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

The last occasion on which I drew a high place in the ballot for Private Members' Bills was as long ago as 1965. I obtained a Second Reading for that Bill, but it died a natural death due to the arrival of the 1966 general election. Whatever fate befalls this Bill I pray, above all, that it will not be that fate.

We all have Walter Mitty ambitions. I have to admit that since 1966 I developed the resolve that if ever again I were fortunate in the ballot I would introduce a Bill that would have the most far-reaching effects on national life. This Bill would have been a Bill to insist that, after its enactment, all readers of The Daily Telegraph should read The Guardian, and all readers of The Guardian should read The Daily Telegraph.

Having once again been fortunate enough to draw a reasonably good place in the ballot I decided, with some regret and, I hope, with laudable realism, against trying to introduce such a Bill, simply because its social and political consequences would have been so great that I doubt whether they could have been contained even by all the resources of the Home Office and the Fleet. As I believe that it is always important to keep on the right side of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, I decided not to introduce that Bill. In passing, I want to say how delighted I am to see my right hon. Friend sitting on the Front Bench this morning.

That is not to say that such a Bill would have been a bad Bill, but it would not have been suitable for Private Members' legislation. It would have been far too comprehensive and far-reaching. Instead, therefore, I looked for something less fundamental—something that I believed was important but that would not take up too much of the time of the House. From among a number of possibilities I selected a Bill concerned with one aspect of sporting life. It is a small Bill, but it is of great importance to the future of the horse racing industry.

Perhaps at this point I should declare a slightly outdated interest. I was once the owner of one leg of a horse. I had the good fortune to be the owner of one leg of a horse that won its first race, which must be unique. I imagine that few owners can claim that they have had one horse, one race and one win.

And one leg.

Yes, and one leg. The later record was not quite so good.

The Bill does not establish any new principle. It does no more than remove what has become apparent as an omission and weakness in the Betting Levy Act 1961. That Act set up the Horserace Betting Levy Board. It made provision for the payment by bookmakers of a levy on betting transactions on horseracing.

At that time bookmakers were anxious to be allowed licensed betting offices, and a Bill to that effect was before Parliament. However, not surprisingly, those who were concerned with the administration of racing feared that the availability of off-course licensed betting offices would reduce attendances at race meetings, with a serious loss of revenue resulting. In the event that fear may have been justified, as the average daily attendance at racecourses dropped from 7,339 in 1961 to 4,611 in 1980. I suspect that changes in social habits and televised racing are at least as responsible as betting offices for that drop in attendance. If account is taken of television, I should not be surprised if the present racing audience is not much bigger than it was in 1961.

Whatever the cause in the drop in racecourse attendances since 1961, everyone concerned with the best interests of racing, including the bookmakers, agreed that a levy was required. Hence the Betting Levy Act 1961 went on to the Statute book. The levy board that it established was charged

"with the duty of assessing and collecting … and of applying"

it, the levy, to

"the improvement of … horses"

and

"the advancement or encouragement of veterinary science or veterinary education"

and

"the improvement of horseracing."

Since 1961 the board has financed racing generally to the extent of £97 million. It is important to emphasise that the board's income is distributed throughout racing. For example, under the prize money scheme every race-course, flat or jumping, receives a prize money subsidy from the board for each day's racing. In addition, there is special grant-aid for pattern races and other special races. In 1979–80 the prize money subsidy from the board amounted to over £10 million. Of course, that prize money percolates throughout racing. It goes not only to owners but to trainers, jockeys and stable staff. As for modernisation schemes for racecourses, a group 4 jumping course, such as Hereford, is just as likely to receive money for the construction of a new stand—as it has done—as is group 1 Cheltenham for the same purpose, or flat race group 1 Doncaster for a new hostel for stable lads and girls.

The reality is that needs are assessed objectively. Likewise, within its veterinary responsibilities the board in 1979-80, for example, granted £95,000 to he Equine Research Station and provided £221,000 for research in six veterinary schools. As for technical services, assistance is given for such items as the camera patrol, photo-finish and timing equipment, and racecourse security services. Grants totalling over £109,000 were given to horse and pony breeding societies, in addition to major sums for the National Stud. It may be incidental to the sport of racing, but it is not bad spin-off from a sport that, partly in consequence of the assistance from the board, United Kingdom exports of pure-bred horses in 1980 totalled 4,963, with a value of £42,599,000. That is not a bad form of assistance to our export effort.

It is important to realise that in the end all the money is spent and invested to maintain and improve the quality of racing for the ordinary racegoer. It appears from the most recent figures that the Library was able to make available to me that in 1976 about 22,000 persons were directly employed in racing. If the betting industry is included, the total exceeds 100,000. Thus, the maintenance of the levy is essential to the future of horse racing.

The Bill is designed merely to enable better arrangements to be made for the collection of the levy. I emphasise that it is an agreed levy and that the machinery for calculating it rests on the annual scheme negotiated between the bookmakers and the board. The Bill is an enabling measure that would permit the inclusion in schemes of provisions that cannot now be included. The Bill has no direct effect on payment. It merely enables the appropriate provisions to be included in the scheme.

I shall attempt to describe the workings of the levy in slightly more detail. Each levy scheme relates to a particular year. Liability to pay levy nowadays arises from the assessment of turnover. Obviously, turnover cannot be assessed until the end of a year's trading. Hitherto the board has been faced with a choice of three possibilities. One possibility was to use the turnover figures for the previous year. The second possibility was to use the turnover figures for the current year and to wait until some time after the end of that year to collect the levy. The third possibility was to use the turnover figures for the current year but to try to get payment in advance of the assessment, rather like pay-as-you-earn.

The levy scheme used to be based on the first option, with the assessment related to turnover for the previous year. That led to the problem of levy avoidance. Only those trading in the levy year could be assessed, and that assessment was based on the previous year's turnover. It was possible to wind up one company towards the end of the levy year and to transfer the business to another company which would be liable for levy payments in respect of only a short period of trading—possibly only a few days.

That method of levy avoidance under the original Act was not illegal. It increased to the point at which it was estimated to have amounted to over £1 million a year. It deprived the industry of much-needed funds. It was unfair to those bookmakers who did not seek to avoid their levy liability in that way. To eliminate the abuse that I have described, it was agreed between the bookmakers' committee and the board in July 1978 that the levy liability of bookmakers should be assessed on turnover for the current levy year. That change came into effect in April 1979. That was the second option. However, under existing legislation only one levy assessment can be made against each bookmaker. Now that the levy scheme is based on current turnover, the assessment cannot be made until the end of the levy year, when the full turnover is

It means that unless bookmakers make voluntary contributions in advance, no levy is paid until well after the end of the levy period, when assessments have been made. Clearly, that has serious implications for the cash flow of the levy board.

In fact, about one-third of all bookmakers have generously contributed in advance of levy assessment. Before the last levy year ended on 31 March 1980, about £9·2 million—about 65 per cent, of the total levy of about £15 million—had been paid in advance. For that the levy board was grateful.

Nevertheless, the voluntary system of advance payments had major shortcomings. Under it, the levy board can never be certain that it will receive advance payments, so it is difficult for the board to budget properly, and there is the constant worry that it may have to undertake expensive commercial borrowing to maintain its cash flow. Moreover, such borrowing would be to the detriment of the board's total income. In addition, it is unfair on the one-third of bookmakers who make advance payments that two-thirds of them do not.

Lastly, in order to encourage advance payments the levy board pays interest on them to bookmakers. In the year ended 31 March 1980, interest totalled £730,000. For those reasons, there are disadvantages in relying on the continuing good will of some bookmakers.

Thus, the purpose of the Bill is to amend the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963 and the Horserace Betting Levy Act 1969 so as to enable provision to be made in a scheme for payments on account of the levy to be made during the levy year. In effect, it provides for a statutory extension of the third option, which I described as being similar to PAYE. As I said earlier, the scheme has to be agreed annually between the bookmakers' committee and the levy board, or, if there is no agreement, determined ultimately by the Secretary of State.

The Bill would enable the scheme to specify the basis on which the payments on account are to be determined and the times at which the payments are to be made. The amounts and times of payment would then be determined by the Government-appointed members of the levy board in accordance with the scheme, and a notice of determination would be served in each bookmaker who is required to make a payment on account. Provision is made in the Bill for an appeal against such a notice of determination—so there are safeguards for bookmakers—and, in the event of any overpayment being disclosed on assessment, for the repayment of any excess.

I understand that bookmakers are now in general agreement with the Bill because it ensures that all bookmakers contribute during the course of the year, instead of just those who are prepared to make voluntary payments. Several changes were made in the original drafting of the Bill to meet points that were raised by bookmakers.

However, I know that bookmakers have one or two further points that they wish to raise, particularly in regard to a possible change in bookmakers' circumstances in the course of the levy year. I have no doubt that this problem and whatever others may arise can be dealt with satisfactorily in Committee.

I fully support my hon. Friend's Bill, but does he regard it as sufficient for the Home Secretary to give assurances in his speech, or would he prefer to have the assurances that bookmakers seek written into the Bill?

I was coming to that matter. It should be adequate to provide an assurance in respect of payments in advance without such an assurance being included in the Bill. Apparently, it would involve drafting problems. I hope that my right hon. Friend will refer to this matter when he speaks. The levy board has told me that it has no intention of acting in an unreasonable manner.

Many Members of Parliament have been pressing for legislation of this kind to put levy collection on a secure footing and to enable the levy board to plan its expenditure so as best to serve the interests of the racing industry as a whole. Certainly, the board should not be left in the position of being dependent on voluntary payments by bookmakers.

I am optimistic that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will support the Bill. It would be extremely pleasant and helpful also if the Bill received the support of the Opposition Front Bench. I gather that the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) will take part in the debate. She, of course, has the considerable advantage of having worked in the Home Office. I suspect, therefore, that she knows something of the background to the Bill and the case for it.

I acknowledge the great assistance that I have had from the Home Office. I thank also the levy board and the bookmakers' committee for their constructive comments on the drafting of the Bill. Bookmakers have been most helpful, and that is a tribute as much to their good sense as to the leadership provided by the chairman of the levy board, Sir Desmond Plummer. He has done an enormous amount to advance the interests of racing, and if the Bill is passed he and his board will be able to do much more. Thus, I urge the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

I listened with care to the speech of the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison). Having once been fortunate enough to have a high number in the Private Members' ballot, I, too, was torn by the possibilities of proposed legislation. I had always wanted to bring in an annual dishonours list, which seemed to be the ideal measure. I desisted.

When it was announced in the area around Devizes that the hon. Gentleman had obtained the fifth place in the Private Members' ballot there was dancing in the streets. They lit bonfires in Marlborough, they had cream teas in Ramsbury, they had special children's fetes in Great Bedwyn and smaller fetes in Little Bedwyn. They celebrated a unique opportunity to make the world a better place to live in.

There was great conjecture around Devizes, which I know well, about what Master Charles would bring in. Was it to be some of the important legislation that would make the world more desirable, and the parts around Devizes even better than that? I suppose that there must have been modified disappointment when the hon. Gentleman decided, with all within his reach, that he would assume the role of an honorary assistant deputy tax collector for the Home Office.

Before the Home Secretary shakes his head too much, may I say that I support the Bill. It is a perfectly good measure. If there is criticism, as there must be, it is that for a man of his proven courage and political views it must have been a disappointment not to have had a more altruistic Bill.

I believe that the Bill stems from a basic and inherent weakness in the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act, which would otherwise have enabled the Government to achieve the same ends by means of a statutory instrument. As there is no procedure for that, we have to have a Bill. As the hon. Gentleman says, if all else fails one looks to see what sort of Bills are kicking around in the Departments of one's friends. To put it simply, the Bill legalises something that bookmakers voluntarily did before. Whereas the majority of bookmakers are honourable, decent and generous, it is wrong to allow others to impose on that generosity.

The hon. Gentleman said that he once owned one leg of one horse that came first. That is good news. One would have thought that that would perhaps have made him look at racing and its shortcomings and drawbacks even more carefully. Remembering that his brother represents a seat not a million miles removed from where the Grand National is run, he might perhaps have looked at the seedy stands of Aintree and tried to persuade the excellent Sir Desmond Plummer, who does a first class job running the board, to spread his money where it is most needed rather than where luxury is piled on even more luxury, as it is in Goodwood. The objections from the Opposition Benches about the modus operandi of the Government have always been that the already advantaged are further advantaged to the detriment of those in most need. One was therefore unsurprised to find that Goodwood got better while Aintree got worse.

There are aspects of the Bill that one might well discuss in Committee. As the entire income of the levy board comes from bookmakers—£16½ million a year—it would be appropriate to see whether the bookmakers representation on the distributing body is sufficient. There is now statutory representation on the part of the chairman of the bookmakers' committee. I would suggest amendments in Committee to broaden that. All those who pay should be represented. It will be known to the House that there are bookmakers who do not feel particularly well represented by Mr. Eric Barber.

My one criticism of early payment is that it does not take into account the difficulties that could be encountered by bookmakers if racing is cancelled for long periods—if there is no racing and therefore no income during January and February. Perhaps that will be looked at again. It is certainly something that the levy board will know about.

It has always seemed to me that if one is in favour of proposed legislation it is a disservice to the mover to go on and on. May I simply say that I wish the Bill well, although we shall try to make the odd amendment in Committee. As is customary, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on drawing so high a position in the ballot.

I have the honour to be a sponsor of the Bill. I commend the Bill to the House and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison) not only on having the good fortune to bring it forward but on the lucidity of his speech.

I wish to make three general points on behalf of racing, which is to a considerable extent centred in my constitutency at what is still the international capital of racing—Newmarket. I also wish to underline two aspects of the measure that are of particular importance.

My first general point concerns racing as a sport. It remains one of our greatest and best. In recent years some of our other sports have lost their earlier pre-eminence. To take but two examples, English football is now too often synonymous with foul play on the field and hooliganism on the terraces. Cricket, my favourite sport, can hardly any longer, as we have just seen in the West Indies, be said to be the sport in which we excel. Regrettably, like international rugby, it has been greatly riven by politics.

By contrast, although in recent years the Americans, French and possibly the Irish have caught up and in some instances surpassed us, none the less, for variety of choice, colour, excitement, public participation, prestige and world stature, we can still assert with confidence that English racing remains the finest in the world. Thanks to the Jockey Club, to which we pay insufficient tribute in the House, racing is among the best governed of English sports. The spirit of fair play is still paramount on the turf and in the stands. However, racing is not the best financed sport, thanks largely to the unfair depredations of the Treasury and the refusal of successive Governments to undo the damage of an unfair application of VAT. No doubt we shall return to those matters in the debates on the Budget.

None the less, I wish to make one further point about racing as a sport. Hundreds of thousands of people still attend our racetracks, although, as my hon. Friend says, not as many as we should like. Millions watch racing on television and millons more bet on it through the Tote or in betting shops. Yet there is almost never any disorder or violence in racing. It is a sport that sets an example of fair play, good manners and decent crowd behaviour.

My second general point is that racing is an important British industry. It is not only a sport. By any measure, it employs more people, generates more revenue to the Exchequer, earns more foreign exchange than many of our better known and more troublesome industries. It also throws up and sustains hundreds of small businesses; for instance, vets, saddlers or vendors at the tracks. Racing is one of our success stories. Like agriculture, it does a first-class job, though perhaps it makes less noise about it.

In my constituency, the racing industry is the key to Newmarket's prosperity. The Bill will be followed with the greatest interest by large numbers of my constituents. We have other industries in Newmarket. Many people live there for reasons other than racing. But racing is still the primary source of Newmarket employment. It is, therefore, all the more fitting—if I may make a local point—that the local agent of the Jockey Club will shortly take his place on the Suffolk county council, if, as I hope, the electors of Newmarket are minded to put him there. It will be an appropriate way for racing to adopt the proper public profile that it has too long lacked in the area.

My third general point is that the life-blood of racing is prize money. Anyone who doubts that has only to read what I have always regarded as the Bible of horse racing, namely, the Benson report. British racing still lives under a serious financial handicap which the Bill may help to remedy. Thanks to the efforts of the levy board, prizes have greatly improved. I join my hon. Friend in offering congratulations and thanks to Sir Desmond Plummer, who has done a first-class job. It is also fair to say that the higher value of sterling, while it has not helped sales of bloodstock to foreign buyers, has certainly made our prize money, paid in pounds, much more attractive to overseas owners who campaign their horses in Britain. Unfortunately, however, while our prize money has improved, the costs of breeding and training have risen even faster. This, again, is partly due to VAT. Meanwhile, the prize money available in France and America, at least for the classics, continues to be, on average, nearly twice as high as it is in this country.

If racing is to flourish and to continue to provide jobs, to generate exports and to provide the Government with very large revenues, prize money must do more than keep pace with inflation. It needs to be greatly increased. One way in which this could be done, indirectly, would be for the Government to mitigate the effects of VAT. Another would be for the Treasury to return a larger share of its enormous take to the industry. It would not be appropriate for me to go into those points at this stage, although I may well raise them again in relation to the Budget. In the meantime, I believe that we can and should help the levy board at least to maintain and perhaps slightly to improve the amount of prize money available, by passing this important measure.

I turn to the two specific points about the Bill itself. The first which I have already directed in general terms to my hon. Friend I now put more directly to the Home Secretary. It concerns the safeguards for bookmakers. Like many of my hon. Friends who are to speak this morning, I have many bookmakers in my consttituency. In general they support the passage of the Bill—and rightly so. But, not surprisingly, some of them are a little apprehensive about how it will work. They are particularly concerned to ensure that adequate protection is provided for those among them who, because of changing circumstances, may not find it possible to meet the demands from the levy board for instalments at a given date and level. I need not go into all of the reasons why bookmakers' circumstances may change. Their income may go up or down. They may go out of business. They may move from one area to another. There may well be circumstances in which it is not easy for them and it is not just to ask them to meet in every particular the demands of the levy board.

The bookmakers will therefore seek to have safeguards built into the Bill. I understand from my hon. Friend that the levy board is sympathetic to the need for such safeguards. Indeed, its record in dealing with cases of hardship and the trading difficulties of individual bookmakers shows that that is the case. There can be no complaint about the manner in which the levy board has dealt with these matters. Nevertheless, for my part, I am at present persuaded that provision for safeguarding the bookmakers should be incorporated into the Bill itself. It is possible that in Committee I shall be persuaded otherwise by my hon. Friends, but at this stage I ask the Home Secretary when he replies to tell the House whether he, on behalf of the Government, believes that it would be wise to incorporate such safeguards in the Bill.

In conclusion, the advantage of the Bill to the levy board and, therefore, to the racing industry, lies in the security that it will provide for the board's cash flow. At a time of very high interest levels, cash flow is of crucial importance. It is not satisfactory for the board to have to wait until the end of the year to know exactly what its revenue will be, and thus to live in uncertainty as to whether its disposition of that revenue will lead it into deficit. Fortunately, in recent years—certainly since Sir Desmond Plummer took responsibility—relations between the board and the industry have been very good. Nothing could demonstrate this more clearly than the fact that a very large number of bookmakers—for the sake of brevity, I call them the good guys—have been willing to pay what is required on the basis of the current voluntary scheme. If, however—perish the thought—for one reason or another such voluntary co-operation were not to be forthcoming, the board's cash flow could dry up, thus placing the whole racing industry in jeopardy.

From the bookmakers' point of view, compulsory payment of levy in advance of assessment will mean above all else, that everyone—the good guys as well as the bad guys, if any there be—will be assisting racing on a common basis, rather than the burden falling only on those who are co-operative. Provided that the requisite safeguards are written into the Bill, I believe that this will be a much better arrangement for the bookmakers as well as for the levy board. Legal avoidance will be eliminated. The advantages in securing the levy board's income and in spreading the burden more fairly among bookmakers instead of placing the onus only on those who do not indulge in the practice of avoidance, will also be secured and make for greater equity.

It is salutary to note that a large number of hon. Members have come to the House on a Friday to give the Bill their support. I believe that that is a recognition of the importance of racing both as a sport and as an industry, and also a tribute to my hon. Friend for the manner in which he has placed this useful Bill before the House.

I shall be brief, as the main issues in the Bill have already been explained by the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison). I, too, should like to congratulate the hon. Gentleman, first, on being successful in the ballot, and, secondly, on being prepared to bring forward in the Bill amending proposals to close the loophole in the 1963 and 1969 Acts. Anyone who is interested in racing will certainly welcome the Bill, because it is necessary to ensure proper development of the system of collection from bookmakers of the levy which is channelled into racing and on which the industry so heavily depends.

I shall not bore the House by going over ground covered in previous speeches, but a little more should be said about the function of the levy board. The Horserace Betting Levy Board was set up, following the legalisation of off-course cash betting, to collect a levy from bookmakers and a contribution from the Horserace Totalisator Board and to distribute it for the improvement of racing, veterinary education and science, and the breeding of horses. Since 1961, the levy board has financed racing generally to the extent of £97 million. More particularly, £2·9 million has been provided for veterinary education and science, £1·27 million for breeds of horses, and the remaining £92·83 million for the improvement of racing, which covers prize money, capital improvements to racecourses, racecourse integrity services and apprentice training.

It is important that the levy board should have sufficient funds to carry out its functions. Those of us who have taken an interest in racing over the years know that with the assistance of the levy board there has been a considerable improvement in the standard of racecourses up and down the country. It has made funds available for improvements. For example, the stable lads and lasses now have decent hostel accommodation on most courses. However, much still remains to be done. In addition, some of the smaller park courses need greater assistance from the levy board to develop stands and improve the conditions which the spectator at present has to put up with. If the funds are made available, I am confident that they will do just that in the future.

The Bill is necessary on two main counts—first, to ensure a steady flow of funds upon which the industry depends and, secondly, to regulate the system so that a minority of bookmakers cannot avoid payment of the levy and will be obliged to pay it on a current basis on account. The bookmaker will pay the levy by instalments during the year rather than once a year. That surely is in the interests of everyone concerned.

The vast majority of bookmakers have played the game. The Bill seeks to deal with the minority who have found loopholes in the regulations and the law as it stands at present. That is the Bill's main purpose.

About 100,000 people work in this industry. It is an industry. That figure includes 30,000 directly involved in the industry, such as stable lads, jockeys, trainers, racecourse staff and those who work on the administration of the industry. In addition, about 70,000 people work in the betting shops. Therefore, it is an important industry. I shall not make an issue of it today, but with nearly 2½million people without a job we should not jeopardise this industry through lack of funds.

This is an important Bill. It deserves a Second Reading. I hope that before the Summer Recess it will become the law of the land.

I am glad to be able to add my congratulations to my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison). He has been fortunate in the ballot and he has put his luck to good use. I am confident that this measure will help the racing industry.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) spoke eloquently of Newmarket. By the same token, my thoughts this morning are very much on Salisbury racecourse. It is a course which normally ends the year with its balance sheet in credit, but for it like every other course, money is a critical factor. All of us know about the cost of repairs to stands, rails and all the rest. Moreover, Salisbury is more dependent than most courses on the weather. That is a factor which the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) referred to earlier.

We had a bad summer last year and the result was that the balance sheet was right on the margin between profit and loss. A cold, wet day means that no one will go to the course, but Salisbury racecourse is an enchanting place to visit on a fine, sunny day. There is always a light breeze as well as some excellent views of the cathedral.

Trainers also like the course. I am told that thanks to the fact that the final three or four furlongs are slightly uphill, they especially like the course for two-year-olds. They also like it as a good course to introduce a young horse to racing because it is high up on the downs and there is no traffic noise.

Above all, I cannot but be conscious of the history of the place. The longer an institution is in being, the keener I become to ensure its future. All of us know the story of Drake wishing to finish his game of bowls before engaging the Spanish Armada. However, it was a few weeks before that game of bowls that Queen Elizabeth I came to Salisbury to watch the racing. That was in the summer of 1588. The Queen clearly liked racing. She was good on a horse herself. Right up to the end of her life, she would ride 10 miles to a meet and hunt afterwards. She certainly knew a good racecourse when she saw it.

There was something of a parallel during the time of the Crimean war. The Secretary of State for War at the time was himself a Wiltshire Member. He still found time to get to Salisbury racecourse. In 1851, when the Russian threat was mounting, he was able to win five of the nine races at the two-day meeting. It was the same story with Palmerston, who was the Member for Cambridge University, in that he also won five races at a meeting at Salisbury racecourse. Members certainly had their problems in those days, and it is not for us to belittle them.

I hope that the Government Whip is listening. I suspect that in those days hon. Members were less troubled than we are by the demands of the Whips' Office. To hurry back to London after the last race at Salisbury in response to a three-line Whip, and to return to Salisbury for the second day's racing was, I sense, an experience with which our forebears did not have to contend very often.

I wish the Bill a speedy passage. I believe that it will enable the levy board to extend further help to our racecourses.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison) on obtaining what appears to be general support for the principles and objects of his Bill. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell) was present earlier, and I think that he will be returning. He would like to be associated with my remarks. As the House will know, he was the Minister with responsibility for sport, and he is now the Shadow Minister with that responsibility.

The aims and objects of the Bill were the subject of considerable discussion in the Home Office under the Labour Government when for five years I had responsibility, among many other things, for horse racing. Although it was a closed world to me when I went to the Home Office, I think that I learnt a little about it and became interested in it, although I did not develop into a punter.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that, like the present Administration, we suffered from a shortage of parliamentary time and were unable to introduce a Government Bill, although we were extremely sympathetic to the proposals in this Bill. We were aware of the need for all bookmakers, large and small, to make a fair contribution to the levy and to support the racing industry.

Horse racing has been described as the sport of kings, and its more glamorous and publicised features often present an image of its being an elitist sport confined to rich people. The hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Hamilton) mentioned the activities of Members of Parliament. There was a time when, on Derby day, the House did not sit, in order that Members could go to the races and mix with the people.

Now, racing has a huge public. Although attendances have fallen, the total attendance by the public at racecourses in 1979 was over 4,105,000. They were watching 5,310 races. In addition, there is a huge audience on television, with betting taking place both on and off-course. Racing is an industry providing useful employment and good training opportunities. It is an important aspect of the life of the country.

For the sake of the record it should be pointed out that there are not 4 million people who go racing, any more than there are 1 million people who watch Halifax Town play football. It is the same few people who go over and over again who feature in the statistics.

I shall not get involved with my constituency at this point. Whether or not it is the same people or different people, the revenue is coming in, and that is the aspect of the business that we are concerned with in the Bill.

It is essential that the House should ensure that the levy board, upon which the whole sport of racing depends, should be adequately funded, and that its cash flow should be maintained. It is equally essential that the system whereby the levy board receives 90 per cent, of its total income—that is, through a levy from the bookmakers—should be both a fair and a workable system.

Mention has been made of the use of funds. As much as 69 per cent, of the funds of the levy board goes towards prize money, racehorse transport allowances, and assistance to racecourses. Less goes to assistance for other purposes, and only 3 per cent, goes towards veterinary science.

Assistance to racecourses is obviously an important factor, but I trust that the money will be spent as much upon facilities for the average racegoers as upon new grandstands for the wealthier spectators.

There is some concern also that too much levy money is being put into the big prizes for top-class races, at the expense of the bread-and-butter meetings. The Royal Commission on gambling reported:

"The punters who pay are mainly drawn from the lowest paid members of the community. The owners who would principally benefit from an increase in prize money are among the wealthiest."

But it is the broad mass of punters who provide the levy and they should benefit from the levy expenditure.

Having made those points about the levy board, I wish to associate myself with the thanks and tributes that have been paid to Sir Desmond Plummer.

I should like to make one comment on the Jockey Club. Its representatives play an influential role as members of the Horserace Betting Levy Board. The Jockey Club is a private club and is an exclusive but powerful organisation, but its membership is extremely narrow, even though it has at last got round to admitting women as members. I hope that the Home Secretary will use his influence to encourage the club to develop a membership representative of a wider cross-section of people.

There are several important reasons why the Bill is necessary. I welcome the fact that legal levy avoidance will be eliminated; that the levy burden will be spread more fairly on bookmakers, instead of placing the onus on those bookmakers who did not indulge in the avoidance practice; and that the levy board's income will now be secured.

The Bill will not, I understand, be implemented straight away. Its provisions will not come into force for another two years, because the next two levies have already been agreed. But I trust that the board will be able to manage for that time.

I recognise that whereas some bookmakers have been co-operative and constructive in their response to the problems of the board and the needs of racing, a large number of the less public-spirited among them have been evading their responsibilities. Furthermore, the voluntary co-operation of the bookmakers could in theory always be withdrawn at any time, and the financing of racing could then be put at risk.

I should like to make some constructive criticisms of the Bill. Clause 1 is the crux of it. It deals with the bookmakers' levy scheme. The scheme and what is in it is really what this Bill is about, in that it will require bookmakers to make payments on account of the levy in advance of assessment of the levy. But I note that the Bill does not specify either the basis upon which a payment on account is to be determined or the times during the levy period at which the payments are to be made.

I appreciate that for these purposes different provisions may be made for different categories of bookmakers, but in this and other matters it appears that the scheme will still be largely a matter of a gentleman's agreement between the levy board and the bookmakers' committee.

The scheme's details will not be written into the legislation for all to see, but has it not been the case—I hope that the Home Secretary will answer this question, even if the promoter does not—that the present voluntary system of payments has been based on just such a gentleman's agreement, that the present voluntary system of payments has failed, and that that is why we have the Bill before us today?

It is because certain bookmakers have not co-operated in the voluntary scheme that we need the Bill. So, surely, if the Bill is to be both fair and workable, the system of payments for the future must not be vague. They must not rest on behind-the-scenes letters and undertakings but should be written down in black and white in the Bill for all to see.

That is really the essence of the criticisms that the bookmakers' committee has the make. I emphasise very strongly, however, that the bookmakers' committee wants to see this legislation on the statute book and that it strongly supports the1 principle of the legislation, but, if possible, it wants four safeguards to be written into the Bill. Those four safeguards appear to me to be extremely reasonable and sensible, and I feel that they should be incorporated in the Bill. If the Home Secretary and the promoter of the Bill support any or all of these four safeguards, perhaps they will explain why they should not be incorporated in the Bill for reasons of greater clarity and easier and fairer enforcement.

The promoter mentioned drafting problems. Perhaps he will say exactly what they are. Surely it is not beyond the wit of the parliamentary draftsmen to overcome them. This is not a terribly complicated Bill; on the contrary, it appears to be an extremely simple one.

The first safeguard that the bookmakers' committee would like to see is that the scheme shall not require any payment on account to be made before the completion of that part of the levy period in respect of which the payment is to be made. We understand that there in a letter in the background, giving assurances. I would not consider as adequate a letter that no member of the public or anybody outside this House has seen. Indeed, if the Home Secretary does not read the letter to us, even the House will not be aware of its contents. The second safeguard is that a bookmaker shall be able to appeal against the provisions of a notice of determination at any time throughout the year. That seems most reasonable.

The third safeguard is that the three Government-appointed members shall be required to consult the bookmakers' committee when an individual's determination is estimated by the three Government-appointed members before the start of the levy year. That is important, because we are entering a different scene. This legislation is different from the present Act in that it concerns what is going to be done rather than what has been done. Therefore, the members will be required to consult. There will be no "may consult", as at present. Finally, provision must be made for the levy board to be able to amend notices of determination, once issued, in the light of changing circumstances throughout the levy year. I suspect that the sponsor of the Bill is sympathetic to that safeguard, because he mentioned it.

We should like those safeguards to be included in the Bill in Committee, and we shall table amendments accordingly. We support the Bill. The bookmakers' committee strongly supports it. However, we should like those four safeguards to be included in the Bill in order to make it a fair and workable piece of legislation.

I rise to support the Bill. I shall be brief, as it is a Private Members' day and no one wants to take more time than is necessary. I declare an interest, because I come from the Doncaster metropolitan district. The racecourse is owned by the local authority, and as a ratepayer it is only right that I should declare an interest in the Bill.

Doncaster's racecourse lies almost completely in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker). However, a few yards of the course near the five furlong mark may fall in my constituency. This Bill can help Doncaster and racing. Doncaster is mainly known for the St. Leger, but it is also known for its chairman of the racecourse committee—who has been chairman for over 20 years—Mr. Albert Cammidge. When men such as councillor Cammidge support such a Bill, they are supporting racing and the areas in which it takes place. It is important that the Bill is not against bookmakers. Some countries do not have bookmakers and everything depends on the Tote. In Britain, bookmakers make the racecourses more colourful and enjoyable for those who participate.

The Bill is basically a tidying-up measure. Therefore, there can be very few objections to it. I am pleased that no objection has been lodged against the Bill, as it will help the levy board to gain its rightful deserts, which it can then distribute accordingly. The Bill will also help racing in places such as Doncaster. Racing is an event in which the family can participate.

Will my hon. Friend acknowledge the great contribution that the levy board has made in Doncaster? It has provided new hostel accommodation for the stable boys. In addition, I understand that accommodation for the stable girls will be improved.

I had been about to mention that. We are very grateful to the levy board for the help that it has given us. It is not for me to say that Doncaster has one of the best racecourses—if not the best racecourse—in Britain. I leave that to others to judge. As a result of the great help that we have received, Doncaster can provide amenities for racegoers that it could not otherwise afford. As racing is a family event, there are swings and slides for children that they can play on while their parents are enjoying the racing. There are colliery brass bands which are paid to entertain people while they watch the races. As a result of the great help that the levy board has given, the stable lads and lasses have good accommodation.

Although I am not a member now, I was a member of the race committee for many years. I was one of those who discussed that accommodation. I am pleased that the work has gone ahead and that the lads and lasses will be provided with the high standard of accommodation that they deserve when they come to Doncaster to look after the horses. As the Bill helps racing, it will help Doncaster. It will also help those families who enjoy going to the races. On behalf of all racegoers and their families, I support it.

Quite rightly, we have heard a good deal about the valuable work undertaken by the levy board. I join those who have paid tribute to the work done, in particular, by the chairman, Sir Desmond Plummer. All those interested in racing owe him a considerable debt of gratitude.

It was a great pleasure to be able to agree—for once—in general terms with the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill). I warmly welcome the hon. Lady's support for the Bill. I shall continue the argument that she put forward to the effect that the levy board should not forget the smaller courses or the smaller owners, particularly in relation to steeplechasing. I do not think that the hon. Lady was right to assume that racehorse owners, particularly those who own steeplechasers, are very wealthy. Many of the owners are farmers who do a good deal of the preparatory work on their farms. They send the horse to a trainer only just before it starts racing.

For a long time I have been concerned about this less spectacular and perhaps less important end of the racing spectrum. It bears a relatively heavy burden, partly because of the inadequacy of prize money. I have never owned a "flat" racehorse, but I was once rash enough to own a successful hurdler. In the first year that I had it, it ran eight times. It won four times and was second on two occasions. That is not a bad record. However, the prize money did not begin to pay the trainer's bills, despite the fact that I minimised the amount of time that the horse spent in training. The levy board still has a certain amount to do at that end of the trade. However, I admit that it is not easy to make progress.

I wish to take up a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison). Not only does prize money go to all those concerned; as a result of the custom of sharing the prize money it goes indirectly through the owner to the trainer, to the lad who looks after the horse and the yard, and to the jockey. I am not against that, but it is an indirect method of distributing prize money more widely and it diminishes the amount that a small owner gets to help him pay the trainer's bill.

In considering the smaller courses, those of us who have ever been racing in France will have noticed a marked difference in the general attitude. That is due to a fundamental cause—that the French have always regarded racing as a town activity. As the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. Welsh) will know, Doncaster racecourse is virtually in the town and French courses are designed to serve large towns. For the English, on the other hand, racing has developed where people used to exercise their horses. Racing has always been regarded, therefore, as a country activity, and if one is foolish enough to participate in winter one does not deserve much protection from the elements. Just as people who went hunting had to face the rain and those who went shooting had to face the snow, so those who went racing had to face the weather.

That has all been changed, and quite rightly so. The hon. Member for Don Valley said that racing had become much more of a family affair, but that depends on the ability of the levy board to help the racecourses make the necessary improvements throughout their enclosures.

Those are the two specialist sides of the levy board's work which the Bill gives me the opportunity to stress—the helping of the small owners, especially in steeplechasing, with prize money and in other ways, and the improvement of the smaller courses so that they can become more of a venue for a family outing which it is possible to undertake, even in winter, without undue exposure to the elements.

Most of the important points to be raised on the Bill have already been made, but I emphasise one other. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes mentioned co-operation between the bookmakers and the levy board. In an industry which includes gambling—gambling is not noted in all countries for being conducted with the utmost respectability and honesty—it is a tribute, both to the work of the board and to the bookmakers, that there is such a high degree of co-operation in making voluntary payments. The purpose of the Bill is to extend that throughout the industry and to all bookmakers without putting additional burdens on those who are co-operating already. Those aspects are important.

The hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) mentioned the need for consideration of certain changes, including some of the safeguards asked for by the bookmakers. I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes to consider those carefully, if only because all the operations of the levy board—its capacity to raise money from the bookmaking industry and, above all, to make a success of the changes included in the Bill—depend to some extent on the continuing good will of the bookmakers and the continuing high level of co-operation between them and the levy board. If such alterations can be made without weakening the whole purpose of the Bill, they will be sympathetically considered when the Bill is in Committee.

It is a great tribute to my hon Friend that he has introduced a measure which has succeeded in getting the agreement of all concerned—the levy board, the bookmakers, and both sides of the House.

The hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison) is exceedingly fortunate in winning a high place in the ballot for Private Members' Bills. I wish that I were as fortunate. I am not imputing any dishonourable motives in Mr. Speaker's Department, but the law of averages does not seem to apply to me when it comes to drawing balls out of hats or boxes. Whether one should ask the Tote to organise the ballot—perhaps to improve my chances or not improve my chances—is a matter for debate. If I had been successful, I should not have introduced a Horserace Betting Levy Bill. I should have been tempted to introduce a greyhound racing betting levy Bill. That may not be the sport of kings, but it is a sport meriting far more attention than it has been given so far.

In deference to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. White), who will later be introducing the important Homeworkers (Protection) Bill, I shall not speak at length. I regard the Homeworkers (Protection) Bill, on balance, as being more important to most of my constituents than this Bill. I hope that the Bill to develop tourism in Scotland also goes through swiftly. I should like to introduce a Bill to develop tourism in Walsall, which because of de-industrialisation is becoming more attractive. People are able to wander around where factories once stood in far less smoke than there used to be, thanks to the industrial policies of the Government. There is a big attendance in the House today and I hope that many will stay to support the Homeworkers (Protection) Bill.

I do not have an interest to declare. I am not being sanctimonious when I say that I do not gamble. I do not have moral objections, but I can do better things with my money than gambling. I visited Newbury about two years ago and I was relieved by the Tote of some of my hard-earned money and that reinforced my prejudice against spending money in that way.

I do not oppose the Bill. It is hardly epoch-making and surely any Bill that relieves the bookmakers of some of their money is to be welcomed and not opposed. I am not attacking the bookmakers. I am not the bookmakers' or the Tote's spokesman in the House, but I hope that the bookies will be consulted on any changes that may be made. They have a vested interest and should by right be consulted.

I support the concept of a levy and endorse the view that a levy should benefit all concerned and racing as a whole. The hon. Member for Devizes said that the levy percolates throughout racing. I wonder whether percolation is anything but a haphazard process and whether the money will go to all the right places. I see that in the nineteenth levy £10·34 million went in prize money. Many would; argue that that is not enough. I argue that in some ways it may be too much. Ordinary people are having their money transferred through the bookies to wealthy owners. I do not have a share- in a horse, a leg or even a smaller part of the anatomy, but no one forces a person to own a horse. I wonder whether alternative methods of financing might be found. I have heard it suggested that suitable sponsorship might be found for the classics. If money is to be spent, some of it must go into prizes. About a year ago I attended a greyhound meeting at White City and the first prize was about £50 in one race, so there is hardly big money in the prizes. Those who complain about prizes for horseracing should thank their lucky stars that they are not greyhound owners.

No one compels a person to be a racehorse owner. If money is to be allocated to various items, it could be better allocated than it is now. In the last levy £2¼ million was allocated for the integrity of racing. Goodness know that much is needed and more. Many punters are convinced that racing is bedevilled by non-triers and by betting coups and that the rules devised by bookies are squeezing punters and are only in the interests of bookies.

If money is to be spent on the integrity of racing, I hope that some of it will be spent on maintaining or improving the integrity of the Tote, because of the clear evidence of fraud and misappropriation of public money more recently revealed in the Tote's racecourse rails operation. Will the Home Secretary tell me whether there are to be any prosecutions? He is the Minister responsible for law and order. Some of the malpractices recently revealed should be properly investigated. I hope that we shall have a statement from the Home Secretary in the not-too-distant future.

Because I thought that the issue of the Tote might be raised in this debate, I got in touch with it to find out just what its levy payments are. The much-maligned Tote, which my hon. Friend has been attacking for some time, pays a levy 25 per cent. higher than that of the largest bookmaker. That means that it voluntarily pays £300,000 a year more in levy than it needs to. Moreover, the Tote always pays levy on a current turnover basis. This shows it to be an example to the rest of the industry, rather than to deserve to have people denigrate it, as my hon. Friend is doing again today.

I do not denigrate the Tote per se. I have merely commented frequently on the way in which it is being organised. I have no intention of turning my contribution into a debate on the Tote. I have briefly alluded to what I regard as misappropriation and fraud. I have no intention of commenting on the gross inefficiency that pervades the operation of that important organisation.

But it has not committed rape or murder, as far as the hon. Gentleman knows.

Having moved away from that subject quickly, I add that I think that the levy must be distributed better than it is now. Only £300,000 goes to veterinary science. Far more could be put in. Although the hon. member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) eulogises the industry, I wonder whether more money could go to improve the pay and working conditions of stable lads and girls.

As one goes around the country talking to punters one hears a great deal about how money could be spent on improving what the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) called the seedy racecourses. I was pleased to hear that some of the good racecourses are municipally owned. They include Doncaster and Uttoxeter. Perhaps they could set an example to others that are struggling to maintain facilities.

I have just seen the Jockey Club and levy board "Blue Report", the blueprint for racing in the 1980s. In essence, as I see it, it means that those that have will have more, because money is going to the best. As someone who believes that it should not always go to the best, I wonder how much is going to courses such as Wolverhampton. I sought advice from my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) about how good a course Wolverhampton was. I do not wish to embarrass with his reply my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) by repeating his assessment. She has already been embarrassed by comments on attendances at Halifax football club. Money could be channeled far more to the poorer racecourses to improve facilities there.

I understand that the levy board has loaned just over £3 million to Goodwood, which is not an impoverished racecourse. Those who use the new grandstand have a magnificent view. Each box has adjustable colour television, and I am told that there are exceedingly good catering facilities. Racegoers are saved the trouble of walking up as they can travel by lift. The stand was built with an interest-free loan of £3,025,000, repayable over 28 years. Many companies in my constituency would like to participate in a scheme that gave them £3 million repayable over 28 years, interest-free.

I wonder whether the levy board had any veto over the construction of the new stand. It appears that those who are not in the boxes have a worm's-eye view of what is going on. They may be able to see the one leg owned by the hon. Member for Devizes passing by. I wonder whether the money should be loaned exclusively to the elitist racecourses.

The Home Secretary's presence has given a seal of approval to the Bill. Not only is he supporting it, but he assisted in its conception. In the debate on the report of the Royal Commission on gambling, he said:

"I would be very ready to help a Private Member's Bill of this kind. Indeed, I would go even further. If I could be absolutely assured that a very simple Bill could be provided and that it would have the full suuport of all those concerned and of the House and that it would get through very quickly, I would be ready to move."—[Official Report, 29 October 1979; Vol. 972, c. 845.]

There is clear evidence of widespread support. There is not a great deal of evidence of opposition. I do not want to oppose something that will bring a small but not insignificant benefit to racing as a whole.

I wish that some of the enthusiasm that the Secretary of State shows for the sport of kings could be transferred to greyhound racing. I have often proposed a proper levy scheme for the benefit of that important sport. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give similar encouragement to hon. Members to introduce a Bill to improve that sport, too. The Royal Commission on gambling denied that greyhound racing was a sport, but we have heard often today that racing apparently is an industry. Therefore, there is a strong moral and economic case for extending the concept of a levy to the sport of greyhound racing.

I support the Bill, which tilts the balance of power back to the levy board, something that must be supported. I hope that there will be time—if not in this Session, the next—for a Bill that deals not simply with one tiny aspect of the Royal Commission's report but with the many other aspects that cry out for legislation, aspects that are far more important in the public interest than that dealt with by the Bill before us. I hope that time can be given to legislate much more comprehensively instead of legislating piecemeal, as we seem to do so often.

I hope that the Bill will reach the statute book, but with amendments made in Committee. I hope that it will be for the benefit of racing—not simply a tiny minority of the racegoing public, but punters and racegoers in general.

It is most encouraging when there is so much agreement and accord in the House over a Private Member's Bill. I join my colleagues in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrision) on being fortunate enough to draw a Private Member's Bill out of the hat. I have been trying for 21 years and have never been in the first 20. I agree with the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) that there does not seem to be much fairness in the system. I believe that those who have won in the past five years should be excluded, and then some of us would have a better chance.

One of the matters on which I disagreed with the hon. Member for Walsall, South was the channelling of money. It is often easy to criticise the fact that the levy board gives substantial sums to the larger courses. But it is a fair argument that where there are the large attendances, where there is the greater number of people, that is where the large amount of money should be spent.

If anybody stuck a pin in the most central place in the country for going racing, it would be in my house. That is fortunate for me. I have Catterick five miles away; Ripon and Thirsk about a quarter of an hour away; Wetherby 35 minutes away; York 40 minutes away; Stockton, Redcar and Beverley all less than an hour away; and Sedgefield not much further away. If one is prepared to make a long journey, one can reach Newcastle in an hour and 10 minutes. Not everybody is as fortunate as I am. In the past 20 years I have seen welcome improvements at nearly all of the smaller racecourses—small and helpful improvements, not the large and grandiose schemes that there are at York, Doncaster and Newcastle, but valuable improvements, which include better accommodation for stable lads.

My hon. Friend said that he was very fortunate in that the first horse of which he had a share—he said that he owned a leg—won a race.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that Aintree is probably as seedy as any racecourse in the country and that it receives more in ante-post bets and therefore contributes more to the levy than possibly any other racecourse?

That is a fair comment. a large percentage of the take for the levy board is raised on the days of the Derby and the Grand National. People all over the country who have little or no interest in racing like a bet on the Grand National and a bet on the Derby. One of the tragedies of Aintree has been the management which have, allowed the racecourse to deteriorate. I can see all the problems of trying to buy it from the levy point of view.

Because the Grand National is so much a part of British life, I hope that a method will be found to retain it. As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, one often wonders, from the top of the stand, when there is a large crowd, whether one will fall down before the last horse jumps over the fence. The conditions are appalling. I should like to see an improvement. It must be difficult, however, to justify spending a large amount on a racecourse where racing takes place on only four days a year. This is one of the problems that faced the levy board when it considered the position of Aintree.

I had intended to be brief, but I have been carried away a little by the hon. Gentleman's intervention. I have a comparable story to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes, who said that the first leg of a horse that he owned won. I was suffering with jaundice when a trainer telephoned me to say that he had a horse, very cheap, which would win in a week and which I would then be able within a fortnight to sell to Trinidad for three times the amount I had given for it. I remarked that I could not afford to miss this chance. I bought the horse. It won at Catterick. It was sold for three times the price paid for it. It went to Trinidad. I regret to say that it never won another race. I have been trying to emulate that achievement on a much smaller scale ever since that without any great success.

I should like to say to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that one of my disappointments is that a Private Member has had to introduce the Bill. It would have been better if the Bill, which is amending legislation, tidying up Government legislation, had been introduced in Government time. As all hon. Members know, however, Government programmes are always so full of legislation that there is never time to do anything.

Too full.

Too full, as my hon. Friend says. It is important, as hon. Members have stressed, that we get this legislation through the House to ensure that the financial position of the levy board is guaranteed in a responsible manner. The bookmakers are to be congratulated on helping the levy board in the last couple of years to ensure that it did not face serious cash flow problems, which would have meant that large sums of money, destined for the racing industry, were spent on servicing bank overdraft facilities. It is creditable that the bookmaking industry has assisted in this matter.

What is fair for one bookmaker is fair for another. It is, therefore, necessary to approve this legislation to ensure that everyone is treated in the same manner. I believe that £750,000 was paid back to bookmakers last year to service the money that had virtually been paid in advance. That will be a benefit and will remain in the racing industry if we are successful in getting the legislation through the House. There will be some advantages in passing the legislation to ensure that a little more money goes into the racing industry. All those interested in racing feel that it gets a pretty paltry sum compared with France, Australia, America or even Hong Kong. It is sad that a larger sum does not go into racing to improve the facilities that are needed.

It has been argued that money goes to rich racehorse owners. The fact is that the finances of the industry are not in a good condition. The prize money is not comparable to that of many of our competitors. It would be much better if prize money represented a larger slice of the cake and the Government took a little less.

Many alterations have occurred in racing in the 20 years since the original legislation was brought to the House. There has been the growth of betting shops. There has been the innovation of lady jockeys. Much greater efforts have been devoted to racecourse security, together with many general improvements. It is necessary now for us to pass this legislation so that the levy board may continue, under the leadership of Sir Desmond Plummer, to whom many hon. Members have paid compliments, to do the job that it was given to do 20 years ago.

I welcome the Bill. I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing it forward. I am delighted that it seems to have the general accord and approval of hon. Members on both sides of the House.

I am grateful for this opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison) on having drawn fifth place in the ballot for Private Members' Bills and, more particularly, on having decided to use this opportunity to introduce what I think the whole House feels is a short but nevertheless valuable Bill. Some hon. Members will know that I had hoped, like my hon. friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Sir T. Kitson), that the Government could have found time in their own legislative programme to introduce a Bill along these lines or, even better, as the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) stated, to have included these provisions in a comprehensive gambling Bill giving effect also to some of the useful recommendations of the Rothschild Commission.

In the event, it was not possible for the Government to find time for either Bill in the present Session. I can only remark to those who wish otherwise that it is easy for any hon. Member to say that he wants legislation on a particular subject but less legislation overall in the Government programme. The Government are not in that happy position. They have to choose what goes into the programme and to keep it within bounds. I notice that my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Hamilton) is anxious that we should adopt this approach.

I am particularly pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes should have decided to introduce this Bill now. It is right that this matter should be dealt with as soon as possible. I am glad that the Bill has strong support on both sides of the House. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill), who had responsibility for racing in the Labour Government, for her support, in principle, for the Bill. I shall be dealing with some of the points that she made.

Against the background of this debate, hon. Members will not be surprised to hear that the Government fully support the objectives of the Bill and hope to see it on the statute book. The cynics wil perhaps say that my personal presence on a Friday would seem to indicate that this was likely and that if the Government had not been so favourable towards the Bill, I would have left the matter to one of my Ministers to come and tell the House that it could not have the Bill. I came myself not for that reason but because I believe it is important for the racing industry, which I strongly support for the part that it plays in our national life.

The Bill should also enjoy the support of all those who love racing and who wish to see it continue to play such an important part in the economic and social life of this country. This is because the aim of the Bill is simply to ensure that British racing continues to be able to rely on income from the betting levy and that the machinery devised for collecting that levy should operate as effectively and fairly as possible.

The financial needs of horse racing are considerable. These needs, it should be said, are met entirely by those who love racing and betting. Our racing industry employs nearly 100,000 people and brings great pleasure to the more than 4 million who attended race meetings last year, as well as to the countless others who enjoy racing through the media and in the betting shops. The depth of the quality of our bloodstock is still the envy of the world and attracts great overseas interest. In addition, British horse racing—through the betting which takes place on it—makes a substantial contribution to the Exchequer. In the year 1979–80 alone, more than £272 million was collected in betting duty on horse racing.

The purpose of this Bill is to ensure that racing continues to be able to support itself as effectively and fairly as possible. It will achieve this by strengthing the existing machinery through which the industry taps its own resources to meet its own financial needs. I refer, of course, to the annual levy scheme established under the Betting Levy Act of 1961 as consolidated in the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963.

Here, as Home Secretary, I add my thanks and congratulations to the levy board, under the outstanding chairmanship of Sir Desmond Plummer, for what it has done to help the racing industry and for the way in which it has allocated the funds made available to it through the levy. There was some evidence of its success in the number of hon. Members who thought, very properly, to use this debate as the occasion to advance specific ideas about how the money should be spent. No doubt Sir Desmond Plummer and the betting levy board will consider those claims very carefully.

The hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. Johnson), my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury, the hon. Member for Walsall, South and my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks, all spoke about how the money should be used. I notice too, that my hon. Friend for Salisbury advocated the great attractions and advantages of Salisbury racecourse, in his constituency. He also commented on the weather in Salisbury in a vein which those of us from the far North of England found surprising. I could suggest some competitors in the weather stakes. My hon. Friend may talk like that, but I do not wish to, for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, it is very important that this House should have the opportunity to express these views, and I know that the betting levy board will welcome them greatly.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes has already explained with commendable clarity and lucidity, under the existing legislation the Horserace Betting Levy Board and representatives of the bookmakers sitting as the bookmakers' committee agree between them an annual scheme for collecting a levy contribution to be used for the improvement of racing, veterinary education and science and breeds of horses. The essence of these arrangements and the reason why, on the whole, they have worked so well is that they are the product of a joint agreement between the bookmakers who contribute the annual levy and the board responsible for collecting and spending it in the interests of racing as a whole.

The Horserace Totalisator Board is not directly concerned with these arrangements as its levy contribution is determined by a separate procedure.

Does the right hon.Gentleman accept that, whereas the decision is a joint one, the bias is so vastly in favour of one organisation that there are six representatives of the levy board and only one from the bookmakers, who provide all the money, and that much misery is caused thereby?

I note what the hon. Gentleman says. However, it is a rather surprising statement that much misery is caused thereby. In any event, these are matters which can properly be discussed in more detail in Committee.

It is for the reason that I was describing that this Bill does not apply to the board. The hon. Member for Walsall, South appreciated that and said that he did not propose to refer to the Tote because it was not relevant to the Bill. However, he went on to talk about misappropriation and fraud in that organisation. I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that that is not exactly not referring to that organisation, to put it mildly. It is not for me to continue this argument at that moment. All that I say about the Tote, as the hon. Member for Derby, South said in an intervention during the speech of the hon. Member for Walsall, South, is that it should be noted with satisfaction that, under its present chairman, the Tote has made contributions to racing which increased from about £400,000 in 1976–77 to more than £1·5 million in the last financial year.

It is only when the two sides are unable to agree on a levy scheme that the Government, in the person of the Home Secretary, is brought into these arrangements. I am happy to say—and this is some answer to the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr Freud)—that this has occurred on only three occasions since these arrangements began, and never since I have been at the Home Office. When it happens, it falls to the Home Secretary to determine the scheme for that year, either by introducing a new scheme or by continuing or modifying the scheme then in operation.

This Bill does not alter the arrangements by which the levy is agreed or determined. It will still be for the bookmarkers and the levy board to decide between them haw best to collect the levy, and, on what I hope will continue to be the rare occasion on which they canot agree, it will still fall to the Home Secretary, in default of agreement, to determine the scheme and to ensure that racing has the money it needs when it needs it.

This Bill simply enlarges the framework within which these levy schemes may be agreed. It increases the options open to the bookmakers and the levy board when considering the kind of enforceable levy scheme they wish to introduce. Let me explain in a little more detail what I mean.

Under the present law, a levy scheme may provide for only one levy assessment to be raised against each bookmaker in respect of each levy year. Such an assessment, when based on turnover—which has been found to be the most satisfactory basis—can, as a matter of practice, be made only in respect of trading figures which are actually known; that it to say, after the end of a year's trading. But, since enforceable liability to pay levy arises only from the assessment itself, this means that, under the existing law, enforceable payments cannot be required in respect of the current year's trading because the assessment in respect of that year's trading can be made only when the year has come to an end. For this reason, levy schemes were originally based on the turnover in the previous year. But that meant that the basis of liability depended on the fact of trading in the current year but on the turnover figure of a previous year.

This separation between current trading and previous turnover opened the door to a form of avoidance. To overcome this, it was decided to shift the basis of schemes to current turnover. This, however, meant that final liabilities could be determined only after the end of the year to which the scheme related. To prevent the loss of a full year's levy, instalments on account in advance of the final assessment were needed. But such advance payments could not be made enforceable under the existing law.

I want to stress the word "enforceable" because, as some hon. Members have said, a levy scheme involving advance payments in anticipation of a final, formal assessment of levy liability has been operating on a voluntary basis for the past two years. But this scheme has worked only because a relatively small number of bookmakers had agreed to make these advance payments and because the board had made it worth their while doing so by agreeing to pay interest on these payments. Under the eighteenth scheme, which covered the year 1979–80, £730,000 in interest was paid by the board to bookmakers.

As hon. Members will appreciate, these voluntary arrangements have meant that, over the past two years, the levy board has been entirely dependent for its finance on the good will of a limited number of bookmaking firms which have been willing to make advance payments on a purely voluntary basis. These firms have been carrying a burden which, I agree with my hon. Friend for Richmond, Yorks, should have been shared by all.

Under this Bill, if the two sides agree that a levy scheme should involve advance payments on an instalment basis, all bookmakers would have to bear their fair share of these advance payments. That is because, under the Bill, such a scheme would be enforceable through the courts. This would provide the levy board with a secure basis on which to plan its expenditure throughout the year. I am grateful to the House and all hon. Members concerned for the way in which they have supported that principle and the value of it.

The Bill will not affect the basic arrangement by which the annual levy scheme is agreed by both sides or, failing that, is determined by the Home Secretary. I understand however, that some bookmakers have expressed a fear—as the hon. Member for Halifax and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) said—that by extending the framework within which levy schemes can be agreed, the Bill makes it possible for me to determine a scheme which would require them to pay the whole of a year's advance payments in one lump sum at the beginning of the year. I understand also that they would like the Bill to prohibit my doing that. That was mentioned by the hon. Member for Halifax. This and other matters can be discussed in Committee. However, I do not think that this difficulty could easily be resolved in principle by putting it in the Bill, because it is best left and needs to be left to be agreed in the scheme, which is negotiated by the parties. That point is important, and I am sure that the Committee will consider it carefully.

However, I want to reassure the House, as my hon Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds asked, that any such scheme would not be supported, let alone advocated, by the levy board. The chairman of the board has written to me on behalf of the full board giving a firm undertaking, without pre-empting what Parliament may decide in considering this Bill, that the board will not seek to incorporate into levy schemes, under which the turnover in the levy period itself forms the basis of levy liability, any provision which would require bookmakers to make a payment in advance of the business to which that payment relates. I think that the following will answer the hon. Lady's question. Sir Desmond Plummer made it clear in his letter to me that:

"instalments in respect of business in a particular month would be due for payment at the end of that month and not at the beginning".

I welcome Sir Desmond's undertaking. I am sure that it will remove any fears which bookmakers may have that the levy board might be tempted to seek to use the increased flexibility provided by this Bill to demand payments in advance of business done.

As far as my responsibilities as Home Secretary are concerned, I can, of course, speak only for myself. But I cannot imagine any future Home Secretary determining a scheme in the event of a dispute without taking full account of the commitment which the levy board has now given to me and without taking full account also of what Parliament has said about these matters in the course of the Second Reading of the Bill today.

I am sure that what the Home Secretary has said will go a long way towards putting at rest many of the anxieties which have been expressed. Does he agree that the matter would be more acceptable if the Bill required consultation with the bookmakers' committee rather than saying that the board may have such consultation? If the Bill said that it should or that it must have such consultation, it would be much easier to accept the assurances to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred.

Any such points are for my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes and for the Committee. That matter should be considered and no doubt it will be.

My next point was mentioned by the hon. Member for Halifax and by my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes. I understand that the bookmakers have asked that the Bill should make provision for a notice of determination to be varied in the course of a levy year, in accordance with an agreed levy scheme, so as to reflect a significant change in a bookmaker's circumstances. Contrary to what I said about the previous point, it would be appropriate for the Bill to permit that, if that is what my hon. Friend would like. I understand that he has it in mind to introduce such an amendment in Committee. If that is so, I assure him and the Committee that the Government would support that.

The other points raised by the hon. Member for Halifax should be considered by the Committee. I hope that the clear assurance which I have given on one of the points will be welcomed.

By strengthening and extending the arrangements by which British racing finances itself, the Bill will ensure the continued prosperity of an industry which plays an important role in our national way of life. Everone would agree that it gives great pleasure to many people. I was pleased to hear the support which was given by all hon. Members to my hon. Friend's Bill. I once more congratulate him on having introduced the Bill, which will do great good to the racing industry and which, at the same time, has commanded general support in the House. On that basis, I strongly commend the Bill to the House.

My hon. friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison) has asked me to wind up the debate on his behalf and to comment on some on the points which have been made. As a sponsor of the Bill and as one of his supporters, I am more than pleased to attempt to do so.

On behalf of my hon. Friend, and I am sure of the House as a whole, may I say how much the presence of the Home Secretary is appreciated today? As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Sir T. Kitson) said, it has been a disappointment that we have not been able to obtain legislation from the Government in this matter. The hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) referred to that. There is no one, especially among those who have been privileged to serve in the Government in the past, who does not appreciate the enormous pressure on the Government's legislative time. It is all the more satisfactory, therfore, that my hon. Friend should have chosen this measure and has repaired an omission. It is splendid that the Home Secretary should come to the House on a Friday to speak on the Bill. It is good to see my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for sport here. His presence is also greatly appreciated.

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary rightly said, this is a short but valuable Bill. I think that it would be the wish of the House that it should be put on the statute book at the earliest opportunity. We do not want to waste any time, if we can avoid it. It is important to remark, as the Home Secretary did, that the debate has been characterised not only by some significant speeches but by a unanimity which, alas, is somewhat rarer when we debate matters in this Chamber.

I should like to pay tribute to those who have spoken. The hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) made one of the most amusing beginnings to a speech that I have heard. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths), who is privileged to have the headquarters of British racing in his constituency, spoke well about what racing means to all of us in the United Kingdom.

The hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. Johnson), as always, made a notable contribution. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Hamilton) has a keen historic ear. The hon. Member for Halifax made a most constructive speech. I shall comment on some of the matters to which she referred. The hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. Welsh), my right hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Macmillan) and my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks made some interesting remarks on matters about which they were particularly concerned, not least local matters as referred to by the hon. Member for Don Valley.

The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) referred to some interesting general matters. The intervention of the hon. Member for Derby, South in the hon. Gentleman's speech was particularly effective.

There has been unanimity about several matters. The first was congratulations to my hon. Friend the Minister for Devizes, in which I would join, on his success in obtaining so high a place in the Private Members' stakes, on choosing a sensible measure to introduce, and, not least, on the excellent and clear speech that he made.

There has been unanimity about the important part that racing plays in the British economy. There are many contributors to that. I am glad that the Jockey Club received favourable mention. It does not often get the credit that it deserves. It was interesting also to notice how many hon. Members referred to the dependence of this great industry on the public, without whose support there would be no racing.

Finally, and by no means least, there has been unanimity on the excellent work done by the Horserace Betting Levy Board, so ably led by its most competent chairman, Sir Desmond Plummer. The purpose of the Bill is to try to allow the board better to do the job which Parliament placed upon its shoulders some time ago—to improve the quality of racing in the United Kingdom for the ordinary racegoer. The work that it does follows certain clear patterns—improvement of courses, breeding and veterinary work.

It is remarkable that the board spent almost £100 million over the last 10 years. That is a great sum of money and it is a great achievement to have spent it so well. The hon. Member for Halifax raised particular questions about this, as did the hon. Member for Walsall, South. I agree that it is possible always to question the allocation of funds—we all have our priorities. Personally I should like 100 per cent. of the money that the board has available to go to two causes which I hold dear—animal health, and racing in the West Country—but, of course, it cannot be like that. We all have our priorities—whether it is animal health or accommodation for stable lads, about which so much is now being done. What matters overall is that we improve standards.

It is well worth taking a moment to consider the nineteenth report of the board to see what is done in two particular respects. The first is prize money. This year the amount was £8·85 million. Next year it will be about £10 million.

Not enough.

As so often, my hon. Friend is entirely right. It is not enough, and it would be splendid if more could be allocated, but it is not an inconsiderable sum.

What is remarkable about the list of where the money goes is the wisdom with which the board has been able to make its allocation. Of course, substantial sums go to the group 1 courses. We need substantial amounts of prize money there if we are to compete internationally. The group 2, 3 and 4 courses on the "flat" include such courses as Bath, Beverley, Chepstow, Hamilton Park, Leicester, Nottingham, Pontefract, Windsor, Yarmouth, Carlisle, Catterick, Edinburgh, Folkestone, Stockton, Warwick and Wolverhampton. It must be admitted that the board's jam is widely spread.

When it comes to jumping, leaving out the group 1 and 2 courses, group 3 and 4 include Catterick, Folkestone, Huntingdon, Leicester, Market Rasen, Nottingham, Plumpton, Stratford, Uttoxeter, Warwick, Wincanton, Windsor, Wolverhampton, Worcester, Bangor-on-Dee, Carlisle, Cartmel, the Devon and Exeter—a splendid course—Fakenham, Hereford, Hexham, Kelso, Ludlow, Perth, Sedgefield, Southwell, Stockton, Taunton—perhaps the finest of all—and Towcester. It is splendid that the board is doing its utmost to ensure that courses all over the United Kingdom are helped.

I have an interest to declare as a director of the racecourse at Taunton. We have 11 meetings a year. Usually, up to four of them are rained off. It is a hard job keeping these little courses going and my experience is that we could not have had more help than we have had from the board. It does an admirable job with great conscientiousness and skill.

We have heard about the improvements at Goodwood and the report gives details of the £70,0000 spent on improvements for stable lads at Doncaster. At Folkestone, Fontwell, Hereford, Taunton, Uttoxeter and many other courses, £770,000 has been spent on minor improvements. I do not think that the board does a bad job.

It is always possible to question an allocation, but what is needed is to improve the standards everywhere. It is all very well being a little envious of Goodwood or some other course, but it is essential in the general interest to ensure that the best in the United Kingdom is equivalent to the best in the world.

We can all agree or disagree about how the cash should be spent. The point is first to get the cash; that is what the Bill is all about. Many other countries rely exclusively on the Tote. They have off-course Tote monopoly systems. In the United Kingdom, we have a mixture—the Tote and the bookmakers. We have a system of levy to raise money and channel it into racing. It is essential that that system should be effective. That is what the Bill is all about. It is exactly in the spirit of the old Betting Levy Act 1961 and the Acts of 1963 and 1969, which give effect to these arrangements.

I have always taken the view that no legislation is so good that it will not require re-examination and possible amendment at some time in the light of experience. That is what we are at today. We have discovered that the system is not working perfectly and it is appropriate that it should be amended. Equally, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes, who has taken such trouble over the Bill, to discuss it with the interested parties and get it right, will not mind my saying that no Bill is perfect either.

The hon. Member for the Isle of Ely mentioned the representation of bookmakers and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds mentioned hardship. The hon. Member for Halifax mentioned a series of matters. It was extremely helpful to hear what the Home Secretary had to say by way of general comment, from his great experience arising out of his substantial responsibilities.

I should like to say on my hon. Friend's behalf that he made a careful note of the points raised by the hon. Member for Halifax. They follow those made in public by the bookmakers and were clearly reported in the issue of The Sporting Life for 10 February. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary put it exactly right when he said that all these matters were appropriate for consideration in Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes suggests that we should study exactly what has been said. He will give all views careful consideration in Committee. If he is able to meet the wishes of right hon. and hon. Members, he will do so.

The situation has been bad because the original legislation plainly was defective and there has been the possibility of avoidance. Complete avoidance would be wholly unacceptable. It is not satisfactory that the Horserace Betting Levy Board can be without income unless voluntary payments are made. It cannot be satisfactory that it can pay out interest amounting to £730,000. That amount of money could be more usefully employed.

I am shocked at what I have heard in the House today. Hon. Members have described the way in which the bookmakers—my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds calls them the good guys—are contributing. About 1,700 bookmakers, or one-third of the total, are contributing a large sum of money, which amounts to 65 per cent. of the levy, on a voluntary basis. However, it is unsatisfactory that two-thirds of the bookmakers are not contributing.

It must be right to endeavour to establish a system which is fair to all bookmakers. It must be appropriate to make some revision of the present unsatisfactory scene. I support most strongly my hon. Friend's aim to put the levy on a secure footing. That must be in the interests of the industry and therefore in the interests of the public.

If an early cash flow can be assured for the board through advance payments by bookmakers, the board will no longer be dependent entirely on good will. It should not be, and it is wrong that it is. Because of the good work that the board does, it is essential that its income is regular and certain. It is essential that the whole of the income available to the board should be used.

The list of people who want commitments to be made is long. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds said that more prize money is needed and that improvements are needed here, there and everywhere—at every racecourse in the country. Much more needs to be done. If the hon. Members for Derby, South and for Walsall, South and others want racing to continue, if it is right because it is an ancient sport in our nation that we should do all that we can to encourage and help the sport, it is insufficient merely to go along with the present arrangements.

Everything has to be worked at all the time. We live in an era of rapid change. This modest attempt to bring the law up to date is a splendid example which the House could follow in other respects. I hope that the House will give the Bill an immediate and enthusiastic Second Reading.

I apologise to my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) for not realising that he was about to reply to the debate. If I had realised that, I would have tried to make my speech much earlier.

Having sponsored two successful Private Members' Bills, it would be wrong for me not to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison). There is a racecourse in my constituency, and I have been left in no doubt about how important the Bill is for the well-being of that course. It is not one of the most luxurious courses in the country. Over the years attempts have been made to close it. Thanks to the help of Sir Desmond Plummer and his associates, the course has been maintained.

Our racecourses are a tourist attraction. Many of the more important owners are diffident about sending horses to Folkestone because they say that it is at the end of the road and a long way from training centres. It is now becoming a more popular course and a better class of horse races there. One often hears about the result of races at Folkestone on television. I have never backed a winner at Folkestone so I cannot go into that in detail.

Courses such as that at Folkestone need a good deal of improvement. We hope that in the next few years the Channel tunnel will be built. If it is built according to the current plans, one of the entrances will be close to Folkestone racecourse. That could bring many tourists from the Continent to visit the racecourse. However, compared with the courses in France, Folkestone is a joke. It is important to have a course which will attract the tourist trade. That would also benefit hotels in the area. Our roads from London have been improved and we hope that they will be further improved. I support the Bill with all my heart because I think that it will belp my constituency.

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

During proceedings on the Horserace Betting Levy Bill the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison) referred to his success in racing as the owner of one leg of a horse. The proposition in my Bill is that the Scottish Tourist Board, which has only one leg, should be given a second leg so that it can perform its duties more effectively.

Under the Development of Tourism Act 1969 responsibility for the overseas projection of Scotland for the purpose of attracting tourists is vested in the British Tourist Authority. The Scottish Tourist Board is enabled to project Scotland only domestically within the country or within other parts of the United Kingdom. That arrangement was devised 12 years ago, since which time the position has changed quite remarkably.

The Highlands and Islands Development Board is able to promote the Highlands and Islands abroad. The Scottish Tourist Board should be able to do that in relation to the country as a whole. Naturally, the Scottish Tourist Board endeavours to co-operate with the British Tourist Authority, but for a number of years under different chairmen and directors the board has claimed that it should have the right to project Scotland abroad and to have much more influence over the way in which Scotland is portrayed.

Apparently there is no reason why that should not happen. The British Tourist Authority would still have responsibility for the projection of Britain as a whole and the Scottish Tourist Board would be able to do for Scotland what the Highlands and Islands Development Board and the Scottish local authorities do to project Scotland to the rest of the world. The House does not seem to realise that these areas have the power to promote their own parts of Scotland abroad.

Unfortunately, the Scottish Tourist Board has not been given the opportunity to market Scotland as an entity and to back up the valuable work done by the Highlands and Islands Development Board and the regions and districts concerned.

Some regions might be happy to promote their own regions abroad. Indeed, the Bill would not seek to prevent them from so doing. However, it would rectify the imbalance, because the country as a whole is unable to be marketed. There is a trend of opinion that that should be done.

Some areas feel that they have been hard done by in relation to what they should do. Some of the bigger regions have the capability of going overseas and producing material. However, I should like to quote from the Annandale Observer of 8 February last year. It states that the executive committee of the regional tourist association is to write to the hon. Members for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) and Galloway (Mr. Lang)

"to try and change the law which prevents the Scottish Tourist Board from promoting Scotland abroad."

The association seemed to think that the smaller regions and districts of the country were placed in an invidious situation because they did not have the ability to market in the same way as the larger regions. That is their particular objection.

The Earl of Mansfield—who naturally is unable to be in this House but who is represented by the Undersecretary of State for Scotland—in a speech at the Albany hotel in Glasgow some time ago, said:

"There is also a conviction that the promotion of Scotland abroad is ill-organised and insensitive and it is not sufficiently under the influence of those who have a direct knowledge of Scotland's needs."

The Earl of Mansfield went on to say that he believed that perhaps some of those criticisms had been overstated. But he felt that it was time that the tourism omelette in Scotland was unscrambled.

There are reasons why there should be a considerable change. Athough the tourist industry has given the impression and appearance that it was going from success to success, since 1979 there has been a drop in trade. Indeed, 1980 was a particularly bad season for tourism.

The tourist industry is substantial. It employs about 110,000 people and attracts spending of about £600 million. I understand that in 1979 only about 9.5 per cent. of the tourists who came to Scotland were overseas visitors. That is one area of concern which affects the tourist industry. Scotland, despite its many attractions, gained perhaps no more than its population share of tourists from abroad. Nevertheless, we should put on record the fact that almost 29 per cent. of the revenue attracted from spending by visitors to Scotland came from overseas visitors. Therefore, the element of the overseas trade is substantial.

The House will also be aware that the pattern of domestic tourism is changing. Many more people go abroad. There is less of a market in terms of fashion and trend available to the tourist industry from those who live in Scotland. Therefore, greater pressure must be put on the attraction of overseas visitors to make up for the loss which might be sustained on the domestic market.

The past two summers have been extremely bad. Staying at home on holiday is for some people almost a masochistic exercise. There is the perennial optimism that at some time during their holiday the sun will shine and they will have lovely weather. However, the attractions of Scotland go beyond our climate. Indeed, they have to make up for some of it.

One factor which has affected domestic trade has been the cost of internal travelling. The increasing cost of petrol has an inhibiting effect on tourists and on the bed and breakfast: trade. If the British Tourist Authority's target is to attract tourists and if they are brought in through London, which tends to be the point of access for most tourists, there is a disinclination by overseas visitors to extend their journey to other parts of the United Kingdom, especially as air fares are so high. In order to get overseas visitors to Scotland, we must try to get them to travel direct to achieve lift-off in that sector.

There is considerable dissatisfaction with the British Tourist Authority. Undoubtedly, the BTA tries to fulfil its role, but it has to look to the biggest market. After I decided to go ahead with this Bill, I received through the post a copy of the British Travel News, the autumn 1980 edition, No. 71. On flicking through it, I noticed that there was very little in the British Travel News that referred to Scotland. There were a few small paragraphs, but nothing very much. However, it was headed with portraits of Mr. London accompanied by two dolly girls, and there were five other pages on the same theme. Most of the main headings related to London in one form or another.

London forms an important part of the trade that the BTA wishes to attract to Britain. The BTA's main object is to attract people to Britain. It has as a secondary aim the object of spreading the largesse as widely as possible.

According to the British Travel News, Sir Henry Marking, the chairman of the BTA, in the annual report, said:

"In this context … it is as well to recognise the inestimable attraction and value of London as a world communications and commercial centre. Nearly 20 per cent. of Britain's incoming travel movement is for business reasons. London has become the premier centre for international conferences. This segment of the travel market, which expanded on all fronts in 1979, has great potential."

London must undoubtedly be one of the principal centres for the tourist industry in the United Kingdom because of its attractions for tourists. It is a very large city with many historic monuments, and so forth. However, it does not do the Scottish tourist industry much good to have this kind of obsession on the part of the BTA with the city of London almost to the exclusion of other parts of the United Kingdom.

I am sure that other hon. Members could point out that Wales, the North of England, the Midlands and so on had been bypassed in this magazine. It may be that this magazine is not typical, but it is significant that that should appear to be the BTA's obsession at this time.

There is dissatisfaction about the way in which Scotland is marketed by the BTA as an appendage to English attractions such as Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, the Houses of Parliament and Stonehenge. Folk are worried that the BTA, by its nature, is unable to cope with the needs of areas such as Scotland.

I was amused that when the forthcoming marriage of the Prince of Wales was announced some commentators said that it was exactly the fillip that the London tourist trade needed. Perhaps I could do as much good for my Bill and the promotion of tourism in Scotland by attempting to get the marriage transferred to a another centre, thereby relocating the tourists who will swarm in for the great event.

It could be held in Edinburgh.

My right hon. Friend suggests Edinburgh and the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) might add that it should be in St. Machar Cathedral. We shall wait and see what the competition is.

Evidence collected by those involved in the industry in Scotland who do spot checks on BTA offices abroad shows an unacceptable mental attitude in the selling of Scotland. There is much ignorance about Scotland and many staff do not have detailed knowledge about particular areas. A member of the STB consultative committee recently called at the BTA's New York office to ask for information on Scotland. After searching, a staff member eventually found some STB promotion literature in a closed cupboard. That was not exactly an encouraging visit for the consultative committee representative.

There is also evidence of a low success rate in getting visitors to Scotland as part of United Kingdom holidays. Visitors from the United States and Canada arriving directly in Scotland account for nearly 25 per cent. of all overseas arrivals in Scotland. Another recent growth sector, visitors from Australia and New Zealand, accounts for another substantial proportion. Most of those visitors come to see families or friends and have not been attracted by BTA marketing in their home countries.

The number of visitors who come as a result of earlier contact with the BTA or because they have been influenced by its advertising abroad is probably a small proportion of the holiday traffic. It is difficult to estimate the proportion, but that seems to be the indication. If that is correct, it represents a poor return on the public money allocated to the BTA to promote Scotland.

It was significant that the committee of inquiry into local government in Scotland, under the chairmanship of the Right Hon. Anthony Stodart, a former Member of the House, which was appointed by the Scottish Office, went out of its way, almost in excess of its terms of reference, to deal with the problems facing the tourist industry in Scotland. It said:

"There were frequent and favourable references in evidence to the arrangements operating under the aegis of the Highlands and Islands Development Board in the Highlands and Islands (in respect of which the Board has an agreement with the Scottish Tourist Board about the extent of its activities in the field of tourism). So we decided to look closely at the structure which exists there."

As I mentioned earlier, the HIDB has the power to promote its part of Scotland abroad and no one has suggested that the board, or the regions and districts, should have that power removed. We are involved in coordination and promotion and there is an obligation to ensure that there is no duplication. The Stodart report states that marketing:

"has both United Kingdom and overseas aspects. Most local authorities with an interest in tourism take part in promotions and exhibitions within the United Kingdom. Overseas promotion is undertaken by the British Tourist authority, with some regions and a few districts participating in major exhibitions in Europe. The Scottish Tourist Board has no powers to operate abroad."

It goes on:

"In their evidence to us the Scottish Tourist Board noted that it was well known that in overseas markets a Scottish region as such has little relevance unless it forms part of an overall Scottish effort, and that expenditure on promoting a specific region was unlikely to be productive. Moreover, by the same token, individual districts had little impact in United Kingdom markets unless they linked up to work across a much wider front in attracting holidaymakers. We agree that marketing on a wide scale requires a cohesive, carefully orchestrated approach which would in our view best be secured if one central body had a coordinating role; and we consider that the Scottish Tourist Board should be given this task."

The interesting report adds:

"We are aware of the arguments for giving the British Tourist Authority responsiblity for promoting Scotland overseas along with other parts of the United Kingdom. We are however convinced that the distinctive attractions of Scotland and its high dependence economically on tourism merit a separate promotional effort abroad. We are in no doubt at all that this can best be done by the Scottish Tourist Board. Indeed such an extension of the Board's powers is clearly logical when the Highlands and Islands Development Board already has them and uses them with such success. We recommend very strongly, therefore, that the Scottish Tourist Board should be given overseas promotional powers in its own right, and be solely responsible for promoting Scotland abroad, after consulting district councils, (In saying this, we reserve the position of the Highlands and Islands Development Board, as we make clear in paragraph 154)".

There is no reason why the STB should not have those powers and enter into an appropriate agreement with the BTA in relation to the promotion of Scotland overseas. There is obviously a United Kingdom dimension, but there is no reason why, with proper co-operation, an agreement should not be worked out.

The hon. Gentleman has raised an important point which the Bill does not clarify. As he indicated, the Stodart committee suggested that the STB should have the sole right to promote Scotland overseas, but he will be aware that the effect of his Bill, even though he may not have intended it, will be to give the STB power to promote Scotland overseas, but it will not change the power or functions of the BTA.

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify whether it was his intention that both the BTA and the STB should carry out that function or whether, as Stodart appeared to suggest, the STB alone should have that function, so that there would be no continuing need for the BTA to be involved in the promotion of Scotland overseas?

For drafting reasons, my Bill seeks to provide for dual responsibility. As the Under-Secretary is probably aware, it would not have been possible to have a Scottish Bill that sought to dismantle or change the British Tourist Authority. The object of the Bill is to give power to the Scottish Tourist Board to promote Scotland abroad. That would leave a joint responsibility, which would be an improvement on the present situation.

I should welcome the full implementation of the Stodart report, though even if it were implemented the BTA would clearly have an interest in how Scotland was promoted as part of the overall promotion of the United Kingdom. Indeed, the STB may wish to reach agreement with the BTA to use its facilities overseas.

The hon. Gentleman says that for drafting reasons the effect of the Bill would be to give a dual responsibility to the BTA and the STB. His case is that the STB should have sole responsibility for promoting Scotland overseas and that the BTA should have no need to interest itself in tourism to Scotland or the promotion of Scotland overseas. It would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman would clarify that that is his objective, even if it is not the technical consequence of the Bill.

The hon. Gentleman has put the matter fairly. For technical reasons it was not possible to exclude the BTA from involvement in the promotion of Scotland abroad. I accept that it has a role in the projection of Britain abroad and that has an impact on the tourist industry in Scotland.

I suggest that there should be an agreement, which need not be couched in statute, between the board and the authority to allow the STB to undertake the projection of Scotland abroad. The Bill would enable that to happen and would give the Scottish Tourist Board a greater leverage in its dealing with the BTA. There has been considerable concern in the Scottish Tourist Board in the past about what the present chairman has termed the "unmovable bureaucracy". I am judging this from statements by Mr. Devereux. The board seems to feel that the BTA is not responsive to the urgings of the Scottish Tourist Board, and the remarks I quoted from Lord Mansfield earlier tended to bear that out.

The Scottish Office partly went along with what the board said when it agreed to the appointment of an overseas director. But that director will have no statutory power to operate abroad on behalf of the STB. That halfa-loaf suggestion was criticised by The Scotsman in an editorial when it said that the understanding was that:

"Overseas co-ordination is to take place, but it looks as if it will stop at Gretna Green; the STB's director will co-ordinate all Scottish efforts but will be unable to do the same for the BTA's campaigns. The Minister's solution resembles nothing more than a recipe for confusion. Because he did not go for the only answer that would work—giving the entire job to the STB—Lord Mansfield may have injected a new element of friction into the Scottish tourism trade.

I would have preferred to go for the complete solution, which has administrative simplicity, of giving to the STB responsibility for dealing within the United Kingdom with tourism matters in Scotland. It at present has that under the Development of Tourism Act 1969, but it would have a statutory right to go abroad and project Scotland there if it were dissatisfied with the package put forward by the BTA, or if it could not reach any agreement with the BTA. At the moment it is prevented from obtaining such agreement because it has no independent right to project Scotland abroad. My solution would be a step forward in clarifying the position.

I see this happening as follows. Far from the STB putting itself at arm's length from the BTA, it would use its new rights to negotiate an agreement with the BTA on better terms than now exist for the projection of Scotland abroad and for a better use of BTA facilities abroad.

I am particularly concerned about a point in the hon. Gentleman's last few sentences that has confused me. Perhaps other hon. Members share my concern. It is about the financial implications of the dual responsibility between the two boards. I note that there is no financial memorandum to the Bill. Will the hon. Gentleman indicate the likely cost of his proposal over and above the £7·93 million already allocated, since that would help us in our judgment on the Bill.

Any hon. Member who, in a Private Member's Bill, seeks to spend public money will find himself in real difficulty. The vote of the network of legislation is what can be changed.

The BTA has within its present budget an allocation for advertising Scotland abroad. The argument advanced—not just by myself but from within the tourist trade in Scotland and by the Scottish Tourist Board, although I accept that that is more likely to be a case of special pleading—is that the money that the BTA has for developing Scottish tourism, as differentiated from its promotion of Britain as a whole, is not being used well at present. The resources are therefore being wasted.

The way round this is for the two boards to come together. However, the Scottish Tourist Board—I have to put this bluntly—has found the BTA in the past to be nonco-operative. If that had not been the case, it would not have found it necessary to press for the powers in the Bill. The previous chairman and director of the STB pressed for the powers. After the general election when the Conservatives came to power they appointed a new chairman, having just appointed a new director of tourism at the Highlands and Islands Development Board. These gentlemen have pressed the Government hard to grant these powers.

I suggest that there is no substitute for properly organised national promotion of Scotland, and who better than the Scots to know how best to project their country abroad? On that basis I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) on his good fortune in having the opportunity to place the Bill before the House, good fortune which is the more remarkable since his right hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) had a similar opportunity but two weeks ago. We are all deeply envious on this side of the House, and we wonder how they exercise such enormous power in this place—at least, power over the fates or over good luck. I certainly congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his good fortune, if not on a great deal of what is in the Bill.

Before I deploy the main themes of my speech, perhaps I should comment on one aspect that strikes me as extraordinary and, I dare say, will strike my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary in the same way. Among the sponsors of the Bill I see the hon. Member for Dundee, East, the promoter, and the right hon. Member for Western Isles. That is natural and proper. I also see, however, the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson), and the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Johnston), the latter representing the Liberal Party, one presumes, and the former representing one of the many parts of the Labour Party. However, neither hon. Gentleman has chosen to be present in the House today. That is a most extraordinary reflection on the Liberal Party, because it holds Inverness touristically to be one of the most important parts of Scotland.

Where are the Opposition Front Bench?

I shall come to that in a moment. My hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) asks an important question. Inverness is not represented here today. The Leader of the Liberal Party, the right hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel), represents the Borders—country redolent of Sir Walter Scott and the border ballads and the glories of Melrose Abbey. No doubt all the Border abbeys would wish to have their natural beauties paraded in prose form before the House of Commons, yet the right hon. Gentleman is not here today.

In addition to the Liberal Party being absent, it is extremely reprehensible that the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian, a sponsor of the Bill, has chosen to absent himself. Most extraordinary, however, is the fact that there is no representative on the Opposition Front Bench—

Or anywhere on the Opposition Benches.

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is correct. There is no member of the Council for Social Democracy, no Trotskyite, no middle-of-the-road Labour Member, and even the surrogate hon. Members for Afghanistan have chosen to absent themselves from the debate. It is worth pointing out—and I bow to the hon. Gentleman in this—that for a place as important as Scotland—no doubt my hon. Friends will wish to point out later in the debate that it is as important, by implication, for Wales and England—not a single representative of the official Labour Party Front Bench is present.

Horse racing received much more attention from the Labour Front Bench than the Scottish tourist industry is receiving.

That opens up an interesting line of thought. After all, we have racing in Scotland. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State represents Ayr. He will know the lines from Burns:

"(Auld Ayr wham ne'er a town surpasses

For honest men and bonnie lasses)."

And, I dare say, for bonnie horses as well. Kelso is another famous racecourse in Scotland. However, the hon. Gentleman must not tempt me into divergent lines in what I am sure he will find an extremely focused and concentrated speech—concentrated on his very brief Bill.

I say in passing that when the Gaelic (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill was introduced by the right hon. Member for Western Isles he did us the courtesy of explaining why there was no Conservative sponsor. He said that he had not sought to embarrass us. We appreciate his courtesy, as always. I am sorry to see that the hon. Member for Dundee, East also has no Conservative sponsor. I do not know whether I should have been willing to be a sponsor. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. MacKay) has strong views on the Matter. Perhaps he was asked.

I did not ask the hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. MacKay), but I did ask another member of the Scottish Conservative group. There was a lack of enthusiasm. I forbore to point that out in case it embarrassed the hon. Gentleman, of whose attitude I was not sure until he began to speak.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that explanation, although I am disappointed at not having been asked. Had I been asked, I could have told him in advance some of the reasons why I could not support the Bill. That might have led to an improvement in the Bill before it came before the House, perhaps even resulting in its gaining my support.

I wish to mention one point in passing, before I turn to the main themes of my speech. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the wedding of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to the Lady Diana Spencer. It appeared to me that he was critical of the wedding taking place in London, and not in St. Machar's cathedral in Aberdeen, or in Edinburgh, or Stirling or Inverness. I must point out that, contrary to his wishes, we are a united kingdom, the capital of which is London. It is perfectly proper that the marriage of the Prince of Wales xhould take place in London. I hope that it will do a great deal of good for the tourist trade in London. However, it will not only be London. I went into a souvenir shop between the House and my office in Norman Shaw North earlier this week. I was purchasing something there, and the lady from whom I was purchasing it told me how much good the marriage of the Prince of Wales was doing for tourism in London. But she also mentioned that Belfast had guaranteed to have 30,000 tea towels with the heads of Prince Charles and Lady Diana on them in the shops by the end of next week. That is trade for Northern Ireland, not only London.

My hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) has come back into the Chamber. Had he been present during the past two or three minutes I am sure that he would have wished to have said that, rather than the marriage taking place in London, there was a better case for it taking place in Wales.

That is a pertinent point. When my hon. Friend rose to his feet I thought that he was about to make out a case for Derbyshire—

What about Watford?

Indeed, what about Watford? However, the Prince of Wales was formally invested at Caernarvon. Keen as I am to promote Scotland—as will become apparent later in my speech—I am not sure that we are wholly justified in criticising the Prince of Wales for marrying in London.

Scotland has benefited from Royal patronage in an enormous way. Had Queen Victoria not chosen to settle in her castle at Balmoral, the Scottish tourist trade—if I may put it in such a cheap and vulgar way—over the years would not have benefited to the extent that it has. The glories of Royal Deeside, in which I am privileged to live, would not be so well known to the world as they are. The Scottish tourist trade certainly owes as much to the genius of Sir Walter Scott and the residence of Queen Victoria as to many other factors within our national boundaries.

The hon. Member for Dundee, East referred to the Stodart committee. Those of my hon. Friends who followed with intense and avid interest the deliberations of the Stodart committee and its possible recommendations, never expected it to come forward with recommendations to promote Scottish tourism in New York, San Francisco and Tokyo. None the less, it did so. The hon. Gentleman said that he was slightly surprised that the committee had chosen to widen its remit in that way. None the less it did, and it made some valuable and interesting points about Scottish tourism. But this Bill, although it would undoubtedly implement in part one of the principles that the Stodart committee expounded, would not answer many of the other problems that would arise were the Stodart recommendations accepted. It would be extremely unwise of the House to seek to implement that part of the Stodart report by this Bill. The report must be considered as a whole. There are many different implications of giving the Scottish Tourist Board power to set up overseas. Although the Stodart committee mention of that is interesting, it cannot weigh substantially with the House at this stage. We have not had a chance to debate that report.

The hon. Gentleman raised one other point with which I have some sympathy. I wish to comment on it before I come to my arguments. He mentioned the question of travel within Scotland. He mentioned two aspects of it—first, petrol and secondly, the price of air fares. I was not quite sure what point he was making about petrol. When I drive from Aberdeen to Westminster, which I do not do very often—perhaps half a dozen times a year—because it is a 500-mile drive, I am struck by the fact that the petrol that I purchase in Aberdeen is always cheaper than the petrol that I purchase on the motorway in England. If the drift of the hon. Gentleman's argument was that, somehow, petrol was more expensive in Scotland, I must say that the cost of petrol differs all over Scotland, all over England and, indeed, differs within different garages within Aberdeen. I do not think that it can be used as an argument to say that, somehow, Scotland is disadvantaged. I dare say that my hon. Friend the Member of Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris) could tell us that petrol in certain parts of Derbyshire is extremely expensive.

I think that the hon. Gentleman is making more of my remark than was intended. He is knocking down a straw man. Some areas of Scotland, such as the Highlands, undoubtedly have higher petrol costs. As the hon Gentleman points out, different areas have their own price differentials. One would find variations when travelling between Dundee and Stirling. But overseas tourists coming from Heathrow and driving to Scotland would face substantial bills from motorway garages. The hon. Gentleman should appreciate that my main remark was that the higher cost of petrol overall has had an effect on the tourist trade. I am sure that he would not deny that.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for clarifying that point to some extent. It is true that if one lands at Heathrow or Gatwick and drives to Aberdeen, the cost of the petrol will be a substantial part of the holiday. It may actually be cheaper than taking an air fare, but I shall come to that in a moment.

On the other hand, if one flies from Texas to Aberdeen and decides to go to Stratford-on-Avon or Chatsworth, no doubt one will find the journey to England extremely expensive. In other words, I do not think that this is an argument that leads to the disadvantage or advantage of Scotland or England.

It depends on where one starts from. In so far as most tourists in this country start from London, no doubt Cornwall, Aberdeen, Dundee, Stirling and Chatsworth all have problems. In this vale of tears we all have problems. I do not think that this in the past has stopped or will stop people from believing that a tour of Scotland by car is one of the most enjoyable and rewarding touristic experiences that one can have. The main point is that touring in Derbyshire or in the Grampians will cost a lot of money for petrol. But there are parts of the United Kingdom where it will cost even more.

On the question of air fares, I think that the hon. Gentleman has a point. I cannot off the top of my head give him the air fare from London to Paris, but I believe I am right in saying that mile for mile it is probably cheaper to fly from Heathrow to Paris airport—Charles De Gaulle is it called these day, I do not know?—than it is to fly to Dyce, Aberdeen or Turnhouse, Edinburgh. But there are ways of dealing with that.

I dare say that the hon. Gentleman would also find that mile for mile it may be more expensive to fly from London to Paris than it is to fly from London to Newcastle. Really what the hon. Gentleman is saying is that internal United Kingdom air fares are too high or that they are more than the customer wishes to pay. It may be that the airlines do not think that they are too high. What he cannot say, if this were his intention, is that somehow Scotland is militated against in this way.

I dare say that people who want to fly to Leeds—Bradford, to Newcastle or to Mancester feel just as aggrieved on the mile-for-mile cost: basis as those who wish to fly to Aberdeen, Edinburgh or Glasgow. That is because the total amount of the fares is greater because the distance is greater. It does not lessen the irritation among those who find that the mile-for-mile basis is greater within the United Kingdom than it is outside the United Kingdom.

There is another argument that should especially appeal to my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland and that is the magic word in any compendium of Tory philosophy, "competition". Recently we have had in Aberdeen a classic example of this that will appeal to the hon. Gentleman's tourist interests.

Until about a year ago last November there was only one major airline that one could use to fly direct from Aberdeen to London, and vice versa, unless one hired a charter plane, and that was British Airways. There were endless complaints about how expensive the tickets were, how frequently delayed, late, cancelled or postponed the flights were and about the poor quality of the food. In particular, the food was always cold. It was not meant to be hot; it was served as cold food. Many people complained to me and I complained to British Airways. I said that this was damaging the tourist trade in Aberdeen and all points of the tourist trade for which Aberdeen is a starting point, but I was told "Nothing can be done. The fare cannot be cut, the delays cannot be rectified, and the food cannot be improved". Therefore, as so often in any situation where there is a nationalised monopoly, we had to sit back and accept it. We did not like it, but we had to lump it.

Then what happened? Along came a brave operator, in this case Dan-Air, and a year ago last November Dan-Air started up. What did we find? Were the fares the same or even more expensive? No, the fares were not. Dan-Air found that it could cut the fares by, I think, about 15 per cent. Was Dan-Air late more often than it was on schedule? No, it was not. It has a remarkable record for being on time. I cannot remember the last occasion I flew Dan-Air when it was late—and it had hot meals, extremely good meals.

Hon. Members from the North-East, who I am glad to say are now mainly Conservative—I mention that because the hon. Member for Dundee, East, when he was in the last Parliament, had round him a whole gang of 11, was it, or 12 or 13—anyway 11—

There were 11.

My hon. Friend says that there were 11 SNP Members. The country saw sense and now they have all lost their seats except for the right hon. Member for Western Isles and his hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East. All Conservatives and one or two Labour Members, and now a member of the Council for Social Democracy, travel up to Aberdeen from London. They find that they get hot breakfasts, which are very welcome on cold winter mornings, and newspapers are supplied, not only the London newspapers and the national newspapers but even local newspapers. We get a copy of The Aberdeen Press and Journal with the yellow band around it. That is the sort of service that tourists appreciate.

What has been the effect of this? Of course, I hope that it has had a good effect on the profits of Dan-Air, but it has also affected British Airways, because suddenly the food has substantially improved on British Airways. It still cannot manage to serve hot meals, but instead of getting that awful veal and him pie going mouldy round the edges—I should say not "mouldy", but very hard and unappetising—they now serve shrimps and even bits of salmon. Anyway, the result has been that, following the competition provided by Dan-Air, we have better food, we have better service and we have cheaper service.

My agreement with the hon. Member for Dundee, East—one of my, alas few points of agreement with him—is that air fares are a deterrent. Many people do not like spending more or less the whole day driving up to Aberdeen from London, which is what it takes, although these days there are motorways and dual carriageways pretty well the whole way, certainly up to Perth; and, thanks to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, we shall have a dual carriageway from Perth to Aberdeen within the lifetime of this Conservative Government, yet again opening up Aberdeen, the Grampians and the Highlands beyond to an even wider tourist trade.

The point about expensive air fares is well made, but it is not one that applies to Scotland more than to England. Certainly competition is the best way to seek to bring down the fares; and that is not theory but practice, as proven by the Aberdeen experience.

It is true that the high cost of internal air fares within the United Kingdom will discourage tourists from abroad whose principal purpose has been to visit England and Wales and thereafter to extend their tour to visit Scotland. However, these fares will equally discourage tourists from abroad whose principal purpose is to visit Scotland from bothering to travel down to England and Wales. I do not think that there is any disadvantage to any one of these three member parts of the United Kingdom.

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. It is a point very well worth underlining. It is certainly true that Scotland is more distant from that city within the United Kingdom to which most tourists come for the beginning, namely, London. But one of the attractions of the Highlands of Scotland is that they are far from London and from the great centres of habitation. If Ben Nevis were in the middle of Buckinghamshire, I do not think that it would attract as many tourists as it does in its present place in the middle of Scotland. It is the loneliness, solitude and natural grandeur—it depends on solitude to a great extent—that attract the tourist. On the one hand, there is the advantage of solitude and grandeur, and on the other hand, there is the disadvantage of the distance from London.

In this world one cannot have everything one's own way. Scotland benefits and also disbenefits—as no doubt the American Secretary of State Al Haig would say—from such a situation. I am grateful to my hon. Friend who comes from an area where I imagine that tourism is in a healthy state and important to his constituency. He knows precisely the difficulties of which he speaks.

However, all that was by way of a brief preamble to the central arguments that I wish to deploy against the Bill. I hope to persuade my hon. Friends that they should not give the Bill a Second Reading today.

The Bill presented by the hon. Member for Dundee, East seems—perhaps in curious way—to have much in common with the Bill that the House considered a few weeks ago, put forward by his right hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles in connection with the Gaelic language. The connection is not just between Gaelic and tourism and Gaelic and Scotland, although those obviously are connections. The connection that struck me was that in both the case of the Gaelic language Bill and the case of this Bill there was, deep down, a principle of which we could all approve.

I do not know why hon. Gentlemen opposite are smiling, because I said so at some length in my previous speech. There is a principle very deep in both Bills, of which we approve. In the case of the Bill presented by the right hon. Member for Western Isles we all wished to see something that was an important part of the history of Scotland live—live, but not being foisted upon other people. That was the important distinction to draw there. The sadness of the right hon. Gentleman's Bill was that it had not been properly drafted and that it contained things of which he did not approve, as he willingly confessed to us on Second Reading. The right hon. Gentleman certainly said that. Clause 2 of his Bill says that authorities shall provide education in Gaelic. I think that I remember the words correctly. The right hon. Gentleman did not really mean that science and Greek should be taught in Gaelic. He meant that there should be the teaching of Gaelic, and that the substitution of "of" for "in" would be effected in Committee. If that is not a basic and substantial error in drafting, I do not know what it is.

I do not want to speak at length about the Gaelic Bill, except to say that there was a Bill worth putting before the House. But the right hon. Gentleman's Bill was not that Bill.

Similarly, the hon. Member for Dundee has put forward a Bill about tourism containing a principle with which we would all be in agreement. I say "all" rather hesitantly, because it suddenly strikes me that given that the number of tourists to the United Kingdom must be finite within a sense and that the amount of time that they can spend within the United Kingdom must be finite, in a sense, the more tourists we have at Scone Palace the fewer tourists we may, perhaps, have at Chats worth. So perhaps not every Member of the House is in favour of the basic principle. Certainly I would be in favour of the basic principle of the Bill, which I see as being the attraction of more tourists to Scotland.

At this point I shall interrupt myself and welcome to the Chamber the right hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles in whose constituency I lived for so long, whose natural beauties I know and love.

The constituency, or the right hon. Gentleman?

I apologise if by a slip of the tongue I misled the House. I meant the constituency and the beautiful town of Melrose. We were all brought up on that famous quotation which, no doubt, the right hon. Gentleman will wish to quote:

"If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,

Go visit it by the pale moonlight;

For the gay beams of lightsome day

Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey."

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will expatiate on the natural beauties of his area, if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Having made my little bow in the direction of the right hon. Gentleman, I say that the principle of attracting more visitors to Scotland is something with which everyone who has the interests of Scotland at heart will agree. However, I am not sure that this Bill does that. The most vast consequences flow from this very small Bill.

I am glad that my hon. Friend has made a bow in favour of those who are concerned about the unlimited spread of tourism. Does not my hon. Friend see a considerable danger to Scotland, its natural beauty—on which he has expatiated in a most beautiful way—its environment and natural history from an unlimited increase of mass tourism?

My hon. Friend has put his finger on one of the essential paradoxes and profound difficulties that we face—I was about to say, if we take a county like Argyll, but, sadly, we do not have any counties left in Scotland. They come under the bureaucratic, soulless and hollow nomenclature of regions. [Interruption.] I sadly confess that I did not oppose the Bill which brought that about in that case, or at least that part of the Bill. I wish now that I had done, although I had discussions with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland at the time. I wish to draw to the attention of the House the fact that the right hon. Member for Western Isles, who is nodding like a marionette, also failed to vote against the Bill, something that he may not be so keen to mention to his constituents these days.

However, I return to my hon. Friend's question. The question is: do we want more tourists or less? To take a beautiful county like Argyll, if one can find a day when the rain rains not in Argyll, one is a very lucky man in mathematical and aesthetic terms. Many would say that Argyll when the rain is not raining is possibly the most beautiful place on earth. One feature that makes it beautiful is not only the natural grandeur of the scenery but the fact that not many other people are around to spoil it. There is a balance to be drawn between attracting the greatest number of tourists to that beautiful area, which will benefit the local inhabitants, and not spoiling the area.

One reason why I am not happy about the Scottish Tourist Board having such unlimited powers over tourism in Scotland is that different parts of Scotland have different ideas about how many tourists they want and how many exactly they wish to attract them. I shall return to that important matter in a moment.

My hon. Friend is doing Argyll a considerable disservice when he implies that the county is constantly out of sight through Scotch mist or under water. The reality is somewhat different. It is true that in the mainland of Argyll the residents measure their rain in feet, not inches, but that is not true if one goes further West, to some of the islands, where the rainfall is no higher than it is in Rome.

I am much indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison). As the House knows, he hails from those islands. I am glad that he corrected my impression, which was largely founded on a recent visit when I went to Argyll to go to the Dalmally show, where we had to put on sou'westers, oilskins and boots even in order to walk from one tent to the next, so heavy was the rain. Anyway, we all know that it is not as bad as Manchester. [Interruption.] I am sorry if I offended the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. White), but there are some parts of the country whose virtues cannot be clouded by rain or storm, and no doubt Argyll and Manchester are two such areas within the United Kingdom.

I come to the some of the details of the Bill. It seeks to attract more visitors to Scotland. As a general rule, that is good, although I accept what my hon. Friend said about drawing the line between too many and not enough. How would the Bill seek to do that? The Bill says that:

"Section 2 of the Development of Tourism Act 1969 shall be amended by the insertion of the following subsection:—'(3A) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (3) above the Scottish Tourist Board shall have power to carry on activities outside the United Kingdom so as to encourage people to visit Scotland'."

The key word for those of my hon. Friends who may not be as totally up to date in the matter as some of us who represent Scotland is "outside". At present the situation may be succinctly and accurately put by saying that it is the job of the British Tourist Authority to attract visitors from outside these shores to come to all parts of the United Kingdom; it is the job of the Scottish Tourist Board to attract persons already resident within the United Kingdom to come to Scotland. That is the important distinction that the Bill seeks to nullify.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the function of the Scottish Tourist Board is to attract not only people resident in England to go to Scotland but also those tourists who come from abroad to visit England? Once they come, for instance, to London, they should be attracted to go on to Wales, Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom.

That is absolutely true. I shall have more to say about it in a moment.

What would happen if the current distinction that is drawn between the British Tourist Authority and the Scottish Tourist Board were abolished? What would happen if the Scottish Tourist Board had the power to go abroad off its own bat? The first point that springs to mind is the cost. If the Scottish Tourist Board is to attract persons resident abroad to come to Scotland it will also have to set up offices; abroad. We cannot say exactly what the cost will be. I see the hon. Member for Dundee, East shaking his head. I should be happy if he could tell me that it will not cost the board money to set up offices abroad.

As I understand it, of the British Tourist Authority's budget of £7·93 million the percentage used to advertise Scotland is about 22 per cent. Let us say that something just under £2 million is to be spent on Scotland. There is no way in which even an equality of that spending on Scottish tourism abroad could be maintained without spending more money. Staff and offices would be required. Even if offices were rented fairly cheaply or even if, as has happened recently in the case of the Scottish Development Agency—which has set up various offices abroad—a Scottish business man could be found living on the West Coast of America to make offices available rent-free—which would be extremely unlikely in more than one or two cities—very extensive expenditure would be necessary on merely setting up what one might call the infrastructure, the basic overheads of the business of selling Scotland abroad. Then there would have to be new pamphlets and booklets and new staff. There will certainly be a heavy extra call on public expenditure within this country to finance the expansion abroad that the Bill calls for.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, West (Mr. Blackburn) mentioned earlier that there were no financial implications in the Bill. While what the hon. Member for Dundee, East said about not being able to spend public money is correct, it is a little disingenuous not to mention the PSBR implications of the Bill. The first thing that has to be said is that the Bill will cost the taxpayer more money. Why did the hon. Gentleman not argue that case openly, honestly and straightforwardly and attempt to put a valuation on it, saying "I see another £10 million a year being spent on Scottish tourism abroad," or whatever sum was mentioned? Therefore, the first detailed objection to the Bill is that within it there is no attempt to quantify what it will cost the taxpayer.

I intervened earlier in this interesting debate on that point. It is not only a question of the financial burden that would be involved if the Bill were passed, but, more importantly, it is a major international marketing exercise. If we are to market Scotland on an international basis we must do so correctly. Hon. Members present in the Chamber are dedicated disciples of Scotland. From my marketing experience, I believe that it will cost an additional £6 million.

Is the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) aware that the advertising and mail shots to project Scotland and give Scotland a fair deal are in many instances handled by agencies that employ home workers? I am waiting to present a Bill involving the protection of homeworkers. Does he agree that there is a need to give homeworkers in Scotland a fair deal?

I hope that the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) will not be tempted to answer that point in his very interesting speech. That issue is connected with the next Bill.

Oddly enough, we have had a case in Scotland that involved, in a sense, a combination of homeworkers and tourists, where tourists from Chile—I suppose one might call them that—were being used on the offshore oil rigs, providing very cheap labour, as the hon. Gentleman will know. That is a curious interaction between the two Bills.

I do not believe that they were tourists.

Neither were they homeworkers.

At least they were Chileans and working at low rates.

They would have been chilly in the North Sea.

I bow to the hon. Gentleman's wit if not the relevance of his remarks.

Turning to the point correctly raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, I am most interested in the fact that he put a figure of £8 million on the exercise. Accepting that figure for a moment, a point that I intended to make later concerned the effect that such a sum would have on the English and Welsh Tourist Boards. One serious point that the hon. Member for Dundee, East hardly mentioned was that if the Scottish Tourist Board is given the right to hive off from the British Tourist Authority and set up its own operations overseas, sure as eggs is eggs the English and Welsh Tourist Boards will also want to do that. I am not sure whether the £8 million was extra—

Extra.

We are, therefore, talking not only of £8 million. We are talking certainly of £10 million minimum. Suddenly we are up in the range of £50 million. I should have thought that it was the experience of every hon. Member that if the powers of a body such as the British Tourist Authority are hived off to an English, Scottish or Welsh Tourist Board and almost everything that it has had to do is removed, it does not die or creep away and vanish. For some extraordinary reason, it takes on even more people. We shall probably still have the British Tourist Authority and also the new large and aggrandised English, Welsh and Scottish Tourist Boards.

My hon. Friend does not do full justice to the argument of the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson), who seemed to suggest that the money that the Scottish Tourist Board would spend on promoting Scotland abroad would be funded basically by the fact that the British Tourist Authority would probably stop spending almost all the money that it was at present spending on the promotion of Scotland and that the £2 million could simply be transferred. It is an argument that deserves to be countered. I find it hard to imagine how the British Tourist Authority could promote Britain abroad and somehow except Scotland. The hon. Gentleman's argument deserves answering.

Yes, my hon. Friend is quite right. If one were, as it is fashionable to say these days, working in a laboratory-style situation, no doubt the fact that the British Tourist Authority no longer needed to spend £2 million on Scotland would argue that £2 million less would be spent by the British Tourist Authority. But since, as we all know, we live not in a laboratory situation but in a "real world" situation, that would not apply.

We all know that in the year 1803 a gentleman was placed upon the white cliffs of Dover with a spyglass to look out across the English Channel—not to see tourists but to see whether the army of Napoleon was about to invade the shores of this island. If he saw the advancing troops of Napoleon, he was to ring a bell. That man's job was not abolished until 1945. I think that we might have a "white cliffs of Dover style situation" applying to the British Tourist Authority. So when my hon. Friend mentions £10 million minimum for promoting Scotland, we have to gross it up

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the gentleman on the white cliffs of Dover in 1803 ringing his bell was probably a homeworker, because in those days the economy of the country was largely based on hamlets and villages, both in Scotland and in England? People worked at looms and spinning wheels at home. The factory system wiped that out and brought in a situation in which people working at home became an exploited group. Slave labour is not too emotional a word to use. Will the hon. Gentleman therefore consider concluding his comments quickly so that we may debate the Homeworkers (Protection) Bill?

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman again, but unless those homeworkers were tourists it would not be in order for the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South to speculate upon that.

Thank you very much indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am very sorry indeed if it looks as though the hon. Gentleman's extremely important Bill will not receive a Second Reading today because of the need to ensure that the Bill of the hon. Member for Dundee, East does not receive a Second Reading. I apologise in principle to the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe for that important fact.

That is now on the record.

The hon. Gentleman says that it is on the record. I said at the beginning that I am opposed to the Bill. I am seeking to persuade my colleagues. I do not know whether I am succeeding. They are looking a little doubtful. I am perhaps changing their minds about the value of the Bill.

I was dealing with the important interjection by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, West about the cost of the other boards. but it is not just the cost of having the English Tourist Board, the Wales Tourist Board, the Scottish Tourist Board and the British Tourist Authority. Let us, in imagination, jump the Atlantic to the city of New York and imagine that the Bill has become law so that there is a Scottish Tourist Board on Fifth Avenue, an English Tourist Board on Fourth Avenue, a Wales Tourist Board on Third Avenue and the British Tourist Authority on Second Avenue, all competing for tourists from the United States to come to different parts of the United Kingdom. Not only would it cost a tremendous amount, but New Yorkers would no doubt be totally baffled as to why all these different people were competing to get them to different parts of the United Kingdon.

Although I suggested that we jump in imagination to New York, in a way we can already jump to New York and see what has happened, because the Scottish Development Agency, which seeks to do for inward investment in Scotland what the Bill seeks to do for inward tourism in Scotland, already has an office in New York. However, when the development officer for the Grampian region called it up not long ago, he got an answering service instead of anybody at the other end, as the officers were apparently out on the golf course. I think that my hon. Friend who spoke of £10 million would think that that sort of behaviour was not a very good way of spending taxpayers' money.

The setting up of all these different boards is, first, very costly. Secondly, it is extremely confusing. It would mean setting tourist offices against one another, each trying to set out the advantages of its own region. Certainly, I believe in competition. But, as I agreed earlier, let us have moderation in all things. I believe that there is a limit to the amount of competition that the various tourist authorities of this country can afford. My hon. Friend has, therefore, made a very good point.

Certainly, we are in what might be called a "quango-style situation".

There is one important matter to which my hon. Friend has not yet bent his formidable argument. I wonder whether he is familiar with the remarkable book written by the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) entitled "Tourism, Blessing or Blight?" in which he questions whether tourism is valuable to the country as a whole or whether the net cost, direct and indirect, of funding the tourist industry is not at least matched or perhaps even not quite met by the income derived from it.

No, I have not read "Tourism, Blessing or Blight?", to give its title again, but I think that that book clearly encapsulates and possibly expands the argument put forward earlier about how difficult it is to draw the line between where tourism is a benefit and where it is a disadvantage. Certainly, what was most obvious from the speech by the promoter of the Bill was that he did not even seek to address himself to this important argument. Possibly my right hon. Friend might care to send him a copy of "Tourism, Blessing or Blight?" and see whether it changes his mind with regard to the Bill.

First, therefore, we have extra public expenditure—

I think that the "Tourism, Blessing or Blight?" argument perhaps speaks the other way, and somewhat in favour of what the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) has said. My own constituency is very-convenient to reach on a day trip from cities and towns all around it. Although day trippers are very welcome and we like to see them there, we do not actually make a great deal of money out of them. The kind of tourists out of whom one probably makes money, and from whom the country probably benefits, are those from abroad. That kind of tourism may well bring a net benefit. I believe that that point is well worth making.

Yes, I think that that is absolutely true. That just indicates the depth, the width and the elusiveness of the whole argument, which really is not considered seriously in a Bill of two clauses, one of which simply says:

"This Act extends to Scotland only"

and

"This Act may be cited as the Development of Tourism (Scotland) Act 1981."

This is a very important subject. The economic consequences of it are indeed vast and simply have not been treated by the hon. Gentleman with the seriousness to which they are entitled.

I am sorry to intervene yet again. My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris) said, when dealing with tourism from abroad, that one is asking for a completely different and much more highly developed infrastructure of airports, communications, hotels and so on. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Mr. Major) said, the cost of that has never beer properly measured. I should like my hon. Friend to address himself to that point. I also hope to make some remarks about it myself if I have the opportunity to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Perhaps I can leave it at that, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as there is a good deal that I wish to say with particular relevance to Scotland.

I come back to the question whether tourism is a blessing or a blight. Is my hon. Friend aware that a very historic hill at Balmoral was opened to the public a few years ago, since when it has been visited by the public—I think that the majority are tourists from abroad? That hill has been so eroded that the little grassy path has become very wide indeed. With the erosion of the soil, that little path has now disappeared and has become a form of valley. Indeed, the whole hill is now in danger of disappearing and it will have to be either concreted or shut off. Tourism is, therefore, not always a 100 per cent. blessing.

That is a vivid example of the difficulty of striking a balance. No doubt the number of tourists who walk up the steps of the Parthenon in Athens will eventually destroy the very thing that they wish to see. That is one of the sad ironies with which it is difficult to grapple.

I am fascinated by the debate, and I should not like my hon. Friend to be distracted by my other hon. Friends into imagining that tourism is not a good thing. If I catch the eye of the Chair, I shall certainly seek to argue the other way. As I visited the Parthenon only last week, I must assure my hon. Friend that the Greek Government attach great importance to tourism and devote a great deal of attention to the maintenance of that magnificent edifice.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that remark as well as envious of him. I have not been to Greece for a long time, but I believe that there one must pay to visit buildings such as museums and art galleries, except on Thursdays, with the result that old-age pensioners and schoolchildren can get in free. However, I believe that the upkeep of the buildings is covered by the cost of the entrance fees. That is something that the hon. Member for Dundee, East might like to take on board.

Grateful as I am for these interesting and valuable interjections from my hon. Friends, perhaps I can sum up this first section of my speech. First, the Bill will cause greater public expenditure at a time when we are seeking desperately to cut the PSBR.

Secondly, it at least provides the opportunity for the promotion of even more quangos and jobs for the boys. No doubt if the Bill were to pass into law, it would be absolutely vital to set up a Scottish Tourist Board office in Nice, Cannes, Rome, possibly Athens and all those other agreeable places around the world.

Thirdly, the Bill will have far-reaching implications for the English and Welsh tourist boards. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) has a close interest in Northern Ireland. No doubt the Bill will have important implications for the Northern Ireland situation as well.

Fourthly,—this point was not really dealt with by the hon. Member for Dundee, East—what will the role of the British Tourist Authority be if all these different authorities conducted their own business?

The Bill is typical of the Scottish National Party. Fortunately, my hon. Friends who are present, except for my two hon. Friends on the Front Bench, have no real experience of this matter. Until the SNP was more or less destroyed at the general election, it was an extremely selfish party. The Bill pays no regard to the consequences that it would impose upon the rest of the United Kingdom. In my view, the hon. Gentleman wrongly thinks about what it could do for Scotland.

That is an important point and I am delighted that my hon. Friend has directed his attention to it. At present in the Chamber are my hon. Friends the Members for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris) and Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant) as well as myself. We are all anxious to develop the tourist industries within our constituences. We see an immense danger in the Bill because it will take all the financial resources away from us. We believe that to be grossly unfair. Perhaps my hon. Friend will direct his remarks specifically to the selfish attitude being adopted in the Bill and the crippling effect that it will have onthe tourist industries in Derbyshire and Wales as well as in my constituency.

And East Anglia.

I apologise.

This is a selfish and thoughtless Bill. The hon. Member for Dundee, East does not mind being politically selfish. That is what he is in business for. However, he is slitting his own throat because, as I shall now seek to show, the Bill would be detrimental to the very interests that he seeks to promote. I now turn to that section of my speech.

The purpose of the Bill, as I have said, is to give the Scottish Tourist Board the right to set up its own operations abroad. Yet those of us who were fortunate enough to serve on the Scottish Select Committee which looked at the whole matter of inward investment into Scotland found that industrialists abroad did not look upon the United Kingdom as being divided into separate parts. Datsun does not say "We want to come to Wales or Scotland or England". It says "We want to come to Britain". When it has made the decision in principle to come to Britain, it is then directed to the various areas of the United Kingdom where it might best settle.

With the exception of those of specific Scottish ancestry, or those who have been intoxicated by the translation of the works of Sir Walter Scott, I believe that very few people will want to go to Scotland and not to other parts of the United Kingdom. It is inconceivable that people will say "We want to see the bonnie banks of Loch Lomond but not the Tower of London. We are interested to see where Sir Walter Scott lived at Abbotsford but not where Shakespeare lived in Stratford-upon-Avon. We want to see the Loch Ness monster but not the white tigers in Bristol zoo."

It is inconceivable in common sense that the majority of people who come to this "sceptred isle" will not wish to see all that it has to offer, rather than just one part, albeit the part that I represent and of which I am extremely proud. Just as industrialists look at the United Kingdom as a whole, I think we would find that tourists do likewise and that when they come here they would be attracted to other parts of the United Kingdom and would see it as a whole package.

I do not wish to detain the House for too long. To my amazement, when I look at that electronic piece of luminous gadgetry above the hon. Member for Dundee, East, I see that I have been speaking for more than the five minutes or so which I originally thought would be the length of time that I would detain the House.

I want to make a serious point about the efficacy of the Scottish Tourist Board. We are being asked to allow the board to do abroad what it is currently doing at home. However, we find that over the last few years the number of tourists from abroad coining to Scotland has increased, which is excellent for the work of the British Tourist Authority, whereas the number of tourists to Scotland from within the United Kingdom—which is the job of the Scottish Tourist Board—has decreased.

Although that is not the whole evidence, it is an important part of the evidence. From it we can see that the British Tourist Authority has done its job better than the Scottish Tourist Board. Secondly, the main thrust of the Scottish Tourist Board's literature is something called "Enjoy Scotland", of which 1 million copies of the latest edition were printed. Of those, 750,000 went to travel agents. Presumably the Scottish Tourist Board thinks travel agents to be important, yet in the board's annual report we find that nine out of ten people who come to Scotland do not even bother to go to travel agents.

Therefore, we have this board, which we are told is so wonderful that it should extend its activities abroad, concentrating its main literature on travel agents whom it says are not visited by nine out of ten people who go to Scotland. Again, that is not total evidence against the Scottish Tourist Board, but it should make one think before devoting £10 million in order to spray literature all over San Francisco, Tokyo, Geneva, the south of France or wherever.

I promise that this is the last time that I shall interrupt my hon. Friend. I should like to say a word in favour of travel agents. It is widely accepted that most people take their holidays without reference to a travel agency. However, there is the 10 per cent. or so, as is the case in Scotland, who do. Travel agencies have an important role in leading the public. People who have taken a holiday through a travel agency will tell others about it and tell them whether they enjoyed it. It may not then be necessary for everyone to go to a travel agency. However, we should not ignore the importance of travel agencies in leading public tastes in travel.

I am very glad that my hon. Friend has made that point. It was my desire to make progress that stopped me from expanding on it. Of course, he is right, but, at the same time, to devote 75 per cent. of one's literature to something that brings in only 10 per cent. of one's tourists is to have the balance slightly wrong. That is the point that I was trying to make.

I was reading with interest a booklet called "Enjoy Scotland" and at the back I found a section headed "Special Interest Holidays". Naturally, I looked up my own area, Grampian, of which Aberdeen is the proud capital, in order to find out what were said to be the special interests there. I found that angling was mentioned. That is certainly true. The river Dee is very fine for anglers. It also mentioned weaving. That would not have sprung to my mind. Another interest was hang-gliding. If the Scottish Tourist Board is trying to sell Grampian on the basis of weaving and hang-gliding, it will not get very far.

I then looked at those interests which Grampian, according to the booklet, is not supposed to provide. The first that caught my eye was castles. No castles in Grampian? There are more castles in Grampian than in any other part of the United Kingdom, or possibly in the whole world. Within 20 minutes' walk of my own cottage I can find several castles, some of them in a jolly good state of repair and some not. It used to be said that one of the chief selling points of Aberdeen was that a person could stay for two weeks in Aberdeen, never drive for more than 20 minutes from the centre, and visit a different golf course and a different castle every day. That is true, yet we are told that castles and golf courses do not exist in Grampian.

However, the true acme of almost incredible incompetence achieved by the document comes under the heading "Fife". I looked at what was recommended for tourists who come to what we used to call the Kingdom of Fife. All the world knows that, if Fife has one claim above all others to fame, it is that within its boundaries nestles the old grey city of St. Andrews, the home of golf, with the Royal and Ancient golf club, the old course and the new course. No golfer worthy of the name in the world would not wish to try his luck on the golf courses of St. Andrews. Yet, when we look at "Enjoy Scotland", produced by the Scottish Tourist Board, under "Golf we find that there is no golf to be had in Fife.

I am bound to tell the promoter of the Bill that a Scottish Tourist Board which is capable of an enormity of that size is not a body to which—without a great deal more persuasiveness than he had deployed—I would entrust £10 million or more to promote my interests.

The British Tourist Authority, no doubt, could do with more co-operation from the STB—a greater input of Scottish material, and so on. I draw to the attention of the promoter the excellent work of the Best of Scotland group—regions which promote their own interests abroad. We heard nothing of the fact that the Borders region has an independent tourist operation abroad. There were a great number of things that the hon. Gentleman did not cover.

For these reasons, which I have rather foreshortened, I hope that my hon Friends will oppose the Bill.

I am sure that hon. Members present this afternoon will understand and probably sympathise with my feelings, knowing that I have sat through the first debate, in which a considerable degree of concern was displayed for horses, while I was waiting to display my concern about home workers. I am now sitting through a second debate and, important though it may be for people in Scotland, I am now faced with the prospect of my Bill not being debated this afternoon.

This Bill is designed

"to empower the Scottish Tourist Board to carry on activities outside the United Kingdom".

I suppose that it is with a little temerity that an English Member, from wet Manchester, should rise to speak on a Scottish Bill, although it is a Private Member's measure. I can claim that my antecedents go back only to the 1745 rebellion—so my grandfather tells me—when we marched down with Bonnie Prince Charlie. We got as far as Manchester, we looked around at what was in front of us and at what was behind us, and we decided to stay put. There we have remained ever since, apart from one of my ancestors being caught poaching on the Earl of Bridgwater's estate at Worsley and being transported to Tasmania.

I am particularly interested in the aspect of carrying on activities outside the United Kingdom. The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) will be aware—I mentioned it in a short intervention—that many of the activities of promotion by outside agencies, and by public bodies in this country which are represented abroad, are carried on through various agencies, such as the clerical and mail order business, which offload the work to home workers.

The Scottish Tourist Board, in acting abroad, will come up against a unique position concerning homeworkers. If it sought, in Germany, France or Italy, to continue the practice in which it indulges in this country, employing homeworkers to do its work, it would come up against homeworking regulations which define the homeworkers in those countries as employees. Homeworkers are defined as people who have a light to a basic living wage, defined by an organisation and structured throughout the country, with basic wages specified. It also defines health and safety regulations within the home, and provides security of employment. It provides security against unfair dismissal, and for other benefits such as holiday pay and redundancy pay.

If the Bill encourages the Scottish Tourist Board to carry on activities in the countries that I have mentioned, and those activities are subject to the homeworking regulations in those countries, while in Scotland the homeworkers are not covered by the same kinds of regulations, there will be a considerable degree of argument and concern.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the homeworkers in Britain take a great deal of pride in the job that they are going and want to be able to do a job which reflects great credit on the industry? Does he also agree that homeworkers engaged in distributing a booklet such as "Enjoy Scotland" would not find a great deal of pride in that task because of the inaccurate figures to which attention has been drawn by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat)?

I have been listening carefully to what has been said in the debate. We do not want to stray too far from the subject of tourism in Scotland. The hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. White) is being extremely ingenious, but I hope that he will bear that in mind.

The hon. Member for Dudley, West (Mr. Blackburn) has raised a point of interest, because in the business of tourism and the protestion of tourism the homeworkers have a pride in their job. Their pride in their job is probably clouded by the realisation that they are paid only 20p an hour for their work. It is to the discredit of this country that we are allowing them to continue in that way.

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that, were my Bill to be carried into effect so that more tourists came to Scotland from countries in which the activities of homeworkers are properly organised, supervised and regulated, the experience that the tourists brought with them could easily be transferred to those involved in craft industries in Scotland who are serving the tourist trade? Then in due course, when this House returned to its senses, no doubt some legislation would be passed on that score.

I am greatly indebted to the hon. Gentleman for raising that point. It is the very point that I was about to make. If his Bill is successful, promotional activities will encourage tourists to go to Scotland. They may come from Germany, Italy or France. They will want to visit the tourist centres projected in the literature. Indeed, that literature will probably have been packaged and posted by homeworkers. They will want to visit hamlets and the birthplaces of poets and bards. They will want to visit the castles of yesteryear. They will find that homeworkers are involved in the souvenir business, in little workshops, and in craft insustries.

When we meet parliamentarians from other countries, we compare notes and conditions of employment. We discuss how Mr. Speaker and the Government, or Opposition, treat us. Similarly, one homeworker will talk to another. The truth will then come out. I should have liked the Bill to recognise that fact.

Has the hon. Gentleman considered the possibility of expatriate homeworkers who are resident abroad acting as agents for the Scottish Tourist Board at some future stage?

Expatriate homeworkers might be willing to do that, as they are employed on fair conditions and receive fair wages. They are entitled to holidays, maternity benefits, and redundancy pay, and there are provisions against unfair dismissal. If our homeworkers get the opportunity to pack editions of Hansard, I hope that they will read this debate.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman is in some difficulty. However, some of us came into the Chamber at the beginning of the debate and we wish to make contributions which, if I may say so, might be rather more germane to the Bill.

I have listened very carefully to the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. White). He is entirely in order; I think that he is doing rather well.

I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for having given that advice. I understand the hon. Gentleman's frustration. I did not come into the Chamber for this debate alone. I have been here since 9.30 am because I had hoped to speak on my Bill. I share the hon. Gentleman's frustration, but I shall not detain the House for long.

I have made the points that I should have liked to make in more detail on an occasion that will not now arise. Problems face those homeworkers who are employed in the Scottish tourist industry and throughout Scottish industry. I hope that the hon. Member for Dundee, East recognises that, and that a conflict could arise if the Scottish Tourist Board were to use homeworkers abroad and were to encourage them to come to Scotland. They could compare conditions with our homeworkers.

Will the hon. Gentleman accept that I understood that his most estimable bill on homeworkers would have gained tremendous support in the House and would perhaps have been strengthened in committee? My Bill makes it implicit that the question of conditions will be taken care of. However, we were not to know that there would be a campaign to prevent my Bill and that of the hon. Gentleman from becoming law and from helping the citizens of our respective countries.

I share those sentiments, but all is not lost until the axe chops off one's head. I am sure that the Minister will be sympathetic to the point that I am putting obliquely. He could probably give my Bill a Second Reading on the nod and sort it out in Committee. However, the Minister will be subject to the pressure of the Whips.

Is there not a danger that the tourists who go to Scotland as a result of the promotional activities of the Scottish Tourist Board will pick up some bad habits instead of teaching us better home work practices? Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will say something about that.

I cannot do that now, because you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would rule me out of order. However, if the hon. Gentleman would care to write to me and tell me about the bad habits of homeworkers, I should gladly look into the matter.

Tourists from Germany, France and Italy will find that homeworkers in Britain fall into three distinct categories. I refer to the chronically sick and disabled who have to work at home; to mothers with young children who cannot find nursery or play school places; and to families that have chronically sick, disabled or elderly relatives to take care of. In large urban areas those from the ethnic minorities do home work, because to work outside would conflict with their culture or with their religious beliefs. In addition, they may have problems with the language.

I do not know of any bad practices that homeworkers are responsible for, but I know of bad practices that employers have imposed on them. That is the point that I was trying to make, in the hope that the hon. Member for Dundee, East could include some provision about it in his measure.

I am interested in the dimension that my hon. Friend has managed to inject into the debate. Few people are concerned about the welfare of homeworkers who make many of the gifts and souvenirs that tourists take away. Has my hon. Friend any evidence to show that the tourist industry is concerned about those who help to make it so successful? If the Scottish tourist industry is to expand, those involved should be responsible, and should ensure that all those who contribute to it, such as those who make souvenirs and gifts, are protected.

I value that intervention, because it brings me to the point that there are two ways of supplying material to the homeworker. Indeed, that is one of the major problems. When a reputable company employs in-workers in a normal employer—employee relationship and feeds material directly to the homeworkers, the relationships are, on the whole, good.

In many tourist areas, there is a direct relationship between a company and the homeworkers that it supplies. The unions involved in the parent company may have negotiated not only on behalf of the in-workers but on behalf of the homeworkers. Therefore, the relationship is strong and permanent. By and large, conditions are good. In many instances the relationship between small factories and homeworkers in outlying hamlets is good. It is a direct and one-to-one relationship.

However, problems arise when the tourist industry and other industries use agents or middle-men. If the middlemen impose intolerable conditions, the homeworkers may object. The work may then be withdrawn and their supplies and incomes may be cut off. Homeworkers are treated in a way that no self-respecting member of our community would tolerate.

It is surprising that we have allowed such a situation to continue since 1911. Since the sweated trades exhibition, nothing has been done.

I should make it clear that when I referred to bad practices earlier I meant not that homeworkers had bad habits but that the employment of homeworkers involved bad practices. I was trying to help the hon. Gentlemen.

I apologise if I misconstrued the hon. Gentleman's earlier remarks and I welcome his support. I hope that I can count on it at 2.30 pm.

You have, Mr. Deputy Speaker, allowed me to develop my points. I am grateful to you and to the House for its tolerance. If the Bill reaches the Committee stage, I hope that the hon. Member for Dundee, East will consider my suggestions. In that way the Bill could be an example to the rest of the country and would show how homeworkers should be treated. It would demonstrate how conditions of employment should be met. Homeworkers would then be in complete harmony with those on the Continent. In addition, the measure would provide those involved in tourism and in commerce generally with the conditions that would bring them out of the dark period of 1911 and into the forefront of good employment practice.

I trust that the Bill will be given a Second Reading. I hope to have the opportunity of making similar points in Committee.

Together with other hon. Members, I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) and his colleague the right hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) on their sucess in the ballot. Every hon. Member here is quite envious of their having been so successful in the ballot for Private Members' Bills.

During my short service in the House, I have taken a traditional line on Bills. Some of them are long epistles, in theological terms, but occasionally we have a small Bill like a psalm, full of pearls of wisdom. When I read the Bill, I thought that somewhere within the confines of its two clauses there must be a wonderful germ of truth about the tourist industry in Scotland. None of us has anything but affection for Scotland. There are many places where we would rather be than here in the Chamber.

I am concerned about the hon. Gentleman's attacks on the tourist industry, which seemed alien from a man presenting a Bill relating to the industry. I invite hon. Members to share my view that the British Tourist Authority is an important part of the life of this country, especially in foreign currency earnings. In contrast to the hon. Member, I am prepared to pay a public tribute to the authority.

I was also surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman's bitter comments, which were totally unworthy of him, about the publication by the British Tourist Authority called "British Travel News". He said that there were only four of five pages about Scotland. As one would expect of all responsible Members speaking in a debate, I took the opportunity this morning to go to a travel agent. I asked for guidance and literature about Scotland, and was given the booklet, already referred to in the debate entitled "Enjoy Scotland". The hon. Member spoke of only four or five pages relating to Scotland, but in that booklet—whether it is good or bad is a matter for debate—there are 58 pages saturated with information about Scotland.

I was saddened to hear the attack on members of the staff of the British Tourist Authority. The hon. Gentleman said that it was quite ignorant of the situation in Scotland. I take the opposite line and support the staff engaged in an industry promoting Scotland.

If it were true—I do not admit that it is—that the British Tourist Authority was ignorant of Scottish tourism requirements, does not that cast an aspersion on the chairman of the Scottish Tourist Board, who sits on the board of the BTA? He, at the top, should be explaining to the BTA what is going on in Scotland.

That is true. It is a matter of deep political philosophy that those who hold those positions should be accountable. I am sure that people in other places will take note of the attack of the hon. Member for Dundee, East.

Is the hon. Member aware, as he has been studying this matter, of the article in The Scotsman of 8 October 1980, a cutting of which I have with me by chance? The chairman of the Scottish Tourist Board, Mr. Alan Devereux, who was appointed to that office by the Government, was threatening to resign if the Scottish Tourist Board lost the fight to get back its powers. The chairman of the STB, who sits on the board of the BTA as a matter of statutory right, is entirely dissatisfied with the position and has stridently made his views known on the issue.

That does not reflect adversely on the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant). In fact, it emphasises the responsibility that we are stressing. There must be accountability, especially when we are the custodians of public money in this important industry, of which we are all dedicated disciples—the British tourist industry.

I am sorry to flog this point. I should not have been prompted to intervene again were it not for the intervention of the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson). Does my hon. Friend agree that the plain fact is that there is a British Tourist Authority, on the board of which sit, as of right, the chairmen of the Scottish Tourist Board, the English Tourist Board and the Wales Tourist Board? They are all equal, they all have equal rights. They may all have their say and promote their countries within the framework of the BTA. To give special powers to one is unthinkable. If that person does not like it and wants to resign, let him do so and let someone else be appointed.

That feeling is coming through the debate strongly from hon. Members on both sides of the House. Within the confines of the Bill the Scottish Tourist Board has the right to operate outside the United Kingdom. One is staggered to find in clause 2(2) the discriminatory comment that

"This Act extends to Scotland only".

Many hon. Members have a deep interest in ensuring the future tourist prosperity of other parts of the United Kingdom, including Wales and England.

It is devolution.

That is true. I came to the House with an open mind, hoping that this Bill, with its two clauses, would be able to command my support and respect. But that has not happened. We are here to deal with legislation, not with motives, or what was said or what may have been said. We are creating law. It is with sadness that I say that I shall not be joining the hon. Member for Dundee, East in the Lobby.

It would be most opportune, as so many of my hon. Friends have been waiting to speak, that I should now conclude my comments.

I begin by echoing the warm words of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, West (Mr. Blackburn) when he congratulated the British Tourist Authority on the work it has done over the years and I couple that with offering congratulations to the Scottish Tourist Board. There is no doubt that both authorities in their own way have acted excellently for the well-being of the Scottish tourist industry. After the somewhat unexpected speech by the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. White), I am not sure which Bill I am expected to comment on. But as the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe has left the Chamber, having achieved his purpose, perhaps it will be possible for me to leave that aspect of the debate.

He has gone to do his homework.

We congratulate the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) on his success in the ballot and we are grateful for the opportunity that he has given the House to debate the important subject of Scottish tourism. It is quite astonishing, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) said, that not only is the hon. Gentleman unaccompanied by any of the sponsors of his Bill, but even his right hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) has deserted the Chamber and not sought to speak.

The right hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. Steel) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart) both indicated that I was at liberty to say that they were not prepared to hear any more of the rubbish being relayed to the House by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat).

That is as may be, but they were perfectly free to stand up in their places when my hon. Friend sat down. I am sure they would have been given preference over the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe especially as the right hon. Member for Western Isles is a sponsor of the Bill. If he had had a speech to make I am sure he would have been given the opportunity. It is astonishing that no such opportunity has been taken by those sponsors.

Perhaps more amazing than the attitude of the minority of parties is the fact that the Opposition have made no contribution to the debate. Not one Scottish Labour Member—there are 44 of them—has been in the Chamber during the debate. No one has spoken from the Opposition Front Bench. Indeed, it has been empty throughout the debate. That must be unprecedented, certainly bearing in mind the Labour Party's attempts to maintain that it and it alone can speak for Scotland. There has been no attempt to do so today.

The hon. Gentleman should understand the position in which the Labour Party finds itself and have some sympathy for it. No sooner would it put someone on the Front Bench than he or she might well defect to another organisation.

It appears that all the Labour Members have done so already, to judge from the empty Benches around the hon. Gentleman.

I turn to the important points that the hon. Gentleman raised, and the important contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South. To put the matter in context one must return to the Development of Tourism Act 1969, which established the British Tourist Authority and tourist boards not only for Scotland but for England and Wales. It was the clear purpose of that Act that there should be a dual responsibility, that whereas the BTA would be responsible for the promotion of tourism overseas for the United Kingdom as a whole, the responsibility of the three national boards was to encourage the growth of tourism within the United Kingdom, each in its own way seeking to direct the maximum number of tourists to its own part of the United Kingdom.

It was not an accident that the Act was framed in that way. We must consider whether the arguments used then to justify that division of responsibility are still justified. There was nothing in the hon. Gentleman's contribution, which was the only speech we heard in support of the Bill, to suggest that that division of responsibility has worked badly. If we accepted the Bill we should be doing a complete somersault, overturning the principles of the 1969 Act. It is justifiable to think of that only if it is clear that there would be considerable advantage not only to Scottish tourism in particular, but to the tourist interests of the United Kingdom as a whole.

The principle behind the 1969 Act was that in the promotion of the United Kingdom overseas we should try to avoid duplication of effort. It is highly desirable that we should make the best use of the limited resources available, and that we should have a body with the expertise that is essential in a competitive industry, with what is inevitably a limited market.

I must ask the hon. Gentleman why he suggested that that division of responsibility had not worked reasonably well. I do not claim that everything that has happened since 1969 has been an unqualified success for Scotland or other parts of the United Kingdom. That would be an absurd exaggeration. Equally, the hon. Gentleman has not been able to illustrate that any significant benefits would flow to Scottish tourism as a consequence of the Bill.

One of the hon. Gentleman's arguments was that the Scottish Tourist Board had not had the ability to promote overseas the tourist interests of Scotland. Presumably in his view that has reduced the number of tourists coming to Scotland. We must look at the comparative efforts of the board and the British Tourist Authority over the years to see whether the evidence justifies that proposition. It does not.

In the past two years tourism, not only to Scotland but to the United Kingdom as a whole, has been relatively poor compared with previous years. It has shown a downturn. The reasons have included the strength of sterling and the international recession, which has an effect on such matters as tourism.

The long-term trends over the years show that something significant has taken place. Between 1972 and 1979 visits by overseas visitors to Scotland rose from 700,000 to 1·2 million, an increase of 71 per cent. That is the area for which the British Tourist Authority, on behalf of Scotland, has the responsibility. Visits by domestic visitors, visitors from within the United Kingdom, fell from 12·8 million in 1972 to 11·5 million in 1979, a decrease of 16 per cent.

I was here for the whole of the morning, but I did not hear the beginning of my hon. Friend's speech. I apologise for that. How does my hon. Friend know how many visitors there were from overseas and how many from within the United Kingdom? If the information comes from hotel registers, how does he know that Mr. Bloggins who signs in at Inverness on Monday and at Fife on Tuesday is Mr. Bloggins from the same address? Is the information obtained in that way, or is it an estimate? If not, how is it obtained?

A number of different bases are used to make a calculation. Great consideration is given to the airline statistics. Visitors often fill in a form giving the purpose of their visit and their destination when they arrive in the United Kingdom. Although that is not a guaranteed way of providing the statistics, it gives figures that are believed to be reasonably reliable.

The figures that I have just given suggest that over the period 1972–79 the number of overseas visitors to Scotland increased substantially, but the number of visitors from within the United Kingdom decreased. I am not suggesting that that decrease was due to any lack of efficiency or competence by the STB. One of the major phenomena of these years was the growth in overseas package tours from the United Kingdom. Instead of holidaying in the United Kingdom, many people have found it more convenient and attractive to go to places where perhaps the sun can be more guaranteed and where the cost of that form of holiday is not significantly higher. That is almost certainly the primary cause of the decrease.

The figures in no way suggest that the board has been far more successful than the British Tourist Authority in stimulating tourism to Scotland. The number of overseas visitors has increased very encouragingly. That is a figure which we cannot ignore but which the hon. Gentleman appeared to ignore.

The Bill does not impose a duty on the board to promote Scottish tourism overseas, but it provides power for the board to do that if it wishes. We must assume that it would wish to use that power if it had it. We must consider that in the light of the tremendous importance of tourism for the people of Scotland, which I do not wish to minimise. About 110,000 jobs are directly or indirectly provided by the tourist industry. The Government already recognise tourism's importance, as does the Scottish Office in the support that we give to the board. This was shown by, for example, the following statement by Mr. Alan Devereux, chairman of the board, in its eleventh report:

"When I was appointed to the Scottish Tourist Board earlier this year I was assured that the Government recognised the important role of tourism in the Scottish economy. In the event, our financial budget needs have been met in the full and we have been actively encouraged to take initiatives on a number of fronts."

That is an important statement. It confirms that, when it has been necessary to make significant reductions in the expenditure and resources available to many organisations and areas of public expenditure, the Government have recognised the board's importance and the importance of tourism to the Scottish economy and have made no reduction in real terms in the resources made available to the board.

Does not the Minister accept that, although Mr. Devereux may be grateful for the maintenance of the budget of the STB, he is greatly dissatisfied about the inability of the STB to participate in the overseas sector which, as the Minister mentioned, is the growth area? Is it not surprising that the Goverment do not favour giving these powers to the STB when the Highland and Islands Development Board is already able to fulfil that role abroad, with the agreement of the STB, thus leaving a great part of Scotland, including Edinburgh, Dundee and the Borders, without any direct representation overseas?

I shall come to the basic point in a moment. It is significant that the work of the Highlands and Islands Development Board overseas is carried out in co-operation with the British Tourist Authority. I pay tribute to the work of the BTA in assisting the board's efforts.

Does not the Minister realise from my remarks that I consider that the STB should operate in co-operation and in agreement with the BTA but that my Bill would provide powers in pursuit of achievements that successive chairmen have been frustrated in gaining over a period of years?

I come directly to the contents and consequences of the hon. Gentleman's Bill. The hon. Gentleman was honest enough to admit that while the direct effect of the Bill would be to provide only a duplicated responsibility, shared by the STB and the British Tourist Authority, he wished, in fact, to see the Scotish Tourist Board with a monopoly of responsibility for the promotion of tourism overseas and for the British Tourist Authority to cease to have any function in that respect. The hon. Gentleman did not develop the consequences and implications of that policy. I have no doubt that it would bring considerable harm to the interests of Scottish tourism.

If the British Tourist Authority no longer had any legitimate interest in encouraging tourism in Scotland, it could not seriously be expected to spend any of its time, efforts, inclination or resources towards that end. At the same time, it is difficult to believe that the Scottish Tourist Board, by itself, could make the significant impact that the hon. Gentleman seeks. Is he suggesting—perhaps he is—that we should have, in various places overseas where the British Tourist Authority is represented, a separate Scottish Tourist Board office with a separate staff and separate infrastructure?

If that is not the hon. Gentleman's suggestion, there would be unlikely to be any significant change from present circumstances. If, on the other hand, he wishes to see a wholly separate paraphernalia and bureaucracy established, he has to accept that the Government would have either to give far greater resources to the Scottish Tourist Board or cut back on much of the existing work that they do very successfully in promoting tourism within the United Kingdom and seek to direct it instead to Scotland.

The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. However, he appears to be trying to have it both ways. That is, unfortunately, a characteristic of the party that he represents—the party that has been repudiated by the electorate at every available opportunity. It is perhaps natural that the hon. Gentleman, as a nationalist Member, did not deal with some further implications of the Bill. As some of my hon. Friends have remarked, the measure cannot be seen in isolation. From the point of view of the House, there is a British Tourist Authority representing the United Kingdom. If special powers and privileges were given to the Scottish Tourist Board, it is not realistic to assume that a similar position would not be sought by, and, doubtless, would have to be conceded to, the English Tourist Board and the Wales Tourist Board for their respective functions.

I fully accept that, from the hon. Gentleman's point of view, he does not care one way or the other whether that happens. That may be a logical approach, as viewed by a nationalist Member. In seeking to gain support from the other 630—odd hon. Members, who are not nationalist Members, the hon. Gentleman must appreciate that the House has to consider the United Kingdom implications of this policy. If it does so, hon. Members are not led to the conclusion that the hon. Gentleman sought.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the recommendation of the Stodart committee, although I feel that he was being somewhat selective in one sense. The committee made a whole series of recommendations on tourism. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, in making a general response to its recommendations, will be dealing with the various points and recommendations as they affect tourism. Given the opportunity provided by the hon. Gentleman's Bill we have to deal with the specific recommendation concerning the overseas representation of the Scottish Tourist Board. For the reasons I have indicated, we do not consider it appropriate or, indeed, necessary or desirable, in the interests of the tourist requirements of Scotland, that such a change should be made.

However, the Government are not content to let things lie. We share the hon. Gentleman's desire to do the best for Scottish tourism. We are inclined to support and promote a number of improvements in the way in which tourism and particularly the promotion of overseas tourism can be achieved. First, we should distinguish between the marketing of the product and the decision on what product should be marketed. The marketing of Scotland as a tourist destination is at present the BTA's responsibility. We have indicated that we wish this to continue. However, we see scope for improvement in the way in which decisions on what product should be marketed are made.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has been reviewing this aspect over the last few months with colleagues who have tourism responsibilities in the Department of Trade and the Welsh Office. We have been seeking alternative ways of determining the commodity to be promoted. We see a need to improve liaison between the British Tourist Authority and Scottish tourism interests and to ensure that the BTA is responsive to Scottish interests and requirements. We can do this and are already seeking to do so without the need for legislative change.

We wish to have a system whereby the various Scottish tourism organisations and the trade decide in Scotland what should be the priorities for overseas tourism promotion with the BTA then take action upon these identified priorities. My right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Trade and for Scotland are agreed that this is the approach that is in the best interests of the industry in Scotland. They will expect the British Tourist Authority, in the Scottish part of its overseas programme, to take full account—so far as resources permit and employing whatever marketing techniques it chooses on its own professional judgment—of these projects, determined as priorities by a Scottish co-ordinating body.

For this approach to be fully effective, there needs to be a co-ordinating group in Scotland to bring the various interests in the country together and then to channel their needs to the BTA and generally to liaise closely with the BTA. This, in our view, is a legitimate and desirable role for the Scottish Tourist Board to play. It requires no legislation.

How does the Minister deal with the fact that the Scottish Tourist Board thinks it desirable to have these powers and the evidence adduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) that the British Tourist Authority has failed signally to project Scotland?

I dealt with that matter while the right hon. Gentleman was out of the Chamber. He will forgive me if I do not go over it again. I am glad to say that, in discussions over the last few months, a considerable measure of support for the Scottish Tourist Board acting as co-ordinator in this way has been given by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. I am confident that the Highlands and Islands Development Board, which, in fulfilment of its duties to promote the economic development of its area, will continue to play a vital role in tourism matters in the Highlands and Islands, will also endorse the STB playing this leading, national, coordinating role.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is encouraging the Scottish Tourist Board now to reach agreement with other tourism interests in Scotland that the STB should take this leading, co-ordinating role. In recognition of our commitment to the board acting in this way, we have approved, in principle, the appointment of an extra director at the Scottish Tourist Board which is now consulting the other tourism bodies on his job description. His basic task, as we see it, will be to discuss promotional initiatives and programmes with Scottish bodies and the trade and to co-ordinate these in a national priority context.

That director will be the main point of liaison between the co—ordinating group and the British Tourist Authority. My right hon. Friends will encourage the BTA to afford to the Scottish Tourist Board extra director, whose functions are expected to include travelling overseas, observing market influences and, in turn, offering feedback to the customer, access to British Tourist Authority staff at home and abroad. I am pleased to say that the chairman of the BTA has indicated that he will be only too happy to give this proper support.

The chairman of the BTA, who has been resisting any erosion of his power and the role of the BTA, has indicated that he will co-operate. What would happen, however, if, on some future occasion, the BTA, in the immortal words of Mr. Archie Birt says "No" and refuses to co-operate or at least procrastinates in carrying out the new strategy that the STB might wish to put forward?

I have not the slightest reason to believe that procrastination will be applied. These are matters which my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Trade will represent to Government policy, and that is policy which of course the British Tourist Authority will be only too happy to support and to implement.

We appreciate fully the very genuine reasons which led the hon. Gentleman to bring forward his Bill. I have no doubt that he believes that it would lead to an improvement. But I hope that he will accept that from the point of view both of the interests of Scottish tourism and of the much wider implications which the vast majority of right hon. and hon. Members have to take into account, it would be inappropriate to seek a change of the sort which he suggests. It cannot be considered purely in isolation because, inevitably, it would lead to questioning the future of the British Tourist Authority. We are not convinced that the British Tourist Authority has failed to promote Scottish tourism overseas. The evidence over the past eight years, with a 71 per cent. increase in the number of overseas visitors to Scotland, suggests that it has worked very hard and successfully in achieving much of what Scottish tourism requires.

On that basis, I could not recommend the hon. Gentleman's Bill to the House, and I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will agree with that conclusion.

I beg to move, That the Question be now put.

After only two hours and 23 minutes, I could not accept the closure at this juncture, when other hon. Members wish to take part in the debate.

I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me, and I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for touching on some of the matters which I had hoped to raise.

I trust that the House will forgive me if I make a passing reference to a comment which has been made by other hon. Members. I have listened to debates in this House which have been sparsely attended, but this is the first one that I have attended in which, from beginning to end, the official Opposition party has not seen fit to have so much as even a Whip on the Opposition Front Bench. I find that very surprising.

Would the hon. Gentleman care to explain his expression "even a Whip"?

I hasten to assure the hon. Gentleman—and, for that matter, those of my hon. Friends who perform that onerous duty—that no disrespect was intended. As I understand it, Whips often sit on the Front Bench. Their purpose in so doing is not so much to take part in debates as to ensure the smooth management of the business of the House. I made the point that not even a Whip was on the Opposition Front Bench simply to—

On the more substantive point, does my hon. Friend think that the absence of right hon. and hon. Members who normally grace the Opposition Front Bench has added to or detracted from the intellectual tone of the debate?

I think that that is going a little wide of the Bill.

As ever, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you have drawn me back to the path of righteousness, and I shall not take up my hon. Friend's remark.

I ought at the outset to refer to the well-known and rather hackneyed phrase of Dr. Johnson, who said:

"But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England."

I do not wish the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) to think for a moment that I want to give any offence. I hasten to add that many people are not aware that Dr. Johnson went on to regard as his closest friend that great Scottish intellectual and that polyfacetic Scotsman, Mr. Boswell. With him, Dr. Johnson undertook the Hebridean tour, about which Boswell wrote. I am sure that I do not misrepresent Dr. Johnson's views if I say that, in spite of having made that rather unfortunate remark, he regarded Scotland—and Scotland as represented by Mr. Boswell—with all the affection that everyone in this House does.

In my remarks, I want to draw attention to four very important matters. The first is whether the BTA itself has been a success. The second and most important one is whether the BTA would be able to disengage from Scottish promotion overseas. The third is what the effect of this would be on the Wales Tourist Board and the English Tourist Board. Finally, if time permits, I should like to spend a few moments on what I regard as the very important political undertones of the introduction of the Bill by the Scottish separatist party.

I ask the hon. Gentleman to get his facts right.

I am not aware which facts the right hon. Gentleman has in mind. He seems to have taken offence at my reference to the political aspects of the Bill. I speak as a Welshman, so I must be careful not to make judgments about Scotland without the knowledge on which to base them. But, as a Welshman, I should look very carefully at a Bill introduced by the separatists of my own country, even if it purported to abolish sin. Any Bill which is promoted by a separatist party, however appealing, is one of which I am deeply suspicious.

The first question which I pose is whether the BTA has been a success. We can say with some confidence but without complacency that it has. We have to remind ourselves that we are discussing an industry which in 1979 produced no less than £2,797 million of foreign exchange earnings—a figure which has been growing progressively over the past 10 years. Although we have no grounds for complacency, it can be said that the BTA has been doing a very important job.

I turn to the question of disengagement. It became apparent earlier in the debate that what the hon. Member for Dundee, East said was the purported objective of the Bill was not his own objective. His objective is a completely separate Scottish tourist authority. Disengagement would prove expensive and inefficient, and it would not serve the interests of tourism.

Perhaps I might link that up with the effect that the achievement of this objective would have on the Wales Tourist Board and the English Tourist Board. I refer especially to Wales, which is a matter of some interest to me. I do not think that this House need be under any illusion that, were the Bill to receive a Second Reading and become law, the Wales Tourist Board and the English Tourist Board would feel obliged, if only out of machismo, to come in behind the Scottish Tourist Board. I am extremely nervous about that, because tourism in Wales is an exceptionally important industry to the Principality, employing, as it does, no fewer than 90,000 people, and it is estimated that in 1978 alone tourism earned £425 million for the Welsh economy.

Those of us who take an interest in tourism in Wales and tourism in England should be very nervous about the implications which the Second Reading of this Bill might have for those industries in our own countries.

The Wales Tourist Board claims that it is possible to boost revenue from tourism to the Principality up to about £1,000 million by 1985 and to create 25,000 new jobs, more than 10,000 of which would be in the South Wales valley. I am sure that the whole House is aware that the Principality could not afford—

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. What has the Principality got to do with a Scottish tourism Bill?

The hon. Gentlemen is straying slightly wide, but I believe that Scotland was part of his argument.

I accept your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The point I was making was that the Bill would aim to give to the Scottish Tourist Board the ability to promote its tourism overseas—

As we are almost out of time, is it in order for me to move, That the Question be now put?

I am afraid that we have had only a brief debate, and I cannot accept that motion now.

The point that I wish to make is that Members who represent English and Welsh constituencies must be under no illusion that were the Bill to receive—

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wish to register strong disapproval that the Government have crowded out this important Bill.

Order. That is not a point of order, as the hon. Gentleman knows.

Second Reading, what day? No day named.

Debate to be resumed, what day? No day named.

Second Reading, what day?

With the permission of the sponsor, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Friday 6 March.

I seek to draw the attention of the House to the rising cost of living in inner London. Many aspects of life in inner London are now becoming distressingly expensive. One could mention transport, entertainment and services of all kinds, as well as general factors in the cost of living. But this afternoon I wish to draw attention to matters on which I believe it is within the Government's power to act and to achieve something useful in the short run.

It may be that charges affecting the population of inner London are rising in the main at the general rate of inflation. However, one of the glories of London is that its population is a mixture. Not all its elements are able to protect themselves in the same way against the effects of inflation. There are many elderly people, particularly in the borough which I have the honour to represent. Families are affected differently from single people. People on fixed incomes or who are unable to increase their earnings because of their advanced age or personal circumstances are being hit by changes which are resulting in the deterioration in the quality of life in inner London.

I want to deal particularly with rates and rents, which are within the field of responsibility of the Minister who I think will seek to reply. First, let us look at the scale of the need. On the housing side, there are particular problems affecting inner London, one being the acceleration that the Government have decided upon in the pace of rent reviews. By bringing down the period between rent reviews from three years to two years, the Government have undoubtedly acted in such a way that, over the next two or three years, the increases in rents in the private sector will proceed at a higher rate than the rate of inflation. There will be an accelerated catching-up process in private sector rents.

Anyone in inner London living in a flat on which service charges can be levied will also speak of the frightening pressures of the rises in service charges. I know that legislation in recent years has increased the opportunities for people living in blocks of flats to inspect the way in which the service charges are made up, but, in spite of the changes in last year's Housing Act, it is not yet possible for tenants to challenge the expenditure in a way that satisfies them. There is no doubt that the rises in service charges which are taking place are having a most disturbing effect on the inner London population.

Let us now consider what is happening to rates in inner London. Over the country as a whole, it is accepted by all parties that an excessive weight of the local authority expenditure burden is falling on property rather than on income. The burden of the rates is unfair because of the way in which the long-standing method of local authority finance is now operating against people who cannot change their accommodation and sometimes bear burdens through the rates which are quite out of proportion to their ability to pay.

I want to draw particular attention to the way in which the new rate support grant is being calculated and the impact of the boomerang effect—the negative marginal increment system—under which certain authorities are picked upon, not just to have a ceiling applied to their RSG, but actually to suffer a sharp reduction in their total amount of grant. I believe that this policy can already be seen to be very uncertain in its effects and most unfair in many areas. It is something which I implore the Government to give up in their calculation of the RSG next year.

In London, however, we also have the special problems presented by the constitution of the Inner London Education Authority. I understand that this year ILEA intends to increase its expenditure by 26 per cent.—a rather singular decision, since the child population of inner London is declining—but the burden on ratepayers will rise by nearly 48 per cent. because of the way in which this boomerang effect on the RSG operates to the detriment of inner London ratepayers who will lose over £100 million as a result of the new method of calculation of the ILEA rate support grant.

Inner London is being fined £100 million because of ILEA's decision as to the way it will spend its money in the coming year. But the ratepayers cannot exert a direct effect on the policy-making officers and responsible councillors who run the authority; so they are now being put to exceptional and in many cases insupportable extra burdens. Something has to be done.

In Kensington the precept for ILEA will now add between £4 and £5 a week to the rates paid by the average household. That is out of order. It needs immediate attention.

We need also to consider the effect on business and employment as a result of the rapidly rising rates burden in inner London. I understand that two-thirds of the rates are paid by non-domestic ratepayers. One might have said that large companies such as ICI—were it not a particularly bad topical example—probably could find the money to pay the increases. Taking the Greater London area as a whole, rates account for 37 per cent. of firms' trading profits. If increases continue at the present pace, scores of small businesses, which add to the quality of life in London, will have to shut down. That will be an irreparable loss.

We are thus in a vicious circle. Employment is declining. Accommodation is becoming unduly expensive and the whole quality of life in inner London is going down.

Today I obtained the figures from the new electoral registers relating to the change in population in 10 central London constituencies. The electorates fell by about 2½ per cent. in the last 12 months. If that was the effect of the pressures on the inner London population last year, how much worse will the population movement be as a result of the rate increases and other burdens in the coming year? The Government cannot neglect population movement on that scale. It is getting worse and is likely to deteriorate still further unless the Government intervene.

How can the Government help? I have tabled an early-day motion, now supported by more than 60 hon. Members, calling on the Government to publish a Green Paper on the reform of local government finance. It is a pity that the Government, immediately after the election, did not seek to implement a major reform. Instead, they depended upon an interim reform involving the new method of calculation of rate support grant. It has not been an entire success, to say the least.

There are ways in which the Government could proceed in the short term, rather than ultimately. Two or three weeks ago I sought to introduce a Bill to take the cost of education completely off local authorities. I know that that is controversial; but that one change would have the decided advantage of reducing the total burden of rates in England and Wales by about 70 per cent. That one reform, taken on its own, could make a dramatic change in shifting the burden of local authority expenditure from taxation of property to income-related contributions.

The Government owe it to ratepayers and the country to make an early statement of their intentions. I hope most particularly that the Government will commit themselves to get rid of the boomerang effect they have introduced into the rate support grant system.

I turn to the question of the co-ownership of flats. There is an anomaly which is particularly important in London and which makes people living in privately owned mansion blocks into second-rate citizens. Some years ago the House of Commons decided to give the right of enfranchisement to people living in houses on long leases. That has enabled tens of thousands of householders to acquire their freeholds if they wish to provide themselves with a bulwark against the effects of inflation. My party accepts the concept of a property-owning democracy. We like the idea of families having the protection of owning the bricks and mortar in which they live.

Last year the Government rightly gave people living in public sector houses and flats the right to acquire their properties. That left flats in private ownership exposed to the pressures of international investment and rising costs in a way which is having a decidedly adverse effect on the stability of the population in central London, where there are so many mansion blocks. In Kensington, about 5,000 people live in privately owned mansion blocks. Not many constituencies have such a high proportion. Therefore, I feel that it is my duty to fight for them, and I intend to do so.

As soon as I can get a convenient opportunity, under the Ten Minutes Rule I propose to reintroduce the Bill which I have brought in in previous Sessions on the co-ownership of flats. I hope that this time the Government will welcome it. That measure would cost the Government nothing, but it would help tenants who wish to remain in their properties in central London to do so. I have never recommended that tenants under such a proposal should be given a bonus or a bonanza at the expense of their landlords. But if the finance of co-ownership schemes is carefully examined, I am sure that, possibly with the help of the Housing Corporation and of the building societies, ways could be found to enable many responsible tenants' associations to acquire their properties. I think that by and large the record of co-ownership schemes in central London is sufficiently favourable for the Government to decide now to give a fair wind to such a measure. I hope they will.

All in all, without wishing to go beyond the limits of an Adjournment debate, I hope that I have made the point that we have a serious social problem in central London which the Government must not neglect.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams) for raising this important subject this afternoon and explaining so eloquently some of the problems facing his constituents and many other residents or would-be residents of inner London.

In some ways, the problems of inner London are unique. However, in other ways they are problems associated with most of our major cities. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has a mix of problems and advantages which are all its own.

To start with, the answer that I wish to lay before my hon. Friend and the House is that the general problem of inflation must be at the back of our minds and the forefront of our actions. I need not remind anyone of the importance that the Government attach to reducing the general rate of inflation. The year-on-year rate was down to 13 per cent. in January from 21·9 per cent. last May. The decline was bigger than forecast at the time of the last Budget, and there are excellent prospects for further reductions. This will help everyone—in particular, many of those disadvantaged residents in my hon. Friend's constituency whose pressure on costs in relation to their income is causing him rightly to express such great concern.

On the inner cities front, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced earlier this month the outcome of our review of inner cities policy. We remain committed to making the inner cities places where people want to live and work and where the private investor is prepared to put his money. While existing arrangements can continue to make a useful contribution, it seems to us of paramount importance not to overestimate the role of the public sector in this work. Both within and outside the urban programme context we are seeking to liberate the resources of the private sector in getting local economies moving again.

The voluntary sector also has an important role to play in the revitalisation of our inner areas. Indeed, my hon. Friend's constituency contains a most notable example—the North Kensington Amenity Trust, which sponsors social, educational and recreational facilities, and also commercial schemes providing local employment.

London will be benefiting from the special new initiatives we are taking for the inner cities. Subject to parliamentary approval, we are establishing an urban development corporation in London docklands. This should at last provide a single-minded authority to tackle the most extensive area of dereliction in the capital. We shall be allocating considerable financial resources to the corporation and, indeed, as my right hon. Friend announced on 9 February, when the allocations to the proposed urban development corporations are taken into account, we are planning a significant increase in the total expenditure on inner cities in 1981–82.

I turn to the problems of London. It has always been on the whole more expensive to live or work in inner London than in comparable circumstances elsewhere. That is recognised to some extent in London weightings applied to salaries which are set nationally, and it is also reflected in statistics of average earnings. A 1979 survey showed that average gross weekly earnings for full-time adults in inner London were 9 per cent. higher than in outer London and 15 per cent. higher than in England as a whole. That does not, of course, dispose of the problems of the less well paid in London, and my hon. Friend has drawn attention to problems of rates and rents. My hon. Friend referred in particular to the burden of rates in his constituency and suggested that the rate support grant settlement for next year will be responsible for an increase in the domestic rate bill of more than 50 per cent. I do not accept that that is a cause and effect relationship, although clearly that settlement has some effect on the overall prospects for rates in the Royal borough next year.

It may help the House to be reminded of the context within which the rate support grant settlement for 1981–82 was made. Local government as a whole has been asked further to reduce expenditure by 3 per cent. in 1981–82 compared with the target for 1980–81—a 5·6 per cent. reduction overall on what, in real terms, it spent in 1978–79.

In addition, of that lower total of expenditure the proportion met by the Exchequer centrally has been reduced by 1 per cent. Those decisions reflect the difficult public expenditure position that we shall face and the Government's determination to reduce the burden of public spending on the hard-pressed wealth-creating sector of the economy. Those decisions add up to a tough settlement. They mean that for every ratepayer in the country grant has been reduced by the equivalent of a 2·6p rate before any consideration of the distribution of the grant.

A major feature of the grant distribution for this year has been some reversal of the process by which grant was sucked into London under the previous Government with no justification other than political preference. Between 1975–6 and 1980–1 London's share of the grant increased from 13·3 per cent. to 17 per cent. We estmate that, if London spends in line with our expectations, next year its share of the grant will fall to 15.8 per cent, but that will still be higher than at any time before 1978–9.

During the period of the previous Government an extra £300 million flowed into London. Individual boroughs varied of course in how they used that windfall. Some—those that we are perhaps more accustomed to hearing about—have used the money to back a growth in expenditure, others have sought to use the money to keep their rates down. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has been one of the latter prudent authorities. During the period of the inflow the general rate in the Royal Borough increased by just 50 per cent. compared with the average for the rest of the country of 80 per cent. Its rate in 1980–1 at 88·8 pence is among the lowest in London.

As I explained, the level of grant enjoyed by London could not be justified and the settlement for next year goes some way to reverse the losses to the shire areas. There have inevitably been losses therefore to the London boroughs. Our estimate is that, if the Royal Borough budgets to our general expectations on expenditure, it will lose grant equivalent to a 5·8p rate. Such a grant change is not in itself compatible with an overall increase in excess of 50 per cent.

My hon. Friend has made much of the fact that grant for the Royal Borough decreases as its expenditure grows—what he called the boomerang effect. That is true in cash terms, but it does not in itself lead to larger increases in the rate. That is because the grant system is designed to allow all authorities to provide a similar standard of service by charging the same rate in the pound to their ratepayer. To put it more simply, the grant settlement envisages that for each additional pound per head of population rates should in general result in an increase of a little over a half a penny. A higher rate applies for those authorities spending substantially above their assessed need. It is at this point that the grants system reduces the grant payable so that authorities have to face the same increase in poundage as other authorities for their increase in expenditure, as my hon. Friend indicated. This equalising objective was shared by the previous grant system but was never fully achieved in areas of high resource such as Kensington.

I turn now to ILEA, because in this respect my hon. Friend draws attention to one of the basic problems that the borough has to face. The increases in the rates in Kensington may largely be laid at the door of the precepting authorities. The inner London boroughs will now have to find an additional 20p in the pound because of the ILEA precept. By any standards the expenditure of that authority is vast. It has been assessed to have a grant-related expenditure of £468 million—that is more for every child in the school age range than for any other class of education authority. But the ILEA has now passed a budget which at £699 million is nearly 50 per cent. above its assessed need and 17 per cent. more than its expenditure this year. That is the same amount in real terms as this year at a time when all other local authorities are being asked to reduce the volume of their expenditure and when, because of the falling numbers of children in school—a 13 per cent. reduction in ILEA in the three years up to 1981–82—there are real opportunities for savings without loss of quality of the education provided.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science has told the House that ILEA's right to precept entails the obligation to spend responsibly and that, if it systematically abuses the rating system by unchecked extravagance, further measures will be needed. The Government are now considering what those measures should be. The damage for this year is done and we must see how the authority responds in the future.

The precepting authorities have now made then-decisions. Our estimate is that they have directly contributed 32 per cent. to an increase in the domestic rate of the borough. That compares with the change in the grant aid to which I referred earlier of 5·8p, which is the equivalent of a 6·5 per cent. increase in the rate attributable to the borough. The council itself has yet to finalise its decisions. Clearly, the members are worried by the implications of the rate rise. I am sure that they will be doing whatever they reasonably can to hold the total to the minimum now possible.

I turn now to the question of rents, which was raised by my hon. Friend. First, I have to admit that in his constituency my hon. Friend is well known as a champion of tenants in the private rented sector, especially of those who live in mansion blocks. The great majority of rented mansion block flats are regulated tenancies, for which the rent officer will register a fair rent on the application of either the landlord or the tenant. Of 50,000 rent registrations in London in 1979 only 1,000 were over £2,000 a year. The increase on previous rent was broadly in line with the general rate of inflation. The highest rents now being registered in London are £6,000 to £7,000. These rare cases are for luxury flats with full porterage and services such as heating and hot water included. The fair rent protects the tenant against the effects of the scarcity value of his accommodation. His increase is phased. In most cases his service costs are fixed for the full registration period and he will often be eligible for rent allowances. This is not a bad deal.

The Government considered carefully at the time of the Housing Bill the position of the relatively few tenancies outside the rateable value limits. An increase in the limit to £3,500—as has been proposed—would bring in very high value dwellings with capital values of £200,000 or above and annual market rents of £10,000 and upwards. While the Government recognise that some tenants have been facing considerable rent increases at the expiry of their leases, they could not justify a legislative change which would suddenly reduce the value of these dwellings to their owners by very large sums. It would be a long way from the original purpose of the Rent Act to apply it to tenants able to pay the kind of rents currently being charged. Moreover, the Government receive many representations to the effect that the Rent Acts are already too broad in their scope.

I turn briefly to the question of mansion block purchases. My hon. Friend raised the point. He is a knowledgeable expert on the subject and a purveyor of Private Members' Bills in the matter. There are formidable difficulties, as my hon. Friend knows, in the way of any collective purchase right in the private sector, as my right hon. Friend explained when he saw my hon. Friend and his colleagues recently. My right hon. Friend will be writing again to my hon. Friend, and I regret that there is no more I can say at this stage.

As regards the public sector, we have, of course, systems of rent rebates and rent allowances. As a Government, we accept that we have a responsibility towards tenants who are called upon to meet, unaided, rent increases that are in prospect. It was, after all, a Conservative Government who introduced nine years ago the national schemes for rent rebates and rent allowances for council house and private tenants respectively. As recently as last November, we raised the amount of help which these schemes afford to tenants. And where rent increases are concerned tenants receiving rebate or allowance can generally count on having 60 per cent. of the increase met for them.

In some areas, where there are notably high rent levels, more generous arrangements are in force under which tenants may get up to 80 per cent. increase met for them. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, where my hon. Friend's constituency lies, is one of these areas. I should stress that special arrangements for rent rebates apply only in five out of the 12 inner London boroughs and for rent allowances in only three of them. I would also make the point that both local authority tenants and private tenants who receive supplementary benefit generally stand to have all their rent increase met for them.

As regards public sector rents and the prospect of substantial increases in council house rents in London and in my hon. Friend's constituency in particular, decisions on council house rent levels remain the statutory responsibility of individual local housing authorities—that is to say, the Greater London Council and the London boroughs.

None the less, we have made plain our expectations for the financial year 1981–82. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set these out both in his housing statement to the House on 15 December 1980 and again in the course of the Supply day debate this month on 11 February. We are assuming that authorities will, on average, raise rents by £3·25 per dwelling per week. Our decisions on housing subsidy for next year have been based on this assumption and we have made no secret of the fact that we look to authorities to see that it materialises.

I need not detain the House by repeating all the various factors which my right hon. Friend so cogently showed to be relevant both to his subsidy decisions and to his expectations about rent increases. Two of these, however, seem to me to be especially significant in relation to this afternoon's debate. First, it is important to place rent increases in prospect for the next financial year in their proper time context. It would be misleading to view them in isolation from the trend of rents in the recent past. If increases of this order are charged, they will serve to correct the decline in rents as measured against earnings which occurred under the last Government.

Secondly, the public expenditure resources which can be devoted to housing are by definition limited. At this time, when we need to contain public expenditure in housing as in any other sector, the effect of a decline in rent levels and a corresponding increase in subsidies towards current expenditure is especially stark. The result can only be to take up resources which might otherwise be channelled towards housing investment. It is in the interest of public sector housing, both in London and elsewhere, that we correct a balance which has already swung too far in that direction.

I should like to deal with another matter. My right hon. Friend's subsidy decisions for next year were based on each authority raising the same additional amount per dwelling, irrespective of its current rent levels or the contribution it made to its housing.