With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present two petitions from the residents of Perivale. They state

That there is one entrance and exit to the Medway estate, Perivale, necessitating the negotiation of a bend on the eastern side of Medway Parade;

That people persist in parking their vehicles on this bend, particularly the car dealer situated on that bend, and the Chalfont Line coach company which parks its coaches there;

That the result of this parking is that vehicles coming in opposing directions cannot see each other until they are face to face, with possible tragic consequences;

That repeated representations have been made to the police who seem powerless to do anything about it.

My constituents Mr. and Mrs. B. J. Squirrel, of 88 Medway drive, have signed one petition, together with many signatories from Medway drive, and Mr. Bullen of 11 Woodside avenue, Greenford, Middlesex, with many signatories from Woodside avenue and Woodside close, has signed the other. They are concerned about a dangerous situation that results from a new development following the opening of the excellent Perivale underpass which has recently been engineered by the Government.

The petitioners have my strong support in attempting to achieve proper and safe parking in that area and no parking in the area described in the petitions. The petitioners pray

That your honourable House request the Secretary of State for Transport to institute an inquiry into the traffic situation prevailing at the entrance into the Medway estate in Perivale.

I am grateful for the opportunity to bring to the House's attention the proposal of the Manchester Ship Canal Company to close the upper reaches of the canal by 1987. My hon. Friends the Members for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) and for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) will speak later, if they catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, and I shall leave time for them to do so. I have passed that information on to the Minister. It is also appropriate to record the interest of my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) and others who are unable to be here to express their anxiety about a major regional affair.

The issue arises from the recent statement of the company that it intends to close the upper reaches of the canal by 1987 because of what it describes as financial losses on that part of the waterway. That statement of intent raises many issues for Members of Parliament who represent the area. Many questions will have to be answered to allay public disquiet. I believe that the long-term interests of the conurbation will be served best by keeping the canal navigable into Salford docks.

I am too young to reminisce and I do not want to be romantic about my boyhood experiences of living in the shadow of large sea-going cargo vessels 40 miles inland. I accept that ocean-going vessels are unlikely ever to ply the canal again, but provision can and should be made to facilitate the use of what I might describe as brine-type barges. For that purpose the locks will have to be kept in working order.

It is my considered view that the company has discouraged new business by failing to promote the waterway and to generate confidence in its long-term future. That has been apparent for some time. I must point out, however, that there is considerable traffic in goods and raw materials now and I find it wholly unacceptable that that should be transferred to an already overburdened road system in the area should closure take place.

I am also deeply worried about drainage. It might not be well known that the canal is an essential feature of the area's land drainage system and failure to dredge it would eventually cause flooding in large areas of Salford. Responsibility for fulfilling that function should remain with the company, but it is strongly rumoured that it might try to get that liability transferred to the North West water authority. I understand that such a course of action would require a Bill to be passed through the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford wishes to speak on that matter. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some guidance as to whether that is correct.

The canal was constructed for private profit and the company continues to trade profitably by utilising its assets on the lower reaches of the canal, its extensive land holdings along the canal and the area around the Manchester and Salford docks. I contend that it is utterly inappropriate for a profitable private company to offload an uneconomic part of its assets on to the public sector. The company should be left in no doubt by the Government and others that it is its responsibility to maintain the canal in good order so that it does not become a public liability. I sense that if the company is denied an easy way out its corporate mind will be concentrated wonderfully and it will go for the business that I know exists on the upper reaches of the canal.

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis) for allowing me some time to speak in this debate.

I remember seeing pictures of large ocean liners dominating rows and rows of industrial working-class homes. As my hon. Friend said, those days have probably gone for ever, but that does not mean that the ship canal does not have a vital role to play in navigation. The Manchester Ship Canal Company pleads poverty in sections—from Runcorn to the sea it can make a profit but from Runcorn to Salford it makes a loss. It is therefore suggested that it be allowed to cut navigational activities from Runcorn to Salford. That causes great anxiety among my constituents and the people of Salford.

I should like to link that argument with the anxiety that has been expressed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme), who is working on other parliamentary duties.

The company has assumed that, because it is making a loss between Runcorn and Salford, it should be allowed to close that part of the canal. The company will have a bonanza if that part of the canal is closed as it owns substantial amounts of land that can be sold off at high prices on that stretch. Although we might accept that the company is losing money, it will make substantial sums of money if it is allowed to close the canal. We should bear that in mind if and when a Bill is presented to the House. I hope that there will be exhaustive discussions between all of the authorities involved before there is any question of legislation or closure of navigation.

My hon. Friend pointed out that we are discussing a canalised river. It is part of the north-west's river system. It is part of our drainage system, the physical geography of the area, the area's industrial life, and it is vital for the social and economic development of the north-west. The decision must not be taken lightly.

We ask the Minister to be our friend on this issue. The north-west has suffered enough and we should like the active intervention of his Department and of the Department of the Environment to ensure that all of the assets linked with the canal are utilised for the well-being of local inhabitants. The citizens and council of the city of Salford are deeply worried about the long-term effects of closing the upper part of the canal. My hon. Friend has mentioned the risk of flooding. Some draining methods that are now being advanced by the company must be examined extremely carefully. We should not accept that what it proposes is necessarily the best method of drainage. We must certainly find better methods of keeping the canal open as a navigational system. However, for the industrial life of the country and the sake of people who are employed in the area, there must be a better solution than that which is proposed. There is enormous pressure on the Departments of Transport and the Environment to ensure that the north-west does not suffer another blow. We have suffered enough.

Recreation is a growth industry and the benefits of maintaining the ship canal for pleasure might well enable the company to reconsider, discuss the matter with all of the relevant authorities and perhaps arrive at a compromise that is in the best interests of the community and maintains full employment and an essential feature of life in the north-west.

For many of us who were raised in the Manchester area, the ship canal is a special historic symbol. About 90 years ago when my father was a baby he was taken to see the opening of the ship canal, and he and his generation saw the canal lead to the prosperity and growth of Trafford Park, which was the largest industrial estate in the world at that time. They saw the city of Manchester— an inland city — become the third largest port in Britain.

The prosperity of the Manchester region, if not created by the canal, was certainly encouraged by the existence of this ocean-going highway. My hon. Friends the Members for Worsley (Mr. Lewis) and for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) said that, in reality, no one expects the heady days to return when the north American trade came through the ship canal into Manchester, because the size of oceangoing vessels has changed and the canal is now too small to take such trade. Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that the canal still has a viable commercial future.

Trafford Park industrial estate and the entire Manchester industrial base is under tremendous pressure. We need all our assets of infrastructure, including the motorways, airports and the canal, to offer those who might invest in the area the chance of using those resources to recreate the prosperity that it used to enjoy.

Recently, I attended a meeting of Trafford Park industrial council, which is mainly composed of senior managers from companies that operate on the estate. We discussed at some length the future of the ship canal. Much anxiety was expressed not only by the companies that still use the canal — I was surprised by the number of companies that do — but by company representatives who said that they would reconsider their transportation needs to discover whether they could use the canal.

This is not a party political or partisan matter. We are talking for the area as a whole and for the towns and villages along the affected part of the canal. There is a fallacy in the arguments put forward by the Manchester Ship Canal Company. In a letter to employees, the managing director said:

"There is no prospect of attracting anything like the traffic we are losing let alone the volume of business needed to pay for maintaining any kind of navigation in the upper reaches of the canal."

Mr. Taylor might say that, but the sad truth is that in recent years the company has done little to look for business. Some companies were deeply disappointed by the decision to close the canal. One company was on the point of negotiating with the Manchester Ship Canal Company to bring its raw materials up the canal. That company is a thriving one on the Trafford Park estate.

As my hon. Friends said, we have four main anxieties. The first is that the navigation system must be maintained. Secondly, when the company constructed the canal it almost destroyed the existing drainage system for the entire Manchester area, simply because it diverted and destroyed the Irwell and Mersey rivers. We depend on the canal for drainage. The chairman of the North West water authority wrote to the chairman of the company and said:

"The canal was constructed for navigation purposes and its hydraulic characteristics are those of a navigable canal and not a land drainage channel … The canal was constructed for private profit. The company continues to trade profitably by utilising its assets on the lower reaches of the canal and its extensive estates alongside the canal and in the area of Manchester and Salford docks. It is the authority's contention that it is totally inappropriate for a profitable private company to off-load an uneconomic part of its assets on to the public sector."

That is an important point, because we are not talking about a company that is starved of funds. The company not only makes fairly massive profits but it has about £40 million worth of fixed assets, about £20 million worth of which is land. The company developed those assets because it was allowed to trade by the good will of Parliament, which established it under the Manchester Ship Canal Act 1885. Now that it has made profits, it wishes to asset-strip and dump the uneconomic part of its operations on the British taxpayer and the ratepayers of the north-west. That is an unacceptable proposal that we shall do our utmost to resist. As long as the company has assets in my constituency and in the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Worsley and for Eccles, we shall argue, rightly, that those assets should be used to compensate for any cost that the company believes it must expend over the years.

It is clear to me, as a non-lawyer, that the 1885 Act places an obligation on the company to maintain the canal, first, as a navigable highway; secondly, as a drainage system; and, thirdly, as a safe waterway. The latter point is extremely important to those who live on the banks of the canal, who are anxious to ensure that it is maintained in a safe condition in the interests of them and their children.

On a lighter note, I was interested to learn that, under the Act, I, as a tenant of the Trafford estate, have residual rights to use the canal for the purpose of distributing nightsoil. I shall encourage my neighbours to exercise that right.

As it will require an Act of Parliament to remove my residual rights, I assure the House that I shall resist not just that aspect of the matter but, much more importantly, any attempt by the company to introduce a Bill that is not in the interests of industry or of the people of Greater Manchester. We await with great interest the Minister's speech so that we can know the Government's views on the matter.

The hon. Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis) has raised an interesting topic for today's debate, and the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) showed that it is significant to the economy of his area. I sympathise with their concern. The ship canal is one of the great national monuments to Victorian engineering, as the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) explained. It opened to traffic in 1894 and it transformed an inland city into a great port. Manchester undoubtedly owes it place in the world of commerce and industry to the foresight, drive and determination of the canal's promoters. One cannot underestimate the canal's importance in the history of the city of Manchester.

I fully appreciate the close interest of the hon. Member for Worsley in matters related to the ship canal. In 1761, James Brindley, engineer to the third Duke of Bridgewater, completed construction of the first sections of the Bridgewater canal. This canal, which was constructed to transport coal from the Duke's collieries at Worsley to Manchester, made engineering history. It was the first, at least since Roman times, to be thrown across a river by an aqueduct at Barton, and it led to considerable prosperity in the area, based on the growing need for coal for steam power.

Today is not the time or place to delve into the history of canal building in the Manchester area, though it is a fascinating story and an important part of our industrial heritage. Suffice to say that the stimulus for building the ship canal stemmed from the intense commercial rivalry between Manchester and Liverpool and the wish of the former to free itself from the heavy burden of charges levied on its trade by the railway companies and the then Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. That rivalry still exists today, between the Mersey and Manchester canal undertakings. However, the competitive environment is quite different now, and we must not allow our view of history to cloud our realistic judgment of the needs of today and the opportunities of tomorrow.

I do not intend this morning to comment on the future role of the Manchester Ship Canal Company; it would be wholly premature for me to do so. Any change in the navigational role of the ship canal would, I am told, require statutory authority, and I would not wish to preempt the House's view on any powers which the ship canal company may in due course seek.

My essential message to the House, and to the hon. Member for Worsley, is that the Manchester Ship Canal Company is an independent statutory undertaking which is responsible for managing its own affairs. The company is fully willing to shoulder that responsibility and to take what decisions it sees as necessary to protect the long-term interests of its business. It is important that it should take this responsible attitude, since on its future prosperity as a viable business there depend many hundreds of jobs both on the canal itself and in related businesses.

The hon. Member for Stretford laid stress on the suggestion that the company should use its assets to keep intact the upper canal. I hope that he will not overlook the importance of the company remaining a viable operation, because of the employment of those working on the lower part of the canal.

We are talking about assets that already exist at the end of the canal, such as land that is held in Salford, Manchester, Stretford and throughout the area. We are talking not about diverting investment from the western end of the canal but about assets that are already at our end of the canal.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for explaining what he has in mind. However, I do not think that I can enter into what would be a wide and fairly lengthy debate on these matters.

I am aware of the difficult issues facing the ship canal company which led to its recent announcement of its conclusions about the future of commercial traffic above Runcorn. I shall not comment on those conclusions, because there is a long way to go before the company is likely to be in a position to act on them, but I welcome the company's frankness in making public its views and thoughts for the future. There is everything to be gained by a wider understanding, and a public debate should now take place. I also welcome the studies which the company is undertaking to research the drainage function on the upper canal and to seek less costly ways of discharging it. Hon. Members will be pleased to know that my Department is contributing up to £50,000 towards the costs of this research.

As many hon. Members will know, most of the ship canal's traffic is now concentrated on the lower half of the canal, at Eastham, Ellesmere Port and Runcorn. The company believes that the ship canal between Eastham and Runcorn is sound and successful. It is fortunate that this lower section of the canal is in an assisted area, as this has enabled the company to benefit from the infrastucture grants available under the European regional development fund. Since 1977, the company has received £600,000 in ERDF grant. This has assisted many valuable projects, including the development of container and vehicle terminals, cranage and storage facilities and various improvements at the Eastham entrance to the canal. It is worth recording the important contribution which the European Community has made in that way.

I am sure that the company would be the first to want to see a viable level of shipping continuing to make use of the upper canal and the docks at Manchester, but traffic has declined and activity at the Manchester docks is now very sparse, despite the company's efforts to retain business there. It must be for the company's own commercial judgment to take a measured view of its long-term prospects. Inevitably, it will take a hard-headed view if its undertaking is to remain a viable and competitive operation.

There is some concern about this. The Manchester Ship Canal Company is taking part in negotiations and discussions. We should like to know whether it can take action unilaterally and without legislation.

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I shall seek to cover all the points raised by hon. Members in the course of the debate.

Various factors bear on the prospects of an inland port such as Manchester. First, ships have been getting larger — many are now too large even for the ship canal. Secondly, and in consequence of that, shipowners demand the faster turn-rounds at estuarial port facilities which do not rely on impounded docks. Thirdly, and again linked, deep-sea shipping services frequently call at both a British and a continental port. Ports on the south and east coasts of England clearly have an advantage, especially with the huge improvements in our road and rail networks which have speeded up their links with the main centres of production and distribution.

More generally, the traditional great ports on the west coast have all experienced a marked reduction in trade since we joined the European Community. The movement of trade has been to the benefit of our ports on the east and south coasts. Nearly two-fifths of the volume of Britain's seaborne foreign trade is now with the EC — almost double the proportion a decade ago. This is an inescapable consequence of our membership of the Community, and it would be vain to try to stem the tide.

If we are to keep competitive in international markets, we must expect trading patterns to change as technology and institutions change. Our ports can no more remain unaffected than anything else. To make an omelette one has to break the eggs. The effects of these various changes can be seen in the growth in importance of estuarial ports such as Southampton and Felixstowe and the decline and demise of facilities such as the upper docks in London, the port of Preston, Middlesbrough dock on Teeside and Newcastle quay on Tyneside, and in the greatly reduced extent of the Liverpool docks.

These are just some of the factors which militate against the economic operation of ports at inland locations which often additionally require costly dredging to keep them operational. Clearly these are issues which will be uppermost in the mind of the Manchester Ship Canal Company. It bears a heavy burden of dredging costs—more than £3 million a year. A significant part of these costs arises on the upper canal where traffic is in sharp decline. This is not to say the position of the canal company is entirely bleak. In tonnage terms, its undertaking is still the second largest private sector port—after Associated British Ports—and in revenue terms it is fourth—after ABP, Mersey and Felixstowe. The company's financial performance is reasonably healthy. Last year it reported a profit, before exceptional items and taxation, of £3·1 million—an increase of £1·15 million over 1982.

I hope that the Minister is aware that the company's drainage costs centre on the need for the waterway to be the drainage system of the area and not simply because it has to maintain a navigable canal.

I am aware of that, and, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I shall deal with that point.

While income was down 4 per cent., expenditure was lower by almost 9 per cent. I understand the concern about employment of hon. Members representing constituencies in the area. I am aware that in recent years the ship canal company has reduced the number of its employees by about 1,500 and that a further reduction may be required. The accumulative cost of these reductions has been around £6 million to the company. Of course, that has to be seen in human as well as industrial terms, and is regrettable, however necessary it is, but the Government have actively helped to rebuild and create jobs, in the enterprise zone area in Trafford and Salford. Here the canal company now offers sites which are fully serviced and will have the benefit of an extensive landscaping scheme, both largely financed by derelict land grants. There are opportunities for new housing and commercial developments. That point has been made by the hon. Member for Eccles.

During the transport debate on 25 April, the hon. Gentleman raised the question of the canal. He said that he wanted my right hon. Friend to keep the canal open as a navigation way all the way to Salford. He also drew attention to the canal's function as a watercourse.

As I have told the hon. Gentleman in correspondence, it is not for me to intervene in a decision taken by the ship canal company on commercial grounds for which the responsibility is clearly its own. I cannot magic traffic out of the air any more than the company can. It is perhaps unfortunate for Manchester that its splendid engineering waterway faces westward and is therefore not well placed to capitalise on the possibilities of developing the great barge traffic opportunities across to the Common Market.

The upper section of the canal also functions as a major land drain, but that falls outside my responsibilities. That crucial role—I recognise the points which have been made by hon. Members about that — will have to continue whatever decision may be taken about the commercial future of the waterway.

I can assure hon. Members that the ship canal company is conscious of that aspect and has been in close touch with central and local government on the problems that it raises. Decisions on the future use and management of the upper canal are complex and will take time to resolve. We are fortunate that the ship canal company's management has brought the matter into public focus in good time so that there is an opportunity to thrash out the matter.

I was specifically asked whether the North West water authority would take over the upper canal's land drainage function. That, as hon. Members will realise, is outside my Department's responsibility and I cannot answer for the water authority in that matter. However, I know that the canal company has had discussions with the water authority. It would he premature for me to comment on that aspect of a complex issue. However, I have noted what has been said on the point and I shall draw those comments to the attention of my colleagues in the Department of the Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food who have the main interest in this matter.

This has been a useful debate. It has provided an opportunity for hon. Members who are understandably anxious about the potential effect on their area of the course of action which the canal company has announced that it is considering to air their concern. I have no doubt that a major debate will now be conducted in the area as well as in the House. This debate has given me an opportunity to answer the major points which have been raised as to the areas of responsibility and where my Department is involved.

I shall ensure that the points made in the debate touching on aspects of the canal outside my Department's responsibility are brought to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, who has a particular interest in the context of his Mersey clean-up initiative.

With respect, the Minister has not yet confirmed that the Manchester Ship Canal Company will need to promote a Bill before any changes can be made.

That is a matter for the ship canal company to determine. I believe that it will probably need statutory authority to close the navigation, but whether that is done by way of a private Bill or by applying for an order under the Harbours Act 1964 is for the company to decide. I know that the company has a complex set of statutes and I know that the question raised by the hon. Gentleman touches on a matter of considerable legal complexity.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, who has responsibility for the Mersey cleanup initiative, will wish to read with interest the comments which have been made in the debate, and I shall draw them to his attention.

I should like, first, to welcome my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I hope that he has recovered from the illness that prevented him from replying to the debate in the House last week. I also hope that he will be grateful for the opportunity to put his thoughts about Hong Kong on the record, because I know that he takes a great interest in it.

Before proceeding further, I refer briefly to the interests that I declared in the debate last week — financial, family and emotional. Let me make it clear that the purpose of this debate is not to have a re-run of that which took place in this Chamber and the other place last week. Rather, my intention in raising this subject is to seek to draw some lessons from those debates and, in particular, to concentrate on the measures that now need to be taken in Hong Kong to maintain the confidence there which alone can provide the basis for the prosperity and stability to which the Governments of China and the United Kingdom have dedicated themselves in the negotiations.

The first lesson that I drew from the debate was that there was bipartisan support in both Houses for the Government's policies and for their conduct of the negotiations. That means that there is no doubt that China will be resuming sovereignty of Hong Kong after 1997 and will be assuming its administration. It is no good people imagining that they can come here to fish in troubled waters and stir up some kind of opposition that would effectively deflect the Government from their announced course. It is important that the wide and strong basis of support that the Government have for their aims in the negotiations and in their conduct of them so far should be clearly understood.

It is also important to put on the record that there is no sign that China wishes to resume sovereignty or assume administration before 1997. Therefore, we must address our minds not only to what will happen in the interim period but how to provide for what happens thereafter. It has been made plain by my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary that China is thinking in terms of Hong Kong continuing to be a separate economic entity—a special autonomous zone in China—for at least 50 years with no disturbance to the present economic system or way of life. Therefore, we now need to consider the measures needed to provide for continuity, stability of administration and the maintenance of law and order, as well as for the ongoing economic activity.

It is significant that both Governments have continued to stress, even when they have felt unable to reveal the details of the negotiations — obviously, something as complicated as those negotiations has to be conducted in secret — that they are concerned to maintain the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong. So they are agreed. Governments may agree, but what is important is the reaction of the people. I must emphasise to my many friends in Hong Kong that it is no good their expecting outsiders to have confidence in the future of Hong Kong if they do not exhibit such confidence. They must also, for the first time, face up to the fact that they must assume some responsibility for the maintenance not only of confidence but of the many freedoms that they have enjoyed under British administration.

The purpose of the negotiations has been to see that those freedoms are continued after 1997. Judging by the releases from Peking, which are perhaps a little more forthcoming than the statements that we have been accustomed to here, it seems reasonably clear that Peking is committed to preserving freedom of speech, of assembly, of travel, of economic activity, of the Hong Kong legal system, of contract and all the other freedoms that those born in Hong Kong have come to take for granted. Indeed, those who have escaped from China have sought to achieve those very freedoms.

En passant, I should say that in a round robin to Members of Parliament it is suggested that I may have been under a misapprehension when I spoke about people escaping from China. It was said that those who left China were either criminals, undesirables or economically inactive. I can hardly see how that squares with the bodies that I have seen floating down the Pearl river or with the refugees crossing the border whom I have seen and held conversations with. I rebut the charge that it is inaccurate or unfortunate to describe those who left China in such circumstances as people who merely sought to find a form of economic activity that they were unable to sustain in China.

The negotiations no doubt seek to enshrine those freedoms. Thus one can see how complicated the negotiations are. That is probably why a demand has been made that the agreement should not be concluded until all the details have been spelt out. In the time scale set for the negotiations by China, I do not think that we shall achieve that degree of detail. However, I am not one of those who is depressed by that prospect. I believe that the main outlines of the agreement will be in place, and I trust that the latter will be in writing. That is the main assurance that people should seek. I see some advantage in work on the details of the agreement going on for some time, and in associating Hong Kong people with them, even at an unofficial level.

However, the purpose of the debate is to draw attention to the measures that should be considered. I am not saying that the Minister is in a position to respond to my points today, but I should like to place it on record that people are thinking about such measures. It is not for us to tell people in Hong Kong how they should conduct themselves. I am merely saying that our degree of confidence in the future of Hong Kong will be reflected in the degree of confidence that they have and the measures that they take.

But, of course, the role of the Hong Kong Government is crucial in giving a lead to the people of Hong Kong over the actions that should now be put in train and the subjects that should now be considered. As I have said before, the wonderful economic achievements of Hong Kong and its great vitality and excitement are crucially dependent on confidence. It may be compared with the Indian rope trick. It is easy for the strands to unwind and, indeed, they could do so very rapidly if confidence was lost and if the rope were not sustained by it. A clear lead needs to be given by the Hong Kong Government.

In the opening paragraphs of the paper presented to us by the unofficial members of the Executive and Legislative Councils, it is claimed that they played a large part in determining the policies of the Hong Kong Government, as they were in a majority on both Councils. They will have to play their role. It is not enough for them to come here and labour the fears and anxieties of people in Hong Kong. They portray them very vividly, but they will now have to play some role in developing the future of Hong Kong in the circumstances that have been clearly established both in the negotiations and in debates in the House.

For the Hong Kong Government to give such a lead, their authority will have to be strengthened. That may sound odd from someone who was a civil servant in the Hong Kong Government in a Hong Kong that did not have a democratic system and was run by Civil Service rule. But the Government's authority needs to be strengthened by a wider association of unofficial people within the Government and the development of their role, along with the development of the Hong Kong Government's accountability to the people of Hong Kong, leading towards wider participation.

Views were expressed about the speed at which Hong Kong should become more democratic. The right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) was right to refer to the priority of developing the Hong Kong Government's accountability rather than developing a system of democratic elections. Confidence, and perhaps even stability, could be quickly eroded if there were a rapid development of traditional party political conflict. I hope that China will accept a self-denying ordinance not to seek to introduce into Hong Kong Communist ideology that is enshrined in a party political platform. That would immediately crystallise the anxieties and fears that I have mentioned and could cause great uncertainty. It might even be difficult to find candidates to oppose a Communist candidate. Those minded to oppose might represent a very small faction on the other side of the spectrum. The stability and confidence that both Governments seek to ensure would then be quickly lost.

The Hong Kong Government's authority might be strengthened in the first place by extending the appointment of unofficial members to the Councils in order to draw on a wider range of experience and occupation, and to provide later for their replacement by members who are elected either directly or indirectly from the district boards. But it is not enough just to have those people on the Councils. They will have to do something. They could provide real assistance and at the same time spread a much wider understanding of the position, and thus help to maintain confidence, if, after the main agreement between the Government of China and our country has been reached, they are involved in working out the further details that will obviously be required.

It was not realistic to expect the agreement to be struck and written by September and to contain all the elements that will be necessary to answer all the questions that will be asked. It is important to buttress the Hong Kong Government's authority in helping to give a lead to Hong Kong and to maintain people's confidence.

There is a need to provide for stability and continuity of administration. There are about 114,500 civil servants in Hong Kong on the permanent and pensionable establishments of whom fewer than 1,000 are on expatriate terms. That is a good illustration that there are many perfectly competent individuals in Hong Kong who are capable of sustaining Hong Kong's administration. However, they must have confidence, for instance, that their pensions will be paid. I would resist the requests that I believe are now being made that officers on the permanent establishment should be allowed to take their accrued pensions so far and convert to contract. That would be a most unfortunate move.

If we are negotiating an agreement that will provide that the present way of life under Chinese administration is to continue for at least 50 years after 1997, we must start to think about providing for continuity of administration, and pensions will be an important part of that consideration.

The Hong Kong system is not the same in all respects as the one that we know in Britain. There are many public servants in bodies such as the university and the mass transit railway. Hong Kong has given us a lead by privatising many branches of social welfare activity. There are many public servants in the employ of bodies such as the Tung Wah hospital, which recently sent a delegation to Britain. Pension payments are a significant financial factor and in the present financial year are estimated to cost nearly 1 billion Hong Kong dollars. It is clear that consideration must be given to pensions in the negotiations. It would be helpful to receive an indication that the issue is being considered so that people understand that their problems are being taken into account.

The indications that have been given by China suggest that there might be room for continuity in the administration of some expatriates. The proportion of expatriates within the administration is already small and it may well become smaller, but there may be room for continuity for some of them and that issue should be clarified in the negotiations

Continuity of administration is important but that is of no avail without the maintenance of law and order. The Royal Hong Kong police have a strength of just under 24,000. They have a vital role to play and it is important that we should seek to maintain their morale and integrity. One of the difficulties to which many people have referred in the past—the Hong Kong Government have sought valiantly to tackle the problems which they have expressed—is the maintenance of the integrity of the Hong Kong police. Policing will be required in the 50 years after 1997, which is only 13 years away, and junior police officers could expect in the normal course of events that their careers would continue. They will need to be given a pretty clear indication of the side on which their bread is buttered, if I may put the matter in those terms. It is necessary that the continuity of policing after 1997 is addressed, as well as the position of those who are in what I might describe as sensitive posts.

Confidence-maintaining measures should be considered in the light of economic factors. Land has always been one of the major revenue-producing assets of the Hong Kong Government but its significance goes far beyond that. An immediate and clear indication that Hong Kong is to continue with its present way of life and systems after 1997 for at least 50 years would be to assimilate the terms for land in the new territories and those in the urban area. Much of the current development, industrial, commercial and residential, is taking place in the new territories due to the phenomenal expansion of the economy and the society, and the land issue is most important.

One of the great guarantees for Hong Kong's future is its geographical position and the advantages that it enjoys as an obvious choice for a regional centre. It is a centre for far more than merely physical facilities — the container port, for example. Even now, consideration is being given to the creation of an arbitration centre for the entire region. There is a well-established conference centre. The airport facilities have been widely used and I think that they need to be expanded. One of the measures that would help to create confidence would be for further consideration to be given to a second Hong Kong airport. I suggest that consideration should be given to constructing the second airport on the Deep Bay site that was considered before the revolution in China, and not Lan Tau island. That would be a tangible mark of Chinese interest in their special economic zone at Shenzhen and in the autonomous entity in the special zone of Hong Kong.

I am not suggesting these measures as part of a reflationary package. With an increase in exports of over 50 per cent. in the first three months of the year, it is not necessary to talk about reflationary packages against that background. However, it is necessary to consider projects that will provide the necessary infrastructure for Hong Kong beyond the end of the century. One part of that infrastructure is the construction of the power station that is currently being undertaken. My hon. Friend the Member for Arundel (Mr. Marshall) has talked abut the development of Hong Kong as a regional telecommunications centre to service oil developments in the south China sea, to service the developing air traffic and to serve the telecommunications needs of Hong Kong, the south seas, as they are called in the area, and the mainland of China.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that reference because it is an important point. Does he agree that there is a tripartite partnership in oil exploration, atomic power and telecommunications for the whole of southern China as well as Hong Kong, and that if confidence in Hong Kong were destroyed or withdrawn the whole edifice would collapse?

My hon. Friend is wise to emphasise the essential self-interest of China in the success of those projects and in the continuing success of Hong Kong.

Attention must be given to maintaining the competitiveness of Hong Kong in terms of other centres in the area, for example, Singapore. There has been some loss of confidence in Hong Kong because of recent changes in the tax system. We may wonder how anyone could suffer a loss of confidence when the rate of salary tax has increased from 16 per cent. to 18 per cent. Many of us would not regard that as a source of worry. My point is that, for the first time, interest on overseas holdings was brought into the tax system, and that was one of the main advantages that Hong Kong had enjoyed. A tabulation of the comparative advantages of Hong Kong as a so-called tax haven would reveal that the advantages are not now as considerable as they were. I keep emphasising that Hong Kong is a centre of a region of many activities, and it is important for its development that its competitive position in terms of taxation and incentives is kept in mind.

Apart from the administration and the economy, some political measures need to be considered. It would be helpful if there were an early sign that English will remain the official language in Hong Kong during the 50 years after 1997. The efforts now being put into promoting Hong Kong as, for instance, an arbitration centre would be largely wasted if it were no longer possible to use English as the main language. It is important to freedom of contracts and international trade for English to be used in the judicial system, and I believe that it should remain the official language.

It is no good saying that there will be freedom of travel if travel documents are not recognised and unless the right of abode in the special zone that is to be Hong Kong is not only recognised but enshrined in some document to give people the security of abode that they must be seeking. I am not suggesting that the people will be given a document to give them an automatic right of resettlement in this country. People are rather limited in their imagination if they believe that everyone in Hong Kong wants to live in an economy such as ours. The Hong Kong people need something that provides right of travel and abode in Hong Kong, and that is most important.

Difficult questions come under the political heading. I must refer again to the continuing influx of population from China. That influx may not sound like much, but 150 people a day from China coming into Hong Kong represents in a year the population of a town the size of Camberley or, by the end of 1997, the population of a city even larger than Glasgow. That population influx is adding to the social and other problems, including instability, of Hong Kong, and that issue must be tackled.

The British and Chinese Governments are agreed on their desire to maintain the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong. That is the object of the negotiations leading to the agreement. Their efforts will be of no avail unless efforts are made by the Hong Kong people to sustain their own confidence.

I am grateful for the opportunity of canvassing some of the more important points to which reference should be made.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Miller), who is a fellow officer of the British-Chinese parliamentary group, on taking the debate a stage further in a thoughtful and constructive look at Hong Kong's future. I intend to continue with the theme that he started.

It is essential to note that the interregnum of 13 years will be a difficult time for everyone. We must ensure—I use the words of Lord Wilson in another context—that we do not have 13 wasted years, which would be a tragedy. We could see even worse than wasted years if the Hong Kong people do not take cognisance of the crucial point made by my hon. Friend—they have the main role to play in confidence building. The Hong Kong people are, of course, not alone in that effort. Three parties are essential factors in confidence building: the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong and the British Government.

The Chinese Government must be aware of the sensitivity of opinion in Hong Kong. Only this morning, an announcement appears to have been made about the possibility of stationing troops from the People's Liberation Army in Hong Kong after 1997. Most people have been led to believe that that would not happen. I do not wish to debate whether that will or will not happen, but the Chinese Government must be aware that even to allow such comments to slip from the lips of their leaders can do more to destroy confidence in Hong Kong's future than anything said in the Chamber or anything said and done in Hong Kong. Such a statement has a disastrous effect on the Hong Kong stock exchange, which is one of the most frantic institutions in the world, and does little to build or maintain confidence in Hong Kong. That comment is in marked contrast to the behaviour and atmosphere in the Chamber this morning.

Leadership in Hong Kong is essential. The Hong Kong people must start to assume leadership. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove that there will be a continuing role for the expatriates, provided they are selected by the Hong Kong people rather than appointed by the British Government. I understand that that is the Chinese Government's attitude towards the continued role of expatriates in Hong Kong's administration: if they are selected and chosen by the Hong Kong people and qualify under the seven-year residency rule they will be free to remain.

My hon. Friend said—and I stress this point—that it is essential that the Hong Kong people should face the reality and inevitability of change. The Chinese people of Hong Kong can no longer ignore politics in the broadest sense—and I do not mean party politics. They can no longer opt out of the business of running Hong Kong. They must assume much more responsibility for providing political leadership within Hong Kong — and again I stress that I do not mean party political leadership. It is important to broaden the franchise far beyond anything that exists in Hong Kong at this time.

The third leg of the stool of confidence building is the British Government, who, over the years, have allowed and encouraged the Hong Kong Government to have almost complete autonomy. It is not realised, even in China, how little control the British Government have or have ever wanted to have in recent years over the Hong Kong Government. The lack of control has gone hand in hand with an absence of democracy, for reasons that are historically understood by all of us.

The British Government must take on board the crucial role that they have in ensuring a spread of more democratic institutions in Hong Kong. I am not talking about one man, one vote tomorrow or even necessarily at all, but the British Government must provide an impetus for the Hong Kong Government to ensure that the people of Hong Kong are not obstructed in the essential process of taking control of their own affairs and lifestyle. If we do too much too soon, we could create instability, but if we do too little too late ultimate disaster could result.

I understand that the Chinese Government fear above all finding themselves in 1997 having to replace the British Government as the body which provides the leadership for Hong Kong. The best guarantee against that is to encourage the creation of institutions which will enable the people of Hong Kong to select, or elect, their own leaders. The method of doing that has to be worked out in the next few years. It requires an impetus. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister not to allow the Hong Kong Government to obstruct that process.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Mr. Miller) for raising this important subject again today. I am also grateful to him for his kind personal remarks. As a former member of the Hong Kong Civil Service, he speaks from deep personal experience in describing the anxieties that the Hong Kong people feel as they consider their future. In particular, my hon. Friend is perhaps uniquely well placed in the House to reflect the concerns of Members of the Hong Kong public service. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) was able to intervene, since he has taken an intense and close interest in the future of Hong Kong.

I shall endeavour in the few minutes at my disposal to comment on some of the points raised today. My hon. Friends will understand the constraints within which I can make my remarks as the negotiations are still continuing and the talks must remain confidential. There is obviously little that I can add to what my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary said in the debate last week.

The debate last week rightly focused on the longer-term future of Hong Kong after 1997. I am sure that my hon. Friends were not expecting me to go over that ground again today. Much of what has been said today relates to the period before then. I should, therefore, like to take the opportunity of assuring the House, if assurance is needed, that we recognise that the administration of Hong Kong until 1997 should remain firmly a United Kingdom responsibility. We are committed to carrying out this responsibility in full. We shall continue to provide the framework within which the Hong Kong Government can administer the territory effectively and plan for its future. We are fully aware of the need to maintain in good shape the fabric of government in Hong Kong and all that that implies.

My hon. Friend referred to the vital need to maintain confidence in Hong Kong. The British Government are deeply aware of the need to sustain the confidence of the people in the period of change which lies ahead. I believe that this perception is shared by the Chinese Government. For our part, we are committed to maintaining confidence by working for a detailed, binding agreement to assure a high degree of continuity in Hong Kong's systems and lifestyle.

Confidence is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove implied, internally generated. Of course, we understand the anxieties of the Hong Kong people caused by their uncertainties about the future. The need to preserve the confidentiality of the negotiations also causes frustration. But I am sure that the Hong Kong people, who over many decades have shown an unusual degree of resilience, realism and determination, will face the future in the same constructive spirit.

Both my hon. Friends referred to the question of accountability. One important way in which we can contribute to the ability of the Hong Kong people to strengthen their autonomy and their confidence is through the evolution of representative institutions. Steady progress has already been made on this front in recent years. An elected element was first introduced into administration at the district level in 1982. Only last week plans to strengthen further the elective content of local government were announced in Hong Kong. This will be followed by a Green Paper this summer making proposals to develop the representative status of the two main central Government institutions—the Executive Council and the Legislative Council. All that will help to strengthen confidence, self-confidence and the autonomy of the people.

The British Government are grateful to the unofficial members of the Executive Council and the Legislative Council for their work. At that level the system is not representative. But the system has operated for many years under different Governments. The unofficial members demonstrate day after day a heavy sense of duty towards the people of Hong Kong.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove rightly focused on the public service. I shall take this opportunity to say a little more about the public service since last week's debate did not cover that ground. I pay tribute to the sense of responsibility demonstrated by public servants in Hong Kong during these uncertain times. They have made and are making a major contribution to Hong Kong's development. I have the highest regard for their efficiency, to which the spectacular economic and social development of Hong Kong bears witness.

I can assure Hong Kong public servants that Her Majesty's Government are fully aware of their concerns and fears, both through regular reports from the Hong Kong Government and from representations from individual civil servants and staff associations. For reasons with which my hon. Friends will be familiar, I am not able to go into details now about the content of our talks with the Chinese in Peking, but the Government's aim is to maintain the maximum degree of continuity after 1997 in the public service as in other areas. That continuity would cover such aspects as the security of jobs, the payment of pensions and the preservation of conditions of service. These matters are of great concern to us in the discussions.

A community as sophisticated as that of Hong Kong relies heavily on the diverse and specialist skills of its public servants. The fabric of government is complex. Her Majesty's Government are determined to keep this fabric intact and to maintain the morale and efficiency of the public servants at its present very high level, so that the territory and its administration can pass smoothly through the period of change which lies ahead.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove also referred to the importance of the maintenance of law and order. This remains a high priority for us. The assurance that I have just given in relation to the public service also covers the police. I hope that that goes far enough to reassure my hon. Friend.

My hon. Friend talked about the economic future of Hong Kong. I agree that one of the strongest aspirations of the Hong Kong people is to enjoy the continuity of their economic way of life. I am sure that my hon. Friend was right to draw attention to the fact that Hong Kong is an important economic regional centre. We hope that it will remain so. Important factors such as trade agreements with third countries — GATT, for example — are involved. Such arrangements are also part of the negotiations and, therefore, I cannot say much more about them, but they are important factors in terms of continuity and the way of life of the people.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove, supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, has done the House a service by raising issues in addition to those raised in the debate last week. As the House is aware, our aim can be simply stated. It is to make arrangements for a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong under Chinese sovereignty after 1997. It is also to provide the greatest possible continuity of systems and lifestyle for the Hong Kong people. To that end we are working for a detailed and binding agreement with China that would enshrine such arrangements. Confidence has been a central theme of the debate. A satisfactory agreement along those lines is, I believe, the surest way to maintain the confidence of the people of Hong Kong and of those outside who trade and invest there.

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove for raising this subject today.

With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the Government's proposals for the governing bodies of maintained schools in England and Wales. The proposals are set out in a Green Paper which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I published on Wednesday. Copies are available in the Vote Office.

The aim of the proposals is to raise standards. Since the Education Act 1944 established the present basis of our decentralised school system, much has been achieved by our maintained schools. The local education authorities, the voluntary bodies and the teachers have each contributed as partners to that achievement. The Government now propose to expand this partnership. We mean to give parents an increased role within it. Parents, too, are partners in education. They bring to this task unique responsibilities, a close knowledge of the children and a personal dedication to the full development of their qualities and talents. Our proposals build on the reforms initiated by my predecessor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Carlisle).

We now propose that parents elected by their fellow parents should have the right to form the majority on the governing bodies of the 20,000 county schools and maintained special schools and, together with the foundation governors, to form the majority on the governing bodies of the 3,500 voluntary controlled schools.

We also propose that, subject to the fundamental functions of the LEA, the governing bodies thus reconstituted should be assured of a powerful voice in the affairs of these schools. We plan to redefine the allocation of certain responsibilities for the curriculum and conduct of the school, the appointment and dismissal of staff, the management of its finances and the use of its premises. We intend that the local education authority, the governing body and the teachers should each have adequate scope to contribute to the good education of the pupils in cooperation with each other. Governors would receive training for the effective discharge of their responsibilities.

Local education authorities have a long and proud record. Our proposals are deliberately designed to leave untouched the duty of each local education authority to secure the provision of sufficient and efficient schools for its area and preserve those powers which it needs to discharge that duty. It will continue to be responsible for the character and pattern of the school system in its area; for formulating a curricular policy for its schools in the light of national policies and local needs; for employing the teachers and other staff and for managing them in the interest of all its schools; and for providing the necessary resources and deploying them effectively. On many important matters affecting the schools the local education authority will, as now, have the final say.

Our proposals protect the professional freedom of teachers and in particular give a more secure foundation to the authority of the head teacher to manage the professional business of the school.

Our proposals seek to strengthen the dual system of county and voluntary schools which continue to serve the country well and to offer diversity and choice to parents. We shall retain the present arrangements for the composition of the governing bodies of voluntary-aided and special-agreement schools. We also propose to maintain those features of the system which give these schools a substantial measure of independence and to make certain changes designed to enhance the position of voluntary schools.

A good school is more than an outpost of county or town hall, and more than a place where teachers go about their business. A good school develops its own identity and sense of purpose and serves its local community. We propose to achieve these ends by giving to every governing body, and to parents, an influence over the life of the school which does justice to their commitment to the standard of education in their locality and gives them scope to improve that standard.

My right hon. Friend and I will now consult widely and thoroughly on the proposals in the Green Paper. In this complex matter we are anxious to profit from the knowledge and experience of our education partners and of all others who are concerned to raise standards in our maintained schools. In the light of these consultations we intend in due course to bring before this House legislation to give effect to the Government's proposals.

I declare my interest as a former governor of an ILEA comprehensive school. First, is the Secretary of State aware that the Labour party is strongly in favour of the involvement of parents because we believe, with the Hargreaves report, that education is a common enterprise between pupils, parents, teachers and the wider community?

Is the Secretary of State also aware that the Labour party was the pioneer of parental representation on school governing bodies and that it was the Labour Government who set up the Taylor committee, mentioned in the Green Paper, and who first introduced legislation—which fell with the fall of the Labour Government in 1979—later adopted by the Conservatives, which required there to be parent governors?

Does the Secretary of State accept that we welcome an increase in the number of parent governors but believe that all the education partners should be fully represented—local authorities, teachers, non-teaching staff, parents and representatives of the wider community such as the employers and the trade unions?

Does the Secretary of State further accept that if there is to be genuine partnership it is wrong for one group to be able to dominate the others? Under the Government's proposals, is there not a danger of giving majority power to a group whose interests in a particlar school may, of necessity and understandably, be transient? There could well be problems of continuity, lack of experience and balance.

The Secretary of State has shown his interest for one educational partner—the parents. Is it not about time that he showed a similar interest for the teachers, who are completely demoralised and bitterly resentful of the Secretary of State's refusal to support arbitration? Will he now join with the AMA and instruct his representatives on Burnham to vote for arbitration?

I am glad that in general the hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) welcomes the Government's proposals. To the extent that he wants to obtain credit for pioneering on the part of the Labour Government, although they set up the Taylor committee they did nothing effective about its report, and it is the Conservative Government who are pioneering the giving of a majority voice to parents on governing bodies.

I make no apology for giving parents a majority voice on governing bodies. They have, as a group, a continuing interest in school standards, and I believe that during the consultation process we shall have ample opportunity to consider whether we need to make any adjustments to our proposals.

As for the sad disruption that is now occurring to children's education, the Government continue to deplore it, with great emphasis. I cannot believe that it is in teachers' interests to disrupt the schooling of children. No arbitrator has the power to conjure up more resources. The employers have offered as much as they conceivably can, and the offer which remains on the table is fair and reasonable. I hope that teachers will come to realise that and will accept it.

rose—

Order. I remind the House that, although this is an important statement, the spring Adjournment debates are precious Back-Bench Members' time. It would be unfair to those Members who have been successful in the ballot to take too much time on the statement. I propose to allow questions to continue until 11.15 am.

I am sure that Opposition Members will welcome the Secretary of State's scenic route to Damascus. Does he accept that what he has announced is pure, high-octane Liberal policy, and has been so for some 10 years? He said that the reforms were initiated by his predecessor, the right hon. and learned Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Carlisle). Will he explain why the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposed these very amendments, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) in the Education Bill Committee in 1979?

On the subject of schools and the Secretary of State's encouragement to develop the

"identity and sense of purpose"

of schools in the local community, will he now stop closing village schools such as the school in the village of Coveney in my constitutuency, which is doing such good work; and finally—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."]

I am glad that the Liberal party also welcomes the Government's initiative. Let historians dispute where the idea of increasing parental influence on governing bodies came from. Of this I am sure: the idea of having a majority of parents on governing bodies is a Conservative Government monopoly. It is our initiative, which we are glad is being so widely welcomed.

I should like to declare my interest as a former deputy head of a comprehensive school of 1,100 and as one who ran a mixed school of over 2,000 children after that. Will the governing bodies, as now to be reconstituted, have final responsibility for school discipline? Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is very difficult to arrange a good, strong parental vote for a parent governor? I tried to do that. Will my right hon. Friend therefore consider including postal ballots and a minimum voting requirement to achieve the number of governors that he envisages?

I respect my hon. Friend's experience in schools. I draw his attention to chapter 4 of the Green Paper, on conduct and discipline. Parents, through governing bodies, will have a greater influence on conduct and discipline, as my hon. Friend will see spelt out there. With regard to electoral procedure, we shall consider my hon. Friend's points and any others that are made during the consultation period.

Does the Secretary of State agree that, whichever party is in power, it is not easy to get such matters right? They are not susceptible to nice party manifestos. Will the Secretary of State consider asking the Leader of the House whether we can use the Special Standing Committee procedure to question the Government's proposals before there is legislation? The Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Bill is an admirable precedent. It is an excellent idea. One hears the views of the professionals and the parents and not just those of the Department of Education and Science, which are as remote from education matters as are the Secretary of State, myself and the House of Commons.

I shall put the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I can do no more than that.

Does my right hon. Friend share my slight sense of disappointment at the somewhat grudging tone of the hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice)? It seems to me that the closer democracy gets to the ground, whether the pithead ballot, the London boroughs or parent power, the less the Opposition like it. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, on the wider education debate raised by the hon. Member for Durham, North, there is a duty on both sides to avoid that debate being dominated purely by the cash nexus? Will my right hon. Friend therefore put this reform and other reforms into one big productivity package that will give a new deal for pupils, teachers and parents?

My hon. Friend is asking a great deal. I happily accept his comments on the Opposition's attitude, but I am still glad that they welcome the proposals.

I served as a governor for an ILEA school. Following the ILEA's initiative of introducing parent governors on to school governing bodies, does the Secretary of State accept that most Labour people in inner London will welcome a move towards increased and improved parental involvement on governing bodies? Does he recognise that as parents become more involved on governing bodies there will be increasing pressure from them for him and his skinflint colleagues to release the additional resources that will be necessary if the schools are to do their job, whoever is on the governing bodies?

I was glad to see that in the good Hargreaves report on schooling in inner London, commissioned by ILEA, the idea of an increase in the number of parents on governing bodies was included.

My right hon. Friend's announcement today will be welcomed throughout Wales, and also in England. The change has needed to be made for a long time. Can my right hon. Friend say what timetable he has in mind for introducing the legislation?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and am glad of his voice to help me to persuade my colleagues to make that day as early as possible.

In the interests of balance, I call Mr. Wrigglesworth.

Is the Secretary of State aware that these proposals will be welcomed by alliance Members and studied with great interest over the coming couple of weeks? Will he assure us that the procedure adopted in the past, of political appointments being made to governing bodies of people who have no knowledge of or contact with the area from which the pupils are drawn, will be ended under the proposals? Pay and arbitration are causing much trouble at schools. Could that matter be resolved if the Government had the political will and priorities that they had for the Falklands, the police and other areas of Government activity, when they spent substantial sums of money?

There will be less room on governing bodies for appointments by local education authorities as a result of the proposed legislation. As for the hon. Gentleman's welcome to the proposals, I am not used to unanimity, but I am grateful for it on this occasion.

I join other hon. Members in welcoming the proposals, although at present I am a school governor appointed by a local authority. However, will more guidance and encouragement be given to greater involvement in meetings and other activities in the interests of the effectiveness of governing bodies?

The purpose of the proposed reform is precisely to increase the effectiveness of governing bodies and parents.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You made a welcome but innovative remark from the Chair. You said that in the interests of balance you would call my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Wrigglesworth). I wonder what the balance is that you intend to give from the Chair.

The hon. Gentleman does not need to ask me such a question. He knows exactly what I meant by that remark. He is taking time out of the Adjournment motion debate. I call Mr. Banks

I should like to preface my remarks on this subject with a few general remarks about the way in which the arts are treated in the House. I believe that hon. Members on both sides of the House are disturbed and dissatisfied at the way in which they are treated.

There are three points at issue. First, there is no Minister directly responsible to the House for the arts. Instead, we have a Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Environment, the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave), the renowned all-singing, all-dancing Minister who, among his many responsibilities, is helping to preside over the abolition of local democracy, the disposal of waste matter, and the arts. It is a strange combination of duties to give an hon. Member. Sooner or later one expects to see him pulling pints in the Strangers' Bar.

The second point of dissatisfaction is the time that we are allowed for parliamentary questions. We have 10 minutes in this House once every three weeks. Earl Gowrie used to attend to listen to the questions but these days he, too, is lacking in enthusiasm.

Thirdly, important arts matters of truly national significance are scarcely, if ever, given parliamentary time. Instead, we are having to rely more and more on planted parliamentary questions and written answers. I will give a few recent examples.

The 1984–85 arts budget, spending over £100 million of taxpayers' money, was the subject of a written answer. The Arts Council's important funding reorganisation was set out in a book called "The Glory of the Garden", which I at first thought was some sort of seed catalogue. It has had no discussion whatever

The extra funding for the arts that the Government recently announced—in the event of the abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan county councils — has not been discussed; in fact, it came up during the middle of one of the Secretary of State's characteristic and woefully inadequate speeches, when he slipped it into the Local Government (Interim Provisions) Bill. The subject had nothing to do with the Bill but was put in as a way of trying to placate more overt criticism.

There has been no discussion on the Select Committee report or on the subsequent. White Paper, which was a pretty poor scissors-and-paste job done at the Office of Arts and Libraries. We have had no chance to discuss those vital issues.

The arts are not a minority issue and they are not a minority interest, although some people claim that they are. Tens of millions of people in Britain each year go to the theatre, to films, to ballet, to opera, to arts centres and museums. It adds up to a formidable number, so it cannot be said that we are discussing a minority subject today. The state of the arts in London and elsewhere is a matter of concern and significance for this House and for the country at large and should be treated accordingly by the Government.

I should like the Minister to answer three specific questions. First, will he inform the Prime Minister that this House wants an Arts Minister answerable to the Commons? Secondly, will the Minister discuss with the Leader of the House the need for a longer period of arts questions — say, half an hour rather than 10 minutes? Thirdly, will he seek an early, full debate on the arts and discuss with his colleagues the possibility of an annual debate on the state of the arts?

Since 1981 the Labour GLC has doubled its arts budget in real terms. I presided over that increase, and I argued for it with my colleagues on political grounds. The first was the unemployment crisis in London. Well over 360,000 Londoners have been forced by Government economic policies to endure the compulsory leisure brought about by unemployment. The arts, of course, cannot solve unemployment but they can ameliorate the condition and help to explain the cause.

The long-term changes in work patterns should, in theory, provide for a greater degree of voluntary leisure time for working people but, as we know, under capitalism changes in technology merely mean longer and longer dole queues and increasing social unrest. The whole concept behind the GLC's arts policy is to shape provision for the arts and recreation to the future changes that we wish to see in our society.

Arguing from a political point of view, arts activities can be used to identify and express human needs and goals and in that way to contribute to the wider process of social change and betterment. I have always maintained that art and politics have been inextricably linked, and I believe that the GLC has simply been open about it. We have been political but political in the broadest sense rather than in the narrow party political sense.

At present, in London there are two developments of great significance facing the arts, and they need to be considered. First, there is the Arts Council's new strategy for priority areas, as detailed in its document "The Glory of the Garden". Most of the £6 million that the Arts Council seeks to save is to come from the regions themselves rather than from London. That point was picked up when people examined the proposals more closely. If the Arts Council carries out its proposal, London will lose about 5 per cent. of its funding in 1985–86.

I believe that more important than the funding decisions is the fact that the Arts Council's analysis of London's needs is misdirected in several respects. London is treated by the Arts Council in its document as though it is merely a large city rather than a region. The GLC area consists of 610 square miles and embraces 7 million people in 32 boroughs. There are massive economic and social differences in London and there are great differences in the provision of arts facilities.

We know that there is a great concentration of arts facilities in the centre of London and a great lack of facilities in the outer London boroughs. The GLC, through its arts policy, has been trying to deal with that problem by seeking to push the arts into the outer parts of London and the edges of the region.

The Arts Council's proposal on the cutting of grants will mean a loss to London of important touring companies, such as C. A .S .T., 7:84 and Temba. Those companies, of which hon. Members might not have heard, perform in venues such as pubs and clubs in the outer part of London. Their activities are very important because they provide an access to the arts that is so clearly lacking at present.

There is what is called the fear of the threshold. In Britain we put the arts into magnificent great halls. The most recent is the Barbican—the last great folly of all. That building then becomes a barrier; it actually discourages people from going in. The GLC's idea was to put theatre and dance into places where people feel more at home—for example, in clubs and pubs. That seems to me to be very beneficial, but the Arts Council, by cutting the activities of touring companies that perform in such venues, is restricting the arts. The King's Head Theatre club, which will lose its grant, is yet another example. For some years it has been putting on a variable and exciting programme but it will be forced to close after 1985 unless something happens.

There is another element in the proposal to cut the touring companies. The Arts Council appears to be trying to demolish political theatre. It is suggesting that the various companies that I have mentioned have been putting on productions that are considered to be too Left-wing for the tastes of the chairman of the Arts Council or the Ministers to whom he is responsible.

The news that the Wakefield Tricycle Theatre—which is in Brent, not in Wakefield—is to lose its Arts Council funding was greeted with great pleasure by the hon. Member for Brent, North (Dr. Boyson). He was reported as saying that the Tricycle puts on plays which attack

"the social fabric of our society."

I made a quick examination of the more recent productions put on by the Tricycle Theatre. Its latest productions include "The Playboy of the Western World", which I understand has nothing to do with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There was a theatre group from Soweto. There was a play based on the story of Calamity Jane—that is not the Prime Minister, I understand. There was a production starring Hazel O'Connor, and "Buried Treasure", a comedy starring Prunella Scales — very subversive and revolutionary. There was a production called "Smile Orange", a comedy about a Jamaica hotel. If those are the sorts of plays that the hon. Member for Brent, North believes to be undermining his way of life, it must be a very peculiar way of life.

It appears from a reading of its proposals that the Arts Council is attempting to eliminate political theatre. I am sure that it is not acting directly on instructions from Ministers, but I believe that it is making a conscious attempt to please. What else would one expect from a dedicated orthodox Tory like Sir William Rees-Mogg? So much for the arm's-length principle.

The Arts Council's third mistake, in relation to arts funding in London, is its proposal to end the grant to the Queen's Theatre in Hornchurch and the Churchill Theatre in Bromley in 1985–86. Both those theatres are in Tory boroughs. Both those boroughs are in the outer parts of London. The theatres are heavily funded by those Tory boroughs, and I give the boroughs credit for that.

The Arts Council states that it wants partnership with the boroughs, but it is not setting a good example when it penalises Tory boroughs which are heavily funding theatres in areas where they are desperately needed. The Arts Council continues, in "The Glory of the Garden", by warning Kensington and Chelsea that it should be providing money for the Royal Court Theatre. But it gives no encouragement to Kensington and Chelsea to do so. Kensington and Chelsea is known to be one of the meanest councils in London. The state of the old Kensington town hall shows that it is also one of the worst councils in terms of environmental protection. The Tories in Kensington and Chelsea, if asked to put money into the Royal Court, will point to what happened in Bromley or Hornchurch. They will say that if they put money into the Royal Court, the Arts Council will simply withdraw its own funding. The Arts Council has therefore done itself a disservice by announcing the end of the grants to those two theatres. I hope it will reconsider the decision.

The most direct and deliberate cut will be the withdrawal of £280,000 from the London Orchestral Concert Board. The idea is that one of the existing London orchestras—I know that the Arts Council has the Royal Philharmonic in mind—should move to Nottingham and form a new eastern orchestra.

There is no way in which the RPO will go to Nottingham. Nottingham is a lovely place, but the RPO cannot earn in Nottingham the money that it can earn in London. Orchestras rely on recording contracts and on forming different orchestral groups. In order to do that, they need to be based in a large conurbation. The result of the Arts Council's decision will, therefore, simply be to deprive London's orchestras of £280,000. That is a very poor decision.

In normal circumstances, the GLC would consider making up all those shortfalls in the interests of London's arts as a whole, but, as the GLC itself is facing abolition, it is not a realistic prospect.

I should like now to refer to the abolition of the GLC and the role of the GLC in relation to the arts. The GLC has the largest arts and recreation structure in the United Kingdom. It has more clients than the Arts Council. Those clients range from national centres to street theatre. The current GLC arts budget, with its museums and historic houses budget, amounts to well over £20 million, in the context of an arts and recreation budget of over £50 million.

I welcome the Government's decision to provide an extra £34 million for the arts after 1986–87 in the event of the abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan counties, although I hope that the Minister can tell us whether or not that sum will be index-linked after 1986–87. The announcement was a great victory for the arts lobby. When the original announcements were made in the White Paper "Streamlining the Cities", I warned the Minister to his face that we would give him a lot of trouble over the arts. To his credit, the Minister said that, if that was the case, he would buy us off. That is politics, and I am glad of it. It shows that the arts have muscle when they want to use it. However, even with that extra funding, London will still lose £4 million to £5 million after the abolition of the GLC.

There is no way in which the boroughs will be able to make up that shortfall. Rate-capping is on the way, and with the general restriction on local authority expenditure there is no way in which the boroughs—or districts out of London—will be able to replace the funding that will be lost with the GLC and the MCCs. The extra money that is being discussed for London in the event of the abolition of the GLC would be channelled through the Arts Council. It will not go to the community and ethnic arts that the GLC has done so much to stimulate, or to maintaining the big regional festivals such as the Easter parade, the May day festivals, Thames day and the South Bank weekend horse show. Those festivals attract hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, and I cannot see how they will be continued. The Arts Council has neither the expertise nor the desire to do so, and the boroughs would not be able to afford it.

If the Arts Council continues its present attitude, the areas that the GLC has done much to encourage will suffer great deprivation. I hope that, in addition to restoring to London its city-wide government, the next Labour Government will make the Arts Council far more democratically accountable for all its activities.

I wish to leave time for the Minister's reply, being conscious that it will have been somewhat shortened because of the earlier important statement. I hope that the Minister will say something about the South Bank. In the consultative paper on the arts which accompanied "Streamlining the Cities" there was a reference to running the South Bank on commercially viable lines. That struck terror into my heart. It would mean an end to the GLC's open foyer policy at the Royal Festival Hall. In II months, we have attracted an extra million people to the Royal Festival Hall by offering many added attractions. If the Minister has not visited the foyer, I extend to him an invitation to come over one lunchtime to see what is being done on the South Bank and what is at risk. I might even buy him a glass of champagne. Despite what one reads in the vulgar press, one can still get champagne in the Royal Festival Hall, and there is much to celebrate there.

I am glad that the Government have learnt the error of their ways and changed their original proposals for London. I am glad that they are prepared to put in extra money. The arts are not simply the icing on the cake; they are one of the ingredients of the cake. They should rank with housing, transport, the social services and education. The arts should serve the people and be responsive to their needs. If the GLC is abolished and the Arts Council takes over some of the arts funding, London will suffer a serious drop in its level of arts funding and there will be a return to the narrow middle-class attitude towards the arts which is characteristic of arts funding in this country. That would be bad both for London and the arts.

I apologise for not having been present at the beginning of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), which took me unawares.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to stress the importance of the arts and of Government action. It is not only the Arts Council but the Government whose actions are of importance. The Minister responsible for the arts tells us to take politics out of the arts. However, Government action has thrust politics firmly into the foreground. A collection of councils cannot replace the overall authority of the GLC in being conscious of a responsibility towards arts activities which may be based in neighbouring boroughs. The shift of support from the regions to the districts in Scotland has shown what will happen. The situation will be worse in England, with rate-capping, rate-cutting and the abolition of the GLC and the MCCs.

In what way does the Minister expect matching funds to be made available for theatres such as the Royal Court? We are already told that 7:84 England will not get help for its tour with the play "Six Men of Dorset" because the TUC may provide support. Once matching funds are provided, Arts Council funds are cut. We do not need to make predictions, because it is already happening. Why, then, should Kensington and Chelsea support the Royal Court?

Secondly, there is the question of the £34 million. The Government are right to provide that money—there was no other recourse—but Scotland is now asking why, with the change from region to district, no extra provision was made in Scotland. The Government's problem is that if they continue to pay that type of money centrally to support the borough and district councils that were formerly in metropolitan county areas or the GLC area, it will be asked why any other local authority should pay its whack. A major theoretical and financial problem faces the arts and everyone is worried about it. We should have an answer to that.

My hon. Friend is right. In the eyes of everyone who has studied the Arts Council's document and considered the balance of cuts, there have been political decisions. An obvious example of that is 7:84, England. In view of what has been said about the importance of community and active arts, what excuse is there for cutting the best and most professional black theatre in Britain—the Temba Theatre? That which is socially, never mind politically, involved has been cut.

I am sorry that this speech has been so short and I apologise for my late arrival. I hope that the Minister will examine the wider issues that are involved in what the Government are doing to the metropolitan authorities and the GLC. I should like to reiterate the final and wise words of my hon. Friend. In the new circumstances, the arts must be seen as being as important as the other social problems facing the country. That is a means by which some of the attitudes concerning social problems can be solved.

It is rather unnerving to find the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) in such a conciliatory mood. I shall, of course, take him up on his offer of a glass of champagne on the South Bank, a complex that I know well. One of the few consolations of working in that appalling building called Elizabeth house when in the Department of Education and Science is being able to escape to the South Bank at lunchtime. I formed that habit when employed there. I shall not make the offensive remarks that I have prepared. The hon. Gentleman made a few about me, as he always does. Perhaps he owes my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young), the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, a drink because, due to an oversight, the hon. Gentleman did not turn up for this debate last time, although we read about it in The Standard. It ran a story under the headline

"Arts goes to Commons"

but the arts did not go to the Commons because the hon. Gentleman forgot to come.

I should have apologised for that at the beginning of my speech. I was doing a public meeting in Hastings. I rushed back on the train and was crossing Blackfriars bridge when I saw the light go out. Once again, I think that my Front Bench was not able to keep the proceedings going.

I can only agree with the hon. Gentleman's last analysis. There was some failure higher up the line. There have been some comic muddles in the campaign against the abolition of the GLC. The poor old horse-drawn cart got a bit behind, largely as a result of the hon. Gentleman's persistence during the debate in the middle of the night. Especially enjoyable was having the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), who was here a moment ago and might return, presenting the petition on behalf of the GLC—he was one of the most doughty campaigners against the GLC when he was a leader of a borough council.

The hon. Member for Newham, North-West is in no other respect like the fat boy in Dickens except that he likes to make our flesh creep. I do not wish to doubt his commitment to the arts, but a good deal of what he says shows that the arts has been and is being used as one of the campaigning territories against the abolition of the GLC. It has been used unfairly to stir up worries which the Government have shown themselves willing to meet. The hon. Gentleman paid tribute to my noble Friend the Minister for the Arts for the sums of money that he has procured to meet the problems that will be created by abolition. I can give an assurance, within the normal type of provisos that any Minister must make about future public spending, as my noble Friend was able to say, that there will be £34 million and equivalent sums. That is Treasuryese for saying that the sum is secure in real terms, but I must add, "within the general constraints of public expenditure." My noble Friend did exceedingly well on behalf of the arts to secure considerable funding. Ministers for the Arts since 1979 have all done well in terms of resources. In real terms, there has been an increase in spending of 8·4 per cent. from 1979–80 to 1984–85. At a time of general restraint on spending, that is a good achievement.

The hon. Gentleman rightly said that there are two important things going on in the arts world. They have separate origins but interlock. The first is the Arts Council's radical examination of its funding. The hon. Gentleman's criticism seemed to be in respect of some aspect of that process. He did not say that it was wrong for the Arts Council to have a radical look at its funding. The Labour party and its spokesman, the hon. Member for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan), have often argued for greater provision in the regions. The attempt to meet that in the strategic document has to some extent been welcomed on both sides of the House.

The hon. Gentleman's point about the boroughs' role in future is well taken. There is a tremendous opportunity and challenge for the boroughs in the policy of devolution to them. We intend to make the boroughs more powerful, to give them more money and to give them a greater share of the government of London. I strongly hope that some of the attitudes that both parties show in some of the London boroughs that they control, although there are honourable exceptions on both sides, will rise to the challenge. Part of the prize that is being offered to them will be lost if they do not rise to the challenge in regard to the arts. I know that my noble Friend has been putting that point across to them.

It would be wrong to be wholly pessimistic about the future borough role. They will have to change some of their attitudes. I hope that they will. They are being asked to do much more in the government of London. In regard to negotiations about theatres such as the Royal Court between the Arts Council and the boroughs, the Arts Council will be aware of the reaction that could derive from a borough and will have to take that into account in the negotiations. It is not necessarily wrong for the Arts Council to consider some areas and theatres in London and say that boroughs on the edge of London that have the highest per capita income in western Europe, comparable with parts of France and Germany, should do more to enable the Arts Council to release more money for other parts of the country.

I would not want to give the hon. Gentleman an assurance that there will be no Minister for the Arts in another place in future. Lord Donaldson was an extremely distinguished and good Minister for the Arts. While we have a bicameral Parliament we must accept that there will be Ministers in another place. I find the hon. Gentleman's request rather ironic, because on several other matters he and his right hon. and hon. Friends have put great hope on another place. He blows hot and cold on the matter.

Like others who are interested in the arts, I feel a little hard done by in regard to the short time that we have to debate the arts. I shall report back to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on that. The matter is raised from time to time. I would welcome being grilled for rather longer. Equally, it is clearly time to have a major debate on the arts. I shall report that to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.

I remind the Minister of the statement by the Leader of the House last week in which he recognised the importance of a debate, as I understand it, in Government time.

It is simply a matter of fixing a date. I look forward to the debate, which it would be sensible to allow to stray into areas normally covered by the heritage, because the division between the two is often artificial.

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Newham, North-West asked about the South Bank. I pay tribute to the way in which, under both parties in the GLC, the South Bank has grown in importance. However, I and my noble Friend believe that there is an immense way still to go. My noble Friend envisages the centre developing into something comparable with the Lincoln centre—something that is used for a wide range of activities. There is no intention to take a narrow and foolish view of an immediate return, in the sense of profits, for every activity that goes on. The Arts Council will have to support many of the activities there in the future.

The Government have listened carefully to the representations made about arts in the London area as a result of the abolition of the GLC and, as the hon. Member for Newham, North-West said, we have responded in several ways and made some changes, for example, with the Geffrye and Horniman museums. Above all, we have responded by finding money to carry London through the period of turbulence and readjustment that is bound to follow the abolition of the GLC. The funds available are already considerable. The Arts Council now spends about £30 million in London, much of it on national centres. When the hon. Member for Newham, North-West was chairman of the GLC arts committee, he took the view that some national centres in London should be the responsibility of the Arts Council. He caused much trouble in doing so and threatened to dump the Royal Opera House and the English National Opera. There was a great argument about that, which makes some of the reassuring noises from the GLC about funding projects that were put to it rather hard to believe. One must take them with a pinch of salt, because the GLC has had its radical proposals in the past. It was only the lawyers who stopped the sale of the pictures at Kenwood, which was another unnecessary—

I have always believed that national centres should be funded nationally. As to the pictures at Kenwood, the GLC was demonstrating at the time that if it was forced into extremis it would have no option but to consider selling some of its assets in order to save some threatened companies.

If one considers the list of some of the activities that are funded, it does not look like that to the citizens of London. That was a dangerous thing to do in that it raised questions about bequests, which would have been better left alone. Although no sensible person could do other than saw that the arts and artistic creativity are one aspect of all civilisation, "civilisation" is a seamless garment in this connection. One can no more discuss the democracy of ancient Athens without discussing the plays of Aeschylus than one can discuss 16th century England without discussing the plays of Shakespeare and their political manifestations.

The cruder uses of patronage by the GLC, such as the one that we saw in yesterday evening's newspaper, of providing money to a pop group that sings anti-Government songs, have brought politics into the arts in a rather trivial way. That undermines the arts and invites the backlash to which the hon. Gentleman referred. It would be wise to retain the arm's length principle. The House is at its best and democracies are at their best when they say, in connection with some areas over which they have ultimate sovereignty, that they will pass self-denying ordinances and allow some activities to be carried on outside the normal argy-bargy of smoke-filled rooms and politics of the tougher sort.

The GLC has not done the arts a service by trying to use them in the present campaign, and it has laid up troubles for the arts by letting genies out of bottles that will be difficult to return. But in other matters there is wide agreement across the House. This short debate shows that in this area at least—if I may return to the glass of champagne that is now owed to me—the traditional civilities of the House are not yet wholly at an end.

Consumer affairs have never featured as prominently on the political scene in this country as they have tended to do in the United States. For instance, Britain does not have a Ralph Nader. Perhaps it should be welcomed that, on the whole, we approach consumer affairs in a relatively pragmatic way, seeking to achieve a satisfactory balance between the interests of the purchaser and the desire not to overload the manufacturer or supplier with regulations or requirements that are unnecessary. To fall into the latter trap would, in the long run, do the consumer no good because it would deprive him or her of choice, and no Government would be thanked for that.

Nevertheless, in order freely to exercise choice a prospective purchaser needs correct information. We should be worried if the information is inadequate and even more worried if the information given is wrong either because of carelessness by someone in the supply line or, more seriously, because of deliberate fraud.

In few product areas is accurate information more necessary than in textiles. Most of the old wool men who did business in the wool exchange in Bradford could tell what a cloth was made of just by running it through their fingers; indeed, many of their modern counterparts can still do so. But the effects of technology in producing a greater range of synthetic fibres, which might look similar but have different qualities, mean that the purchaser may have very little to go on when making an assessment, except for the label.

Fibre content labelling is regulated by the Textile Products (Indication of Fibre Content) Regulations 1975, as subsequently amended, which were made under the umbrella of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968. Those regulations should be adequate protection provided that they are heeded. But unfortunately, and largely because of inadequate enforcement, it appears that some companies are running a coach and horses through the regulations. Section 26 of the Trade Descriptions Act states that it is

"the duty of every local weights and measures authority to enforce within their area the provisions of this Act and of any order made under this Act."

In England and Wales the enforcement authorities are the metropolitan and non-metropolitan county councils and the London boroughs.

The answer by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State to my question about enforcement on 6 March is highly interesting. The statistics he gave were based on information supplied on a voluntary basis to the Director General of Fair Trading for the period 1978 to 1983. During that time 127 successful prosecutions were brought by local authorities. Of those, 68—more than half—were initiated by West Yorkshire metropolitan county council. A further five authorities — Lancashire, South Yorkshire, Mid-Glamorgan, Hounslow and Shropshire — initiated between three and seven successful prosecutions, nine authorities had two prosecutions each, and a further 12 authorities had only one prosecution each.

The majority of enforcement authorities, including most of those in Greater London, mounted no prosecutions during those six years. Of course, we do not know how many cases were investigated or how many warnings were given. But if prosecutions are necessary to have any deterrent effect on potential transgressors, we must assume that the level of deterrence was very low in many parts of the country.

Towards the end of last year the wool, textile and clothing industry action committee, which comprises representatives of management and unions, Members of Parliament and Members of the European Parliament, together with representatives of local authorities in west Yorkshire, carried out a survey of enforcement authorities; 81 responded, which was nearly all of those surveyed. When they were asked how many investigations based on the fibre content regulations had been carried out in the past five or six years, the total response may seem quite high, as it was 155,000. It is clear, however, that the word "investigations" carried quite a variety of meanings. Only a small proportion were technical investigations into fibre content. The great majority were visual inspections only, as to whether a garment or textile product had a fibre content label at all.

Because it is a complex, expensive and time-consuming task to identify misleading or fraudulent labels, this work is rarely undertaken. Some authorities never do it, as they admit. All authorities have to determine their own priorities and for some the fact that priorities lie elsewhere can be understood. As one authority said:

"We have a very limited sampling budget and priority has been given to foodstuffs and dangerous goods."

It is no coincidence that west Yorkshire is head and shoulders above any other authority when it comes to enforcement, because the wool textile industry has its roots in the county and employs large numbers of its people. After some years of recession and decline, I am glad to say that the industry is experiencing something of a revival, with exports up by nearly 40 per cent. in the early months of the year compared with 1983. It is too early to say how firmly founded that revival is.

Some may be surprised to discover that 500,000 people still depend for their livelihood on the textile and clothing industries. These industries—as I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), who I know hopes to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will agree — do not ask for anything more than fair competition, so that those who produce goods of high quality may go on doing so and those jobs may be secure.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has said, and I support her to the hilt, that British goods must sell on price, quality and delivery. If foreign goods are better and if they are produced fairly, we have no grounds for discriminating against them. It is because, as I shall show, many garments are imported into the United Kingdom masquerading under the false pretences of a misleading label that the west Yorkshire metropolitan county council trading standards department affords priority to this practice.

I am aware of the particular problems that arise because of the fair competition rules of the European Community in relation to marks of origin. At present, together with France, we are being taken to the European Court by the Commission. The issue of marks of origin is a distinct but related one. Before I say something about that, I shall show why it cannot be ignored in a debate on fibre content. The survey to which I have referred revealed that 169 prosecutions had been undertaken. Some related to non-labelling of fibre content, but 102 were for inaccurate description of fibre content. In other words, there was a label but the information on it was just plain wrong.

The enforcement authorities were asked to give the country of origin of offending items. There was no particular reason why they should have this information on their records, and in 51 cases—exactly half—this was not specified. Where it was known, 13 were of United Kingdom origin and 36 originated from Italy. It is worth examining some of these examples, as in some cases they are surprisingly blatant. Not all the cases involve wool, cotton or other natural fibres. Some synthetics are of a much higher quality than others and the purchaser is at least as likely to be misled if a low quality synthetic fibre garment is labelled as a higher quality fibre.

Where prosecutions took place, the penalties were often paltry, falling far short of even the inadequate £1,000 maximum fine. In some cases, the courts evidently, and perhaps reasonably sometimes, felt sympathy for the retailer, while the wholesaler or importer hid behind him and could not be identified with certainty. However, one could also suggest that the retailer should not depend on the good faith of the wholesaler unless he has good reason for trusting him. The London boroughs of Brent, Ealing and Harrow reported a case where blankets of Italian origin labelled as being all wool were found to be only 13 per cent. wool. Although the retailer was found guilty and fined £400. no action was taken against the importer.

The London borough of Greenwich took action over a nightdress that was labelled as 100 per cent. cotton but which turned out to be 66 per cent. polyester and only 34 per cent. cotton. It was reported, quite remarkably, that the manufacturer was fined only £5, although the costs awarded came to £150.

In Derbyshire, a skirt made in the United Kingdom from Italian fibre and labelled as 68 per cent. wool and 32 per cent. nylon was in fact 31 per cent. polyester, 23 per cent. acrylic and a mere 36 per cent. wool. Norfolk county council discovered a case where an Italian fabric length stated to be 60 per cent. wool was in fact 8 per cent. wool.

In south Glamorgan, a United Kingdom lady's dress labelled 100 per cent. cotton proved to be 100 per cent. polyester. The fine was £25, suggesting, although I am not aware of the exact circumstances, that fines vary considerably between one part of Britain and another. South Yorkshire revealed a case where a jumper described as mohair contained 83 per cent. acrylic and 17 per cent. miscellaneous animal fibres, and the fine in this case was a mere £30.

In Tyne and Wear, some socks labelled 80 per cent. wool and 20 per cent. acrylic were really 11 per cent. wool, 34 per cent. acrylic and 55 per cent. other fibres. The Leicester manufacturer in this case was fined £100.

West Yorkshire can provide a host of cases of every description, and I have time only to give as examples a couple of the more serious cases. An Italian garment labelled as being 50 per cent. wool, 30 per cent. polyester, 10 per cent. nylon and 10 per cent. other fibres was in reality 34·6 per cent. acrylic, 29·1 per cent. wool—not 50 per cent. — 22.9 per cent polyester, 13 per cent. nylon, 0·3 per cent. cotton and 0·1 per cent. viscose. The defendant, a company trading under the name of All That Jazz Limited, was evidently not playing the tune shown on the score and was fined £70 for a deficiency of about 20 per cent. wool.

In another case, where an item of Italian origin was stated as being 80 per cent. wool and 20 per cent. nylon, it turned out to be 24·7 per cent. polyester, 21·1 per cent. acrylic, 19·6 per cent. viscose, 16·9 per cent. nylon, 15·2 per cent. wool and 2·5 per cent. cotton — a rather remarkable mixture, involving a wool deficiency of approximately 65 per cent. The two defendants were each fined £250.

It has been said that some of these labels are the results merely of inspired guesses, but many of them are inspired by fraudulent intentions. These are cases where the fish did not get away. However, it is obvious that these offences are nationwide, and if in west Yorkshire the chances of getting away with it are very good indeed, as they are, the chances of escaping elsewhere in the country are truly overwhelming.

The scale of the problem can be assessed if we consider the comparative figures relating to samples analysed by the west Yorkshire trading standards department during the past three years. In 1981, 41 per cent. of the sample was found to be incorrectly labelled, and of these incorrectly labelled items 71 per cent was found to have originated in Italy when investigations were carried out. I have to stress that investigations were inescapable, because the label of origin would not reveal very much, as I shall show. In 1982–83, 35 per cent. was incorrect, of which 68 per cent. originated in Italy. The new figures for 1983, which have just been made available to me, reveal that 37 per cent. was incorrect and 71 per cent. of the incorrectly labelled items was Italian.

There is no discernible improvement in the figures over the period, and the country that tended to be the principal transgressor three years ago is just as much so today. It should, incidentally, be acknowledged that the sample is biased in that the outlets visited tended to be small fashion shops aimed at the younger generation.

The old principle of caveat emptor is familiar to lawyers—let the buyer beware. However, no one expects that he may have to doubt a label on a child's nightdress. A wrong label is worse than none at all. It is the purchaser who loses out, as does the honest competitor of the firm that cheats and that honest competitor's employees. The International Wool Secretariat's invention of a woolmark must be one of the best known symbols of quality in the world, and it is one that it assiduously protects. The value of the woolmark to the licensee is a sign of the importance that should be ascribed to the label, and also the added value that a garment of wool or predominantly wool carries. Some of those involved in the distribution of textile goods evidently regard the odd conviction and fine very much in the same way as a prostitute might—just as one of the overheads of trade.

However, under section 38 of the Fair Trading Act 1973, the Director General of Fair Trading has the power to take an injunction to demand assurances that firms and individuals who have offended will trade fairly in future. This power has recently been applied for the first time in relation to contraventions of the fibre content regulations. On 5 March 1984 the director general announced that Rolfe, Craig (Textiles) Ltd., a London firm, had given assurances and that these had also been required of its director and company secretary. This followed five convictions for breaking the regulations and means that if the law is broken again the firm and its directors will be in contempt of court.

I have here a press cutting from the Bradford Telegraph and Argus of a case involving this company, reported on 20 January 1980, where the firm had retailed jackets where the label indicated 60 per cent. wool content, which turned out to be nearer 10 per cent. If one wanted a pair of trousers to go with that jacket one might have been attracted to a pair stated to contain 35 per cent. wool, but which actually contained under 22 per cent.

In mitigation, it was said for the firm that the cloth came from Italy, and the firm had used the manufacturer's invoice as a guide to fibre content. All invoices from Italy, it pointed out, state that the composition of the cloth is not guaranteed. It was said for the firm that it took its responsibilities seriously. The firm intended to avoid further court appearances. It accepted that the purpose of the law was to protect the public from twisters. It was just over a year later that it made history in being the first textile firm to give the assurances I have described.

If a firm is in any doubt whatsoever about the content of the items it is selling, it is perfectly entitled under the regulations to mark the cloth as "mixed fibres". The fact that some firms prefer to apply an incorrect or fraudulent description rather than one which is within the law but has less attraction indicates that the benefits are high in relation to the possible penalties. If it proves necessary for the director general to use his powers more often in the future, I hope he will do so.

Although it cannot be said that cloth manufactured in Britain is never the subject of complaint, the customer knows that British products are generally what they are made out to be. There is obviously a demand by the public to know the origin of consumer products, and this evidently prompted the introduction of the Trade Descriptions (Origin Marking) (Miscellaneous Goods) Order 1981.

For many garments that was an advance for the customer, but the order has serious shortcomings as regards woven goods. Between the sheep's back and mine or yours, Mr. Deputy Speaker, wool goes through many processes. Origin is defined by section 36 of the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 as

"the country in which they"—

the goods—

"last underwent a treatment or process resulting in a substantial change."

Such a substantial change would include making up a garment from cloth manufactured abroad.

I recall that early in the last Parliament I was a member of a delegation including hon. Members and representatives of the Confederation of British Wool Textiles that went to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Oppenheim) when she held the office now occupied by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. She was not convinced that the customer was being misled but welcomed our suggestion that we should endeavour to produce some evidence to that effect.

Subsequently a consumer survey was carried out using National Opinion Polls, which cannot but be considered conclusive. Respondents were asked, "If you were to buy an article of clothing made of woollen cloth, such as a suit, jacket, trousers, skirt or overcoat, and it had a label saying 'Made in England' on it, what would that mean to you?" The responses were almost uniform, regardless of sex, age, class or region. As many as 62 per cent. would assume that the material was woven in England and the garment made up in England. A further 10 per cent. would take it at least that the material was woven in England, while 3 per cent. thought that the garment was woven in England but made up abroad.

On the other hand, only 7 per cent. suggested that the material might have been woven abroad and the garment made up in England, while 26 per cent. proffered the view that it would have been made up in England. In other words, taking into account some multiple responses, well over twice as many people misinterpreted the label as got it right. In confirmation, when people were asked, "If you were told that an article of woollen clothing was made of cloth woven in Korea and was made up in England, which country of origin would you expect to see on the label?" A total of 29 per cent. said England and 46 per cent. Korea. The correct answer, of course, is England.

Thus we see that for outerwear garments people are being misled. As the Confederation of British Wool Textiles says,

"the cachet of 'Made in England' is applied willy-nilly to garments made from fabrics made anywhere—in our view

After coming repeatedly up against a brick wall, I was somewhat taken by surprise when on 21 February 1983, in response to my oral question as to whether the Minister for Trade had any plans to amend the regulations relating to marks of origin, my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Sir G. Vaughan), who had responsibility by then for consumer matters, said:

"I am aware of my hon. Friend's great interest in this and I am glad to tell him that I am currently reviewing the origin marking order introduced in January last year."

He did not stop there. In reply to a supplementary question, he continued:

"I underline that I am most anxious that people should be able to identify British goods of quality, and the origin marking is an important factor in this. The basic message is a simple one—where British is best, buy the flag." —[official Report, 21 February 1983; Vol. 37, c. 658.]

To which I would add, "Hear, hear."

Perhaps, however, those words of my hon. Friend were too much for the European Commission, because now we have been taken before the European Court of Justice on the grounds that an origin marking requirement is a barrier to trade. I have to say that the British people will not stand for such nonsense. It is evident that the origin marking requirement needs strengthening, not abolishing, in the interest of the consumer. Since this development, no more has been heard of the review to which my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East referred, but the problem will not go away.

The responsibility for enforcing the marks of origin regulations again lies with the counties and London boroughs, as it does for the fibre content regulations. The proposed abolition of the metropolitan county councils should provide us with the spur to ask whether the present system of trading standards enforcement is working as well as it might. Unfortunately, those questions are tending not to get asked because the metropolitan county councils are spending all their time spreading scare stories about the impending emasculation of the police and fire services, to be followed rapidly by the end of the public transport world as we know it.

I cannot speak of other metropolitan county councils, but of the west Yorkshire trading standards directorate I have heard nothing but good. Its advice is continually sought by companies in its area. But even its officers apparently believe that they have the resources to deal only with the tip of the iceberg, whatever happens after April 1986. I hope that nothing will happen that reduces its existing effectiveness.

Economies of scale are obviously essential in such a labour-intensive field. The shire counties, many of them with a smaller population and rating base than the metropolitan districts, do not have the resources to do much. The London boroughs, it seems, can do even less. Several London boroughs grouped their resources to meet their trading standards obligations, but most of the initiatives failed and I believe that only one such grouping survives. This does not present a good omen for the metropolitan areas if the districts try to co-operate. In west Yorkshire for instance, quite apart from political differences, I can imagine that Bradford and Calderdale will want to concentrate on fibre content checks more than Wakefield or Leeds. Yet insularity is exceedingly shortsighted. It is short-sighted that at present many counties give such low priority to this important field, merely because they do not have a textile manufacturing base.

To summarise, if we ask whether the customer is getting an adequate service, the answer can only be no. The fibre content regulations are adequate, but the enforcing authorities do not have the resources or the incentive to do more than nibble at the problem. The marks of origin regulations as they apply to many garments fail the acid test. They do not tell the customer what he needs to know. On the contrary, they positively mislead.

There are apparently insufficient guidelines to enforcement authorities and there is inadequate cooperation between them. Because legislation exists, consumers are encouraged to trust the labels they see in garments. Incorrect labelling does short-term and long-term damage to reputable manufacturers. In the short term, price undercutting based on the incorporation of cheaper and inferior materials represents unfair competition. In the long term, the finding that a garment made of a quality material like wool does not last as long as it should wrongly prejudices the customer against that material with regard to future purchases. We should demand that our EC partners enforce their fibre content legislation, now that the textile trade is so extensive. Some of them clearly are not doing so.

With the next multi-fibre arrangement only a little over two years away the implications for fraud, as far as quotas from non-EC countries are concerned, should cause us anxiety. With local authorities unable or unwilling to make adequate checks on imports, the possibility that tests could be carried out at the point of import is one that merits serious consideration. Indeed, many would think us soft for not doing so. Such a change would presumably require customs officials to be able to apply section 16 of the Trade Descriptions Act in addition to the Import of Goods (Control) Order 1954.

A recent Commission directive to be applied before long, although minor in scope, will require an amending order to our regulations. This will provide an opportunity for further examination of these regulations, but before then we need to use forthcoming major local government changes to have a much broader debate on enforcement.

There can be only one test of whether consumer protection measures are adequate. Whatever the theory, do they do the job they are supposed to do in practice? Many such measures may indeed do so. In the area of textiles, I hope I have shown that in many cases they do not. We cannot for ever tolerate such a situation. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary should take action where it is clearly needed.

rose—

Before I call the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) to speak, I should explain that a little flexibility in timing has been allowed, because of the time taken up by the statement at 11 am. But from now on we must stick to the times laid down on the Order Paper, which means that this debate ends at 12.30 pm

I am most grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me. I shall speak for literally only about 90 seconds.

I commend everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller) has said. He has spoken not only for the wool interests of his own county of Yorkshire but for all the textile industry, including the man-made fibre, the cotton and the cotton and allied, as well as the woollens sectors of the textile industry. He has also spoken for the British Textile Confederation, the British Clothing Industry Association the British Textile Employers Association, and the many unions in the textile and clothing industries, which are moderate and responsible and have worked very closely for many years with the employers to ensure this vital industry's survival. As my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley said, the industry employs well over 500,000 people. Indeed, it employs closer to 600,000 people.

My message to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is that the industry as a whole demands that the Government take action in the areas described in so much detail by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley. The clothing and textile industries do not want protection. They want fair competition, proper origin marking and proper labelling showing the the exact content of a particular garment. That is essential to the industry and its survival. It is also a service that this country's consumers expect.

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary now intends to reply in detail to the debate. I have honoured my commitment to speak for about 90 seconds. I ask him to give a detailed reply and, if necessary, to tell the European Community to take a running jump, because we are serving both Europe and the textile industry by insisting on the steps that my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley has set out.

I need 60 seconds in which to put my point. I should be interested to know what is going to happen to the west Yorkshire trading standards organisation, which has received praise, because it has done a good job. I represent Morley and Leeds, South, and Morley was once a textile town. Morley shows what can happen to the textile industry. Thus, I am interested in the standards issue.

I cannot answer the question asked by the right hon. Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) about the future of trading standards. That is still under consideration by Ministers, in the light of the reorganisations that are taking place. I welcome the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), but I hope he will not mind my saying that I could anticipate his remarks. I know that he feels very strongly about the industry, and he is entitled to do so.

In the short time available I should like to respond to what my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller) has said. I know that the whole question of textile labelling has been the focus of particular interest in recent months, notably in west Yorkshire. The trading standards authorities in that area are particularly active in enforcing the regulations, to the extent that they have secured approximately 50 per cent. of all the successful prosecutions in the past five years. That is in itself a considerable achievement.

Given the particular importance of the wool textile industry in west Yorkshire, it is understandable that local trading standards authorities should give the enforcement of the regulations greater priority than other authorities. Others give priority to matters such as dangerous goods or froth on beer, which also involves trading standards work.

But the British wool textile industry has a reputation for producing high quality products, which are the envy of others who would seek to imitate them. I have seen a copy of the two reports that my hon. Friend referred to—one by the wool textile and clothing industry action committee, and one by the west Yorkshire director of trading standards, describing recent cases of the false labelling of textiles. They both deal with a number of important issues.

I am skipping over the description of the regulations in the interests of time, because I wish to turn to the important question of enforcement. That duty, of course, falls to local weights and measures authorities, the London boroughs, counties of England and Wales and regions in Scotland, acting through the trading standards departments. Incidentally, those departments can enforce more than 30 major consumer protection statutes. The authorities receive from Government an allocation in the rate support grant for consumer protection. Proper account is taken of the requirements placed on the local authorities in assessing the annual level of Government support. That is achieved following an annual review in consultation with the local authority associations on the basis of current expenditure plus an additional allocation for any significant increase in consumer protection duties and for inflation.

Although the allocation is made on the basis of perceived need, it is paid to local authorities as part of a block grant. It is then, of course, for individual authorities to determine their priorities, and hence the actual expenditure they may wish to allocate to each of those services. I recognise the concern about the findings of both the west Yorkshire council and the Wooltac reports with regard to the need for increased enforcement of the regulations, but, as the House will appreciate, it is for each local authority to determine its enforcement priorities having considered the demands upon its services from local industry, trade and the general public.

However, the local authorities have done much to coordinate their trading administration through the local authorities' co-ordinating body on trading standards, and I anticipate that the approach made by Wooltac will be brought to the attention of each authority. I have considered whether it is right that the responsibility for enforcing the regulations should remain with the local authority trading standards departments, not least in view of the new legislation that the House has been considering. It seems to me that this particular legislation, which forms part of the whole range of consumer protection law, is most suitably enforced at the local level, and, given the other responsibilities under the Trade Descriptions Act, it is right that responsibility for fibre content labelling should remain where it is.

My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley gave an example of the powers being applied recently by the Director General of Fair Trading. I suggest that the enforcement of the regulations could be more effective if, in the case of imports, the trading standards authorities cooperated in establishing the point in the distribution chain at which the labelling takes place. Obviously, I refer to imports in particular—whether it is the importer or the wholesaler. If it is the importer and he is considered responsible for misleading labelling, the enforcement authorities should attempt to prosecute him. However, in saying that I am not attempting to reduce the responsibilities of retailers under this legislation. I am merely suggesting enforcement action at the most appropriate point in the chain of supply as a procedure which might be more effective in eliminating the problem.

My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley referred to what I think he considered to be rather petty fines following prosecution. If we could get to the real culprit in the distribution chain, the penalty might be more severe. Perhaps the entire business of an importer could be affected and his activities could be monitored thereafter. I hope that the co-ordinating body for trading standards and perhaps the director general will turn their attention to that point. I am anxious that those who mislead the general public should not only be caught but prosecuted, fined and, to say the least, hotly discouraged from continuing the process.

Both the Wooltac and west Yorkshire council reports draw particular attention to a number of examples of wool cloth from Italy which has been found, on analysis, to be wrongly labelled. I know that this is causing considerable disquiet, especially as Italy, like ourselves, is bound by the provisions of European Community legislation. We have to implement that legislation. I sympathise with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield, who said that it appears that our European partners may be ignoring it. The more that we can gather evidence of that sort of activity, the more we shall be able to bring it to the attention of the Commission as well as our Community partners.

I hope that I have made it clear in the short time available to me that the Government are concerned that the regulations should be enforced in a proper manner. As evidence of that, we have, together with our Community partners, devoted a great deal of effort to amending and updating the 1971 basic EC legislation.

I must stress that responsibility for enforcing the regulations rests with the local trading standards authorities. It is for each authority to decide its own enforcement priorities according to local circumstances and the available resources. I have considered whether there is more that the Government should do to influence local authorities in this respect, but I have concluded, apart from the remarks that I made about perhaps better coordination nearer the point of first supply and use of the powers of the Director General of Fair Trading, that it would not be desirable for the Government directly to influence the priorities that the local trading standards authorities apply in going about their duties.

I strongly support the role which both Wooltac and the West Yorkshire county council have taken in making copies of the reports available to the relevant local authorities and co-ordinating bodies. This practical step should help to encourage local authorities to consider whether they can devote more of their resources to enforcing the regulations in the interests of the consumers and honest traders.

Perhaps I should make it clear at the outset that I do not have a particular interest to declare in the film industry, except to say that before I came to this place I was employed by the Scottish Film Council. I was for a short time the president of the British Amateur Cinematographers Council. My interest is in the success and development of the film industry. Therefore, I welcome this opportunity to debate important matters for the industry.

I am concerned, first, about the progress of the review of the film industry, which Mr. Iain Sproat had been promising for some time. I came to the House less than two years ago and on my arrival I was told that the review would be announced in the autumn of 1982. We were told subsequently that it had been postponed and would be available in the spring of 1983, and sill later in the autumn of 1983. The Minister will recall that he stated a few weeks ago in a written answer to me that the review would be made available as soon as possible. That was a very coherent reply, but I hope that today we shall have a more specific response from the right hon. Gentleman, especially in view of the history of the review.

Those involved in the film industry and those who want the industry to be successful have waited patiently for the review, but over the past two or three years a sense of pessimism has developed. I hope that the Minister will seize upon the opportunity that is presented today to offer some hope to those who are committed to a successful British film industry.

Instead of the promised review, we have had a Budget that included capital allowance proposals that knocked the heart out of the industry . I want to know what has happened to the representations from such distinguished bodies as the British Film and Television Producers Association, the British Film Institute and the trade unions. I invite the Minister to take this opportunity to come clean on such issues as the Eady levy, the future of the National Film Finance Corporation and the capital allowance issue. There has been an enormous amount of press speculation in recent times and it has been virtually unanimous in its lack of optimism about the problems of the British film industry. For example, on 8 April, the Sunday Times carried a heading which stated,

"The Chancellor strikes back".

On 7 April The Times included this heading:

"Goodbye Oscar unless they change the last reel."

The Financial Times of 5 May carried the headline

"Why the revival may falter"

None of this is encouraging, and I hope that the Minister will give us a clearer definition of the industry's future as he sees it.

The Minister and his Department have not lacked advice. The Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts published its eighth report in 1982, and the document was reprinted on 18 October 1983. That report was specific on the matters of concern to the industry, including the Eady levy.

The National Film School depends for one third of its income on the Eady levy. The National Film Finance Corporation looks to Eady for a sizeable percentage of its resources. After all this time, we are entitled to know whether the Minister feels that the Eady levy should be replaced or removed, as many people understandably believe. Will the Eady levy be brought up to date, bearing in mind changes in the use of film and especially the fact that television, cable and video are, in many ways, not just using film but exploiting film? Surely the Minister has a proposal, if not to replace the Eady levy, to respond to the anxiety of everyone involved in the industry.

The Select Committee's report discussed arrangements in other countries. Frankly, the arrangements in Australia, America and throughout Europe are far more satisfactory than those in Britain. Above all, the Select Committee addressed the matter of capital allowances, which is perhaps the most serious issue faced by film producers, and I invite the Minister to respond to that point.

The Select Committee's report stated:

"the Committee received evidence that the withdrawal of 100 per cent. capital allowances 'was a blunder of enormous proportions'".

The Committee endorsed that view. In the light of that finding, it is astonishing that we were given the Chancellor's Budget proposals, especially in view of the fact that on 19 January 1983 the then Financial Secretary had told the House in a written answer that the 100 per cent. allowances for the film industry would be extended until 1987.

The managing director of the National Film Finance Corporation, Mr. Hassan, has said that the fall in production, should the House approve the recent measure, will be between one third and one half. There is a widespread belief that the Government are confusing the film industry and its needs with their monetarist policies in other sections of British industry. Many people, including me, feel that what Winston Churchill described as the "cold hand of the Treasury" is asserting itself on the film industry. I hope that the Minister will give a robust response on behalf of the film industry, if only because the Treasury, on this as on other matters, does not seem able to show the imagination and commitment to an essential industry.

The film industry is a sunrise industry. As the Minister knows, it includes people with fantastic skills. Some of the best studios, most gifted producers and crews, best sound technicians and the rest are here in Britain. They should be encouraged, not discouraged. Why should their jobs be at risk? Why should our indigenous film industry with a potential as a growth industry be anything less than confident about its future?

We should note what we are in danger of throwing away. In 1982 the number of hard-top cinemas in the United States increased in the ninth consecutive year to 14,977—an increase of 4,210 since 1973. In the United Kingdom, by contrast, during the 1970s a steep decline in cinema attendances occurred. Taking inflation into account, the box office returns are now 5 per cent. of the 1950 level. Cinema admissions came down from 81 million in 1981 to 64 million in 1982. I accept that those involved in cinema should be invited to respond to public demands for improving facilities and making accommodation more comfortable so that cinema can compete with other forms of entertainment and art.

Today I want to look to the future. The film "Chariots of Fire" brought in a box office revenue of £7 million and was seen by 3·5 million people. It is appropriate to quote David Puttnam in a spirit of confidence and looking to the future. A few years ago at the Glasgow film theatre, he said:

"Some of the most interesting developments in the revival of the British film industry are bound to come from Scotland."

We are proud of that. We are proud of Bill Forsyth and "Another Time, Another Place", "Local Hero" and "Comfort and Joy", which is to be given its premiere at the Edinburgh film festival this year. Those films are examples of the progressive output and thriving attitudes of those involved in film in Scotland. That attitude is reflected elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

The great thing about Bill Forsyth is that he makes films in and about Britain. He has not been lured by Hollywood, despite the blandishments from there and the indecision here. He would be the first to acknowledge the success in the United States of other British films such as "Chariots of Fire" itself, "Betrayal" and "The Time Bandits".

I commend the British film year project which Sir Richard Attenborough launched in Cannes a few days ago. It is appropriate that it should be launched there by Richard Attenborough at a time when British films are entitled to claim remarkable success, especially when gauged against films from other countries which have sorted out their attitudes to their film industries and where there is a better relationship between Governments and the people involved in film making and distribution and the people who want to enjoy films.

The project is designed to promote British films at home and abroad. The exercise is to last only one year. I hope that the spirit in which the Government view the project will continue through the next decade and beyond because of the importance of film to the people of the United Kingdom and to British industry in a wider sense.

We are told that the Minister is keen on information technology, but he must remember that films still communicate most to most people. What people outside know about Britain is largely learnt from the British film industry. I hope that the modern attitude which the Minister from time to time commends to the House about information technology accepts that film had an important role in the past and that, given commitment, enterprise and enthusiasm, there is no reason why it should not enjoy a similar position in his thinking about future communications.

Sir Richard Attenborough said:

Unless some major initiative is taken the opportunity will pass us by."

A successful, thriving and robust indigenous film industry has been handed to the Minister on a plate. Time will tell whether he makes the most of the opportunity or throws it away.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) on raising this issue on the Adjournment today. I know of his long interest in the film industry. He has frequently asked me when the film review will be completed. As he said, it was started by lain Sproat during the last Parliament. I resumed it after the election. I thought that it was necessary for me to go over a great deal of the ground kin Sproat had gone over and consult widely about it, which I have done, with all parts of the industry — the exhibition, production, direction and financial sides. I hope that I shall be able to bring the review to the House soon.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the tax changes following the Budget and their impact upon the film industry. The film industry has made representations to the Government and the Government are still examining them. When those matters have been considered further and decisions have been taken, I will be able to publish a White Paper on the film industry. I do not accept the argument that the future of the British film industry depends entirely and exclusively upon the tax regime under which it will operate, although I accept that it is an important feature.

I should like to emphasise, as the hon. Gentleman did, the great strength of the film industry in Britain today. There is a wealth of talent in the directing, producing, writing and designing of films. The hon. Gentleman mentioned some of the names that have become internationally famous—David Puttnam, Bill Forsyth—in the past few years, and there are many others less well known but equally creative. They are a great asset. In addition, we have a great wealth of talent among our younger actors and actresses.

We have also become a major centre for technical expertise in special effects. That owes a great deal to the fact that a substantial part of the industry makes television advertising commercials. Techniques used there have been developed widely with a range of services available. That is why films such as "Superman", "Star Wars", "Return of the Jedi" and now "Supergirl" have largely been made in Great Britain.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the past four years have seen a complete transformation of the film industry in terms of size, organisation, and visibility. The film industry has been up and down since the war. Just after the war it was a strong industry, and we had the Ealing comedies, but in other periods the industry has sunk into recession. During the past four years there has been a boom. It is not too much of an exaggeration to describe it as a renaissance.

There is much more going on in the United Kingdom now. Some years ago there were few American projects and a handful of small films financed by the National Film Finance Corporation. Apart from Thorn-EMI, which is a major film maker, we now have two companies that rank high internationally — Goldcrest and Embassy. Both have a diverse range of projects on hand, are profitable, and have done much to reinstate film in the eyes of the City as a form of investment. Rank, too, has announced plans to expand film making. Virgin Records, which has built up a successful business in pop music, has also gone into film making. I welcome all that.

I pay tribute to the support that Channel 4 has given to the independent sector of film making. It has done outstanding work in promoting the making of innovative and interesting films.

The hon. Gentleman referred to cinema admissions. I enjoy going to the cinema. Not too many of our fellow citizens do so these days. The hon. Gentleman rightly said that there has been a decline in cinema admissions over the years, but I have some good news on that front. Admissions for 1983 seem likely to improve slightly on those for 1982. I have figures only for the 11 months to November 1983, when 60 million people went to the cinema compared to 56 million for the same 11 months in 1982.

In April this year there was an increase in the number of cinemas by four and of screens by seven. I attended the reopening of a famous cinema in the Portobello road by Romaine Hart, to whom I pay tribute. She is a show business personality who has refused to accept the conventional wisdom that people do not want to go to the cinema. People can be attracted back to the cinema if the cinemas make themselves attractive places to go to and to take the family to. I was glad that she opened two cinemas, as well as about the refurbishment of the cinema at Chelsea.

I very much accept that this has been a period of success for the British film industry, as the hon. Gentleman said. It is remarkable that two years running we won the best film award at the Hollywood Oscar ceremonies, with "Chariots of Fire" and "Gandhi". In the year that we won the award for "Gandhi" we won another Oscar for the best short film. The film was "Shocking Accident", made from the short story by Graham Greene. It is outstanding. This year, that same quality of excellence has come through in the Hollywood Oscar ceremonies. Two outstanding British films were in the final group — "The Dresser" and "Educating Rita".

At the Cannes film festival, I was glad to see that Miss Mirren won best actress award for her part in a film made by David Puttnam, "Cal". The award for outstanding artistic achievement went to "Another Country", which I saw about two months ago. It is a fine film, made from the stage play about the early days of Guy Burgess.

The hon. Gentleman rightly said that several films of a particularly British genre, especially a Scottish genre, have been made recently. He mentioned "Local Hero" and "Another Time, Another Place", set in Scotland, which won a prize at one of the Italian film festivals. There have also been films such as "The Ploughman's Lunch" and "The Draughtsman's Contract". It is important to ensure that there are arrangements whereby such films continue to be made in Britain.

The Minister has given a catalogue of successful films. Does he agree that it would have been more difficult to make those films if the Chancellor's proposals on capital allowances had applied at that time? Has the Minister's Department made any representations to the Treasury on the matter? What is his Department's view?

Those matters are being considered by the Government. The film industry, particularly the British Film and Television Producers Association, which has tended to lead the industry's views on the matter, has made representations to the Government, the Treasury and my Department. We are discussing them at the moment.

The success of the British film industry, as I said at the outset, is not due entirely or exclusively to the tax regime which operates; it is due to a series of elements and to the coming together of a burst of talent. It is due, for example, to the excellent training that the National Film School gives. It is one of the leading film schools in the world, and it produces a flow of talented young men and women who go into all parts of the film industry. That is splendid.

I echo what the hon. Gentleman said about British film year. I strongly support the initiative taken by the industry in designating the year from April 1985 to March 1986 as British film year. It was launched by Sir Richard Attenborough at the Cannes festival and I can do no better than to emphasise what he said:

"The British Film Year will, for the first time in the history of the British industry, draw together all sections from within the industry to promote British films and film-making skills throughout the world."

In addition, British film year will actively and imaginatively involve all sections of commerce, the media, community groups and the general public. It will be a real coming together. It is a very diverse industry. It involves not only the producing side but the exhibition, the television, the video and the creative sides. To pull all of them together is an imaginative and huge project.

The overall aim of British film year is to establish a greater awareness and appreciation of British films and the cinema in general at home, and of British films abroad, through a wide range of national, regional and international events, thereby forging links that will hold firm throughout the 1980s and 1990s into the next century. A committee has been set up and is now planning and organising those events. For the United Kingdom it is planning nationally in all television areas, with particular emphasis on the cities of Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle and Southampton.

The committee has some very interesting ideas, not only to make more people aware of the cinema and of the film industry and the talents that are there — using people who are not good at publicising themselves—but by trying to reach out to youngsters, showing them that an interesting and creative career can open up for them in the film industry.

I am very concerned that the Minister should respond to my question about the Eady levy because, as he knows, it is of great interest. Will he tell the House about the representation that he has received and about his own thinking on the Eady levy?

I have received scores of representations, as the hon. Gentleman knows, on the Eady levy, and it will be very much part of my film review. I hope to bring that review to the House in the form of a White Paper in the not too distant future.

One of the important aspects of British film year is the support overseas. The Government will be making available £250,000 to support the thrust of British film year. The industry is aiming to raise about £3 million. In addition, we are very anxious to support the promotion of British films overseas through the British Overseas Trade Board.

Throughout British film year, I should like to see in towns and cities around the world British film weeks in which there will be strong promotion of British films. I do not look upon this as a nostalgic binge. We have to promote today's successes and emphasise tomorrow's opportunities. The towns around the world which the committee has already identified as having a strong film week or British festival will be Geneva, Madrid, Berlin, New York, Rome, Milan, Sydney, Toronto, Chicago, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Munich, Paris, Cannes, Stockholm, Tokyo and Zurich. We have a big promotion job to do, and we will strongly support the initiative taken by the industry to promote British film year. There is also to be an issue of postage stamps during the year to celebrate British achievements in film.

I hope to bring the film review to the attention of the House quite soon. I am conscious of the fact that the British film industry is strong and successful. It is strong and successful for a variety of reasons, in which the Government play a part, but only a very small part. I believe that the British film industry will be as strong, vibrant and successful in the future as it has been in the past.

I am very grateful to have an opportunity of raising the question of the future of the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital in Stanmore. I also appreciate the courtesy of the Minister in coming to the House to reply. I hope that he will respond positively to my remarks on the future of the hospital.

We all try to be alert, responsible and diligent constituency Members and we must bear in mind the inevitable relationship between local and national matters and the vital importance of a modern and expanding Health Service to all our citizens. I think that I was right to apply for an Adjournment debate at this stage on the future of the hospital, even though the Minister may say—with some justification—that no decision has yet been made, because over the past year more and more rumours have been swirling around in an alarming way which demoralises the staff of the hospital. The ominous word "closure" has been heard on the lips of far too many people. I hope that the work of members of staff at all levels, which has traditionally been excellent, will not be affected. However, for psychological reasons, I think that it is bound to suffer.

I am concerned in a general sense as a local Member of Parliament. Everyone in the area, and indeed in the whole borough of Harrow, is proud of what that institution means both locally and nationally. I should also declare a particular interest. I was a member of the independent board of governors, when the hospital was an independent unit within the National Health Service. Since its absorption into the Bloomsbury health authority, I have been chairman of the hospital's league of friends. The league of friends is unique. Its activities are somewhat different from those of other classic leagues of friends in other hospitals and it has raised much money over the years for the hospital. The hospital is at an interesting stage of development. There are lingering doubts about the value and worth of absorption into the Bloomsbury health authority. The disadvantages were pointed out at the time by many medical and lay experts. If the alarming rumours about closure are later followed by anything approaching a suggestion from the Department that closure should take place, people will feel that those doubts were justified.

I do not intend any criticism of those who run the authority. On the other hand, some recent events have raised morale. There was the recent visit from Princess Diana, and the opening of the spinal injuries unit. There is a feeling that the hospital could have a great future. However, optimism is outweighed by a growing pessimism. It is because of that that there has been correspondence in the press recently. I have a letter here from a number of distinguished professors and surgeons at the hospital who have formed an action committee to make sure that the hospital stays in existence.

Now that the Great Portland street town hospital has closed because of the expiry of its lease, the searchlight is on the Stanmore country hospital. Staff, medical experts, management, voluntary helpers and patients fervently hope that the hospital will continue, bearing in mind its distinguished reputation.

Time does not allow me to go into the hospital's detailed history but we should remember its origins, its links with the royal family and the fantastic work it did with pilots who were disfigured and burned in the second world war. It does phenomenally valuable pioneering work in a whole host of areas and is opening new frontiers in orthopaedic science and technology and surgical care. I hope that no one at Stoke Mandeville will be upset by my saying that our hospital has achieved more in new technology and rehabilitation. Of course, I pay tribute to the work of a well-known comedian and his followers who have attracted immense publicity on behalf of Stoke Mandeville. As one examples I should like to single out the work of Professor Scales on implanting metal pieces into limbs to enable people to walk again.

The action committee has been in touch with me to express its deep worry. I am glad that it is also contacting other Members of Parliament, including my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, asking for support to help the hospital survive. The number of beds is one vital question to consider. As several new units and a patient centre have been established in recent years, it appears that the Department has a commitment to the hospital. It would look absurd and illogical if its existence were now threatened. Because of the complicated economics of running hospitals and the pressure on costs, there are fears that hospitals in park-like settings that are not conducive to being integrated into one large building to save costs might be threatened. Rationalisation to satisfy DHSS planners might be possible, but that is not the only important issue. I hope that the Department responds positively to what the action committee says.

I have not come to the House just to thank my hon. Friend the Minister for listening and replying to my speech. I should like him to give an unequivocal assurance that the hospital will not be threatened. Nobody can criticise the Department's responsibilities with regard to rationalisation, but the public and admirers and lovers of the hospital want to be assured that it is here to stay and, indeed, will be built up.

I should like to remind my hon. Friend of what has been said about the hospital. Mr. Wilson, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon who is a member of the action committee, gave me authority to quote a letter that he received from Philip Marnie, a great supporter of the hospital, who now lives in Australia.

The letter to our Australian colleague raised fears about the rationalisation of the hospital. His reply was:

"'Rationalisation' occurred along similar lines for the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Sydney over the past year and has been disastrous in effect. Sydney Hospital, the oldest hospital in Australia, at a central city location … which has units of worldwide reputation … has been cut from 400 beds down to 120 beds, and is now almost a Casualty Station … The careers of young men on the promotion ladder have been disrupted. The acceptance of Units into other hospitals has meant crowding and cramping of facilities in those hospitals with less than desirable results in patient care. Nursing staff, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and other technical workers such as radiographers and pathology technicians have all had to be relocated."

I must not read too much of a letter that is about Australia, but one can imagine what might be the fate of similar staff at Stanmore if this matter were mishandled by the DHSS, which is anxious about costs, with the result that it neglected to bear in mind the need to keep open this great national facility.

When the independent board of governors was wound up after the absorption into Bloomsbury, the acceptance by the governors of the need for this structural absorption was concomitant with an unequivocal assurance by the Department, and by Bloomsbury health authority, that it would mean strength in the future, expansion, solidity and confidence in this institution continuing. If that commitment is now transgressed, even with sophisticated new arguments about economies of scale, and the hospital's future is threatened, there will be a tremendous ground swell not just of resentment but of deep anger, not only in Britain but in the rest of the world. Recently we were glad to welcome the chairman of Bloomsbury health authority, who used to be a Member of Parliament, who expressed enthusiasm for the continued existence of the RNOH.

There is the inevitable complication of the connecting link between the closure of the town hospital and moving parts of the Great Portland street installation into Middlesex hospital. I quote from a letter published in The Times at Christmas last year by members of the medical staff committee and of the Institute of Orthopaedics, which is also connected with the hospital. Dr. Stoker, who is chairman of the medical staff committee, and others said:

"The recent decision of the Bloomsbury Health Authority not to renew the lease of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Great Portland Street symbolises the culmination of years of neglect by the DHSS, which has managed to escape its obligation to provide the services needed by a national orthopaedic centre. We have accepted the need for an orderly transfer of in-patient services to the Middlesex Hospital in 1987. This plan allows for 50 orthopaedic beds with two operating theatres on the same floor, thereby preserving a recognisable identity for the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital within that hospital.

Bloomsbury HA has, against medical advice, decided to transfer only 44 orthopaedic beds to the Middlesex hospital in 1984."

I miss out one part, not for any sinister motive but because of lack of time. The letter continues:

"The in-patient facilities which cannot be accommodated at the Middlesex Hospital are supposed to be transferred to the larger branch of the RNOH at Stanmore. There, the already inadequate provision of operating theatres will not be solved by the installation of one extra modular theatre.

The RNOH has a national and international reputation in an expanding speciality. It trains more orthopaedic surgeons than any other centre in the United Kingdom. Until now it has been in the van in advances in treatment, particularly in crippling disorders of childhood, biomedical engineering leading to joint replacement in the elderly and infirm, and limb-saving surgery in the treatment of bone tumours. In the interest of patients the Great Portland Street site should continue to be occupied by our hospital."

But, of course, that has now been overtaken by events. That makes it even more important that my hon. Friend reassures us today that, because of what happened to the town hospital, more emphasis will be laid on the future survival and expansion of the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital in Stanmore.

I conclude by quoting from the latter part of the letter from our friend who is now in Sydney, Australia, Philip Marnie, who says:

"I do recognise that I have an emotional attachment and a bias towards the Royal National Orthapaedic Hospital, having done my training there, but I think the shockwaves will spread throughout the whole orthopaedic world"—

that is, if anything were to happen by way of closure.

"The Hospital probably plays a smaller part in the training of orthopaedic surgeons from Australia compared to twenty or thirty years ago as we now have our own training schemes in progress. I would suggest that anybody contemplating closure, emasculation or cutting down of the Hospital should go through the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery for any one year over the past twenty to thirty years to calculate the proportion of work published in that Journal which has come out of Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. Any reduction in the work and standing of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital must inevitably lead to a reduction in standing and status of orthopaedic surgery in Britain, and any such reduction would inevitably lead to deterioration in a facet of health care, which is a most important one, but all too often forgotten by administrators".

That is the compelling end to this letter, which will be quoted by thousands of people who remember the past of the RNOH and are worried about its present and future. They want reassurance today and from now on from my hon. Friend.

I welcome the opportunity that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) has given us to debate this matter, and I am grateful to him for putting it with his customary clarity and care. I was particularly moved by the passage in his speech in which he expressed a concern about the evident decline in morale among some of the people who work in the hospital. I should like to do anything that I can this afternoon to reassure those people, even though I will not, and cannot, reassure them entirely. However, I am most concerned to hear of their worries.

My hon. Friend's constituents will know that he has been closely associated with the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital for many years, not only as the local Member of Parliament but as a former governor and present chairman of its league of friends. I hope that he, and you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will forgive me if for 30 seconds I move away from the narrower subject of Stanmore to the wider one and pay tribute to the work of leagues of friends of hospitals all over the country. They amount to one of the great unsung armies in the NHS. I join my tribute with that of my hon. Friend to his local league of friends. Such leagues do much for their local hospitals all over the country.

I am aware of the concerns expressed about the future of the Stanmore branch of the RNOH. I have been reading dozens of letters about the hospital which have come from right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House and from the general public. The matter has also been recently raised in the other place. My noble Friend Baroness Trumpington answered a question from Lord Diamond and gave a preliminary Government view in a short exchange.

I can assure my hon. Friend of one thing. My Department takes a great interest in this hospital, both the town and country branches of it, and rightly so, because it is a centre of experience. I prefer not to use the term "centre of excellence", but not because I am egalitarian—I am not. There are centres of excellence in every hospital. None the less, this hospital is a centre of experience in particular forms of treatment and that is why our Department maintains a great interest in it.

Even though the management was transferred to Bloomsbury health authority in 1982, many of the facilities at Stanmore, as my hon. Friend has acknowledged, are centrally funded or organised. Therefore, we in the DHSS at the Elephant and Castle cannot stand away from the problem and say that in the first instance it is not to do with us and it is a matter for the district health authority or the regional health authority. We are deeply involved in central funding and some forms of central organisation. My hon. Friend will know exactly what they are. Indeed, he has referred to them himself. For the record, I mention the admirable limb-fitting centre, which is directly managed by our Department and is a great centre of experience in this difficult area. Indeed, some of that experience goes back to the war and another epoch to which my hon. Friend has already referred. There is also the excellent and brand new spinal unit which we fund and which was recently opened by Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales.

My hon. Friend has no need to think that we are not concerned about the prospects of this hospital. That should be some consolation to the staff who work there and to the patients who have benefited and will benefit from care there. The concern and fears to which my hon. Friend has rightly referred are to a certain extent based on speculation about what might happen rather than on any specific proposals from Bloomsbury health authority on the future level, shape and form of services at Stanmore. However, I welcome the way in which he has raised this issue in the House at this early stage in order to enable me to do what I can to allay some of those fears.

The authority is currently reviewing the position at Stanmore, but no definite proposals have yet been published. The only firm decisions that have been taken so far on the RNOH concern the arrangements made to reprovide the in-patient services of the hospital's town branch in Great Portland street. Indeed, a scheme costing about £3 million, of great importance, has been introduced to make that reprovision possible. That, if anything, demonstrates the Government's commitment thus far to this hospital.

The decisions that have been taken were taken only after the fullest possible consulation and discussion. The Bloomsbury health authority's latest planning document—a stimulating document entitled "Towards a Strategy"—made it clear that the authority had not yet come to any conclusions or made definite proposals about the future of Stanmore, and did not envisage doing so for some time.

It is valuable that my hon. Friend has introduced this debate at this time to demonstrate to Bloomsbury district health authority, which is charged by us with taking the decisons in the first instance, the strength of local feeling and the arguments about Stanmore that have been deployed by those who work there—the distinguished consultant surgeons and others on the action group — and, indeed, by those who have written from as far away as Australia about the problems facing this hospital

I understand—I shall be grateful if my hon. Friend will pass this on to those in the hospital who have expressed their concern to him — that at present the Bloomsbury health authority hopes to conclude its internal discussions and then to conclude discussions with the north-east Thames regional health authority over the next few months. A public consultation document will be published towards the end of this year at the earliest and perhaps not until next year.

I want to try to reassure my hon. Friend, and through him those who work at the hospital, that there will be no chance of a ministerial review of any decision taken by the Bloomsbury authority going by default. I give him that pledge today. No decision will be taken by the district or regional health authority without Ministers being deeply involved in the final decision. If necessary, should any decision be made, we shall examine it in the Department.

I can assure my hon. Friend that if, as a result of the review, the authority proposes any substantial variation in the services currently provided at Stanmore—I stress that—let alone any proposals for closure or anything of that sort, and if the proposals are opposed by the relevant community health councils, they will be referred to Ministers for final decision.

Any fears at the moment are groundless and based on speculation. We shall request the opportunity to take a final decision on any such proposals that are put forward by a health authority, even if local interests do not oppose them, although from what my hon. Friend has said it is extremely unlikely that local interests will not oppose them and ask for them to be called in. I give that pledge, very far ahead of the game, and rather unusually for a Health Minister, because we recognise the national importance of the hospital. From this Dispatch Box, I would not normally pre-empt any later ministerial decision by giving a pledge to call in decisions, whether or not there is local opposition. However, in this case I am pleased to do so, because of that hospital's national importance.

It is certainly right that there should be a review of the position of Stanmore and of all the other hospitals managed by the Bloomsbury district health authority. It is very important to keep the services that we provide continuously under review, because the NHS is going through a period of great structural change, particularly with so many activities once lodged in hospitals now being transferred to the community. There is a period of enormous structural change and flux, and the Bloomsbury district health authority is right to look at its services.

The consultative document "Towards a Strategy" mentions the major problems that have to be faced by the authority with regard to the hospital. In his role as a Member of Parliament, my hon. Friend will be familiar with some of those problems, including the very poor condition of some of the buildings, as I understand it, although I have not yet visited the hospital. Some of them were temporary structures, built 40 years ago. Different ways of using resources must be considered to ensure that the hospital remains at the forefront of the speciality of orthopaedics in terms of service and, very importantly, in terms of teaching and research. Indeed, I was glad that my hon. Friend referred to that latter point.

I assure my hon. Friend that the Bloomsbury health authority will consult as widely as possible both in drawing up any proposals and in subsequent consultation. Perhaps I can go over what would happen in the consultation process, so that, if any recommendations for substantial change are made, my hon. Friend can advise hi .s constituents and those who work in the hospital of that consultative procedure. It would certainly include consultation with the north-west Thames regional health authority.

Before my hon. Friend touches on those very important aspects, will he confirm that there is no danger that the Bloomsbury authority psychologically regards the Stanmore hospital as a bit of a nuisance and as something that is not within its normal field, and that it is taking a proper positive attitude towards its future development?

The Bloomsbury district health authority welcomes the fact that it has the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital in its district health authority area and that it manages—albeit extra-territorially, to use DHSS jargon—a hospital in another health authority's hospital area. Naturally, any consultation following any recommendations of the Bloomsbury district health authority will involve consultation with the regional health authority and the Harrow health authority, in whose district Stanmore is located.

I should like to reinforce what I said about what I know of Bloomsbury's perception of the problem. I have not yet discussed the matter with the chairman or members of the authority, because there has been no need to do so, as there have been no proposals. However, I know that Bloomsbury is as keenly aware of the national importance and international reputation of the hospital as we are. There is, of course, a ministerial commitment to the Duthie, report on the provision of orthopaedic services. That excellent report was produced by Professor Duthie who, incidentally, is a resident of my constituency.

The RNOH probably has the greatest concentration in this country of medical teaching and research activities in orthopaedics. I assure my hon. Friend that the authority will consider very carefully the implications for medical education of any proposals that are finally put forward. Because we are so concerned about medical education, in terms of medical manpower planning, and ensuring that the orthopaedics speciality is as well staffed as possible, we shall take a particular interest in the hospital. I say that not just because it is another hospital which may or may not be threatened—we do not even know whether any proposals will be put forward—but because it provides an invaluable research and training facility for young doctors. We shall be giving every consideration to any proposals that come forward from the Bloomsbury district health authority, should any happen to come forward in future, because of the nature of the work that is carried on at Stanmore, the international and national standing of the hospital and the great role that it plays in medical research and training. I give that clear undertaking to my hon. Friend.

I am sorry that this has to be such a brief debate on the Health Service in London, because it is a matter of the gravest concern to many people. There are thousands throughout London who fear for the future of their own local hospital. They fear that they will never be able to receive the sort of treatment that they believe is right and proper and what they deserve. In the midst of plenty in London, in the midst of wealthy private hospitals and prestigious teaching hospitals, we find that many local hospitals are being closed and that waiting lists are lengthening, especially for the elderly.

I shall quote from a statement issued by the north-east Thames regional health authority, which is the authority that has responsibility in my constituency. It is charged with the task of trying to provide health care in some of the poorest parts of London from an ever-decreasing share of the national cake. It is passing the cuts on to the district health authorities, which include the Islington district authority in my constituency. The statement reads as follows:

"Current planning guidance indicates that revenue for the Region will decline by 3 per cent. over the planning period. However, the view that no region regardless of its RAWP position"—

that is the resource allocation working party position—

"should become actually worse off during a period of real growth to the National Health Service is gaining ground."

The Government have been claiming for a long time that health spending in real terms is rising. However, the expectation of the people that they will gain the sort of service that they want from the service is declining. Local hospitals continue to be closed and people are having to wait longer and longer for minor operations.

The Government's argument that there is real growth in Health Service spending is fundamentally wrong, especially in London. Before the 1983 general election the Government claimed that the cost of GPs' drugs was a certain figure, which was clearly an underestimate. As most of the NHS budget was decided in advance, when the underestimate became apparent cuts were imposed in other areas to ensure that the NHS stayed within spending guidelines. After the general election, the Government admitted that they had not set aside nearly enough money for GPs' drugs. As a result, the NHS budget was changed in the middle of the financial year. The result was that £131 million was added to the drugs budget, but that sum was removed from the budget for the rest of the service. Cuts were made in the financial provision for hospitals, health visitors, ambulances and clinics. That cut amounted to 1 per cent. of the NHS budget.

The Secretary of State has made many statements about restoring Health Service spending, but the effect of his decisions has been to restore part of a cut. He has failed to provide sufficient money to cope with increased Health Service costs or inflation as it bears on the Health Service.

Secondly, there has been no evidence to suggest that the proposals for the London district health authorities are anything more than a perversion of the original stated intention of the RAWP formula. The working party was meant to ensure—this goes back to the mid-1970s—that Health Service spending throughout the country was allocated equally and that regions did not suffer undue cuts. It was intended that the areas with inferior health services should be able to improve them. There has been a perversion of the original intentions of the working party. Experience in London leeds me to believe that RAWP is a levelling down process, which means that areas that have slightly better health facilities than others are cut down to the lowest possible level. It creates a desperate positon, especially for the inner London health authorities.

I shall give an overall view of London. In 1984–85 the allocation of money to the London health authorities was £1,689,500,000. The amount needed to cover inflation over the previous year was £1,709,100,000, which amounts to a cut of £19,600,000 or 1·1 per cent. That figure is derived from calculations made by the GLC in its submission to the Minister about health services in London. Since 1982–83 the cut in allocation is a staggering £45,700,000. Those cuts have meant a loss of staff, and 2,584 whole-time equivalent jobs have already been lost last year. The truth is that even more jobs than that have gone because the figures for whole-time equivalent jobs understate the fact that many Health Service staff are in part-time employment. Many Health Service staff are women workers, many of whom have no opportunity of finding alternative employment.

Because of my association with the National Union of Public Employees, which sponsors me as a Member of Parliament, I have a great deal of experience of the fears and misery of low-paid health workers. Due to already under-staffed hospitals the number of jobs lost or not filled cannot be accurately calculated, but in real terms it is between 4,700 and 7,300. That information was provided by the GLC in its submission on Health Service spending.

Not only have staff numbers been cut, but beds have been lost. It is estimated that last year 1,876 beds were lost, mainly because of temporary emergency ward closures. A serious matter must be raised in this connection. Many hospital wards are closed because the district health authority feels that it does not have the revenue necessary to keep them open. The closure is claimed to be temporary, and therefore it does not have to go through the full statutory consultation process. The ward continues to be closed, as a temporary measure. All over London certain hospital wards are barred, locked and bolted, while outside there are enormous queues in the casualty departments and people who should be in hospital for operations sitting at home because their operations cannot be carried out.

The number of hospital closures in London is staggering. In 1968 there were 357 hospitals in London. In 1977 that figure had fallen to 299, and it is now 230. Since the Prime Minister came to power, London hospitals have been closing at the rate of 15 a year. Many of those hospitals are small and very valued. Much local fear is experienced with the closure of a small hospital, and that leads to a spiral of decline in local community feeling and increased costs for people who use the hospital.

An obvious example is the Prince of Wales hospital in Tottenham, which is a much-valued local hospital. For perhaps the past 10 years there has been a continuous campaign for keeping that hospital going. All types of arguments have been advanced, but the most serious one is the loss of local health facilities, which would lead to unnecessary journeys by local people to the north Middlesex hospital and unnecessary costs imposed on them. The burden of travel costs is forced on to the lowest paid working class people in the south Tottenham area. There are many other examples all over London.

The current waiting list for hospital treatment is 109,000. On average, approximately two thirds of all urgent cases are on waiting lists for more than a month and a quarter of all other cases are on the waiting list for more than one year. In March 1983 in my borough of Islington—the figures cover the Islington health authority area, not just my constituency of Islington, North — 1,151 people were on the waiting list, of whom 114 had been on the list for more than a year. En March 1984 1,500 people were on the waiting list—a slight increase—of whom about 220 had been on the waiting list for more than a year.

Obviously, the figure varies across London, but my experience is that many people are going through terrible traumas waiting for hospital operations. Effectively, they are immobilised, prisoners in their homes while waiting for operations.

We must take account of the increasing needs of the elderly in London. The north east Thames regional health authority recently said in its forward-planning document:

"This region has had to plan for a high rate of growth in the elderly population. To cope with this considerable problem, rationalisation of its historically over-provided acute services must continue."

That is a pleasantly worded, bureaucratic way of saying that, because of the increasingly elderly population with which the hospitals cannot cope, other services will have to be cut to make way for the elderly.

The DHSS tells us that it has priority groups—the elderly, the mentally ill and the handicapped. Of course, they are priority groups, but so are the other groups. The DHSS cannot cut funding for one group to provide for another and claim that it is providing the services that the people of London need.

Small cottage hospitals are being closed. That tends to affect the elderly more than others because of travel problems. Unfortunately, there are insufficient geriatric beds throughout London.

The GLC, in its submission to the Minister on the issue, said:

"It is also primarily the elderly who will suffer through the closure of small hospitals whose general wards have catered for the older stroke and bronchitis patients who tend to stay longer in hospital. 60 of the 90 beds at St. Leonard's, Hackney, which have been mainly used by older people, will be transferred to Baits, but it is well known that Baits is reluctant to take people over the age of 65.

The mentally ill—another 'priority' group—are suffering too. The Royal Hospital, Richmond, provided a psychiatric and a community mental health unit, as well as a rehabilitation centre for the elderly and a physiotherapy and X-ray department. All these services will go when the hospital closes."

The terrible story of insufficient care and support for the elderly goes on.

Another aspect of Government policy affects the way in which elderly people in London are treated. I refer to the cut in rate support grant for local authorities. Islington borough council has been told that under the grant-related expenditure allocation formula its social services budget is 31·8 per cent. over target. That means in real terms that it must make an enormous cut in spending on social services to bring it within Government guidelines. At the same time, the local social services department is in despair about how it can cope with the ever-increasing number of elderly people who cannot be accommodated by the National Health Service because local hospitals are over-burdened. Islington is not alone. Unfortunately, its plight is repeated in many places.

A letter published recently in The Guardian by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) in response to the grant-related expenditure and rate support grant settlement said:

"Under this settlement £2,156 million is allocated for personal social services for 1984–85. However, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities' expenditure steering group estimates that simply continuing with existing policies, while taking account of demographic trends, would cost £2,305 million next year. The Government's RSG therefore involves a cut of £149 million or 6·9 per cent.

This means the chopping of some 8,700 residential places for the elderly, mentally handicapped and others; of more than 7,500 day-care places; of some 42,000 home-help cases attended; and of about 48,000 meals on wheels served each week."

That is the reality of Government policies for the Health Services and local authorities, which are inextricably linked. Local cuts such as those experienced by the Islington authority make the situation considerably worse.

Not only should the Government reverse their policy of penalising inner London authorities in their attempts to provide decent services for the people of London, they should recognise the growing causal link between health cuts and local authority cuts and the growing despair of the elderly with the social effects which that produces.

I meet many people throughout inner London. Many women have had to give up promising careers and jobs to care for elderly people at home because local social services departments and the National Health Service cannot do so. In a caring society everyone deserves to be cared for and to know that the National Health Service and the local authority social services departments are there to assist them.

Will my hon. Friend reflect on the fact that in inner London every Tory and Labour controlled borough, according to the GREA formula laid down by the Department of the Environment, overspent by 16 per cent. or more on their social services? That should demonstrate that the figures that the Government produce about what social service departments should be doing in those inner London boroughs are completely wrong. Every borough agrees with that.

My hon. Friend is right. The vast majority of London social services departments have been told that they are overspent. Social services directors have made the strongest possible representations to the Government about that. The result is isolated elderly people, social workers and home helps being thrown out of work, and the ending of meals-on-wheels services. Those are the desperately needed services that the Government are trying to cut.

The House must recognise that appalling aspect of Government policy. I hope that when the Minister replies he will tell us that he is prepared to reconsider Health Service spending in London and the way in which the GREA formula operates against inner city local authorities and the social services departments. It is the greatest scandal that such cuts should be forced on local authorities.

I hope that the Minister will also mention the present unsatisfactory condition of Health Service administration in London, which deserves re-examination. Many people in London, including the GLC, have called for the establishment of a London health authority, so that instead of being covered by four regions — the four Thames regions—London would have a democratically elected health authority instead of an authority made up of handpicked people appointed by the Department.

I hope that the Minister will also tell us that he has further considered representations made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) and myself about the need for a secondment of an official from his Department to study the link between social services cuts and Health Service cuts in our borough, where there is an increasingly elderly population. If the DHSS can second people to private cleaning companies to examine what goes on, the least it can do is to second people to inner London boroughs which need a great deal of help.

There is dispute about privatisation at Barking hospital. It has already been brought to the attention of the House, and my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson) and I will continue to bring it to the attention of the House. The dispute demonstrates what is going on in the Health Service. The Government send out circulars to tell local health authorities that privatisation is a good thing. Crothalls has won a contract which it maintains at Barking hospital. It has cut the wages of hospital staff by up to 41 per cent. The staff take strike action; the Minister washes his hands of the matter and says that it is nothing to do with him; the contract cleaning company and the local health authority says that it has nothing to do with them. Those women who have been on strike for so many weeks are determined to win their battle for fair pay. One cannot have fair pay or fair play when the health authority is there to provide a service whereas the contract cleaning company is there to make money out of the National Health Service.

I hope that the Minister will recognise that there are two other important areas which need further examination by his Department. The first relates to mental health. There are many Victorian mental health institutions in London—Friern Barnet, Claybury and Napsbury. They are all scheduled for conversion, change or closure. The DHSS and the regional health authorities say that they will transfer those patients to the district health authorities. If the district health authorities are to have sufficient money to cope with those psychiatric patients there will have to be further cuts in other parts of the Health Service, and the community care will mean the confinement of psychiatric and geriatric patients to their homes.

Another area that needs considerable research is the link between bad housing conditions, unemployment and people's eating habits and the Health Service. A couple of years ago the community health council in Islington produced a remarkable poster, which showed factories belching smoke from their chimneys, representing poverty and unemployment. At the top of the poster it said, "The National Health Service is great, but it can't consume all their smoke." There is a link between many social problems and people's health in any urban area, but particularly in London, which is the subject of the debate.

There is a contrast between people who are struggling to defend St. Leonard's hospital, the Prince of Wales' hospital, the south London hospital for Women and Children, the royal northern hospital and the Highgate wing of the Whittington hospital, which are threatened with closure; between working class and elderly people who are waiting at home for operations that do not take place, and the growing wealth of places such as the Wellington hospital, where wealthy people using private patient schemes can buy their way past the hospital queue and into quick treatment. That is a scandal of the highest order.

We want one Health Service that treats everyone equally, irrespective of their wealth and background. Freedom of choice does not exist for the majority of the population. It exists only for those who can buy their way past hospital queues. We need the determination to provide all the resources that are needed to care for the health of everyone, irrespective of their ability to pay. That is what the debate is about, and that is why the issue is so important.

By leave of the House, may I say that I am grateful to the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) for initiating the debate. I have only nine minutes in which to reply to the substantial range of points that he made about the national picture of the NHS and the picture in London and his constituency. Put a case that can be argued in front of the hon. Gentleman and he takes the opportunity to overstate it. In doing so he does two things. First, he ignores the facts about what has been happening in the NHS, particularly its growth. I shall attempt to put him right in a national and a local context. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman misses the point of substance of the argument about the relationship between Health Service expenditure in London and that in the rest of the country.

The purpose of the NHS is not to employ people, whether they are Ministers or members of the union that sponsors the hon. Gentleman; it is to serve patients. Therefore, money and NHS facilities should go where the patients are. In London, there is 15 per cent. of the national population, but 20 per cent. of the national expenditure on health care. I thought that the hon. Gentleman was a great egalitarian and that he liked the redistribution of resources around the country. The point of the modern NHS is to make sure that patient care is given where patient care is needed. It is needed in London. I am not manipulating the statistics; since 1978–79 there has been a real growth of resources in London of about 1·5 per cent. London has also made its contribution according to the formula laid down by the previous Labour Government, following the recommendations of the resource allocation working party to the Health Service in other parts of the country.

Therefore, I did not recognise the validity of the hon. Gentleman's case because of his overstatement. He talked about national as well as London figures. Over the past five years, we have doubled expenditure in the NHS in Great Britain to some £15·5 billion. That is the highest expenditure that the NHS has ever seen. It is an increase of 18 per cent. compared with the retail price index. It has allowed substantial real improvements in services in London and in the country as a whole, and it allows for more substantial real improvements that are planned in London, including—I am sure that it was an oversight that prevented the hon. Gentleman from mentioning it— the planned improvements and redevelopment of the Whittington hospital in the hon. Gentleman's own constituency. That seems to have slipped his attention in his total condemnation of the National Health Service in London and nationally that he has offered this afternoon.

It is wrong to talk about cuts in the face of the facts that I have given. It is correct and reasonable to argue about the proper rates of growth, and I am prepared to enter into that argument, which is worth having. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has a case about the rates of growth of the National Health Service — we can argue about that question—but to talk about cuts is phoney and wrong.

Let us look at the evidence. In the past five years the number of inpatients and clay cases has increased by 500,000 nationally, and the figures have gone up in London. It is a fact that 2¼ million more outpatients and emergency cases are being treated each year. That means more outpatients and emergency cases in the hon. Gentleman's constituency and in my constituency. Nearly 500,000 more people are being visited at home by health visitors and nurses. The list is considerable.

I will give a couple of detailed examples. Coronary artery bypass grafts are up by 90 per cent., and London is the great centre of experience for that form of operation. In the last debate we were talking about orthopaedic matters. Total hip replacements are up by 30 per cent. arid the number of kidney patients has increased by about 50 per cent.

By all means let the hon. Member criticise the Government because the growth has not been fast enough—that is a debate worth having—but let him not deny that that growth is taking place, because that is simply wrong.

According to the latest provisional figures, waiting lists are coming down. The figure is now nearly 50,000 lower than it was in 1979. Under the last Labour Government it rose by nearly 250,000. It would be much lower now if it had not been for the unfortunate industrial action in 1982.

I could hardly believe my ears when I listened to the hon. Gentleman painting a picture of hospital closures in London. Of course, outdated hospitals need to be shut. Of course, places that provide an inadequate standard of care need to be closed as patients are transferred from hospitals to the community. Indeed, the last Labour Administration managed, while they were in office, to shut approximately twice as many hospitals as have been closed by this Government. I pay tribute to them for doing it, because it is part of the massive structural change that is taking place in the modern National Health Service as we move away from a purely hospital-based National Health Service—a national sickness service, to to speak — towards a National Health Service that is based as much in the community and in community care as in hospitals.

We have seen the development of community care. I have been to the hon. Gentleman's borough and talked to representatives of the borough. When we have a new policy such as this, of course it will mean that individual hospitals will be closed. The hon. Gentleman gave a list of those that were being closed. He omitted to give us the list of those hospital construction schemes in London that are going ahead or are about to go ahead. There is a massive development at St. George's in Tooting. There are developments at St. Mary's in Paddington, at Lewisham and at Homerton. A few months ago I visited the Newham hospital. There is also the hospital redevelopment scheme in the hon. Gentleman's own constituency.

In a period of structural change, there will be hospital closures. If the hon. Gentleman wants to argue the case about hospital provision in London, he must get back to the drawing board, realise that he is arguing about growth and the proper rate of growth, and set that against the context of the structural change that we see at the moment in the National Health Service as a whole.

I turn to the question of the growth available to the four Thames regions. I am sorry to have to disappoint the hon. Gentleman. It is not the Government's intention to introduce a Greater London health authority—elected or otherwise. The management problems of the four regions are great enough already. Individual expenditure is fast approaching £1 billion in each of them.

We have confidence in the health care that the NHS gives in London. It will be improved. Because of historic factors of over-provision in London, it is going through a difficult time. I pay tribute to those who work in the NHS in London for their contribution to solving the considerable problems of care.

As time is short, I will write to the hon. Gentleman on all his other points as soon as I possibly can.

I welcome the opportunity to raise a subject that has frequently been debated in the House and which will probably continue to be debated into the foreseeable future. The subject of television licensing has been debated on a number of occasions in the past. It is a well-worn, well-trodden path. It resembles a well-loved walk in the country. The path is familiar, but there is always something new and interesting to see. However, one has to know where one is going and to keep in focus the object of the exercise.

My right hon. Friend the Minister of State is very sympathetic. He understands the problems, and has a great knowledge of the whole subject of television licensing. He knows what it is about and, perhaps, where it is going.

In past debates the emphasis has been almost exclusively on the needs of pensioners and the disabled, and the introduction of a concession or rebate. The time is now ripe for a far more fundamental reappraisal of what we understand by television licensing. What is involved is the funding of the BBC. We live in a world of rapid and unpredictable technological change on a vast scale. I remember the days of the cat's whisker, and the days when one stumbled from the village store with huge accumulator batteries and went home to listen to whatever the first Mr. Billy Cotton chose to provide. Alas, he is no longer with us. We are now in the days of ultra-supersonic multieverything—the days of noise and flash—and yet the BBC is still funded in a way which was originally established — by accident and not design — in 1922. Marconi was not interested in how much was obtained for the BBC. He was interested in how many radio sets he could sell.

We have progressed from 1922 to 1984, when the medium of communication is no longer the cat's whisker. The radio licence has been lost along the path. It was abandoned in 1971 when it became apparent that it was impossible to identify and control those who had radios when so many radios were in use. We are now approaching an era when it will be impossible to control television either, or to justify doing so in order to provide an income solely for the BBC.

Our television receivers are licensed to receive only BBC programmes. The money to supply independent television programmes comes from external sources. The speed of change should concern my right hon. Friend the Minister. I am confident that he recognises that if change is not made immediately, it will have to be made in the not-too-distant future. Whenever we talk about changing the method of payment for the BBC, two arguments immediately spring up. The first is fiscal and the second concerns political influence. I shall deal with the second.

It is suggested that if the BBC were funded other than through the general licensing system it would be influenced and biased. I do not believe that for a moment. I do not believe that there has been any deterioration in the ethical or professional standards of BBC sound radio since the abolition of the radio licence in 1971. I also believe that the television licence will ultimately have to be abandoned. I do not believe that professional people in the media are so mincing that they can be manipulated by Government. Journalists in the BBC and the IBA present what they feel they should present. That will continue, irrespective of how BBC television is funded.

The BBC is funded by the licensing system and the licence is determined by the Government. It is a political decision. I should like to draw attention to what the late Richard Crossman wrote in his diary regarding political influence in determining how much people will be asked to pay for a licence.

He wrote:

"This afternoon I had to chair the committee on BBC finance, knowing in advance there was no chance of supplementing the licence fee by a degree of advertising. The fee has to go up by at least El and Harold"—

Lord Wilson of Rievaulx—

"hates to do this for fear of electoral unpopularity, although we pay less in Britain than in any other country in Europe for by far the best radio and television service. . . . After this yet another Cabinet, this time on the BBC, where John Stonehouse has already publicly committed himself to an increase in the licence fee and an extension of hours. This time we decided to have no increase in the licence fee and no extension of hours but to develop our local radio stations. We would simply postpone the increase in the licence fee until 1971, after the election. Wilson was saying that we would demand that the BBC should do everything but we would not give them the means to do it".

Politicians of the past have done much to influence the income of the BBC. That will continue to be the case if it is funded by a licence fee.

Who pays for what? The law is unclear and imprecise. It says that a television licence shall be held by a householder for his television set. I have recently been in corespondence with my right hon. Friend on the subject. In reply, his Departmemt wrote:

""You asked about television licensing of portable TVs. Strictly speaking the licensing requirements do not distinguish between portable and non-portable sets."

What is portable? Is it something that can be carried? Is non-portable something that is cemented into the wall and therefore cannot be taken away? That is something that the Minister must explain. There is a differentiation between battery-operated and mains-operated sets. One need not pay a licence fee for a battery-operated set, but one needs a licence for a mains-operated set. But no one has determined whether one needs a licence for a combined mains and battery-operated set.

Furthermore, it is said that a licence is required at the licensee's address. But members of the family attending full-time residential courses at school, college or university may have a television set, without an additional licence. provided that it is battery-operated. No one can justify the current position.

Let us consider those who do not pay their television licence fees. There is about a one in 12 chance of being caught if one does not pay the licence fee. If one is that unlucky person who is caught, the average fine is £55, as against the licence fee of £46. So it is no a bad bet not to pay the fee, and more and more people will tread down that path. I do not wish to induce people to break the law. I want the Government to face reality and to understand that, at some time or other, someone must grasp this nettle. Television today is far too important and much too fundamental a part of everyone's life for the BBC to be funded in the nonsensical way that it is.

I was horrified to hear my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary say during the debate on cable television on 8 May:

"It might be necessary for the corporation to draw upon licence fee revenue, with my consent, to settle its debts; but the BBC understands that such a use of licence fee funds would not be recouped through a subsequently enhanced fee."—[Official Report, 8 May 1984; Vol. 59, c. 755.]

If the BBC is to enter cable television in a meaningful way, and it burns its fingers, how much will have to be paid by the licence holders? No one knows.

One thing I know is that, if I have a television set in my Rolls-Royce, I do not need a licence. However, if I am an old-age pensioner living alone in my own home, having to pay excessive rates and water rates, simply because my wife and I worked hard and saved throughout our lives. I am forced to pay the full amount of a television licence. If I am fortunate enough to live in accommodation provided by the local authority, the chances are that I will have to pay only 5p for the licence. What nonsense. Any business man — even the shoe-shine man outside the station down the road—will tell us that if it costs him lop to shine a pair of shoes, but he get only5p per pair, he will quickly go broke. It costs much more than 5p a licence to obtain the amount of money that the BBC needs from the limited number of people who pay in full for their licences. The number will grow, because I recognise tint some elements of the legislation have not yet been tapped to the full. Some of those elements are known to the Minister.

In the letter that I received, it was pointed out that under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, local authorities have the right to help disabled people through assistance with their television licences or their rental. Unfortunately the available statistics do not differentiate between paying the licence and paying the rental.

I am sure that many of my colleagues will read what I am about to say when they come back from the recess with surprise, and will say that they did not realise it. My right hon. Friend may not appreciate too much my illuminating this fact. In the last year for which statistics are available, it is shown that the number of people who had help with their television licences or rentals started with one person in Hackney receiving that blessing, 28 in Lambeth and, in my constituency area of Cleveland, 30 in all.

Throughout the country as a whole, 18,493 people received assistance from their local authority for their licence or rental. I imagine that most people wished that they lived in Rotherham because out of that 18,493, no fewer than 12,726 lived in Rotherham. If the percentage in Rotherham were extended throughout the country, someone, somewhere—I believe that it would be the long-suffering ratepayer — would be financing the television licensing and rental for a great many more people.

It is time for a review and for a look at what television is today. It is time to understand the technological changes that have taken place, particularly since Annan reported. His report is the basis for much of today's argument, but when it was carried out video had not even been thought of, let alone introduced, and I understand from today's report from the Consumers Association that 30 per cent. of householders have one. It is time that this nettle was grasped.

It should not fall entirely on central Government to fund this, because it would involve an enormous amount of money. The Goverment should be exploring opportunities for revenue from advertising, VAT or other external sources. I understand the problems, but I do not believe that because there are problems we should not attempt to face up to them and try to overcome them.

Last weekend, many millions of people throughout . Scotland and England watched the cup final. Many advertisers had the opportunity to sell their wares to millions of people without a penny piece being received by the BBC for it. If I am asked how technically this problem can be overcome I say that if the Performing Rights Society can monitor every piece of music that is played for more than two minutes on any part of the airwaves and obtain revenue for it it cannot be beyond the wit of the BBC and the Government to do the same sort of thing to obtain money from the advertisers.

There are a number of elements to which I draw the attention of the Government. Television licensing today is outmoded and outdated. It is time that we looked at this problem and attacked it by a commercial approach as to what the BBC is about, particularly in relation to cable, satellite and the need to understand that an old person on his own or in a home frequently has only one link with the outside world—television. How often have we learnt in the past of old ladies who starve themselves to death to feed their cat or dog so that they have company? Today that company is not necessarily a cat or a dog but the television set.

Local authorities will listen to what I have said today about Rotherham and want to take the matter in hand. It is right for the Government to do so beforehand. Today is, as I said at the beginning, a walk down a path which has frequently been trodden in the past but which will be trodden more frequently and in more depth over the next few years as technological change comes along. Who could have believed, when a schoolboy who carried huge accumulators home, dragging one's arms down, that today we would have power packs and all the other modern aids?

I am sorry that I have restricted the time left to my right hon. Friend to reply. The Government must at this stage forget political popularity and political aspects of influence. The financing of the BBC is no different from the financing of anything else. It might have been 50 years ago, in a nice esoteric sort of argument, but today we are talking about a means of communication that is too important to go by default.

There are altogether 180 enforcement officers. How many people, in a tower block full of offices from top to bottom with a chairman's office on each floor, each with a television set, were fined the £55 last year for not paying their television licence fee? I suspect none at all. I suspect that enforcement is entirely directed to those areas of the community where in the main people are finding it hard to pay for their television licences. That fee has stood still now for three years. Those people will find it even harder if there is an increase to anything like £80, £90 or £100 which the pundits are currently predicting.

I do not wish the standards of the BBC to deteriorate but those standards will go down because its income is finite. Unless we increase licence fees there will be no more money. The BBC has already introduced breakfast television. There is talk that it will introduce mid-morning television. It cannot do that without money. If that money has to come from a limited number of people I ask my right hon. Friend to think seriously about the matter and to examine external opportunities to bring money into the BBC.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) on the cheerful and well-researched speech which he has just made against the licence system. It is right that the matter should be aired, but he has not left me a great deal of time in which to reply. I agree that the criticism which he voiced in a fairly thin House will be voiced more frequently in future. We shall enter a period when this matter will be substantially discussed, particularly, as is probable, if the BBC come before us fairly soon and ask for an increase in the licence fee from next year.

We are talking about a sum of about £700 million which is the cost of the home services of the BBC—radio and television. All are financed from the licence. Obviously the question must arise as to how, if the licence were abolished, that substantial sum should be raised. My hon. Friend touched on that point. I think that he was suggesting a mixture — something from taxation and something from other sources.

I do not think that any Chancellor of the Exchequer, certainly not my right hon. Friend the present Chancellor, would be willing to take that on. The idea that the cost of television should be moved from the licence to taxation runs counter to Conservative philosophy that people should be able to keep as much of what they earn as is possible to spend on what they choose. Putting up taxes to pay for television would not only require my right hon. Friend to raise a large sum in extra taxation but would also run counter to the thrust of his latest Budget. The same would be true of transferring any quantity of the sum to the rates through local authorities. In effect, it would also be bound to bring the BBC's spending under direct Government control.

My hon. Friend dealt with that argument, but not in the way that I would put it. If the Government provide the BBC with money through taxation, they will inevitably and rightly be answerable to Parliament for the BBC's home services, just as they are for any other form of spending. The resulting inquisition is something that those who value the BBC's independence have always quite reasonably sought to avoid. Of course, one could add other things to the mix, as my hon. Friend quite fairly said. Advertising and subscription, for example, have been looked at in the past and no doubt, as my hon. Friend said, they will be considered again in the future. It would be silly to say that the system will never be modified, but the licence system is much easier to criticise than to replace.

As my hon. Friend knows, the present licence fee runs until March 1985. So far, we have received no application for an increase from the BBC, and if and when it comes it will need to be carefully considered on the basis not just of what the BBC needs to finance itself, but of what we think the licence holder can reasonably be asked to pay. I should make it clear that we have no plans over this time-scale to propose any basic changes to the system.

I think that my hon. Friend will acknowledge that the licence fee system provides a very wide range of programmes at a pretty low cost to the viewer. We are talking of two television and four national radio channels to all but the most remote parts of the country, at a cost to the licence fee payer of about 12…5p a day. The licence is not more expensive in real terms now than it was a few years ago. In fact, after taking inflation into account, a colour licence costs rather less than it did in 1969, and the monochrome licence is a little more than half of what it was then.

The licence fee is paid annually, and I do not doubt that my hon. Friend is right—indeed, my postbag bears it out—that many people find it hard to pay the colour fee of £46 in a lump sum. That is why we have all manner of schemes to enable people to pay the cost of their licence week by week, or month by month, in convenient amounts. About one-fifth of all licence fee revenue is paid in savings stamps. We are now introducing a complementary scheme, which will allow people to pay monthly advance instalments towards the cost of their next licence in cash at post offices, and we hope that that too will help to overcome the problem of having to pay the fee annually.

My hon. Friend perfectly fairly analysed the rough edges of the system. I wrote to him yesterday on some particular points that I tried to elucidate. If there are any further such points to be clarified, let them by all means be raised. I am not denying that there are those rough edges. The one that worries me most among those that my hon. Friend referred to is the 5p concessionary licence for retired people in certain residential homes and sheltered accommodation. I received more letters on that than on any other subject, including the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill. It dates from 1969 and I would like to meet the Minister who approved it, and explain to him clearly where it has landed us.

Of course, the concessionary scheme exists. If we abolished it, it would be very harsh on the old people who now pay only 5p. We are constantly under pressure to extend it, including perhaps, as is often proposed, to all pensioners. But even if it were practical to provide a concession limited to households consisting only of pensioners, about £160 million would be lost in revenue per year, and the fee for others would have to be increased, for that reason alone, from £46 to nearly £60.

I do not deceive myself. Even if we could in some way find the money for that, which we cannot, there would still be people just outside the concession who would write to my hon. Friend and me saying that they were just as deserving as those receiving it. We would simply have shifted the borderline. As my hon. Friend knows, we are proposing improvements in respect of the disabled, the definition of sheltered accommodation and hotels. My hon. Friend did not mention them, but, as he knows, that is one of the rough edges that we propose to sort out.

It is right that we should consider constantly ways of improving the detailed administration of the collection of the licence fee in which my hon. Friend has shown such a healthy interest. I accept that the collection of the fee costs a good deal. I have mentioned some of the proposals for making improvements. If we can find sensible ways of achieving detailed improvement which do not require Government subsidy—I must set my face against that form of subsidy—and which have a neutral effect on the revenue of the BBC, we shall take them.

I acknowledge that this is a matter of high public concern, concern which may grow as we enter the phase of the cycle when a licence fee increase begins to be discussed. We shall always be open to suggestions, and I do not doubt that all manner of suggestions will come forward in the foreseeable future. We believe that the present system, for all its imperfections and rough edges, continues to be the most effective way of providing a series of services—for example, the home services of the BBC—of a high standard which are popular and which, we believe, provide a good service for many.

I shall raise an issue which is crucial to hundreds of thousands of people, and especially for 2,000 of my constituents on the Bemerton estate near King's Cross in my constituency. The issue is the presence and the need for removal of asbestos in council estates. I shall make a statement that I trust will receive agreement on both sides of the House — that asbestos is dangerous. In some instances it may be made reasonably safe temporarily, but where soft asbestos is present and can be or is damaged or has deteriorated in any way, it is dangerous to health. That was recognised by a Minister in the Department of Employment last July when he said that it must be assumed that a single fibre of asbestos could do real damage that might not be seen for about 20 years or more. Evidence is growing of the damage to lungs, the presence of cancer and the onset of asbestosis where people have been in contact with asbestos dust. The evidence is becoming overwhelming and extremely disturbing.

Asbestos is present in many ways in many council estates. It is present in roof tiles, ceilings, door and wall panels, fireplace surrounds, heating panels, airing cupboard walls, fuse boxes, boiler insulation materials and coatings on steel work. It is especially present in many ceilings and ceiling panels which were put into estates which were built in the 1950s and early 1960s. Where it is present and where there are potential damaging effects, it is essential that local authorities, which have responsibilities as landlords and custodians of the health and welfare of their tenants, take steps to remove the asbestos to make life healthy and safe for those tenants.

On some estates hundreds of flats may be affected, and common parts, such as landings and staircases, may be used by hundreds of people daily. When removal is decided upon, there are two enormous problems. First, there is the management problem of carrying out the work and ensuring that tenants are protected while the work is being undertaken. The second problem is the serious one of cost. I shall return to the cost issue on which I seek the Government's assistance.

The problem has been illustrated graphically on one estate in my constituency. I have already referred to the Bemerton estate, which has in three tower blocks 220 flats. The whole estate was constructed in the early 1960s, and there are some 600 flats. About six months ago, the council discovered brown asbestos which was presented as a spray coating on the hallways and half-landings of the three tower blocks. In the hallways, the asbestos coating is about 7m up above the floor, and at the moment this seems to be undamaged and difficult to damage. In each hallway, however, three hatches are set into the asbestos, and there is a serious potential for damage and asbestos degeneration.

More importantly, on the half-landings there is a sprayed asbestos coating in soft asbestos, which is approximately 3m from the floor. There is already evidence of both accidental and malicious damage to those coatings. The dust generated on those half-landings can be extremely harmful to the tenants in those blocks. I have received reports from a number of tenants on the estate that they are beginning to find asbestos dust in the heating system — it is a district heating system — running throughout the estate.

The borough to which the estate was transferred from the GLC three or four years ago is taking immediate temporary measures to seal in the asbestos where it has been discovered. The borough, with the tenants, is carrying out a full survey of all 600 flats on the estate to establish exactly the extent and nature of the asbestos.

In the meantime, the caretakers on the estate have had to be told by the council that they cannot scrub, mop and clean and replace fittings in the way in which they have previously done and in the way necessary to make life tolerable for the tenants. There is a natural and justifiable concern among the tenants about the presence of asbestos and what will happen about its removal. The maintenance and cleaning of the estate has had to suffer, because of potential damage to the asbestos which might be caused by the normal cleaning and maintenance process.

Already, the cost to the local authority of the survey and immediate spraying measures to seal in the asbestos is, in the current financial year, about £25,000. That is before any steps are taken to remove the asbestos. The full cost, whatever action is finally decided upon, of removing the asbestos will run into hundreds of thousands of pounds and, because we are talking about 600 flats, may well run into millions of pounds. That cost, which has hitherto not been budgeted for in the council's housing investment programme, may throw out of kilter the rest of the borough's housing plans for modernisation and the construction of new houses. It may destroy the hope for that programme of thousands of tenants and potential tenants in Islington.

One must look beyond that estate to all the others built at the same time and in the same way which may, in the next few months or years, create similar problems. It is estimated that about £100 million worth of work needs to be done to remove asbestos from council estates in London. One wonders what will have to be spent throughout the country.

The extent of the problem is still not fully known, but if proper steps are taken by local authorities to remove asbestos where it represents a danger to tenants, it will cost hundreds of millions of pounds in additional housing capital expenditure.

I want to ask three specific questions. The first two relate to the Bemerton estate. First, if the borough of Islington approaches and asks the Government to recognise that the removal of asbestos from flats, landing, and hallways is a special problem that cannot be tackled by the normal housing investment programme, will they listen sympathetically to a request for special consideration under the housing investment programme and consider a special allocation of funds to tackle the problem?

The second question is related to the first. The Bemerton estate was transferred from the Greater London council, and capital works on that estate supposedly falls within the arrangements for funding capital works on ex-GLC estates through the GLC. If the Department cannot consider a special allocation for the borough of Islington, will it see what can be done through the GLC's capital programme? In that connection, how will the proposed abolition of the GLC affect work on transferred estates? An attempt was made last night to justify the plans for abolition, but they were unconvincing. How will the abolition proposals affect such problems?

The GLC money Bill is threatened. It should have been debated in the House last night, but unfortunately it was not. It is now due to come before us in two or three weeks' time. How will that and the scrutiny by the Treasury affect work on transferred estates?

The third question is even more important and more general. How do the Goverment and the Department intend to approach the problem of asbestos removal throughout the country? The Government have already recognised, but only to a limited extent, the problems of the defective construction of council estates and houses, such as Airy and Orlit houses, built during the 1950s and 1960s. They have recognised the problem and devoted special funds, to be made available through the Housing Defects Bill to those who have purchased properties on such estates. However, they have not yet given satisfactory assurances about what will happen about local authorities which still own houses, with tenants, which suffer from the same problem.

We must ask the Government what thought they have given to the problem of asbestos in estates constructed during the 1950s and 1960s when asbestos was commonly used. Do the Government recognise that that is a special problem and that it cannot be tackled simply within local authorities' normal housing investment programmes, because it occurs sometimes on an enormous scale demanding vast financial resources, and potentially throwing out of joint the rest of those authorities' housing programmes? Do the Department of the Environment and the Minister recognise that those problems are special?

Will the Minister consider setting up a special procedure whereby—when a local authority can prove to the satisfaction of his Department that asbestos is present, dangerous and needs to be removed, and where the cost is above a certain amount, which can be determined by the Department, but which could show the substantial nature of the problem in relation to the authorities' housing investment programme—additional funds can be made available through the housing investment programme to tackle the problem?

If the Minister cannot give such an assurance, one of two things will happen. Authorities will have to go ahead and carry out the work, and as a result throw out of kilter the rest of their housing programme and disappoint thousands of homeless people on their waiting lists and in their less desirable estates who are desperate to move for the sake of themselves and their families, or the local authorities will decide not to carry out the necessary removal works. If that is the case, tenants on estates such as Bemerton will continue to be anxious and ill at ease and with an enormous potential health danger hanging over their lives every day within their own homes.

A case came to public attention some time ago which illustrates the nature of the problem and the potential danger posed by asbestos in council estates. One tenant found that her children — one must remember that children are at greater risk from cancer and the effects of asbestos than adults—had bored into a blue asbestos panel behind their bed and made a toy garage in the space. She wondered what the blue dust was. The dust was, of course, a potential and immediate danger to those children. I am seeking to avoid similar cases in future by initiating this debate and by my requests to the Minister.

I hope that the Minister will take some notice, and will take action to put an end to this appalling risk to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

It is right that this week should end, as much as it appears to have been spent, with an Environment Minister replying to the debate.

The hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) has raised an important issue. He has done so, as one would expect, in a reasonable and well argued way. He has drawn on the experience that he has had in his constituency.

The potential danger of asbestos materials used in buildings has been recognised for some time, and the problem of dealing with asbestos has been extensively investigated.

The advisory committee on asbestos, which was set lap by the Health and Safety Commission in 1976, looked at the question of asbestos materials in buildings and concluded that

"the number of people at risk is probably small."

The committee did not recommend that all asbestos materials should be removed from buildings.

The risk to health from asbestos arises from breathing airborne asbestos dust — the more dust inhaled, the greater the risk. So the risk to occupants of buildings depends on the type of asbestos material present and its condition. A hard material in good condition presents little risk, but a soft material that is worn or damaged could be hazardous. Measurements of airborne asbestos dust using the most powerful electron microscopes have found very low levels of airborne dust and, in general, the risk to occupants of buildings is thought to be very slight. But there are circumstances in which some types of asbestos material can release significant amounts of dust, and there could then be a risk to occupants of the building.

My Department has recently published advice on dealing with asbestos in building in two formats. The first is a booklet "Asbestos Materials in Buildings", which gives detailed advice and is intended for environmental health officers, surveyors and other professional staff. The second is a short, free booklet on "Asbestos in Housing" for distribution to the public. The detailed booklet describes the types of asbestos material likely to be found in buildings and suggests ways of dealing with them. It is not always necessary completely to remove all asbestos materials—in some cases it is better to seal the material and leave it undisturbed until the building reaches the end of its useful life.

I understand the public concern about asbestos, particularly on the Bemerton estate, mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, but one has to recognise that there are several types of asbestos material used in a variety of circumstances. In some cases there may be a risk to occupants of the building and it will be necessary to seal or remove the asbestos. In other cases, the risk will be negligible and it will be better to leave the material in place.

Asbestos has been used in various types of heating systems in the past as insulation around heat exchangers, and to line cupboards containing heater units. Tests have shown, however, that the amount of asbestos dust given off by heaters is very low and unlikely to be a risk to health. Manufacturers of that type of heater no longer use asbestos insulation, and have not done so for several years. Asbestos insulation in existing heaters should nevertheless be sealed or replaced. It may sometimes be more economical to replace the whole unit if it is nearing the end of its useful life.

In some cases urgent action is needed, but there is no need for local authorities to undertake wholesale programmes of asbestos removal regardless of whether or not the material is hazardous.

Problems of this type will always arise from time to time, and local authorities must accommodate them by changing priorities in their expenditure. It would be unrealistic for local authorities to expect additional central funds to be made available every time a new issue crops up.

I should like to explain the financial framework under which local authorities can deal with asbestos problems in their own stock. I shall deal with the specific questions raised by the hon. Gentleman. As he knows, capital allocations are made to each authority in each year to enable them to undertake capital housing projects including new build, rehabilitation and asbestos removal. Authorities have discretion to decide how best to use the resources being made available to them to meet the housing needs of their area, and are encouraged to use their capital receipts to augment their allocations.

Provided each project passes the Department's scrutiny — and I see no particular difficulty with projects including asbestos removal—most of the expenditure will reckon for housing subsidy. Not all authorities are still receiving subsidy, but nearly all London boroughs are still in subsidy, and Islington certainly is.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the resources available to Islington. For the current year, it received a basic allocation of nearly £34 million. Its available capital receipts totalled £3·5 million. The problems of the borough are fully recognised. Although we recognise that the basic allocation is slightly less than the previous year, none the less it was the second highest allocation to any London borough. All the resources for this year have now been allocated. Authorities have already been invited to make bids for allocations for next year. No final decisions on the total provision for housing have yet been taken. Within Greater London and, indeed, elsewhere in the country resources for future housing programmes will remain constrained. Against that, there are many special demands made by housing authorities. We listen very carefully to them all and try to strike a fair and reasonable balance between many competing claims.

The hon. Gentleman spoke strongly about the Bemerton estate in his constituency. Construction began, as he mentioned, in 1951 and was not completed until after 1966. It comprises 861 units. I understand that asbestos has been discovered in three blocks on the estate in the communal areas and in some flats, and that it has been used in the ceilings and in the heating systems.

At the moment the borough is determining the scale of the problem, not only on the Bemerton estate but throughout the borough, and the likely cost of any consequential works needed. Of course, I understand the concern of the tenants in those blocks, but it would be sensible to wait until the council has finished its investigations before assessing the scale of the problem on our hands.

So far, we have not received any bid from the borough for an allocation specifically for asbestos removal. But, in response to the hon. Gentleman's first question, of course we shall listen sympathetically to officials of Islington when they talk to officials in my Department about the allocation for next year.

The estate was built by the GLC and handed over to the borough in 1981 under a transfer order. Under the terms of the order, the GLC remains responsible for expenditure on major technical problems. No doubt the borough will wish to discuss their investigation with the GLC and decide jointly how best to proceed.

At the moment, the GLC receives an annual capital allocation related to its duty to deal with major technical problems and other duties under the transfer orders. After abolition of the GLC, the entire London HIP allocation will be shared among the boroughs, and in making the allocations we shall take full account of the needs of the boroughs to undertake work on the transferred stock.

As to revenue costs, the need for GLC revenue deficit contributions to continue under the transfer order involved in Islington's case is to be reviewed by the GLC in 1985, and I would not want to anticipate that review. But in the case of the other orders not due for early review, we have already announced that the broad effect of the GLC's obligatory revenue deficit contributions will be maintained, preferably through the RSG, and that will take account of the needs for renovation expenditure on the transferred stock. We shall in due course consult those concerned about the detailed arrangements.

The hon. Gentleman tried to draw a parallel with the Airey houses. The scheme to help the purchasers of Airey houses enables the Secretary of State to designate classes of building that appear to be defective in their design or construction.

Owners of houses or flats in designated classes will be eligible for assistance under the Bill, provided, first, that the house or flat was originally owned by the public sector and, secondly, that the owner bought it before the defect or defects became generally known. The special needs for expenditure of that kind are being taken into account in deciding the HIP allocations of the authorities concerned.

The situation with asbestos material is not the same as that of Airey houses where there is a defect of design or construction. As I have pointed out, local authorities are not given special financial assistance for the cost of repairs to their own defective houses as the present subsidy arrangements already take it into account.

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, the asbestos question is not a new one and it is likely to be with us for some time. It is a problem that can, in general, be dealt with by sensible, planned management of maintenance and repair programmes. To that end—to deal with the third question that I was asked—I have agreed with the local authority associations that a joint working party of central and local government officials should be set up to investigate the scale of the problem and to exchange experience on the best way of dealing with asbestos in buildings. The results of the working party's efforts will be helpful to all the authorities responsible for buildings containing asbestos materials.