formally announced. I must therefore refrain from commenting on whether or in what form the Act or code may need amending. If, however, I am unable to deal today with any point in the detail it deserves, I give my assurance that it will receive the most careful attention before we take decisions arising from the review.

There are, however, a number of comments that I ought perhaps to make to put in perspective some of those issues that have been raised today. I think it would be helpful if I began by reminding the House briefly of the broad extent of the main duties placed upon local authorities by the Act as it now stands.

The Act is designed, first of all, specifically to help people whom local authorities are satisfied from their inquiries are genuinely homeless or threatened with homelessness. Secondly, it identifies the categories of homeless people who should be regarded as having a priority need for accommodation. The priority categories include, for example, those who have dependent children and those who are vulnerable because of old age, physical disability or mental handicap. Any requirement on local authorities to secure that accommodation becomes available is accordingly limited to homeless people in these categories.

Lastly, where authorities are satisfied that homelessness is intentional, that obligation is itself limited to securing accommodation only for such period as an authority considers will allow those concerned a reasonable opportunity to find accommodation themselves.

It is also important to remember that, where a duty to secure accommodation arises, there are a number of ways in which it may be fulfilled: in particular, there is no obligation to provide council accommodation in every case.

It is important to have in mind the broad provisions of the Act and the discretion given to authorities when considering the allegations of queue jumping by the homeless, so that these allegations can be seen in proper perspective. I can, of course, readily appreciate the feeling that many people have that it is unfair that homeless persons should be allocated accommodation in advance of those who have been on a council's waiting list, sometimes for quite a long period. As a constituency Member who has practical experience of this expression of feeling, I understand the sincerity with which my hon. Friend raises this matter. But I have indicated before in the House that waiting lists do not always necessarily provide a reliable indication of housing need.

It is not uncommon for some of those on waiting lists to refuse one or more offer of accommodation, which itself suggests that their need would not fall to be regarded as being as acute as of those who have nowhere to go. Moreover, it is sometimes the case that the very properties that have proved consistently difficult to let in the normal way to those on waiting lists are the ones allocated to homeless families.

I well realise that those who complain about queue jumping usually intend their complaint to refer to unscrupulous people who, they allege, are deliberately making themselves homeless in order to obtain council accommodation more rapidly than they could otherwise expect. This allegation is most commonly made in cases of homelessness arising from alleged disputes with families or friends with whom the applicants have been living.

This is one of the questions that we are examining in detail in the review, and the House will, I am sure, understand that for that reason I cannot discuss the issue today as thoroughly as I would wish. But I will emphasise two factors that are in my view important to remember in this context.

First, genuine homelessness is a distressing condition, and its relief is what the Act sets out to achieve. I have not heard from my hon. Friend or from anyone else that we should not regard genuine homelessness as other than distressing. Secondly, as I have already said, authorities have discretion to reach a reasonable decision in the light of their inquiries. If, as a result of those inquiries, an authority is not satisfied that homelessness genuinely exists, applicants are owed no further obligation under the Act.

I am not always convinced that authorities that are worried by the operation of the Act are using the powers of discretion that fall to them. In many cases, as I have told deputations, I do not believe that they are using their powers of discretion to the full.

Where, however, people are in genuine and acute housing need, it is not unreasonable to look to local authorities to attach appropriate weight—I use the phrase advisedly—to these factors when considering the claims of homeless people for their accommodation against those of others.

My hon. Friend has referred to concern where people become homeless on being required to leave "winter let" accommodation. The Government have indeed received representations by or on behalf of a number of resort authorities on this subject and, as I have said, these are being considered in the context of the review.

The fear in seaside resorts—and also in other areas—that homeless people would suddenly arrive from elsewhere was, of course, considered while the Bill was in Parliament. The general view on this, however, was that homeless people should not be denied help and that it was reasonable to expect an auth- ority to accept responsibility in respect of those with a local connection with its area. The Act, indeed, contains provision for transferring a responsibility to secure accommodation in respect of those who have a local connection elsewhere and none with the area of the authority approached.

I should make it clear that this provision does not apply in cases where the authority is satisfied that those concerned have become homeless intentionally. In these cases, as I have said, any obligation on an authority to secure accommodation is already clearly limited by the Act.

I should like to make a number of points on the general issue of winter lets and people who may become homeless on leaving them. First, it is sometimes suggested that those concerned are "outsiders"—that is, people who have little or no connection with the resort areas. This claim, however, does not always stand up to close scrutiny. It is clear from statistics that my Department collects from local authorities and which have been published that the great majority of homeless people for whom authorities accept a responsibility to secure accommodation have been living in the area of that authority at least a year before becoming homeless. In the case of Bournemouth, for example, I understand that in the first six months of 1979 a substantial percentage of all those accepted had a local connection of some kind with the area. That information does not seem to tally with the information that my hon. Friend gave, which obviously was supplied to him by the local authority. If he cares to talk to my Department, or to ask Bournemouth council officials to do so, I will try to reconcile what, on the face of it, seems to be a wide margin of discrepancy between the two sets of figures.

I am grateful.

There are, indeed, indications that people evicted from winter lets who subsequently seek help from the local authority are frequently local people.

Secondly, it has been suggested that many people who move to resort areas such as Bournemouth and take a winter let do so only to take advantage of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act. This may well be so in a minority of cases, but it seems to overlook both the provision in the Act regarding those whose homelessness is intentional and the fact that in many instances people may well wish to move to resort areas for perfectly genuine reasons, such as to obtain employment. There are indications that, irrespective of how long they have been in the area, many people who seek help from the local authority when they are required to leave winter let accommodation were obliged to take such accommodation in the first place simply because there was no alternative open to them.

If the authority is satisfied that someone who has left adequate accommodation and taken a winter let has really done so only with the intention of "working the system", it may, by a reasonable process, come to the view that he is intentionally homeless.

A recent ruling in the Court of Appeal on the case of Dyson v. Kerrier district council is relevant in this respect. In that case, the lady concerned left a council tenancy in Huntingdon, took a winter let in Kerrier, in Cornwall, and, when this was no longer available to her, applied to the council as homeless. The Court of Appeal decided that because it would have been reasonable for the lady and her child to have continued to occupy the council accommodation they already had in Huntingdon, there were no grounds for overturning Kerrier council's decision that this lady's homelessness was intentional.

That, is not, of course, to say that all people who become homeless on leaving winter let accommodation are intentionally homeless. It does seem, however, that the Act contains safeguards to deal with the alleged abuse to which my hon. Friend referred. The ruling clarifies the position that authorities are entitled to take into account in their inquiries all the relevant circumstances in each case and on that basis to reach a reasonable decision on them.

The final point that I should like to make on the question of those who become homeless from winter lets is that I note that my hon. Friend appeared to assume that the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 requires authorities to pro- vide council accommodation in each case where a duty to secure accommodation arises. As I stated earlier, the Act itself makes it clear that there are a variety of ways in which such an obligation may be fulfilled, and, as I have said, it also provides that the duty may be transferred to another housing authority in certain cases where those concerned have no local connection.

As the House knows, the local authority associations have an agreement on procedures for referrals of homeless people. I understand that, following representations from resort authorities, they have already revised this in respect of those whose sole connection with an area is a few months in a winter let. Any further changes to the agreement, which I suspect some authorities would like to see, are, of course, a matter for the associations themselves. As they have pointed out, however, to make it too difficult for people to establish a local connection may ultimately be counter-productive.

I think that my hon. Friend will realise from what I have said that the issue of those becoming homeless on leaving winter let accommodation is by no means simple. Neither is the related issue of help to people from overseas who become homeless on, or shortly after, arrival in this country.

I must emphasise straight away that all the available evidence suggests that only a very small proportion of the people accepted by authorities as homeless were living abroad one month before and that, once legally admitted to this country, people are entitled under the law to be treated on the same basis as any other member of the community. Discrimination in housing and other matters on grounds of race or nationality would, of course, be unlawful.

We must, however, avoid the temptation to consider that such issues are amendable in a simple manner. The interaction between the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 and European Community legislation dealing with freedom of movement to seek and take up employment and the Race Relations Act 1976 is extremely complex. There is also the question of interaction between the 1977 Act and related legislation on social services. We have also to look carefully at the implications of recent rulings in the Court of Appeal, to one of which have already referred.

It has also been represented by my hon. Friend and others that additional resources are necessary to enable authorities to meet the costs of operating the Act. I am certainly prepared to look at any suggestion, based on factual information, that the Act is placing an unfair burden on individual authorities. I widen that offer to include Bournemouth. It should be borne in mind, however, that the Act was intended to enable local authorities to integrate help for homeless people into the main stream of their housing activities.

As I have said, authorities have considerable discretion as to how they discharge their duties towards homeless people. Housing investment allocations for 1980–81 were made in a single block to give local authorities greater freedom to decide how to meet local housing needs in the light of available resources. But I must make it clear that all the resources available for housing investment for 1980–81 have been distributed and I see no prospect of any additional allocations being made available. We shall, of course, consider Bournemouth's claims, along with those of other authorities, when we make the allocations for 1981–82.

I hope that these remarks will be helpful in enabling a balanced view to be achieved. It is clear that no useful purpose will be served by any hasty or ill-considered judgments on issues that are not only sensitive but highly complex. I am grateful to my hon. Friend not merely for the points that he raised today but for the calm and reasoned matter in which he raised them. I can assure him that they will all be considered in the review, and if the meeting between Bournemouth and my officials can be arranged swiftly enough the points raised then can also be considered.

I am answering at the end of my speech the question asked by my hon. Friend at the beginning of his. I hope that our considerations will be completed fairly soon and that we shall be in a position to announce our conclusions as soon as possible after the House returns. I am sure that this will not be the last time the House has to debate the Housing (Home-less Persons) Act 1977, but I hope that it will not have to be debated again without the results of the review to which I have referred.

Since the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) has five more minutes of his allocation to run, and as the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) has no objection, as the promoter of the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 I would like to thank the Minister for a moderate and sensible reply.

I remind the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East that the Act is based on circular 1874, published by a previous Conservative Administration. On the reorganisation of local government it was appreciated that too great a burden had fallen on county councils—Dorset in particular—for dealing with homeless persons. Those authorities did not have the bricks and mortar to provide homes, and it was costing an enormous amount of money to take children into care. We surely do not wish that situation to recur. Therefore, a circular was sent to county councils and borough councils requesting the transfer of responsibility from the counties to the boroughs.

Most authorities in England and Wales complied with that request. I am sorry to say that Bournemouth did not, and a number of authorities in Hampshire followed suit. Pressure consequently built up to provide legislation to ensure that the authorities that were not playing along with the Government's request should be brought into line because an unfair burden was falling upon the authorities which had complied.

Representing the Isle of Wight, whose population has shot up in recent years, I appreciate what the problems are. When I went there in 1953 the population was about 91,000 and going down. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East has lived on the island and will appreciate what I mean. Now, the population is almost 120,000 and is increasing at the rate of 1,000 a year. That is because we have acquired modern industries and because the island is a good place to which to retire. More and more people are coming from the North and the Midlands to the South Coast and the Isle of Wight.

That influx has put an enormous burden on our local authorities, which, on the whole, have a much lower percentage of local authority housing than authorities in other parts of the country. I cannot speak for Bournemouth, but on the Isle of Wight it is between 12 per cent. and 13 per cent. The huge increase in house prices—the hon. Gentleman knows about that and might have referred to it—is compelling more people to look to local authorities or housing associations, because they have been priced out of the market.

Under the Act, most of the cases quoted by the hon. Gentleman would qualify for priority. I accept that local authorities have had to tell such people that because they already had a roof over their heads—even though they lived on the third storey—there were more pressing cases to which first priority had to be given.

We are moving into a dreadful situation in the South. Housing allocation on the South Coast, and particularly in the West of England, has not kept up with demand as it should have done. There are many parts of Britain where housing is in surplus. That surplus will be found chiefly in the North-West and the North-East. The houses may not be of great quality, but they are available to let. My daughter lives in Newcastle upon Tyne and has managed to rent a house on three different occasions. That indicates that this problem is one for local authorities.

In considering the view, I am reassured by what the Minister said. The Act is working reasonably well. Of course there are hiccups, and of course there is the problem of winter lets. The local authorities have probably got over that problem, but something may need to be written into the Act in that context and the matter left to local authorities.

I hope that we shall not change the system whereby we give limited priority to people who suffer the most distress. That priority should surely go to young families, to pregnant women and the elderly, who may be in distress of one sort or another. I hope that we retain the principle that whatever happens that system will not be disturbed.

I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

1 Deer Act 1980.

2 Coal Industry Act 1980.

3 Housing Act 1980.

4 Tenants' Rights, Etc. (Scotland) Act 1980.

5 Health Services Act 1980.

6 Appropriation Act 1980.

7 Pier and Harbour Order (Great Yarmouth Wellington Pier) Confirmation Act 1980.

8 Dundee Port Authority Order Confirmation Act 1980.

9 Scottish Widows' Fund and Life Assurance Society Act 1980.

10 British Transport Docks Act 1980.

11 South Yorkshire Act 1980.

12 Southern Water Authority Act 1980.

13 Eastbourne Harbour Act 1980.

Ten years ago, or even five years ago, it would have been not merely unnecessary but impossible for me to call for an Adjournment debate on unemployment and severe redundancies in Derby. Derby has traditionally been a buoyant economic area. Both visitors and residents will hear the accents of all the depression areas of the 1930s. People hiked and biked and came in every way to the city to get employment in the worst years of the 1930s.

That buoyancy has survived until recent times. It has been built upon good management, good labour relations and lively and progressive industries. It is, therefore, a particular grief to me to have to call attention today to the severe blow suffered by the largest single industrial complex in my constituency in terms of the redundancies that began two years ago and are continuing at an ever accelerating rate at the British Celanese plant of Courtaulds.

I want to describe how severe this is for the city of Derby and for all those who have invested their life and work in the plant, and then to look at the overall policy of Courtaulds and how badly it has been affected by the policies of the present Government as well as by the world recession and to ask for action on a number of urgent and specific points.

Over the last 18 months, Derby has lost about 1,500 employees from the work force in the British Celanese complex. Two years ago, 5,500 or more were employed there. Now, the figure is down to about 4,000 and is still shrinking. That is the sort of shrinkage that the textile industry as a whole has suffered since 1974, but in Derby and Spondon it has been concentrated into little more than a year. When a recession of this magnitude and gravity comes to a place such as Derby, things are getting bad.

The closures in Derby have so far involved five separate plants. All the plants that have been closed are now lying idle, and the shadow left by their closure hangs over the whole of the Spondon area, in my constituency, and over the city itself.

The closures are not the result of a long history of bitter labour relations. The trade unions at Spondon have made frequent attempts to involve themselves in discussions about better productivity, work sharing and attempts to maintain some of the plants with reduced manning levels. So far, all attempts have been fruitless, and I fear that there has been too little consultation.

The process began with the closure of the Bonshawe factory, with over 200 redundancies, a couple of years ago. Then the Furzebrook plant closed at the end of last year. Already this year, 740 jobs have been lost at the Celon and Derwent Dyers plants, and 226 jobs went in the acetate plant in the No. 1 shop. Various support arrangements are at the moment under threat and due to go.

That is a total of well over 1,000 jobs, with a great deal of consequent worry for those whose jobs at the moment still exist in Spondon but who must ask what Courtaulds' overall policy is in the light of closures of such magnitude.

I want now to look at the general position of Courtaulds as a whole. Over the past year, and particularly since Mr Hogg became chairman of the group, 50 of 350 sites have been closed. There have been 12,000 redundancies among the Courtaulds work force. The Minister will know that in the debate on textiles last week and frequently in Adjournment debates on this question the body blow dealt by Courtaulds to whole communities—in Preston, Carlisle and Northern Ireland—has been raised in the House, often in the context of the aid that has been given to this company in development area assistance.

That is not the position in Derby, which has never needed to be a development area, but we are now feeling demoralised by the steady pattern of closures on which Courtaulds has embarked and on which it seems likely to continue. This closure programme—

Could the hon. Gentleman clarify something for me? Is he asking for Derby to be given assisted area status?

No, I am not. I would have to say, in all fairness, that other parts of the country have been much more savagely hit by the recession. I am trying to call attention to the consequences for the country and for our whole economy—not just for textiles but for British industry as a whole—of policies such as those which are now being followed by Courtaulds in the light of the Government's general economic policies.

In an interview just five weeks ago, in the Evening Standard, Mr Hogg was quoted as saying:

"The trading outlook is much worse than a year ago, so we have responded by increasing the rate of closures—a process which has certainly speeded up since I took over."

Mr. Hogg obviously intends that to continue.

Later in that article, by the deputy City editor of the Standard, the rather shrewd comment was made:

"it might be time to start thinking of Courtaulds as less of a textile group and more of an industrial holding company."

At the moment, three-quarters of the capital of Courtaulds is tied up in textiles, but all the signs are that this is not something that the company wishes to continue. It wishes to move out of textiles into other areas where it may make more profit.

What is the company up to at the moment? It appears to be trying to persuade the City of London that it is still a going concern—that it is not ripe for takeover. Above all else, its shareholders must be placated and its share price upheld. The Financial Times on 30 May this year compared the company to others that are trapped with an unrealistic level of payouts:

"the Board must fear the consequences for the share price if the dividend were cut".

The payout to the shareholders was kept at the previous year's level for the first half of this year and it has been said that that was done by a raid on the deferred tax return of £24 million. It has been possible to make the company look relatively healthy as a result.

The Minister knows from my utterances in the House that I am not a particularly strident or partisan figure in these affairs, but I must say that in this matter it is the workers of the Courtaulds group who are being asked to make all the sacrifices while the shareholders are being cosseted and asked to sacrifice nothing. I wonder why. The attempt to maintain the group as it stands, in a state that appears healthy and viable to the City, whatever the cost to the company's work force and its traditional role in textiles, does not seem very sensible.

The City may be the nervous system of capitalism in this country, but it does not supply the sinews, and it does not always supply the brains. The heart and guts of the textile industry in this country in the Courtaulds sector are being torn out by the policy that the group is pursuing. Nowhere is that more so than in the city of Derby.

Last year the group announced a £100 million investment programme, but we have heard little about where the money is to go. The hints we get from the latest annual report suggest that a substantial part of it will go abroad and that the movement away from the textile industry will continue.

At Courtaulds' annual general meeting, Mr. Hogg was pretty blunt about the group's profitability over the coming year. He was equally blunt about the Government's policy. As I would expect, he supported the Government's counter-inflation policies, but he went on to say:

"The effects of the Government's economic policies on interest rates and the influence that these in turn have had on the exchange rate have been extremely painful for industry and especially for the major exporters such as ourselves. Yet we understand the need for the medicine and we are taking it in the hope that it will prove effective in the end against inflation. It is rough political justice … that those who are hit hardest are those whose livelihoods are most directly exposed to international competition.

However, rough political justice is one thing; industrial common sense is another. It does not seem wise in the longer term for the Government to pursue a policy of total laissez-faire towards industry if this means (as we think it does in textiles) an erosion of its competitive strength by a dangerous and unnecessary surrender of market position to those overseas competitors whose governments follow more nationally self-interested policies."

In that area I share his blunt views.

The matters to which Mr. Hogg refers severely affect the position of Courtaulds. As long as sterling remains at $2·30 or above, Courtaulds will have to take on export business in textiles at minimum profit levels. The current exchange rate, combined with high interest rates, is, in the opinion of most commentators—even in the Conservative press—affecting Courtaulds more seriously than almost any other British company. For example, its interest payments last year rose by £4·1 million, to about £26·3 million.

A major shadow hanging over the Spondon plant, when we consider possible future redundancies, is the unfair competition from the United States. In the debate on textiles last week, the advantages of the United States textile industry were mentioned. It has an artificially cheap rate for its feedstocks because of oil and gas prices in the United States, it has advantages of scale and, above all, it enjoys competitive advantages against the pound, because of the artificially high level of the pound, based on our role as a petrocurrency rather than any real body to our manufacturing or exporting strength. The Americans have hit the British market hard over the past year. The Courtaulds management at Derby tells me that the importation of polyester triacetate wool-knitted fabrics, which threaten its market position, has increased nearly tenfold in the past two years. They are now 36 per cent. of the British market, compared with only 4 per cent. only a couple of years ago.

We cannot continue seeing that degree of market penetration by a cosseted competitor. By instinct I am a free trader. I do not believe in an overall strategy of comprehensive import controls. I am not in favour of exporting our unemployment to foreign countries. I appreciate the difficulties that the Government will have, as the previous Government had, in negotiating a new multi-fibre arrangement in the next two years. However, the United States is not a developing country and has artificial price advantages. I therefore cannot see why we should sacrifice the British textile industry with little being done by the EEC or the Government.

I have a number of points to raise with the Minister. The first concerns the Government's responsibility for Courtaulds. In his chairman's address, Mr. Hogg said that he did not believe that the Government could maintain a laissezfaire attitude towards textiles. I do not believe that they can do so towards Courtaulds, either. What does the Minister believe is the responsibility of Courtaulds in the present economic recession? It has been and still is a net recipient of many millions of pounds of Government funds. Do the Government believe that it should stay in textiles, and, if so, at what level of work force and activity?

Would the Government be happy if Courtaulds moved progressively out of that area and concentrated on its other activities, whatever the human and overall costs involved, once we come out of this recession—as surely one day we must—in terms of our manufacturing capacity and competitiveness in textiles? Is it right at this moment for Courtaulds to shift so much of its investment elsewhere and overseas, when investment in British in industry and in competitive plant in the United Kingdom, painful as that may sometimes be for the work force involved and for those who have been traditionally engaged in the industry, ought to be the first priority for a major manufacturer of that kind?

Secondly, have the Government made any calculation of the real cost to British exporters of the present exchange rates and the high level of MLR? What are the Government doing to bring down the exchange rate of the pound? In our recent special debate on the textile Indus- try, the Government shrugged off that problem and said that there was nothing that they could do to bring the level of the pound down to a more realistic figure. Will that be the Government's position throughout the recession? Will we he told that, whatever the level of economic stagnation and recession, there is nothing that can be done about the exchange rate? Are we to remain, on the one hand, a banker because of our limited role in time and extent as a custodian of North Sea oil and simultaneously see the level of the pound destroy our exporting capacity? At what point would the Government feel that they could intervene? I believe that the time for intervention has already passed.

Thirdly, when will there be action from the Government on antidumping duties, in conjunction with our partners in the EEC, on polyester imports from the United States? What progress has been made in that regard? What answer has been given to the representations from the textile industry, which were reiterated in the debate only the other day?

To be fair, I recognise that Governments cannot do everything. I recognise that all these difficulties did not begin in May 1979. I also recognise, as I think the Minister does, that the depth of the present recession in the United Kingdom has been aggravated by the policies that the Government have followed. When the recession comes, as it now has, with all its gravity, to a place such as Derby, which was one of the buoyancy tanks of the British economy throughout the 1930s, there are signs of terminal illness in the British economy in general.

It is not only on behalf of all the people who have been laid off and the ones whose jobs are now threatened at Spondon, in Derby that I have raised this matter today. I have done so because of the general position of the British textile industry and that of the many thousands of people who are, and hope to remain, employees of Courtaulds.

In replying to the points raised by the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead), I seek to speak a second time in the debate, and for that I ask the leave of the House.

The hon. Gentleman is to be congratulated on bringing this subject before the House today, and I am grateful to him for the opportunity to speak about it. He set his comments in the context of the problems of jobs in the city of Derby. It is, therefore, perhaps appropriate that I should start there before turning to the more detailed problems he raised.

The Derby travel-to-work area has a current unemployment level of 5·3 per cent., which is to be compared with a national average of 7·7 per cent. Therefore, Derby is much better off than the national average. We should not get that fact out of proportion. Currently there are also between 850 and 1,000 vacancies in the Derby travel-to-work area, because, as the hon. Gentleman will know, not all vacancies are notified to the employment exchanges. Quite a lot of jobs come to notice through advertisement and things of that sort. If we take the crude recorded figure of notified vacancies and multiply it by the known proportion that are not notified, we are dealing with between 850 and 1,000 vacancies.

If the Minister has been careful enough to obtain those figures, he will have also ascertained from the employment officials in Derby that the employment position there is now worse than it has been for the past 40 years.

Perhaps I should not have given way to the hon. Gentleman, because I am not seeking to deny the seriousness of the situation, particularly for those who work for Courtaulds at Spondon and who are being made redundant. I shall deal with that later. Derby is better off than the country as a whole. Indeed, when all the Courtaulds redundancies at Spondon and the other known redundancies in the industry take place, the unemployment level might be about 6·3 per cent., assuming that all who are made redundant register as unemployed. Some will have other plans.

The hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to the effects of the reduction in employment by Courtaulds at Spondon. Courtaulds is, of course, the largest textile group in Europe, with interests in a whole range of textile and clothing manufacture, as well as other activities include- ing chemicals, plastics and packaging. The chairman recently warned that a serious decline in profit was in prospect for the current year. He attributed that mainly to the difficult trading conditions for fibres and fabrics, where a slump in home demand coincided with competition from imports and difficulties in exporting due to the strength of sterling. That brings pressure on the employment situation in the area.

However, I should stress at the outset—the Government have said this many times before—that decisions as to closures and redundancies are the responsibility of the individual companies concerned. It must be understood that Courtaulds' actions follow on from its own assessment of the prospects. I realise that closures have a serious impact locally. In Spondon, I understand that Courtaulds recently cut 300 jobs at the Furzebrook warp knitting factory and that it has announced the closure of its Celon plant there, with about 660 redundancies. Derwent Dyers has announced about 100 redundancies. I also understand that another 226 site service personnel and other staff are to become redundant.

Textile firms in the Derby area employ about 8 per cent. of the working population. Many people are on short-time working and share the difficulties of textile workers in other parts of the country. The recent textile closures at Spondon must be seen against a background of contraction in employment in the textile industry that is affecting the whole country. The industry has an excellent record of improved productivity over the years, and I realise that the current position is due more to a worldwide recession affecting textiles and the considerable low-cost imports and the difficulties that that places on firms.

It is primarily for industry to decide, company by company, how it tackles the problems that it faces. Firms cannot escape from difficult, in many cases very difficult, decisions. I recognise that the Government have a role to play in helping the industry to achieve a sounder basis for the future. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade reminded the House only last week during the debate on textiles of the effort he makes wherever possible to extend the protection given to our industry under the multi-fibre arrangement. I do not need to repeat the list of the Government's achievements in that field. When the multi-fibre arrangement expires at the end of 1981, we shall do our best to negotiate a successor arrangement for the continuation of tough restraint to help our industry.

There is also difficulty with some imports from developed countries, particularly the United States. The hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to the damage being done by artificially cheap imports of synthetic fibres and products made from them. He will know of the two quotas imposed earlier this year on imports into the United Kingdom of polyester filament yarn and nylon carpet yarn from the United States. We managed to get the EEC Commission's agreement for restrictions on those two products, but not for a third, man-made fibre tufted carpets, where the market was also severely affected.

On polyester yarn, the European Commission Vice-President, Herr Haferkamp, recently said that decisions should be reached before the end of August. Therefore, this is being conducted at top speed.

The hon. Gentleman has already dealt with the matter of warp. He has drawn attention to the unfair nature of the United States' fuel pricing policy. One understands exactly how serious this is for a whole host of industries. It is not only the textile industry which is affected; it is also the newsprint and papermaking industries. But here we have a country which has decided not to pursue a conservation policy in terms of its own oil supplies. That is a decision which we do not control. We may think or even express the view that it is shortsighted for a country with limited supplies of indigenous oil not to pursue a conservationist policy and to price that oil at below the world price and, therefore, to have greater consumption than it otherwise would. It gives its manufacturers a significant short-term advantage—an unfair advantage compared with others. But in the long term it will suffer the most serious consequences as a result of pursuing that policy.

I know that that is small comfort to the hon. Gentleman, whose constituents are concerned about jobs in the short term, but it is in that context that one has to see the situation.

While on the subject of taking steps against competition from developed countries, I must point out that one-third of our industrial production is exported: in textiles and clothing, exports totalled £2,300 million in 1979. If there were a general move towards protection for the textile industry against developed countries' competition, the first to suffer from retaliatory action would probably be the textile industry itself. We have, therefore, to look at this subject with considerable care.

The hon. Gentleman specifically asked me about the future of the company's activities in relation to this narrow area. At his meeting with union representatives on 24 July, Courtaulds' chairman, Mr. Christopher Hogg, reaffirmed the company's view that British Celanese at Spondon was a vital part of the company and had a role in plans for the future. He drew attention to recent investment in parts of the site and the possible construction of a new pilot chemical plant. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take some comfort and encouragement from that.

The hon. Gentleman also asked me to deal with the problems of inflation, interest rates and the pound. Unfortunately, in the limited time available for what I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept is really a subject for a major debate taking a full day, he must share with me a major concern about inflation. As he will know, monetary policy and the management of the economy at any one time take about 18 months to two years before they show themselves in their effect on inflation. The hon. Gentleman will sadly reflect how pleasant it was for everyone when the previous Government were printing money about 18 months ago; but now all of us have to suffer the consequences of the flood tide of inflation caused by the previous Government's policies. We are trying to deal with that by restricting the money supply, but that makes money more expensive. That is why interest rates are higher.

The hon. Gentleman is right. Sterling is sufficiently high that matters are intensely tough for our manufacturers. That is in large part due to oil, over which we have no control. Treasurers in companies and countries across the world see us as a safe place to store their money. At the same time, there is an additional part of the value of the pound, caused by high interest rates. The sooner we can get down to Government expenditure, national and local, the sooner we shall be able to take the demand off the supply of money, and interest rates will fall. As they fall, not only shall we see a sound money pattern developing and a lower cost of raising money for industrial developments and for new projects, but we shall take the top slice off the pound.

The policy will work. Unfortunately, because of the legacy of inflation, it is a much tougher policy than we should have wished to have to embark upon. It will succeed, and as it does it will lay the foundations for the prosperity of much of British industry, including the city of Derby and those who work there.

The saga of the redevelopment of Ilford town centre began soon after the war, when it was realised that a strategic shopping centre and a major traffic route on the line of the London-Colchester Roman road were incompatible.

The first reaction was to widen the road and make it into a dual carriageway, but it was soon realised that that would be environmentally unacceptable, so alternative schemes were considered. In 1961 plans for a relief road were prepared. They were approved by the Ilford borough council six months later but were rejected by the Essex county council, which requested a more extensive proposal.

In March 1963 a comprehensive plan was prepared, and after two years' discussion it was referred to the then Ministry of Housing and Local Government in 1965, but it was withdrawn in 1967, after the formation of the new local authorities and the creation of the London borough of Redbridge. In November 1968 amended proposals were passed to the Ministry by the Greater London Council, and in 1970 a public inquiry was held into the amendments required to the initial development plans and the compulsory purchase order required for properties needed for the relief road.

In 1971 an adverse decision was given, which resulted in the setting up of a consultative body, on which representatives of many and various local interests were invited to serve, before a really wide public consultation exercise was held. The various possible solutions were evaluated, and three possibilities were subjected to detailed consideration. They comprised a north town centre route, a south town centre route and the possibility, again, of a road-widening proposal.

In the summer of 1977 the GLC agreed a new route, and it was put on public exhibition in February and March 1978, when 8,000 people visited the display and considered the benefits of a relief road that would enable the provision of a traffic-free shopping precinct with safer shopping and a more pleasant environment while providing a better traffic flow. Ninety per cent. of those who responded to the invitation to comment were in favour of the proposals. Modifications of the original scheme have been carried out in an effort to meet the 10 per cent. of objections, which included requests for more pedestrian crossings, increased car parking, more housing and more social facilities.

Naturally, over such a protracted period many properties have been blighted. Most of those residential properties have been purchased by agreement and demolished for car parking or landscaping or let on three-year leases, at peppercorn rents, to housing associations for short-life use.

The main proposals and objectives of the town centre scheme are broadly defined as being to provide a pedestrianised area in the High Road and to safeguard the opportunity for providing similar facilities in Cranbrook Road and safer movement generally; to provide an acceptable alternative route to the existing A118 for through traffic; to provide convenient bus routing and stopping places through the town centre; to provide adequate off-street parking facilities to meet the demands of the short-term parker and to restrain the demand for long-term parking; to provide convenient access to the town centre for service traffic; to minimise the effects of noise, fumes and visual intrusion on the town centre and adjoining areas; and to provide a full interchange connection between the High Road—A118—and the proposed South Woodford to Barking relief road.

It is quite intolerable that the interests of my constituents should be so badly affected by the inadequacies of the road system and the appalling shopping conditions. People run the risk of being pushed off the pavement and into the path of passing raffle during peak shopping periods. As a result, visitors are discouraged from coming to what should be one of London's strategic shopping centres. That, in turn, affects the level of employment and the contribution made by commercial ratepayers to reducing the level of rates which have to be paid by the domestic occupiers.

I understand that an official inquiry is to be carried out in October by an inspector from the Department of the Environment. It will be the culmination of many years of effort by all those concerned in the local authority, the GLC and the Department of the Environment. When a decision is reached as a result of the inquiry, will the Minister please ensure that it will be issued as soon as proper consideraton allows, and preferably before the end of this calendar year? I wish to ensure that my constituents know at an early date what action they can expect.

For a long time my constituents have been uncertain about the future. The situation has an effect not only on the properties that are required for part of the scheme but also on adjoining properties. Indeed, the adjoining properties are affected to a considerable extent by the dereliction and demolition of properties that have been acquired. In turn, that affects the value of all the other adjoining properties in the area. When the owners move, for reasons of their own—often not connected with the town centre scheme—they cannot find ready purchasers for their properties. That is a serious handicap, which they find intolerable.

Often, small business men, too, do not know what the future will hold. They feel inhibited about spending considerable sums of money on refurbishing their premises. Again, that has a deleterious effect on parts of the town centre. The present regulations, which enable blight notices to be served by those in residen- tial properties affected, do not apply equally to business users. They are, therefore, in a more serious position. If a business man wishes to extend and improve his property, his proposals are likely to be rejected at the planning stage, particularly if any major financial considerations are involved. His only alternative is to get the best price possible for the premises and to get out. That leads to a sad and declining situation for all concerned.

Vandalism tends to increase, and people who come to the vicinity then tend only to pass through it as quickly as possible. Squatters are often attracted to the area, and that has a generally bad effect. If the inquiry produces a successful result, I hope that the Government will be able to give their full backing to the execution of the scheme, in the interests of the local ratepayers and of local employment, which are both very important issues. The town centre provides considerable employment not only for my constituents but also for those from the surrounding area. Many people are employed in the offices and shops and in the other aspects of town centre life. Therefore, the scheme is important, because at present people are discouraged from carrying out any improvements. Moreover, the rejuvenation of an important part of London is likely to suffer seriously. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to use his powers in the best interests of my constituents.

I appreciate the concern which my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne) has expressed, and I welcome the opportunity to assure him that matters relating to Ilford town centre redevelopment which come before the Department will be carried forward with all possible speed. I should, however, explain that, as my hon. Friend knows, the preparation and implementation of the action area plan which embodies the proposals is primarily the responsibility of the London borough of Redbridge as the local planning authority.

It is an important principle of the development plan system that local plans shall be decided in the main by local planning authorities themselves. The Secretary of State may make an objection to a local plan. He may make a direction halting progress on the plan if he considers that there has been insufficient opportunity for public participation, or, in exceptional circumstances, he may call in the plan. In the case of the Ilford town centre action area plan, the Secretary of State decided that none of these actions was justified, and there was, therefore, no delay in the process of the plan to adoption.

The following progress of the plan may be of help, if I explain it in a little more detail. The Greater London development plan, which the Secretary of State approved on 9 July 1976, identified the Ilford central area as an action area, and on 1 February 1978 the necessary direction by the Secretary of State that it should be treated as such was issued.

The draft Ilford town centre action area plan was approved in July 1978 by Redbridge borough council for the purposes of publication, and it was placed on deposit for public inspection from 18 September 1978. The Secretary of State was satisfied that the council had conducted a satisfactory exercise in public consultation and the Department did not object to the content of the plan.

A public local inquiry into objections to the plan was held between 24 April and 8 June 1979.

Following receipt of the inspector's report of the inquiry, the council decided on 14 November 1979 to modify the plan. The Department was satisfied that in the main the proposed modifications met the inspector's requirements and that there was no justification for the Secretary of State calling in the plan. The council decided to adopt it as modified on 17 April 1980. The next step is for the Department to revoke the initial development plan for Greater London in so far as it relates to the area of the adopted local plan for Ilford town centre action area. However, this matter may be affected by a challenge in the High Court to the adopted local plan.

The London borough of Redbridge, as local planning authority, and the GLC, as the highway authority for the southern relief road, which forms a major element in the local plan, have, however, made compulsory purchase orders, side road orders and road closure orders as a preliminary to implementing the plan. These will be for decision by my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Minister of Transport, and my hon. Friend will appreciate that I cannot therefore comment on the outcome.

A late problem has arisen as the London borough of Redbridge has now decided that the road proposals represent a substantial departure—within the terms of the Greater London direction 1978—from the initial development plan, which has not yet been revoked. The applications for planning permission which will provide the backing for the compulsory purchase orders have therefore been referred to the Secretary of State to give him an opportunity of deciding whether to call them in for his own decision or whether they may be left to the local planning authority to decide.

The Department is dealing with these urgently, and I am now able to say that I expect the inquiry to open on 7 October. I also assure my hon. Friend that I will do my utmost to see that the inspector's report is with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State not later than the end of January.

I realise that this very necessary redevelopment of a major shopping, business and social centre serving North-East London has been on the stocks for a very long time. I would not blame my hon. Friend if he used the words "a disgracefully long time". In fact, as he knows, various proposals have been put forward over the past 20 years.

The 1950s saw an increasing traffic problem in Ilford High Road and the need for a plan to overcome it. In a peak hour some 2,400 vehicles, including 200 buses, now make their way through the High Road, while during the day some of the borough's 231,000 residents and countless thousands from surrounding areas try to shop on crowded pavements or weave their way to get to work. In 1959, a developer proposed a partial redevelopment of the central area, including a new civic centre, but this was found to be impracticable.

In 1961 plans for a relief road to the High Road and Cranbrook Road were prepared and proposals for a new civic centre, a shopping precinct and car parking were given the go-ahead. These plans were approved in principle a year later and the area was considered to be ready for comprehensive redevelopment. But it was decided that a scheme should be prepared for redevelopment of the central area as a whole. In March 1963 a comprehensive scheme was put to the county council, and a year later the plan was forwaded to the Department.

At about the same time, Redbridge and the GLC came into being and the latter assumed responsibility for the proposals as an amendment to the Greater London initial development plan. Two years later the amendment put to the Ministry was withdrawn. In November 1968, amended proposals for the improvement of Ilford town centre, including the building of the partial ring road to relieve the traffic and other problems, were passed by the GLC to the then Minister of Housing and Local Government but were modified in 1969. In 1970, the two issues put to a public inquiry were the amendment to the initial development plan and the compulsory purchase order for the properties needed for the relief road to the south of the High Road. These were turned down in June 1971.

A town centre committee was immediately set up with a consultative body, on which representatives of many and various local interests were invited to serve, to reappraise the position and to submit new proposals, following wide public consultation. A number of solutions were examined, together with the serious traffic and environmental problems arising from the worsening situation and what would happen if it were allowed to continue.

Three schemes were selected for detailed appraisal and public comment early in 1973. One proposed a northern relief road, another a "closer-in" southern relief road, and the third used existing road alignments but with the traffic flow altered from two way to one way—this circulating in a clockwise direction around the town centre.

The northern relief road was decided upon and approved in principle by the GLC. But financial restrictions brought a halt to the design work at the beginning of 1976 as the then estimated cost of £23 million was considered unacceptably high for a town centre scheme. The three basic concepts, an interim traffic management scheme to give temporary and partial relief to traffic conditions and a scheme to widen the High Road put forward by the Ilford Town Centre Residents' Association were looked at in detail. The interim traffic management scheme was found to be impracticable on both traffic management and financial grounds. Detailed assessment of the other schemes brought forth the southern relief road as the preferred option.

In the summer of 1977, the GLC's north area planning committee agreed a new route for the diversion of Ilford High Road—a relief road to the south of the High Road. This road forms part of the action areas plan which Redbridge, the GLC and, I assure my hon. Friend, not least my Department are anxious to get under way.

I hope that my hon. Friend will appreciate that I fully understand the anxiety that he has rightly expressed on behalf of his constituents that the redevelopment of the Ilford town centre should proceed without further delay. He has quoted his local example, and I know what can happen to an area that is blighted by planning proposals. It can start to go down, shops become empty, the rate base begins to shrink, vandalism occurs—which makes it less desirable for people to shop there—more shops close and one gets a cancer at the heart of what was a thriving area.

I hope that I have been able to reassure my hon. Friend that we shall make as sure as possible that once the inspector's report is in the Department a swift answer will be forthcoming. Obviously, I cannot say what the answer will be, because the inquiry has not yet opened. One of our primary aims since we took offce has been to make reductions in the time taken to reach decisions on various inquiries. We have made substantial progress, and I hope that we shall be able to translate that general progress into the case that my hon. Friend has raised.

I shall ensure that the aspects of concern to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport are drawn to his attention. My Department will take on board the other issues, and I hope that the timetable that I have suggested will work satisfactorily and that a decision will be reached so that the blight on this important area of London, which is fortunate to have my hon. Friend as its representative, will be lifted.

I welcome this opportunity to talk about the effect of public expenditure cuts on the work of the Public Record Office. I believe that a nation that takes pride in its history will take pride in, and have respect for, the way in which it keeps and preserves its historical records.

For that reason, the PRO was set up by Act of Parliament in 1838. It is known to be the repository of our national archives and its records go back 900 years. The Domesday Book and Magna Carta are in the archives at the PRO, which also houses the finest medieval records in the world, with the possible exception of the Vatican.

The Public Record Office is governed under the Public Records Acts 1958 and 1967. Clause 2(3) of the 1958 Act says:

"It shall be the duty of the Keeper of Public Records to take all practicable steps for the preservation of records under his charge."

The Act specifies the furnishing of indices and guides to the records kept at the PRO and specifies the publication of Government records to the general public after 30 years.

I understand that the Public Record Office has 80 miles of shelves and that each year another mile of shelving is added. The PRO takes in more records in a year than the total stock of the department of manuscripts at the British Library. The department of manuscripts has more professional staff than the PRO, although that department has, perhaps, 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. of the total documents held at the PRO. I do not say that in order to suggest that the department of manuscripts does not do a good job or that it is overstaffed. I say that to show how poorly staffed is the PRO, given its responsibilities.

The Public Record Office does not eater only for lawyers, historians and the general public. It also provides a valuable service to Government Departments. In recent years the Foreign and Common- wealth Office was able to refer to the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1386 kept at the PRO.

There is an anomaly, however. When the new Departmental Select Committees were set up, the PRO appears not to have been assigned to any Committee. I hope that that situation will be re-examined, because it seems a pity that a valuable service, which is not a legal service, should not come within the scope of one of the Departmental Select Committees.

In 1978, the Wilson committee was established to inquire into and review certain aspects of the work of the Public Records Acts of 1958 and 1967. It was set up to look at the requirements of users, the volume of records generated by Government Departments, technological change as it might affect the format and storage of records, and particularly staffing, accommodation and the cost of maintaining public records. The committee was required to examine the need for economy in the use of resources and to make recommendations.

The Wilson committee is due to report later this year. However, we know that the PRO faces serious cuts in its budget. I question whether it is right or proper to make such cuts before the Wilson committee has reported and before its recommendations have been considered, given that those recommendations are concerned with the need for economy in the use of resources, the way in which costs can be dealt with and the way in which records are provided.

I should have thought that the very fact that the Wilson committee is due to report makes it ill advised to bring into effect public expenditure cuts which may pre-empt its results.

The total budget of the PRO is about £2 million and the intended reduction in expenditure is about £200,000 to £250,000. It is understandable that cuts in the PRO budget attract less attention than cuts in social services, education and housing, but there must be concern about the consequence of reducing the money available to the PRO to do its job, especially as some of those consequences may be long-term and cannot be reversed in a few years' time.

The effect of the cuts should be seen in the context of the rapidly increasing burden on the work and staff of the PRO. In 1968, the rule that records of Government Departments should be made available to the general public after 50 years was changed to a 30-year rule. That obviously increased the PRO's work. I understand that even now large numbers of documents that should be available to the public under the 30-year rule are not yet available.

A measure of the extra burden on the PRO is the number of non-industrial civil servants. That has clearly been increasing over many years, considered in terms of the present number of civil servants and the movement in the Civil Service. I know that there has been some reduction this year, but part of the burden of the work depends on what happened 30 years ago, when there were clearly increases in the numbers of non-industrial civil servants. They generated more records, which become every year the responsibility of the PRO.

In recent years, more Departments have come under the PRO—Customs and Excise, the Post Office, the National Coal Board, British Rail and many others. The number of visits to the search rooms of the PRO rose from 28,000 in 1958 to 87,700 in 1978. The number of documents produced by the PRO for people consulting them rose from 123,000 in 1958 to 476,000 in 1978.

The additional burden on the PRO is also falling as a consequence of the main Whitehall Departments cutting the staffs in their own records sections. About 200 Departments and organisations submit records to the PRO. Cuts in the Whitehall Departments' budgets put an additional burden on the PRO's resources since it oversees the work of the Whitehall Departments, takes in the volume of papers and so on and classifies them itself.

Apparently, there will be a 17 per cent. cut in the PRO budget. I regret that it has been hard to find out what is planned. I should have thought that secrecy was unnecessary in regard to the very Department which is supposed to make records available to the public.

At the moment, no specific function of the PRO can be cut, so what will happen as a result of expenditure reductions? First, there is the intention—perhaps not finally agreed on—to withdraw the public access at Chancery Lane so that the public will have to go to the Kew facility to look at records. That means that any Chancery Lane records requested by people at Kew will have to be shipped to Kew. That may damage old records, which is surely undesirable.

Secondly, staff cuts will make more difficult the work of the conservation department of the PRO. Even now the department is not able to keep pace with the increasing burden of repairs to documents and their deterioration. Large numbers of documents are not available for public inspection because they are too fragile to handle. A cut in the budget would mean fewer staff in the conservation department, which would make matters worse.

Thirdly, on the editorial side much work goes into listing and classifying documents so that they can be made available to those who request them. A reduction in editorial staff will hinder the classification of documents, which will in turn prevent their being available to those who want them. That will deny the basis of the operation of the Public Record office.

The cuts will do a great deal of harm to the many people who make use of the PRO today and in the future. I hope that the Minister will not seek refuge in the excuse that all Departments must meet their share of public expenditure cuts. At the very least, there should be an undertaking not to bring into effect any cuts until the Wilson report can be considered. As a generation, we should not be accused of damaging our historical records and doing a grave disservice to those who will be living in the country in the future.

I appreciate the interest shown in the subject by the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs). The situation in which we find ourselves may in part be due to an insufficient number of people taking an interest in the matter. I am sorry that the debate did not come on on Monday night, but I am glad that, due to the persistence of the hon. Gentleman and the assistance of the Chair, we at least have this short debate.

The hon. Gentleman fairly recognises that we are discussing the effects of planned reductions in public manpower and expenditure. The question is to what extent they should affect this part of our undertaking. We have to look at the matter in the context of three crucial statements. The first was made by the Minister of State, Civil Service Department, on 6 December 1979, when he announced projected savings in Departments. He made a further statement on 14 March 1980, announcing a further reduction for the current year of 2½ per cent. in cash limits to offset pay increases. On 13 May, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced proposals to reduce the Civil Service to 630,000 in four years. All those statements are controversial, but we cannot divorce this matter from those basic considerations.

In that context, the Keeper of Public Records made proposals for manpower savings in his department. Every Keeper of Public Records wants to do his utmost to preserve our national heritage, and preserving and making the records available to the public are part of that heritage. However, he had to make proposals. Wherever the responsibility lies, it is not with him, except in so far as he has to make the detailed proposals for saving the money. I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman would wish me to go into the details of those proposals.

The proposals have attracted considerable criticism from various quarters. The Keeper and the Lord Chancellor continue to give the matter careful consideration. I have recently replied to a number of questions. We share the concern that the records must be preserved and, as far as possible, made available. No final decisions have been made. The hon. Gentleman knows where the emphasis lies. We must save money. We shall do what he suggests if we can, but I want him to know that the final decisions have not yet been taken. What he said—I am sorry that other hon. Members have not taken part in the debate—will be taken into account.

It is important to draw the distinctions between the three main questions upon which the subject that we are discussing must depend. First, there is the Government's overall policy in relation to the reduction of public manpower and expenditure. It is no good trying to isolate that from our considerations. We may have our differences about that, but we cannot isolate it. Secondly, there is the application of that policy to the Public Record Office. But the third question, and perhaps the one to which the hon. Gentleman most closely directed his attention, relates to the implementation of that policy within the PRO, assuming that it is to be implemented in respect of the PRO as well as other departments.

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman or the House would expect me to spend much time on the overall policy. I do not think that any reasonable person can question the present need for vigilance and rigour in the use of our resources in the public sector. I put that as neutrally as I can, because I do not think that there is any difference between us on what we want to see. I say that only for the purpose of putting the question into its proper context.

Of more immediate relevance is the application of that policy of cutting public expenditure to the PRO. There are those who say that, even accepting the need for such a policy, it should not be extended with full force to the PRO. The PRO is a small and active department, and I welcome the opportunity to pay tribute to it. I do not think that there is any waste there. It does an important job with enthusiasm. That is not unimportant. What I treasure above all is the fact that people do their job with enthusiasm. I can put up with not agreeing with them, so long as they have an enthusiasm for what they are doing. The PRO is a committed department. It knows what it wants, and it wants to do its best. I am all for supporting people who approach their jobs in that way.

I have sympathy with those who say that this small department should be exempted, but we must ask whether the PRO is so essential in all—I stress "in all"—its activities that it must be immune from cuts. I shall not attempt to answer that question. We could all agree that academic research at the PRO is not necessary for the preservation of life and limb or law and order, but I hope that we could also agree that academic research plays an important part in the pursuit of knowledge, upon which so much of our civilisation and freedom depend. I do not regard that as a sterile matter. It has a bearing on the preservation of freedom, and one of the reasons why I have been in politics for so long is that I think it important.

It would be short-sighted to suggest that public records are unimportant. It would also be short-sighted—here the hon. Gentleman and I may disagree—to assume that the resources to maintain and to give access to our public records—I draw the distinction between maintaining them and giving access to them—can necessarily be provided from some less deserving public source. From my short experience on the Government Benches, I have learnt that it is all about priorities and that if we do something for somebody we must do something less for someone else.

The House will understand the difficulty of establishing a special case for the Public Record Office, because that may set off a chain reaction. I am not saying that there is not a special case, but it is still under consideration.

I turn now to the heart of the matter. Let us assume that the general policy of reducing expenditure must be applied to the Public Record Office. How will it be applied within the office? Here, we must remember that there are three separate functions of the Public Record Office. The first is the preservation by the Keeper of the records in his charge. It would be too awful to contemplate that those records should not be preserved. I put that as the first of his tasks, and so does he.

The Keeper's second function is that of selecting records for permanent preservation. Of course, he must preserve those records that are an important part of our national heritage, but that is a continuing process. He has to decide what records should be preserved for permanent record purposes. I hope that he is ruthless in cutting out surpluses, because many documents are classified that I certainly would not classify. The suggestion that they should be preserved is anathema to me.

The Keeper's third function is to decide on public access to records. By putting that as the third function, I do not underestimate its importance. I put it third because unless we give full force to the first two functions we can forget about public access, because if the records are not preserved it will not be worth the public having access to them. Those functions and duties are inherent in the Public Records Act 1958. They inevit- ably dictate the options open to the Keeper in deciding on staff reductions. I hope that he will regard the importance of his functions as being in that order.

The Keeper reluctantly reached the conclusion that if sufficient reductions in staff were to be made, consistent with the statutory obligations, there was no alternative to closing the Chancery Lane office.

The Keeper's proposal has one obvious advantage. Although I shall not close my eyes to the disadvantages, I hope that everyone will open his eyes to the positive advantages. It would eliminate the duplication of services by centralising them at Kew, where there is adequate accommodation for the Chancery Lane records. That is a plus.

That brings me naturally to the first of the objections to the closure of the Chancery Lane office—namely, that it is said that the move to Kew would cause inconvenience to readers. I do not shrink from that, and it must be accepted that some readers will find the journey to Kew inconvenient. That argument was decided when the new public records building at Kew was opened in 1977. There were protests at the time, which I understand, but it will be generally agreed that the Kew project has been a success.

All of us ought to give credit where credit is due. It is a credit to the Public Record Office staff that Kew has been such a success. Readers have adjusted happily to it, and the price of moving from central London is regarded by many people as something quite worth paying.

Of course, keeping the Chancery Lane rooms open has been an added convenience for some. It follows that their closure would be of inconvenience to those to whom the opening was a continued convenience. However, I should like to spend a few minutes putting that into perspective. I know that the hon. Member is aware of the figures, because he has taken an interest in the matter, but it is important that the public, and especially those who are complaining so bitterly—much more bitterly than the hon. Gentleman, who puts his arguments in a very balanced way—should know and bear in mind at least the following figures.

Of all the visits paid to the Public Record Office for the purpose of looking at documents, only about 27 per cent. are to Chancery Lane; 43 per cent. are to Kew, and the rest are to Portugal Street, which is not affected by the proposal. It follows that only about 25 per cent. of the visits to the Public Record Office would be affected in any way by the proposal.

Next, it is to be observed—I think that this is entirely overlooked by too many people—that for some of those making those 25 per cent. of visits it would be a positive advantage. For instance, those who at present wish to see some documents at Kew and some at Chancery Lane, and for that purpose have to make two journeys, would then to have to make only one. There are also some who would prefer to go to Kew but have to go to Chancery Lane at present, because that is the only place where they can see a particular document. That is the positive side.

Of course, on the other side that leaves those who want to see only documents kept at Chancery Lane and find it more convenient to go to Chancery Lane. In a perfect world—let me agree with the hon. Gentleman—I should like to see them accommodated. I hope that in due course, when things get better, we can provide an even better service, but I hope that everyone will appreciate that it is only the convenience of those persons that would suffer—that is to say, those who want to see only documents that are at Chancery Lane. The hon. Gentleman will know what other people may not know—that even those people can get photostat copies at a cost that is in most cases less than the fare to get to Chancery Lane to look at them.

I know that that is only one side of the coin. There are other people who want to browse through documents—who do not know what documents they want until they have browsed through them. I should like to accommodate them, too, because we want to encourage people to look at the records of our national heritage. A very proud heritage it is. The more people who look at it, both to dis- cover the bad things and the good things about it, the better.

One is reduced to the category of people who would be really inconvenienced—those who want to browse through a file rather than have a copy of a particular document and for whom it is much more convenient to go to Chancery Lane than to go to Kew. I do not shrink from accepting that from their point of view what is proposed would mean that it would be that much more difficult and that much more expensive.

I am told by the Keeper—and I have not the least doubt about it—that he and his staff will do their utmost to mitigate those difficulties and that if anyone wishes to look at a document, instead of going to Kew and then waiting for it to come from Chancery Lane to Kew, if he would care to telephone beforehand and say "I should like to look at such-and-such a document", it will very likely be there at the moment at which he wants it. The Department is very experienced in bringing documents from other places.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will feel that what I have said in this limited time has been enough to show that the Establishment shares his concern. I assure him that we do. We want to lessen the disadvantages as much as we can. I hope also that the hon. Gentleman, who knows a great deal about the matter, will feel that what I have had the opportunity to say, because of his persistence, will have helped to put the matter into better perspective. I have not sought to gloss over the matter; I have sought to accept the difficulties and to put them in their right perspective.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman and the public will accept that these matters must be balanced one against the other and that in his proposals the Keeper has made a very skilful and commendable attempt to balance the necessity to maintain to the full the first and second of his basic duties with the minimum of lessening of his ability to carry out the third of those duties.

I commend the efforts made by the Public Record Office to perform all those duties within the financial limitations.

I am glad to have this opportunity to air the important and complicated subject of competition policy. I look forward to hearing what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade has to say in reply. I hope that my hon. Friend will not try to develop the whole of the Government's case in what must inevitably be a short speech. It is a subject to which we can return on subsequent occasions, both here and elsewhere.

My reasons for wanting to focus attention on competition policy can be stated fairly clearly. First, as my hon. Friend well knows, the general trend of the 1970s was towards increased concentration. According to Mr. Gordon Borrie, the Director General of Fair Trading, it is likely to increase still more in the 1980s. That is the point that he made in his introduction to the sixth annual report of the Office of Fair Trading.

The second reason is that the United Kingdom appears to be one of the most highly concentrated economies in the Western world yet, sadly, has had one of the poorest economic performances over the years. It is possible—indeed, likely—that those two facts are connected.

The excellent Liesner report on the subject, which appeared back in 1978, contains in paragraphs 3.7 and 3.8 the observation that according to EEC data there is a higher concentration in the United Kingdom than in France or Germany, notably so in such sectors as paper, pharmaceuticals, agricultural machinery, office machinery, textile machinery, civil engineering, handling equipment, tyres, the food industries and food distribution, although it applies to other sectors as well.

It is also notable, according to Mr. Liesner, that the growth in aggregate manufacturing concentration in Britain was accounted for to no great extent by increasing plant size. The explanation for the increasing concentration appears to lie rather in the average number of plants owned by the largest firms, which increased from 27 in 1958 to 72 in 1972. Therefore, even though those figures are now a little out of date—my hon. Friend may have access to more recent figures—there are disturbing possibilities that this country's poor economic performance may be connected with this unusually high concentration.

The third reason is that, other things being equal, concentration tends to diminish competition. However, this Government, of whom I am a strong supporter, believe in the beneficial effects of competition. We should try to implement our beliefs.

Fourthly, concentration in the public sector is largely a consequence of nationalisation. Steel and motor cars are two examples that come to mind. When one considers the public sector, one cannot see any notable benefits from concentration. Indeed, it appears to have produced monopoly behaviour, economic and social rigidity and to have diminished efficiency all round.

Fifthly, concentration in the private sector—whether in the form of scale or complex monopoly—demonstrates clearly that such things can be against the consumer interest and lead to various forms of waste and inefficiency. I accept that in many cases we are concerned with oligopoly rather than pure monopoly. Nevertheless, I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that oligopoly can be as harmful to wider interests as pure monopoly.

I am worried because the situation has implications for our fight against inflation. In the private sector, too many firms in oligopolistic positions have the ability and opportunity to pass on their costs rapidly and without challenge to the consumer. That, coupled with the monopoly bargaining power of many trade unions, lessens an employer's natural resistance to excessive wage claims. It therefore increases the cost of living to a greater extent than would otherwise be the case.

I recognise that the effect can be offset by the discipline of international competition in those sectors vulnerable to it. Table 10 of annex A of the Liesner report is based on 1972 figures. However, I am sure that the present position is not significantly different. In many cases, even when concentration ratios are adjusted for the effects of foreign trade, considerable oligopoly power remains in many sectors of private industry. The Department of Trade should pay continual attention to that.

I should like to give a few examples of current forms of concentration so that the House can understand the position. If I were a member of Congress, I should be able to submit that this should be read into the record, and I would not have to go through the details. Unhappily, we do not have that procedure. I shall give just a few examples. The examples are taken from that excellent document "The Business Monitor," "Statistics of Product Concentration of UK Manufacturers". From looking at the figures for 1977, one notices that four salt firms had 100 per cent. of total sales. Seven sugar firms had 100 per cent. of total sales. Seven margarine firms had 100 per cent. of total sales. Seven tobacco firms had 100 per cent. of total sales. Six synthetic rubber firms had 100 per cent. of total sales. There are 27 fertiliser firms, of which the top five had 91·2 per cent. of total sales. There are 15 surgical bandage firms, of which the top five had 90·6 per cent. of total sales, and nine photographic chemical material firms, of which the top five had 90·3 per cent. of total sales.

I shall not weary the House by giving other examples, but that is the flavour and the dimension of the problem. One can argue endlessly about where the net advantage lies in such situations, but it seems quite clear from paragraphs 3·36 and 3.37 of the Liesner report that there are distinct disadvantages in this kind of concentration. The academic studies reviewed by Liesner, and the practical considerations which are mentioned in paragraph 6 of annex C in the same report all argue very strongly the need for a stronger competition policy.

Do the Government look favourably on the three broad conclusions of the Liesner report which are adequately summarised in paragraph 3.47 of that report? The first point was that there would seem to be a strong case for a more careful appraisal of mergers; the second was that some sectors of the economy are now dominated by a few very large firms and that these may give rise to worries about economic power; and the third was that certain practices of dominant firms are aimed at restricting competition and, therefore, are unlikely to benefit consumers. The third recommendation also included the point that these forms of behaviour were often unsuited to case-by-case investigation and might be better dealt with on a more general basis.

What should be the Government's response? I agree with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade in his statement of 1 July that the onus of proof is now on those who argue for greater concentration rather than the other way round. If that is so, why have the Government been so cautious in their response so far to the Liesner recommendations? Is the Secretary of State's statement of 1 July his last word in response to paragraph 5.19 of Liesner'? Is there not a role for non-statutory guidelines being provided for the Mergers Panel to ensure a more critical assessment of proposed mergers, as suggested in paragraph 5.20? Why has the Department of Trade ruled out, for the present at any rate, further legislation on mergers amending the 1973 Fair Trading Act, especially sections 69, 72 and 84, as suggested in paragraph 5.21 of Liesner? Is it sufficient to reaffirm the policy contained in the 1973 Act or should we go further along the lines recommended by Liesner?

If my hon. Friend tells me that maintenance of the status quo is the policy for the present, is his Department satisfied that a sufficient number of references are being made to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission under the 1973 Act and other relevant legislation? Related to this, is his Department satisfied that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission itself is taking a sufficiently tough line with the cases that are referred to it? Here I am thinking of the recent example of Vickers Limited and Rolls-Royce Motors. Some of the mergers seem to have little sensible justification. In other words, are there signs of existing policies leading to better-thought-out mergers and to the avoidance of mergers the effect of which is mainly to stifle market forces by producing what the Secretary of State for Trade described as "even larger and more unwieldy concentrations of power"?

Obviously, the Government's Competition Act 1980 is a welcome refinement of the law dealing with anti-competitive practices. I welcome the new powers in the Act which enable the Secretary of State to direct the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to investigate nationalised industries. As a Member of Parliament for a South London commuter seat, I particularly welcome the investigation into British Rail's commuter services in London and the South-East. All this is very good, but I wonder what consideration the Government have given to following the West German Government's example in the fourth revision of their Competition Act which was adopted in February 1980. The West Germans reduced turnover ceilings of target companies to about £10 million, compared with our own ceiling of £15 million. They have introduced new controls on market domination aimed at hitting conglomerates and vertical mergers in the interests of small firms and they have introduced a new doctrine, the aim of which is to stop existing oligopolies from getting stronger. The most recent formulation was provided by the Supreme Court in the Federal Republic of Germany when it banned the acquisition of Sachs by GKN.

Is there not a case for making the prohibition of mergers stricter, more predictable and even more legalistic on the American pattern? Perhaps my hon. Friend, when he replies, will make the Government's case setting out the reasons why his Department rejects that approach. What are the arguments for the Government's combined conduct and structural approach to which reference is made in their document?

I wish to make it clear that I recognise that there are sectors of the economy where further concentration is sensible, even vital, to our international competitiveness—for example, motor vehicles and turbo-generators. It is noteworthy that the figures on concentration can be misleading because of the extent of import penetration in Britain. Yet there are clearly other sectors where it can be detrimental to the interests of consumers, small firms and the nation as a whole. I hope that the Minister, his Department and the entire Government will encourage a clearer and more sustained effort by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and all concerned to differentiate between the two and so strike the best balance of advantage for Britain.

My position was well summed up in the excellent words of Mr. Borrie on page 13 of the report. He said:

"I believe that experience here and in other countries shows fair trading is most likely to occur where the opportunities for the abuse of market power are limited, where innovation is not frustrated by the ability of existing companies to block entry of new companies to the market, and where entrepreneurs are encouraged to accept the desirability of consumer choice—and seek to meet this choice at the right price and on time."

I concur with those sentiments. I look forward to hearing what my hon. Friend has to say.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton (Mr. Forman) for giving us the opportunity to discuss the Government's competition policy. I noted carefully many of the points that he made during the course of his interesting speech.

The promotion of competition has been one of the keynotes of our programme. One of our first legislative steps was to introduce a major new measure to control restrictions of competition—the Competition Act 1980 — which received Royal Assent earlier this year. Nor has our concern been limited to competition policy in the narrow, technical sense. We have been determined to introduce a more competitive approach wherever the opportunity presents itself, as shown, for instance, by the recent decision by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on the air route from London to Hong Kong. Competition is the best stimulus to alert and vigorous management and responsiveness to the needs of the consumer.

The emphasis on competition is an integral part of the Government's approach to industrial and economic affairs. We believe that individuals and commercial enterprises themselves are best qualified to take decisions about the allocation of resources and to take initiatives for new developments. Government bureaucrats cannot do that for them.

In a competitive environment, firms are guided by the information about available resources and relative costs channelled from countless individual sources through the system of the market, but the market will give clear and reliable signals only if it is operating freely and without distortion. There are various sources of distortion. Intervention by the Government is one, and we are determined to reduce such intervention to a minimum. However well intentioned, it is bound to distort the basis of economic decisions. But it is not the only threat. Economic history shows that enterprises themselves are naturally inclined to look for ways of limiting competitive pressures.

Dominant enterprises, whether in public or private hands, may be able to reinforce their own position—for instance, by action to deter the growth of smaller rivals. That is a threat to the source of innovation for the future, on which long-term economic health depends. Moreover, in the absence of restraints, even enterprises which individually enjoy no great influence may by concerted behaviour seriously weaken or distort competition.

The danger of restrictions of competition in no way reduces the desirability of the market approach, which we advocate. There are those who think that when they have discovered the existence of monopolies or cartel behaviour they have exposed and refuted the whole free enterprise system. That is a gross misconception. It is precisely those who believe most strongly in the merits of the market system who have seen most clearly the dangers of uncompetitive behaviour and the need for vigilance against it.

There is an element of self-delusion, if not insincerity, in those who use the imperfections of the market system as an argument against the system itself. There is no real alternative. To replace the marginal distortions and imperfections of the market by the rigidity of State planning and control would be to ruin all our hopes of maintaining good living standards for all our people in a free economy. No one with any sense of reality can believe in the perfect goodness, wisdom, foresight and efficiency of State-dominated systems.

We must, therefore, do what we can to help the effective working of the market, not to abandon it and lose its overwhelming benefits. We recognise that restrictions of competition are liable to arise, and although in a healthy economy there are strong self-correcting mechanisms they may work too slowly for our purposes. At this point the Government have a legitimate role to play as the guardians of the public interest. The legislation against restrictions of competition and abuse of monopoly is the result, and Governments of both main parties have contributed to it over the years.

The every existence of that legislation is a deterrent to abuse. Its value and effectiveness are not to be measured solely by counting the number of cases considered, the number of orders made and the number of adverse findings. There is more to be done, affecting both the private and the public sectors, but it must be acknowledged by any independent commentator that the economy would have been in worse shape without this legislation.

Clearly, we support the case for strong and effective competition legislation. Nothing could show that better than the Competition Act, which provides a flexible new instrument for the investigation and control of restrictions of competition. It is also relevant to our approach to monopoly privilege in the public sector.

The Government have shown their determination to expose nationalised industries, wherever possible, to greater competition. The recent statements by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry on the future of the postal and telecommunications monopolies are examples. At the same time, it is inevitable that many activities of nationalised industries will remain shielded from the full rigours of the market place. We have, therefore, provided for periodic inquiries into the running of these bodies, with a rapid and precisely focused procedure for investigation.

The Competition Act gives my right hon. Friend the power to refer to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission questions concerning nationalised industries' efficiency and costs, standards of service or possible abuse of a monopoly situation. The legislation also provides suitable powers to ensure that, where appropriate, the commission's recommendations will be implemented.

The commission has already completed a most valuable inquiry into the inner London letter post and is currently investigating British Rail's London and South-East commuter services and the Central Electricity Generating Board. We are planning a regular programme of public sector references, and we have already announced a further investigation to be launched in the autumn, this time into the Severn-Trent water authority.

I turn to consider some of the interesting points raised by my hon. Friend. The basic issue that he raised is "Where do we go from here?" We have had the Competition Act, but we must not rest on our laurels.

We made it clear during the passage of the Competition Bill that we were continuing to review the case for further legislation; in particular, we were studying the proposals in the two valuable Green Papers published as a result of a review by an official working party under Mr. Hans Liesner. I noted my hon. Friend's references to those reports. I will explain briefly where we stand on these proposals, beginning, if I may, with the Green Paper on restrictive trade practices policy.

The general theme of this report was that the restrictive trade practices legislation, though effective, was too rigid and formalistic. It considered the alternative of a radically different approach more like that adopted in Europe but concluded that a wholesale revision of this kind would be too disruptive. Within the framework of the present system, however, much more could be done to make it more flexible.

We accept this general conclusion. We have already adopted one of the major recommendations of the Green Paper by providing in the Competition Act a flexible means of investigating restrictions of competition falling outside the scope of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act. We are continuing to study the other proposals of the Green Paper with a view to finding practical and unbureaucratic ways of making the system more flexible.

The Green Paper also recommended firmer action to prevent evasion and ensure to the economy the full potential benefits of the legislation. We are looking at the possibilities. An important specific recommendation was that collusive tendering, which exploits the customer and the taxpayer, should be prohibited outright. My Department has just issued a consultative document following up this proposal in greater detail.

I turn now to the question of monopolies and mergers policy, which was considered in the first Green Paper. This raised complex issues of economic and industrial analysis, and what I say now will inevitably be somewhat oversimplified.

The Green Paper contained a valuable analysis of the economic issues underlying monopolies and mergers policy. The central issue is the role of industrial structure in economic performance and behaviour. There are no clearcut answers to the questions raised in this field, and even the basic facts of the case are difficult to establish. But there seems to be evidence that our economy is unusually concentrated into large firms and that dynamic smaller firms play less of a role than in many other countries. Concentration has come about to a great extent through mergers rather than through internally generated growth. The results of these mergers are difficult to assess, but at least there is little evidence that they have been generally beneficial to efficiency.

These findings are bound to give us food for thought. Has our industry become too concentrated? Is there room for independent sources of innovation and enterprise to emerge? How can we make industry flexible enough to respond to the changing needs of the world market?

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State last month issued a substantial policy statement on this subject, to which I must refer hon. Members for a fuller explanation of our position. We have drawn two major policy conclusions from the evidence. First, we must do all we can to remove obstacles such as taxation penalties to the restructuring of industry in less concentrated units. We have announced important changes to tax and company law for this purpose. Secondly, we must all—and here I mean industry, as well as the Government—be duly sceptical about the idea that greater concentration through mergers will automatically bring greater efficiency. The case for any merger should be examined most carefully, and the Government, through their competition institutions, have a responsibility to look closely at mergers that seem likely to restrict competition.

We believe that this shift towards a more sceptical approach can be accommodated within the flexible framework of the existing legislation. We have, therefore, decided not to make substantial changes in the law for the time being. We do not want to tinker with a well-established system just for the sake of doing so. Naturally, we have seriously considered the specific proposals of the Green Paper. Broadly, these suggested a rather more detailed framework of criteria for the assessment of the effects of mergers on competition, and to some extent they would build in a presumption that an increase in concentration was undesirable.

We do not think that we can be dogmatic on these matters. Each case is unique, and we are sceptical of the value of hard-and-fast guidelines. Before we could consider substantial changes to the legislation, we believe that the full scope of the existing legislation should be explored.

Because of the time factor in this debate, I cannot reply in greater detail, but I shall be writing to my hon. Friend about the more specific matters that he raised in this connection.

My hon. Friend asked whether full use was being made of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. I must say straight away that I have nothing but praise for the vigour and effectiveness with which the Commission has tackled the problem of speeding up its work in the last year. It has been given major and demanding new functions under the Competition Act, which have already begun with our programme of references in the public sector. Indeed, even in advance of this the commission completed within six months a substantial investigation into the efficiency of London postal services and produced an excellent report. At the same time, it has continued with a full programme of monopoly references—

Richard Campbell, aged 19, arrested in Brixton on 1 March 1980, died at Ashford remand centre on 31 March 1980. That is the background to this Adjournment debate, which I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs).

This is a sad and tragic case. My hon. Friend and I have sent our deepest sympathy to the parents of Richard Campbell. The case has caused great concern in communities in South London, and in the view of many people a great deal more could have been done for Richard Campbell while he was in custody.

This youngster, when charged with attempted burglary on 3 March, gave the name of Anthony Brown. At Camberwell court, he was remanded to Lewes prison, where his fingerprints were taken. Why, from that moment, did not the police quickly establish that Anthony Brown was Richard Campbell? At that time his parents, his friends and his probation officer had no idea where he was. One is told that he signed a form saying that no one was to be told that he was in prison. Is that true? If so, who has seen that form? On 10 March he again appeared at Camberwell court, and from there he was sent to Ashford remand centre for medical and psychiatric reports.

At Ashford I understand that Richard Campbell was quickly moved to the medical wing, but why was that and who ordered it to take place? At about that time he also began to refuse food. I ask the Minister what, at that stage, the medical authorities did about this youngster. Were reports being made daily on his condition? If so, to whom were they made and what happened about them? Was any action taken on those reports? What consideration was given to his loss of weight? On his reception into Ashford remand centre on 10 March, Richard Campbell weighed 9 stone 8 lb. By 26 March his weight had gone down to 7 stone 4 lb.

When did drugs start to be given to Richard Campbell and why were they given? Who examined him, both during and after those drugs were being administered? On about 20 March he was examined by a psychiatrist. Why was it necessary at that time to start what I describe as the shunting around of this young man from hospital to hospital? Was there any discussion with local hospitals on the question whether they could accommodate him were he sent to such hospitals?

I understand that at about 2.30 on the morning of 24 March he was returned to Ashford from St. Bernard's hospital, Southall, where the doctor who examined him stated that he could find nothing at all wrong with him. At about this time I understand that Richard Campbell's probation officer became aware of his whereabouts and saw him. Why did it take so long for the probation officer to be informed that he was at Ashford?

I come now, sadly, to the last week in the life of Richard Campbell, when the decision was taken to force-feed him. Was the governor consulted about this, and how often had the governor seen Richard Campbell while he was in Ashford—and by now, surely, he had become seriously ill? Was his probation officer called in to see him and asked to talk to him in an effort to get him to take food again?

Why, despite Richard Campbell's having signed a form—if, indeed, he did sign such a form—was no action taken, in view of his condition, to overrule any declaration so that the probation officer or relatives or friends could be made aware of this boy's condition? How often was he being force fed? How often were checks made on this youngster by staff at Ashford, both day and night, in view of his condition? What decisions took place with the prison authorities and the Home Office about Richard Campbell's condition during the last days of his life? Those are some questions on which we should like answers.

This has been a sad case to be involved in. One must ask whether Richard Campbell was in the first instance sent to the establishment most suitable for him. Was the fact that he was a Rastafarian something that the authorities did not understand? It would be interesting to know the Home Office's attitude towards Rastafarians.

What is to be done to ensure that relatives and friends know when someone is being held, especially when he becomes very ill, irrespective of any statement that he has signed that no one is to be informed where he is? Above all, what is the Home Office doing to see that no similar cases occur? That is something that many people are now asking.

This case has caused great concern in South London. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, South and I have sought a public discussion of it today, but in view of the events surrounding the case, which most people find as distressing as we do, we seek the Minister's agreement to a public inquiry into the events between 1 and 31 March in the life of Richard Campbell.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) for the opportunity to take part in this debate. He has already gone over the sad events that led to the death of Richard Campbell, and I should like to add a few remarks.

I confirm that there is a great deal of local concern, in my constituency as well as in that of my hon. Friend, about the way in which a healthy young man could have been arrested and sent to gaol and could die in his cell a few weeks later in the most distressing circumstances.

I understand that Richard Campbell had no legal representation when he appeared at Camberwell magistrates' court. There may have been good reasons for that, but if he had been legally represented some of these events might have been avoided. Someone would then have had contact with him in prison and could have made representations to the authorities that all was not well.

Secondly, it is accepted by the Home Office that the relationship between the Prison Department and National Health Service hospitals leaves a lot to be desired. That has been a problem for some time. How can the difficulties that prisons face when attempting to get prisoners into hospitals be overcome?

Is the Minister satisfied with nursing care in prisons? In women's prisons nursing care is normally carried out by people with proper nursing qualifications, but that is not so in prisons and penal establishments for men, where staff have the minimum of nursing training and are not as well qualified. Given the sad case of Richard Campbell, we should look again at the quality and experience of nursing care in prisons.

In answer to a parliamentary question, I was told that in the past three and a half years there had, happily, been only two instances of forced feeding in penal establishments in this country. One was Richard Campbell. However, it is not clear from the information that we have been given how it comes about that someone who is being force-fed can suffer from such severe dehydration. Surely, the one thing that forced feeding can prevent is severe dehydration, when it can be established under medical supervision that an individual is getting an adequate amount of liquids. It would appear that that did not happen in this case. Something must have gone amiss in the forced feeding if Richard Campbell was so severely dehydrated when he died.

Although we are always told that drugs in prison are given under strict control, conversations with individuals who have been in prison suggest otherwise. They also suggest that they are given more frequently than Ministers and the Prison Department suggest.

There is concern in South London that all did not come out at the inquest. There is dissatisfaction with the way in which information failed to come out. It is said that it was a cover-up. In the interests of the Home Office and the Prison Department, if of no one else, all the facts should come out and be seen to do so. The Minister should urge the Attorney-General that the inquest should sit again, with a further opportunity for the full facts to emerge. Failing that, I support the request of my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting that there should be a full and public inquiry into the circumstances leading to Richard Campbell's death. If the full facts do not come out, local discontent will continue, which cannot be in the interests of the Home Office or the Prison Department. Richard Campbell's relatives should be seen to have justice.

I am grateful to the hon. Members for Tooting (Mr. Cox) and Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs) for giving me the opportunity to give as full an account as I can of the events relating to this sad case. I share their deep concern. I understand the extent of the concern in the area and wish to add my sympathy to that which has been expressed by the hon. Gentlemen.

I shall first deal with a peripheral matter that bears on issues that go beyond this case—Rastafarians, who have been coming into the prison system for several years. Most establishments, and certainly the staff at Ashford remand centre, have extensive experience of dealing with them.

A circular of guidance on the subject was issued to all Prison Department establishments as long ago as 1976. My noble Friend Lord Belstead referred to the existence of that circular when he met Members of Parliament, including the hon. Member for Tooting, last month. Indeed, a copy of that circular is in the Library of the House, and it explains the basis of the religious and political beliefs of Rastafarians as well as the nature of the special diet that should be made available to them.

It is a matter of proper public concern whenever anyone in a Prison Department establishment dies in custody. I therefore welcome the opportunity to give details, so far as I am able, of what occurred. It is fair to say that there are three main aspects of the matter about which Richard Campbell's family and friends are particularly concerned. The first is that his mother was not told where he was, or even that he had been taken into custody, until after he had died. The second is that there is an understandable reluctance to believe that Mr. Campbell was, or became, mentally ill while in custody, and reference has been made in the debate to his normal state on arrest. The third is the difficulty in understanding why he did not receive medical treatment in hospital for his physical condition.

Mr. Campbell's mother, Mrs. Paulette Campbell, last saw her son alive on the morning of 29 February. On the following day, a Saturday, at about 7.20 in the morning, he was seen by a police officer trying to break open the front door of a sports shop at 183 Ferndale Road, Brixton. He was arrested and taken to Brixton police station. As has been said, on Monday 3 March he appeared at the magistrates' court, where he was remanded in custody to Lewes prison for a week. A week later, on 10 March, he appeared in court again and pleaded guilty. Meanwhile, he had been identified by the police from his fingerprints as Richard Campbell, but in court he refused to acknowledge his name.

He was again remanded in custody, this time to Ashford remand centre, so that social inquiry and medical reports could be prepared. On arrival at the remand centre, he gave his name as Anthony Benjamin Brown and his address as that of foster-parents who were long since dead. He also signed a declaration that he did not wish his next of kin to be informed where he was, and in any case he did not specify the names of any next of kin. However, he wrote a letter, as all prisoners are entitled to do on reception at an establishment, which was addressed to a Mr. and Mrs. Campbell at 72 Durban Road, West Norwood. That was the address not of either of his parents but of his uncle and aunt.

Later on, Mr. Campbell became ill. However, for the moment I want to concentrate on the question of notification. In this context, it is relevant that in consequence of his illness he was, at a later stage, deemed incapable of making a rational decision on whether to eat and drink and was, therefore, fed artificially. However, the prison authorities still respected his wish that no one should be told where he was. I do not think that it is inconsistent to override his judgment on the acceptance of food while respecting his wishes, which he had expressed earlier, with regard to informing his relatives. Just because a person has become incapable of making a decision on one matter does not mean that an earlier decision on another matter should not be respected. Indeed, it could reasonably be regarded as a serious intrusion into his privacy to disregard his wishes in that way.

In addition, the prison authorities were under the impression that the recipients of his reception letter were, as was the case, relatives who now knew where he was, so that the full effect of the decision to comply with his request could not have been anticipated. I am satisfied that the prison authorities acted in good faith on this issue, but the fact remains that Mr. Campbell's mother was not informed of the position. That raises a question mark about the right approach in these difficult matters with regard to notification of families, and the possible issue of further guidance to establishments on how to deal with balancing considerations is now under active consideration within the Prison Department.

I turn to the details of Mr. Campbell's illness. The evidence that he was mentally ill is substantial. The police who came in contact with him at the time of his arrest thought that his conduct gave cause for concern. The court at which he appeared evidently agreed, because they asked to see social and medical reports on him before sentence. The medical staff at the remand centre concluded that he was mentally ill, and diagnosed schizophrenia. The Ashford medical staff have considerable experience in the assessment of mental disorder and the senior medical officer holds postgraduate qualifications in psychiatry. Moreover, this diagnosis was confirmed by an independent consultant psychiatrist from an outside hospital. Finally, Richard Campbell's own probation officer, who visited him on 19 March, gave evidence at the inquest that Richard had been obviously deluded when he had seen him. In the face of that body of evidence, I do not think that credence should be given to the alternative explanations that have been offered, such as that unfamiliarity or the difficulties of communicating with him had led the authorities to exaggerate or to misunderstand his condition.

I turn now to an aspect of the case that I readily accept is plainly unsatisfactory. In my view, no member of the prison service can be blamed for what happened. By 21 March it had been confirmed that Richard Campbell was not eating, and he had been examined by one of the psychiatrically qualified medical officers at the remand centre, whose diagnosis was that Richard was suffering from schizophrenia. The appropriate arrangements were therefore made to enable the court to make an order under section 60 of the Mental Health Act 1959 transferring him to a psychiatric hospital.

As hon. Members will know, this procedure requires the recommendation of two doctors, and accordingly a consultant psychiatrist from Queen Mary's hospital, Roehampton saw Mr. Campbell at the remand centre and confirmed the diagnosis on 21 March. By this time his physical condition was causing concern and his weight had fallen from 62 kg on reception to 58 kg. On Sunday 23 March he was found in a collapsed condition on the floor of his room. The medical officer on duty arranged his immediate transfer to Ashford general hospital.

While at the hospital, Richard Campbell was aggressive towards members of the staff, and he was placed in a side room off one of the wards. At about a quarter to midnight he attacked the officer who was escorting him, causing him head injuries. The hospital authorities therefore immediately transferred him to St. Bernard's hospital, Southall for urgent psychiatric care. However, the duty doctor there stated that he could find no evidence of mental illness, and he would not agree to his admission. In the circumstances, the prison staff had no alternative but to take Richard Campbell back to the remand centre.

The doctors at the remand centre next tried to have Mr. Campbell transferred to Queen Mary's hospital before his court appearance, this time using the procedure under section 73 of the 1959 Act. The problem now was that he was seriously ill, both physically and mentally. The consultant psychiatrist said that the nursing staff at his hospital could not be expected to deal with Mr. Campbell's physical illness. Equally, it was known that the nursing staff at Ashford general hospital had found it difficult to cope with the effects of his mental illness. It was, therefore, not possible to secure a transfer to hospital, and Mr. Campbell had to remain at the remand centre.

By 26 March, Mr. Campbell's weight was down to 46·9 kg and it was decided that there was no alternative but to feed him by tube. The decision to resort to artificial feeding is entirely a clinical matter for the doctor concerned. It was obvious that Mr. Campbell was no longer capable of making a rational decision about whether to eat and drink, and the doctors therefore regarded it as their duty to do what they could to save his life. Over the next few days it appeared that they were having some success. His weight rose steadily to 57 kg—a substantial increase—on 30 March, but on the morning of 31 March, the day that he was due to appear in court, he was found dead in his cell.

There are several aspects of the whole matter which require comment. I have said earlier that I am quite satisfied that Mr. Campbell was mentally ill, from the evidence that has come to my attention. It seems, therefore, that the most likely explanation of the refusal by St. Bernard's hospital to admit him was that at the time he was examined by the duty doctor there—to whom, as the House will recall, he was taken in an emergency situation—he appeared to be having a lucid interval and must, therefore, have seemed normal. But it is obviously quite unsatisfactory that a combination of mental and physical illness should apparently preclude a patient from being admitted to a hospital with proper facilities for dealing with either type of illness.

The reluctance to admit Mr. Campbell to hospital was, I am afraid, an example of the general difficulty which is experienced by the prison service in attempting to effect the transfer to National Health Service hospitals of prisoners who are mentally disordered. Most hospital wings within Prison Department establishments are neither intended nor equipped to deal with the most seriously ill patients. The Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Security have been in the closest touch at both official and ministerial levels about this over a long period, but the problem is a long-standing and peculiarly intractable one, going far wider than this case. However, I certainly assure the House of my personal efforts and intentions to continue persevering in dealing with this intractable problem.

As the staff at the remand centre had no alternative but to deal with Mr. Campbell as best they could with the facilities at their disposal, I am satisfied that they did all that they possibly could and cannot fairly be criticised.

This brings me to the final aspect of the case. The Surrey coroner was informed of the death and an inquest was formally opened. This resumed on 10 July. Mr. Campbell's family was represented by counsel. Evidence was heard from all the principal participants in the events I have described and from the pathologist who had performed the postmortem. His findings had been confirmed independently by a second examination, which was carried out at the request of the family.

There was no evidence to suggest that Mr. Campbell had been subjected to any violence while in custody, and the cause of death was stated to be dehydration brought about by acute schizophrenia. The jury returned a verdict of death by self-neglect and added a rider expressing its concern at the lack of specialist care facilities, both in staff and accommodation, which had been available to Mr. Campbell.

Reference has been made today to the inquest. The coroner is an independent judicial officer who is solely responsible, within the framework of the law, for the way in which he carries out the duties of his office. The verdict can be set aside only by the High Court, to which application must be made by, or with the authority of, the Attorney-General. The High Court may order a fresh inquest if it is satisfied that this course is in the interests of justice—for example, because of irregularity of proceedings, insufficiency of inquiry or the discovery of new facts or evidence. It would not be right for Ministers to express a personal view on the verdict brought in by a coroner's jury. But what I can say is that all the relevant evidence in this case was heard at the inquest and that counsel for Mr. Campbell's family had the opportunity of cross-examining witnesses.

Against this background, I am afraid that I cannot agree that it would be right to set up a further special inquiry. I have drawn attention to the points of serious concern about this case, but there has been an inquest in public with counsel involved. I have no reason to think that any information about the case has been concealed or covered up. My noble Friend has done everything possible to meet legitimate public concern by providing information about the points that have been raised since Mr. Campbell's death, and if any new points emerge I am sure that he will continue to do so.

Before I adjourn the House at the end of a long and somewhat difficult week, perhaps I may wish hon. Members a restful holiday. Perhaps I may express our thanks to the staff of the House, who serve us all so faithfully. They, too, have earned a good and restful break from their duties.