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

During nearly 22 years in the House of Commons I have balloted on many occasions for a private Member's Bill but have never reached the first 20. It was with a feeling of great joy and excitement that I drew in this lottery the third position. It is with great satisfaction that I present a Bill that is necessary and worth while.

There is widespread, deep and understandable public anxiety about the number of cases of cruelty to children. There is also great anxiety about the many cases involving children in care who, having been moved from the home where they suffered abuse, are subsequently returned to that home only to suffer more abuse and injury and. in some tragic and horrifying cases, death.

Like all hon. Members, I am appalled by the number of cases of vicious, sadistic cruelty to children. The Bill does not attempt to deal with cruelty to children in general: it is confined to children and young persons in care under care orders. In that sphere, it is relevant and opportune. It introduces a new safeguard to protect such children. It proposes to amend the law in relation to the representation of interested parties and on appeals. It further introduces the right of transfer from magistrates' courts to the High Court. These changes are intended to make the law fairer and more effective in dealing with cases involving children and young persons in care.

Perhaps it would be convenient to the House if I explain the Bill's main provisions in detail. Clause 1, which would require the consent of the juvenile court before the local authority could implement a recommendation to return a child "in care" to the home where he or she was living before the care order was made, is a significant proposal, which would mark a new departure in our child care law. The main purpose of the proposal is to introduce a further and relevant safeguard for the child, but such a proposal would have the added benefit of providing a safeguard for social workers as well. Responsibility for the decision would be shared by social workers and the magistrates' court.

Social workers are responsible people who carry out their duties with much care and concern, but they are human and they can make mistakes. Indeed, we know that, in certain cases, they have made mistakes, some of which have had tragic consequences. Such errors must cause them great distress, and I should have thought that the extra protection that the Bill provides would be welcome to them. That aim is to assist social workers, not to hinder or offend them.

However, the main and overriding priority of the proposed change is to strengthen protection for the child. I am wholly satisfied and convinced that, by establishing a procedure whereby a decision to return a child from care to the home from which he or she had been removed by order would have to be examined by three wholly objective but concerned people, the Bill introduces a new and important safeguard.

Chapter 2 of the recent Department of Health and Social Services review of child care contains a valuable discussion on the interrelationship between social workers and the court. It recommends that major issues should be determined by the courts while management of the case should be the responsibility of the local authority. As the report points out, there is room for debate on which decisions should fall into which category. I am strongly of the opinion that a decision to return a child who has had to be the subject of a care order must properly be regarded as one of the utmost importance, and one which, therefore, calls for the maximum scrutiny that the system can provide.

One may ask: how do I envisage my proposal improving the present system? First, the Bill adds a filter, in that, as well as the social workers, an independent tribunal, fresh to the case, needs to be satisfied that it is right to return the child. That is important, because social workers who have worked with a child's family over a period can sometimes get too close to the case. My proposal should ensure that the most careful consideration is given to the decision to return the child.

Secondly, the Bill spells out the test that should be applied before a child is returned—that in all circumstances the child will be safe. It may be said that the test is strict. Detailed consideration could, of course, be given in Committee to decide just how the test should be formulated. This question should be asked: when considering the return of a child, will any lesser test suffice?

Thirdly—this is a key part of the thinking behind this measure—the Bill empowers, and plainly encourages, the court to attach conditions to the return of the child. I envisage the court and social workers working together to create the best set of conditions for the particular case.

The DHSS is giving consideration to the regulations that would govern the return of children in care. The difficulty with such regulations, helpful though they may well be in other respects, is that almost inevitably they would have to be framed in general terms, setting out the minimum criteria. The Bill will allow for the laying down of conditions tailormade to fit the circumstances of the paticular child and case. The relevant clause refers to the supervision and inspection of the child and to periodic medical examination. This recognises the great importance of involving people such as general practitioners.

In some cases, no doubt, relatively infrequent inspection will suffice. In others, a daily check may be necessary. The main point is to enable the checks to be specific and appropriate to the case under review. Similarly, in some cases, it may be right to attach a condition that a particular person should not reside on the premises.

Linked to this, another important benefit emerges from the proposal—that the provisions made by the magistrate and attached to the permission to return the child will help to strengthen the position of social workers. We all remember the tragic history of Jasmine Beckford. On innumerable occasions, the social worker sought to see the child but was fobbed off with excuses. Under the Bill, the position would be clear—the social worker must see the child, or the child is liable to be removed under the terms of the magistrates' order. Everyone will know exactly where he stands. Following the Blom-Cooper report on the Beckford case, I propose that the magistrates should give their reasons and record them in writing.

What may be the drawbacks of this proposal? There will, of course, be some additional overall cost, but I sincerely hope that I shall not hear that reason urged against a reform aimed at making children safer. The greater drawbacks to which hon. Members may refer are, first, that it may lead to children remaining in care when they otherwise might not and, secondly, that it may impose delays.

My aim is to improve the lot of children in care; the last thing I want is to add needlessly to the number of such children. I emphasise at once that the Bill has no bearing on those children who are voluntarily in care, who may be returned at will and who may go in and out of care as circumstances vary at home. In this connection, I welcome the suggestion in the DHSS review that there should be further developments of the concepts of "respite care" and "shared care". The Bill is not intended to affect those children who are subject to a care order but have always continued to live at home.

My provision is directed at those children who are away from home and in care because an order has had to be made, or because a local authority resolution concerning parental rights has had to be passed on specified grounds. The children are in care because something has gone wrong at home to such an extent that the local authority and the court have had to intervene. They should never stay in care for longer than is avoidable, but considerations of safety are paramount. In some cases the same decision to return the child will be reached, and the return will take place at the same time as it would have done without my Bill. However, at the margin children will remain in care longer, or even indefinitely, who otherwise might not have done so. Those are the children whom the Bill seeks to protect.

No system is perfect and I recognise that as a result of the Bill some children will not go home who perhaps might have done so without harm. But other children will be saved from abuse, torture and even death. If the system is to err, it must err on the side of safety. The provision has been carefully thought out, and should not be seen as a hastily conceived response to a few appalling and headline-catching cases.

Equally, one does not want delays in the return of children, but I see no reason why an unacceptable delay should occur, if the provisions are sensibly operated by social workers and courts. When a child is formally in care and away from home under an order, the process of return is rarely rapid. In practice, there will be case conferences and much social work input with the family, leading to a planned return. If the application for permission is not notified to the court until the planned day of return arrives, there will be a delay, but, intelligently, the application will be timed and in the pipeline as part of the programme—

Does my hon. Friend accept that in the case of a child who has been taken into care on the wrong basis, and who is later found to be suffering from brittle bone disease, although it was feared that the child had suffered child abuse, the speed of return of the child should be of the utmost?

I agree that the speed of return is important. My point is that, although delay may occur in some cases, overall that effect should not be great.

The application should be timed and in the pipeline as part of the programme so that it can be formally determined by the court at a suitable date, not long before the projected return. It has been pointed out to me that the Bill may bear unnecessarily on children who are in care for reasons other than the risk of harm—for example, because they are not attending school. In Committee, I shall willingly consider amendments to narrow the clause's impact to the children at whom it is aimed.

It has been suggested that the provision could undermine the responsibility and judgment of social workers. While I understand that anxiety, I reject it. Nothing is further from my intention than to undermine the status and position of social workers. Such a suggestion fails to take proper account of their great sense of responsibility, and of the respect which thinking people hold for their extremely difficult task. I also reject the view that the Bill could discourage Government or local authorities from maintaining through funding and training the required standard of performance in social work practice. Government, local authorities and social workers will not shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, now it's up to the courts."

I failed to hear my hon. Friend's opening remarks, but does he agree that the Bill deserves support because it does not undermine the role of parents? Many of the reforms recently advocated have undermined the role of parents, and given too great a role to social workers, who do an extremely good job but of whom we tend to demand too much.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his helpful comment.

Clause 4 deals with the wider rights of audience, and the proposal reflects the recommendation of the DHSS review. The present widely criticised position is that the only full parties in care proceedings are the local authority and the child. Parents have a limited right to be heard, which is essentially restricted to meeting allegations made against them. Few would disagree that both justice and the contribution of parents to reaching the best decision demand that in all but exceptional cases parents should have the fullest rights before the court.

There is also widespread feeling that grandparents should have a right to contribute in appropriate cases. I have had a large postbag from grandparents since my Bill was published. I shall not quote from their letters, but they have been numerous—I have a huge pile of them—and many have given heart-rending accounts of how they have been affected by their exclusion. Other people, including uncles and aunts, and fathers of an illegitimate child, may have a contribution to make and a legitimate right to be heard.

I have also extended the Bill to include foster parents in appropriate cases. They may often be in a particularly good position to comment on the relationship between the natural mother and the child, and they may know the child better than anyone else. The House will remember the despair of the former foster parents of Jasmine Beckford that no one had involved them in the vital decision.

Clauses 3 and 5 deal with appeals and the transfer of proceedings between courts. Obviously, the two provisions are linked, although neither is dependent on the other. All parties should have a right to appeal, but under the present restrictive law, only the child has such a right. The local authority does not even have that right if a care order is refused. Judges have frequently criticised the law for that.

The appeal should be to the High Court rather than to the Crown court. That is also in line with the recommendations of the DHSS review. There has been much criticism of appeals being heard in open court, often by a judge whose experience is largely in criminal matters and who tends to apply a criminal approach to evidence and procedure. The DHSS recommendation is subject to the important proviso that the High Court holds a fuller re-hearing of the evidence where necessary, and the Bill specifically provides that the appeal should be by way of such a re-hearing.

It is right that I should refer to family courts. I know that many hon. Members and many people outside the House are in favour of such courts. They believe that they answer many of the problems in child care law. It is important to distinguish the machinery of justice from the substantive law.

My proposals in clause 1, relating to a court's permission, and in clause 4, relating to parties, have no direct bearing on the question of family courts. Whatever the court structure, my proposals would still be necessary. However, I recognise that the proposals relating to appeal and transfer touch upon the family court debate. I wish to make it clear that nothing in the Bill is intended to stifle or pre-empt that debate.

The issues touching family courts go far beyond the range of child care law. The proposals in the Bill about appeals and the transfer of cases merely go some way towards meeting one area of concern—the lack of flexibility in the system as between the magistrates and the High Court, and the unsatisfactory nature of a Crown court appeal in care cases. It could be some considerable time before an integrated structure of family courts is established. In the meantime, I hope that those hon. Members who favour such courts will support my proposals, because they make an immediate and much-needed improvement to the present system.

There may be those who would prefer a delay in reform—I have heard that preference repeated during the past few days—until the final conclusions of the DHSS review on child care law are reached. That is a massive exercise and I remind hon. Members of the fate of some parts of the Children Act 1975. It was enacted in 1975, but major parts came into effect only in December 1985. One hopes that such a delay will never occur again, but it serves to underline my belief that the areas of child care law dealt with by my Bill should be reformed now, and not await the protracted process of review and major legislation.

I believe that my Bill, far-reaching though it may be in some respects, although modest in others, represents an opportunity now of making real improvements in the law. It represents an opportunity to make the law better, fairer, more just and, above all, safer. The Bill does not intend to bring about a comprehensive reform of the law, but I believe that it proposes significant improvements which could, in some cases, have a decisive effect. The Blom-Cooper report makes thoughtful suggestions about how decisions taken by social workers and local authorities could be improved—better training, better and more extensive consultation and greater resources. Those are admirable suggestions and I welcome them, but such improvements would take place in the future, perhaps in the distant future, and their effects cannot be properly measured now.

In the Bill, I propose something concrete and specific, and I propose that it should come into effect in a few months' time. The public would not lightly forgive us, and they would be right, for failing to seize an opportunity to make children in care more safe. The Bill offers such an opportunity in a way that would not prejudice more comprehensive Government legislation in the years to come. I hope that the House will agree to give the Bill a Second Reading.

I compliment the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters) on his good luck in the ballot and I offer him my congratulations on his choice of legislation. Improvements in child care law are of considerable importance to us all. Some hon. Members will know, and I have mentioned this before, that we order things differently in Scotland. Scotland has children's panels and hearings, and social work departments have ready access to the sheriff court in cases of child abuse. Our system of children's panels and hearings and the ready access to the sheriff courts is marvellously informal and unlike court proceedings. In my view, as a Yorkshireman long and happily domiciled in Scotland, the Scottish system is much superior to the English system.

It is perhaps a shame that England does not take a leaf out of that Scottish book. However, that does not mean that we have no cases of child abuse occurring from time to time in Scotland. I am sorry to say that we are not that fortunate. I regret that there will always be cases of child abuse, whether physical or sexual. As legislators, our aim should be to reduce as far as possible the incidence of that form of cruelty. Children must be given the fullest protection under the law and the rights of parents must not be ignored.

I offer the Bill a qualified welcome, because I have several criticisms against its form and content, but those criticisms are offered in the hope that they may help to improve the Bill in Committee. I sincerely hope that the Bill is enacted, but it is in need of some improvement.

It is right that in England the courts should be involved in child care decisions. As in Scotland, that would ensure more effective safeguards for the child and for the rights of parents. In the Bill there appears to be no clear, precise mechanism to enable the court to assess the judgment of a social services department. Representatives of the British Association of Social Workers tell me that a court may have to be responsible for a decision that should be made by social workers.

I am also worried about the lack of training of magistrates. Moving north of the border once again, may I say that a children's hearing in Scotland will have three lay members and a reporter. The reporter is employed by the regional or island council but can be dismissed only by the Secretary of State for Scotland. The hearings are informal. Parents can sit around a table with the social worker, other witnesses and interested parties. The proceedings encourage closer questioning about the circumstances surrounding an application. The present training of magistrates in England does not give me the confidence that I have in our system.

The Beckford inquiry report offers some criticism of the magistrates in that case. The magistrates concluded the case by saying:

"In making these Orders it is our earnest hope that the Social Services Department will do its utmost to carry out a rehabilitation programme to unite those children with their parents."

The chairman is reported as having directed this comment to the parents:

"The Social Services will do everything to help you both and get your children back with you."

We know the appalling conclusion of that case. Representatives of the British Association of Social Workers suggest that there is little doubt that, if no such statement had been made by the magistrates, the area officer, if not the social worker and team leader, might have taken a very different view about the rehabilitation of Jasmine Beckford.

In England, there are considerable delays in child care hearings, which can have disastrous consequences for young children. It is especially damaging if the child's return home is delayed unnecessarily. In the Scottish system, everyone accepts that time is of the essence in child care hearings. Even resort to the sheriff's court can be achieved within seven days. We must do something about the delays that occur south of the border.

Another criticism of the juvenile courts is their adversarial approach to such matters, which is derived from the criminal courts. Is such an approach suitable for important decision-making in child care cases? In some cases, the objective is to examine personal capacities rather than to determine right from wrong. That is as true for the decisions covered by the Bill as it is for child care orders. We do not have such a system in Scotland.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman can tell me when he replies whether clause 1(4) takes account of the effects of delays. It would be wrong to remove a child from his or her parents simply because a court hearing had to be delayed for administrative reasons.

Clause 5 provides the power to transfer proceedings to the High Court. Has the hon. Gentleman analysed the implications of such transfers in terms of the delay involved in returning a child to his or her home? A case conference involving the interested professionals could meet, within days if necessary, and ensure a professional assessment of a child's home before the decision was made to return the child.

Will the hon. Gentleman also deal with the criticism contained in the brief sent to all hon. Members by the Association of County Councils? In the penultimate paragraph, which deals with voluntary arrangements made between parents and local authorities without a court order, it states:

"It is surely not intended that a simple return home following such voluntary arrangements, for example, for a parent to have an operation, during a period of homelessness should be covered. In 1983 … more than 20,000 children were admitted to care under such arrangements."

Does the Bill deal adequately with that criticism?

I welcome the concern expressed so eloquently by the hon. Gentleman, but I am deeply worried by some of the apparent deficiencies of the Bill. I hope that they can be ironed out in Committee.

The House is indebted to the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) for what he said about the Scottish system. He seemed to be arguing for more comprehensive reform than the reforms that we are discussing today. I do not disagree with him, but it would be sensible and proper for the House to act on the basis of the best knowledge that it has available. The consequences of that are contained in the Bill introduced so ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters).

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his good fortune in the lottery of the private Members' ballot. On occasions when I was fortunate enough to draw a reasonably high place in the ballot, my hon. Friend was kind enough to support me, so I am delighted to return the compliment and to support his important Bill. I also congratulate him on the way in which he introduced the Bill. He selected the subject wisely, and it undoubtedly reflects considerable public anxiety.

By now, cruelty to children should be no more than an aspect of history, but unfortunately, as we know only too well, that is not so. That is a major reason for the need to provide for children in care. On the whole, existing arrangements work very well. That is a compliment to the dedication, ability and judgment of social workers and local authorities and to the decisions of Crown and magistrates' courts.

As has been demonstrated, and as we know too well, with the best will in the world mistakes have been made, with tragic consequences for the children involved. I am not naive enough to believe that mistakes can be avoided completely, because human judgment is involved at some stage; and some judgments will prove wrong. The Bill will make it less likely that mistakes are made as there will be safeguards for children at risk and in care.

It is argued that changes in child care law should await the outcome of the review that has wisely been initiated by the Government. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury emphasised, the results of that review might be some time coming and there might be a much longer delay before a slot for relevant legislation is found in the Government's programme. Although the review and research are necessary, if sensible action can be taken, as now, it should be, above all where the wellbeing of children is involved.

I support the Bill and trust that it will receive a Second Reading and ultimately become part of the law of the land.

I support the Bill and congratulate the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters) on his choice of subject.

I have had an opportunity to speak to practising members of the Bar who are widely experienced in such work, and they fully support the spirit behind the Bill. I have also had an opportunity to talk to magistrates and judges who are experienced in this class of work and they too are fully behind the Bill.

The hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison), with his usual ingenuity and charm, managed to congratulate the Government on something in passing. It is perhaps the only time this week that the Government have been congratulated on anything. He omitted, however, to say anything about the long overdue establishment of permanent courts. When we consider legislation on the welfare of children, we should bear that in mind. The Opposition have for years asked the Government to establish family courts but they, with their usual nonchalant incompetence, have dragged their feet in the face of overwhelming evidence.

I strongly support the Bill and wish it well.

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters) on the way on which he has tackled this complex issue and on his introduction of the Bill.

Children come into care through two routes. The first is voluntary care. Parents might want their children to be taken into care so that they might be looked after by the local authority, perhaps because they cannot cope or because of illness. I understand that the Bill does not cover children in those circumstances. I hope that my hon. Friend will clarify that beyond peradventure because it is confusing to see clause 1(1) referring to children "received into care", which could mean received voluntarily. The second route involves children who appear before the courts because they have committed an offence or because they are considered to need to be in care and the local authority or the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has instituted care proceedings.

The House knows that I sat as the chairman of a juvenile court for several years before entering the House and I vividly recall several cases in the latter category. The two categories are not so easily distinguishable because often when we read the social inquiry report, and heard about the child's background, we realised that it was hardly surprising that he or she had committed and offence. Conversely, with some children who were brought before us as needing care, when we read the report, we wondered how the child had got so far without committing an offence.

I also remember having to make care orders. We should be clear what we are talking about—taking a child into care because that is in the child's best interests. We are saying that the state has decided to deprive a parent or parents, who have produced the child and brought it up so far—which might be a few months or some years—of their child or, in some cases, children. We are saying that the child will be better off with social workers in a children's home than with his or her own parents, however inadequate they my may be. We are saying that they should not be in their own home, however poor the material standards might be. It is an extremely difficult decision.

I recall a case when all of the evidence was overwhelmingly in favour of making a court order and we had to sit and watch the matron lead two or three children away and take the youngest from its mother's arms. Such an example brings home to me the fact that we are considering deeply personal cases.

Hon. Members who have been magistrates will know that we weigh up the circumstances and make a decision and that is that. If we spend time afterwards wondering whether we took the right decision, we should never get a moment's sleep. There were some cases over which I lost sleep, and they were care cases. We should not belittle their importance.

The court represents society and makes a decision having considered the information presented to it by social workers, the police, the school, if relevant, and other sources, but it is the court that decides on the order. It can decide to make a supervision order, the implication of which is that the child will remain at home but be under supervision of social workers, or it can make a care order if it thinks that the child would be best away from home. There have been problems in the past when the court felt it appropriate to make a care order and the social workers took the child into care but promptly returned it to the home. Had that been the court's intention, it would have made a supervision and not a care order. Most of those difficulties have now been ironed out, but the circumstances that I have described whereby, sooner or later, a social worker can decide, without recourse to the court, to return a child in care to its home is a difficulty that the Bill seeks to tackle.

There are many occasions when social workers decide that the time is right for the child to return home. It does so, and all goes well. The case is successful. However, occasionally all does not go well, the tragic results of which we know. The intention of clause 1 is to bring back into the process of returning a child to its home the protection of the court and its authority.

A director of social services for whom I have a high regard has written to me expressing his anxiety about the Bill. He fears that the Bill will undermine the function and management of social services, in particular, with regard to the issue of discharge, by making it a matter for the court to decide. He refers to the legislation as representing:

"a vote of no confidence or little confidence in Social Services Departments".

I am afraid that there has been a lessening of confidence in social services departments and social workers. Most social workers are dedicated, professional people who do an extraordinarily difficult job. Most of the cases that they handle are dealt with successfully and receive no publicity. Sometimes there are mistakes. Sometimes things do not work out, not necessarily because there has been a mistake but merely because we are dealing with human beings who are fallible and unpredictable. It is those occasional cases that receive the publicity. Those cases have, I fear, lowered people's confidence in the social work system.

If a social worker can persuade the court that it is appropriate for a child who is the subject of an order to go home, the court's decision would confirm the social worker's assessment. Far from that undermining the social worker's confidence, it would be a vote of confidence in the social services department. Far from undermining social service departments, it would strengthen their position and add an extra dimension of protection to the social worker who, if there were subsequent criticism of his action, could point out that his recommendation had been considered and confirmed by the court.

The hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) mentioned representations made to him by the British Association of Social Workers which had questioned the provisions of the clause. It suggests, for example:

"There appear to be no mechanisms to ensure that the Court is in a position to question the judgment of the social services department."

I find that difficult to understand, because the court will have every opportunity to do so. The social worker would appear before the court and all those involved in the case would have an opportunity to explain to the court why they thought it appropriate for the child to return home. Normal court procedures offer every opportunity for that to be done.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned another point made by the BASW:

"The training of magistrates is haphazard and their expertise varies considerably".

Those of my colleagues who have sat as juvenile court magistrates can confirm that they have special training. A juvenile court bench consists of a chairman, who is a man or woman with considerable experience in the juvenile court. The other two lay magistrates will not be ignorant of juvenile court matters. The BASW's comment is somewhat unrealistic.

If it were true to say that the returning home of a child subject to a care order should not come before the court because it is not qualified to make that judgment, it is surely even less qualified to make the original care order. The BASW's comment represents a criticism of the entire system. Although some people may think like that, it is not my view.

The House will gather that I warmly support the proposal contained in clause 1. A number of points arise on later clauses but they may be rather more Committee points and I shall not go into them in depth.

My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury may find that there is a difficulty with clause 1(6) and how to define "safe". How can a court decide that it is "safet" to return a child home? Can there be a definition of the word "safe"? Magistrates have to make a balanced judgment on the information before them. They cannot be 100 per cent. satisfied, for the reasons I have given—we are dealing with human beings. For similar reasons, I am not sure how practicable or desirable it will be for the court to have to give reasons for its decisions publicly even if it were possible and desirable to record them. There are many factors involved.

Clause 4 presents a problem. It refers to the possibility of naming as respondents those persons whom the court considers fit. Who will decide who are to be the respondents in the case? I shall quote from a point effectively made by the Judges' Clerks society which states:

"By leaving to the Court the choice of who shall be made respondents to a Local Authority's application under this clause, the Bill is imposing a new and unrealistic duty on the Court. To investigate the background circumstances of the family and the child, and determine who shall be heard ultimately, the Court will need to appoint a Reporting Officer or other independent person to act on its behalf to establish the identity of possible repondents"

Clearly, the social worker could not do that because he or she is involved. The society continues:

"It will then need to hold a preliminary investigative hearing at which the claimants to participate will be invited to present their claims or the court will need to appoint everyone listed by the Reporting Officer as respondent".

That matter may present a difficulty.

It is an admirable principle to try to involve other parties in the case, but rules will need to be issued when the Bill is passed to define what is a "proper interest" when deciding who should be involved in the case.

My hon. Friend mentioned the important point that in the case of a young single girl whose child is in care it could well be that the putative father should be a party to the proceedings. There should be some clarification, either in the Bill or in rules, as to who has a proper interest.

On clause 3, on appeals, and clause 5 allowing transfer to the High Court, I fear that I might have to part company with my hon. Friend to the extent that his press release of 19 December refers to problems that have arisen and suggests that these clauses "ease the urgent need for family courts." That will not do. There is an urgent need for family courts and I would be reluctant to support anything that allowed the Government any sort of get-out in setting them up.

I did emphasise, and I want to do so again, that nothing in the Bill is intended to pre-empt the debate on family courts, or indeed progress towards them. It may well be that in a press handout there was a sentence which, with hindsight, might have been worded differently.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that clear. I am not worried about what he has said; I am more concerned about what my hon. Friend the Minister is likely to say and how he is likely to use the Bill as a further excuse for inaction. He must know of the growing pressure for family courts and the growing impatience of the lack of Government action on that front.

The House knows of the review of child care law by the Department of Health and Social Security and of the proposals for family courts which we hope to see from the Lord Chancellor.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Is he aware that the junior Minister who is now sitting on the Treasury Bench stated explicitly in the House several weeks ago on a Friday in a debate on child abuse that he did not have the faintest idea when family courts would be introduced. In effect, he was shirking responsibility for the decision, because he said that that was the responsibility of another Department. With that nonchalant incompetence that the Department so often displays he passed the matter over to another Department.

I might choose more felicitous expressions to describe my hon. Friend's reaction, but I would not dispute the general tenor of his comments in the debate in which the hon. Gentleman and I took part.

The Labour party, in its manifesto in October 1974, said that it was in favour of bringing in family courts, but by 1975 the Labour party in power was finding all sorts of formidable difficulties as to why it was not able to do so.

That is true. We all remember the Finer report in 1974 urging strongly the implementation of family courts, since when everybody has said that they are a good idea but nobody has done anything. That is not strictly true because all sorts of organisations within and outside Government have brought forward proposals, but nothing has happened. I fear that when my hon. Friend the Minister replies he will once again fall upon the fact that a review of child care law is going on and that something will emerge on family courts as an excuse for not proceeding with the Bill.

I have on occasions in the past spoken in the House on behalf of the Magistrates Association and the National Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Children, on whose executive committee I sit. It is fair to say that both those organisations are sympathetic to what the Bill is trying to achieve, but they dislike piecemeal legislation and would prefer some of the proposals to be incorporated in the legislation, which they hope will incorporate the changes in child care law and the setting up of family courts.

I have little faith in the Government's will to proceed along such lines, certainly in the immediate future. There is certainly no prospect of anything happening in this parliamentary Session. My hon. Friend the Minister may be able to say what the prospects are for the next Session, but even if something were clone in the next parliamentary Session we know how slowly wheels turn and it would be a long time before we saw family courts and a complete change in child care law implemented.

For that reason, I am in favour of my hon. Friend's Bill and on the principle that a bird in hand is worth two in the bush I intend to give it my full support and I hope it will be similarly supported from the Front Bench.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) has spoken from his great experience as a magistrate. We were all moved to hear him say that cases concerning the care of children were the most difficult with which he had to deal and that, if he lost sleep at all, it was over such cases. We can all understand that.

I join my hon. Friend and other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters) on his success in the draw. I remember the excitement of that day—I think it was 14 November—and the great interest in what subject he had chosen. I congratulate my hon. Friend on choosing such an important subject and wish him success in the safe passage of his Bill.

I am not familiar with all the intricacies of the law on this matter. I speak only from personal experience of having fostered and recently adopted a child who had been in care and shuffled about from pillar to post for six years before coming to my family. I am well aware of the need for particular provision for children in such circumstances.

I hope that the Bill will be successful. No doubt it will need to be modified, but I was sorry to see the letter from the Association of County Councils yesterday which seems to be opposed to the Bill. I hope that such reservations can be overcome in Committee.

This week I also received a publication entitled "1986: Children Today" which draws attention to the scale of the problem. No doubt my hon. Friend has seen that. The latest figure given for the number of children in care in the United Kingdom is 104,628. 1 think that figure relates to 31 March 1983. The "Review of Child Care Law" shows that 20,000 children have been in care for over three years, and again that shows the need for measures in this area.

The hon. Gentleman has just given the House the statistics of children in care. Has he the figures of children returned from care each year?

I have them at my side, but I hesitate to refer to them now. We must be careful about children who cease to be children because of their age. The "Review of Child Care Law" is a somewhat formidable document which runs to 179 pages with 223 recommendations, but it lacks an index. I hope that when the Government produce their response to it they will produce a document which is as useful in the information that it contains but more helpful to those who want to extract information from it. If the hon. Gentleman refers to that, he will see that there is a considerable amount of information, but perhaps I could leave him to look at that point. The hon. Gentleman said that time is of the essence and I concur with that. I appreciate that there is a difference between the law in England and the law in Scotland. About 3,000 handicapped children are in long term National Health Service hospitals and local authority homes—about 1,000 in NHS hospitals and about 2,000 in local authority homes. I referred to that in my Adjournment debate speech on 25 November. The private Member's Bill initiated by the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) is in Committee at the moment and also has a bearing on this matter.

I should like to draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury to another category of children. There are about 2,500 children in the country suffering from brittle bone disease. The juvenile court in Bolton is currently dealing with a child who may be suffering from that disease. The case has not yet been determined, so I cannot refer to it in more detail, but there are two aspects to which I should like to draw my hon. Friend's attention and ask him whether he will consider providing help for those particular cases.

The case was first drawn to my attention in November 1985. The local evening newspaper in Bolton covered the case. It is a nightmare for all those concerned—the child, the parents and the social workers. The trouble is that medical experts have no certain way of diagnosing brittle bone disease at an early age. The child went into hospital for a routine examination, returned home and was found not to be well. The child was taken back to the hospital on the same day and found to have a broken thigh bone. The medical experts cannot agree that the child is definitely suffering from brittle bone disease, because I understand that there no diagnostic test available to prove the case conclusively intil the child is older. Therefore, the social workers are unable to agree to return the child to the parents because the risk of child abuse is present. I am greatly concerned that that case has dragged on and is still in the courts. The parents were unable to have the child over Christmas and came to see me because they could not get time in court. I found that court time before Christmas is taken up with hearing licensing cases. Anything that can be done to speed up court hearings in such cases must be done.

The case is very complicated. There have been four medical opinions. Two say that the child is suffering from brittle bone disease and two say that they cannot be sure. We all remember the horror of the Jasmine Beckford case. Therefore, one would not criticise social workers for feeling that they should be exceptionally cautious in such cases. The case is a nightmare because the medical experts cannot conclusively prove the existence of brittle bone disease, but two experts say they are sure. I should like my hon. Friend to bear in mind the need for speeding up court cases in this instance because, as I have said, the case has been dragging on since November, causing great anguish to the parents, and presents nothing but a nightmare to all concerned. I should like to know that we shall have family courts or whatever provision is best suited to bringing that about.

I should like my hon. Friend the Minister to consider whether more provision can be made for medical research into diagnosing brittle bone disease. Obviously, the social workers are presented with a dilemma when medical opinion is uncertain. Can provision be made to provide a better diagnosis in such cases? I should also like to draw my hon. Friend's attention to Dr. Roger Smith's article in the British Medical Journal of 18 August 1984, which says that pre-natal genetic diagnosis is now a definite possibility. He said that

"an exciting biochemical chapter is now being written".

I am concerned that societies, such as the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, are resisting research in that area.

I now return to the number of children in care. The recommendations of many bodies have called for provisions in the law, particularly where children have been in hospital for so long that parental contact has broken down. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to pay particular attention to the need for care orders to be clearly established. In many cases I think that the local authority may be unaware of the existence of the child—the child may be hundreds of miles away from the local authority area where it was born or where it was last domiciled—and the parents may have lost touch with the child. There is an urgent need for reform in that area.

An excellent document entitled "The Case for Family Courts" has been produced by the sub-committee of the Society of Conservative Lawyers. That document contains many recommendations. I do not know whether my hon. Friends have had a chance to refer to it. One of the recommendations is for a children's ombudsman. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Minister has been able to consider that, but there does not seem to be any action or response on that front. In respect of children who are mentally handicapped and have lost touch with their families, I think that there is a case for reconsideration of that matter.

There is another difficult area concerning handicapped children which I should like my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury to bear in mind. There is an extremely difficult problem with a baby born so severely handicapped that the natural parents feel that it would be futile to use the medical facilities which might be available to try to prolong the life of that child. Care orders have been instituted in such cases. The law in that area is uncertain, and the ethical position is extremely difficult and complicated. However, in America there are changes afoot. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would comment on whether he has been able to give thought to that aspect.

I wish my hon. Friend success with his Bill in Committee. I hope that any reservations which may exist will be overcome. I look forward to changes in legislation which will enable cases, such as that of my consituent which I have referred, to be heard more quickly and a satisfactory answer to be arrived at speedily.

I should like to add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters) on introducing a Bill which I believe is a practical and realistic step forward. I do not share the hesitation of those who feel that the Bill will impede progress towards a family court. I think in many ways it will highlight interest in and attention on the subject and raise other anomalies which will speed the development of a family court on its way.

I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison) that in many ways our present procedures work satisfactorily in many cases. There are juvenile courts and many social workers across the country taking on these extremely difficult and always emotional decisions and doing so satisfactorily. Some of the recent tragedies have highlighted public awareness and public anger that there are still children in today's world who suffer the most appalling injuries at the hands of their parents.

The history of child care law has, in my view, been too frequently an over-reaction to appalling incidents. We have to guard carefully against this. In most of the cases that have come to public attention recently the procedures laid down simply were not followed. The procedures were not necessarily wrong but there was bad practice. It is very easy at a time of emotional strain and difficulty, especially when there is a great deal of press and public interest, to look for scapegoats. The Beckford case is a good example of that. I do not believe that any of us would seek to argue that the magistrate, social workers, neighbours, doctors, teachers or anybody involved in that case had been about their business in the way in which one would recommend in an ideal world.

I speak about such matters with feeling, having been the chairman of a London juvenile court for many years before entering the House, as well as being a qualified psychiatric social worker. Therefore, perhaps I have a proper recognition that both magistrates and social workers have an important contribution to make but I realise that their contribution is different. I believe that the court does have a place in child care law. I echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) when he talked about the great difficulty and burden of making such decisions. For a juvenile court magistrate there are probably few more serious decisions to be taken than that to deprive a parent of its child until that child is 18 years of age. This is a serious decision and it is one which I think parents are entitled to have ratified by a court.

I have always been sceptical of the Scottish arrangement for children's hearings. Somehow, it seems to be a denial of the seriousness of the court. I do not believe that, in child care cases, people can sit down in friendly fashion at the table and discuss in a harmonious, almost chatty, way, those serious matters. One needs the formality of a court, although it does not need to be a hurly-burly public place which, most of the time, is devoted to criminal cases.

May I say to the hon. Lady that the children's panels treat matters relating to child care with the utmost seriousness? I hope that I did not give any other impression during my speech.

I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I entirely accept what he says. When the Scottish hearing system is discussed by those involved in English juvenile court hearings, it is often misrepresented as a remarkably informal setting. I am simply seeking to argue that the element of formality and the seriousness of those enormous decisions need to be given due attention.

Under the Bill, it is proposed that appeals should be heard in the High Court rather than the county court. I am sure that that is a step in the right direction. It is supported by the Department of Health and Social Security review of child care law. The High Court would offer various better options. There could be a more flexible application of the rules of evidence, which is a point easy to overlook. Frequently, in child care cases, the evidence is hearsay evidence. It is on the edges of permissibility. One is dealing with peoples' opinions; what people have said; or an individual's assessment about a child. It is naive to think that it is easy to come to a decision.

In cases of physical abuse, at least one has clear evidence, such as bruises, but what about the many cases of emotional abuse, neglect, children being deprived entirely of care or interest, or cases of mental cruelty? In those cases, it is difficult to get hard and clear evidence. The suggestion of appeals going to the High Court is one of the many ways in which the Bill eases the passage towards a family court. Similarly, extending the right of appeal to local authorities and parents is an eminently sensible and reasonable approach.

The suggestion that the court should review the decision that the child should be returned home to the parents from whom he was removed is a good idea, mainly for the reasons that I have already stated. A court hearing highlights and clarifies the seriousness of the matter. I have some reservations, which I should like the Committee to explore. There is the problem about the mechanisms in the juvenile court for hearing cases. There is no tradition that magistrates will hold on to a particular case. I believe strongly that in juvenile court work, the continuity of the magistrates is as important, in some cases, as the continuity of the social workers. If we are seriously suggesting a system under which a case will come back for review, every effort should be made to have the same bench or at least the same chairman sitting on that further case.

Further, this may be too much of a blanket proposal. Perhaps it should be appropriate only in cases where the child has been taken into care initially for neglect or abuse. There are other cases where the proposal is less appropriate, and it may be an unwieldy requirement. For example, I have been told that in truancy cases the child is safe at home, but I am open to discussion on that. Those are often exactly the families that need an element of authority and reality testing. They need to realise the nature of their responsibilities, and that they should insist that their children attend school.

The suggestion that the system would lead to delays needs consideration because in child care cases, of all cases, a speedy decision is vital. For example, if there is a three or six-month delay for a child of three or six months, that may be the equivalent of the whole of the child's lifetime all over again. We must consider the relationship with the parents and the extended family and the emotion involved, so we must consider carefully the threat to many relationships if there is a delay.

It should not be regarded as a criticism of the way in which social workers conduct and handle child care cases that they need to take the family back to court to have the case reviewed. That should be looked at positively. It touches on the issue of training. I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary will be mindful of the fact that social work training is closely related to the issues that we are discussing today.

The provision for the court introducing conditions for a child returning home is eminently helpful and appropriate. Too often, in recent cases when a child has died, clear evidence was available, if only it had been gathered, that the child was losing weight. A regular medical examination is an extremely sensible and straightforward requirement, which could be introduced in many cases. In nearly all the major horrific cases, if the child had been seen at a medical, many further difficulties could have been avoided.

The Bill allows for other interested third parties to have the right to be heard in the magistrates' court, with leave, and where appropriate. That could be a licence for all sorts of busybodies coming along to court wanting their views to be heard. This is an important development as long as it is clear that it is not an automatic right, but a provision that is available. In care cases, of all cases, it is important that the extended family should feel that there has been a full and fair hearing on extremely complex and emotional matters.

I support all those who have called for a family court. It has been estimated that at present there are no fewer than 20 different ways by which a child can come into local authority care. There is an enormously complicated network of courts, and bits and pieces of child care law. The child care law review takes a step in the right direction. The review is a little ambiguous on family courts. We shall not have satisfactory measures for children's and parents' cases to be heard properly, fairly and in an understandable way, for the children and the parents as much as anybody else until we move forward with family court provision.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury on introducing the Bill, and I hope very much that it gets a Second Reading and that there is an opportunity for further discussion and worthwhile debate in Committee.

I join other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters) on introducing the Bill, which I support.

There is no doubt that we need greater court supervision of care cases. I see the Bill as an interim measure before we set up a family court, which many of us would like. I should like to make two points, one about the contents of the Bill and the other going somewhat wider.

First, I refer to the provision that grandparents and others in the extended family should have access through the court to the care case. I have come across several cases in which there were others, particularly those with whom the child had been boarded out, who should have been heard. I should have liked them to have the right to be heard. I am delighted to see that provision in clause 4(2). It will be an important additional safeguard to children in care, who are subject to the control of the court.

The Bill does nothing to derogate from the principle that the parents' place is prime. I am pleased about that. We were recently given the figures for child abuse, but it is difficult to discover from those figures much about the children's background. It is clear to me from the figures for 1980–1984 that a high proportion of such children come from family units without two natural parents. A high proportion of children who are abused live with single parents. We should not forget that when considering amendments to existing legislation.

Some reports about the desperately sad cases of child abuse try to impose on social workers more responsibility than they can or should carry. Many social workers achieve an extraordinary high professional competence, but to try to impose upon them the ultimate responsibility — that of parenthood — is dangerous and unhelpful. Many who report on child abuse cases or react to them fall into that trap.

I support the Bill and hope that it will have a swift passage.

The Bill's aim is to protect children who might be battered at home. That is a laudable and important aim. Everybody has been shocked by the recent murders of children at the hands of their parents or step-parents. That is hard enough for people to understand or accept, but when a child who is murdered or beaten is in local authority care, that is totally unacceptable and causes widespread concern, which we all share.

Because the issue is so important we must ensure that the Bill meets that concern and is not either ineffective or, worse, counter-productive to children's interests.

I have substantial reservations about the Bill, which are widely shared. My reservations are shared by the social work profession in the form of the British Association of Social Workers, and the Association of Directors of Social Services, by the local authority organisations through the Association of County Councils and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, by the legal profession in the shape of the Law Society, the children's legal centre and the Legal Action Group, and by part of the judiciary through the Justices' Clerks Society. Those bodies have a great deal of experience and involvement, so we must pay careful attention to their reservations.

One of my reservations is that child care law and practice is bedevilled by piecemeal and patchwork additions. This is a substantial reservation, not a nitpicking, bureaucratic point. The Social Services Select Committee was emphatic on the matter, so when we are engaged in another possible patchwork and piecemeal addition we must be convinced that the Bill's benefits will outweigh the problems of the patchwork approach.

The Bill provides that a child cannot be returned to its family without a court order. The hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters) talked about abuse, torture and death. In Committee we should consider narrowing the Bill's scope so that a court's consent is required only when a child is likely to be physically at risk.

I am worried in case the Bill makes it necessary for children who are in care voluntarily to be covered by a court order before they can return home. The hon. Member for Westbury has put my mind at rest about that. About 20,000 children are brought into care voluntarily each year. It would be impossible if the courts had to give their consent before such children were returned to their parents. Worse, it could disastrously undermine voluntary care.

Voluntary care is a positive intervention in helping and supporting families who are in difficulty or who have temporary problems—such as the mother having to go into hospital for an operation or the family being temporarily homeless. It would be a disastrous turn for the worse if parents who place their children in care voluntarily know that they cannot have them back without a court order. I am much reassured, but some adjustment will have to be made in Committee.

The Bill provides that the courts must be involved in every case. I do not think that we need an automatic review which could become a rubber stamp. We need a good and widely understood complaints or appeals mechanism. For example, it would have been better in the Beckford case if the foster parents had had the right to trigger an appeal or make a complaint and initiate court proceedings. There cannot be effective scrutiny by the courts unless a third party is worried or objects. The court's involvement should perhaps be dependent on objection rather than be automatic. Without that, many cases will not be scrutinised at all.

Requiring every case to go to court will exacerbate critical problems of delay which already exist in the juvenile courts. Delay is not a technical matter. Delay can work strongly against a child's interests. The first five years of a child's life are critical in terms of its mental, social, physical and emotional development. Periods which might seem short for an adult are enormously long to a small child.

A deep problem caused by delay already exists. The added jurisdiction of so many extra cases would, I fear, immeasurably worsen the problem. The justices' clerks are also worried about that. We should not impose upon the courts an extra responsibility that will lead to delay unless we are convinced of the extra benefits involved.

The parents should always be respondent and always be treated as parties in a case. If they do not want to be represented or attend the court they do not have to, but they should always be respondent.

The hon. Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley) talked about other people who might apply for leave of the court to be joined as parties to a case. She said that that might open the door to busybodies. We should reappraise our attitudes to busybodies. To one person someone might be a busybody but to another they might be a caring neighbour or relative. We have elevated the principle of non-intervention in the nuclear family to the point of ideological dogma. We should recognise that others share responsibility and anxiety about a child as well as the parents, the social services and the courts.

I am interested in what my hon. Friend says about so-called busybodies. Many of the cases of child abuse referred to the NSPCC and the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children are first brought by such "busybody" neighbours.

Indeed. I hope that we can rehabilitate busybodies and recognise that they are—

As the inadvertent sponsor of busybodies, may I ask whether the hon. Lady agrees that it is important that the court should have power to give leave for other interested people to speak? There would be a slight difference in emphasis if anybody felt that they had the right to speak. The court should have some right to decide whether a person's evidence would be relevant.

The Bill says merely that people may, by leave of the court, be joined as a party. I hope that in Committee we can give the courts guidance on the grounds on which they should consider an application for leave to be a party.

The question of busybodies raises a peculiarly English cultural problem. Anyone who has taken small children to the continent will have been amazed by the fact that if small children are left in a pram outside a shop in, say, Italy, people take them out of the pram, look through their clothes and ask what they are fed on. They regard that as normal. They ask how old the children are and comment on whether they are too large or too small for their age. Such behaviour in this country would be regarded as busybodying. On the continent it is regarded as part of the collective responsibility for children who are not only children of a family, but children of the community.

Our awful cultural approach, which amounts almost to the privatisation of children, bedevils child abuse problems and a whole load of attitudes, approaches and policies towards children.

The child should always be a party to a case and always be represented by a guardian ad litem. I fear that, without such a provision, the courts will have no independent check of the evidence. The court must go on the evidence before it and not on a hunch. Magistrates may be unhappy about a case, but unless there is evidence that a child is not safe, they are in a difficult position.

Magistrates are being given a considerable responsibility. They will have to be satisfied that a child will be safe—an important but absolute term. We must consider the quality of the decision that magistrates will be able to make. They will have to decide whether a child will be safe and they will have before them the social worker, who wants the child to go home—otherwise the case would not have come to court—and the parents, who want the child to go home—otherwise they would not have gone to court.

Unless the child is a party to the case, with a guardian ad litem, the court will have no independent means of looking behind the evidence and carrying out investigations, perhaps questioning the health visitor, neighbours, teachers or the family doctor.

Children's panels in Scotland have an inquisitorial arm so that they can take an independent look at the evidence. I fear that we may place magistrates in a dilemma. All the evidence will be going one way and the magistrates will have a considerable responsibility. There may be more cases in which magistrates feel that there is no evidence that a child is not safe and that they therefore have to make an order. But there will be more sleepless nights because magistrates will not have the means to look behind the evidence. The appointment of a guardian ad litem would at least give the courts the help of independent evidence. As the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) said, they have to reach a most difficult decision.

The fact that the juvenile court is to be the forum for the decision raises fundamental problems. We are asking a court designed to deal with adversarial procedures to take an inquisitorial approach. As I said, Scottish panels take that approach, but they were set up with that in mind. It is difficult to graft an inquisitorial procedure onto an adversarial system, which is set up in different ways, with different rules and different resources. That will create problems.

My subsequent comments about magistrates relate not only to the Bill but to the magistracy and all child care law, and underline the urgent need for a family court. We are giving magistrates extra jurisdiction and we must examine whether they will be able to discharge that responsibility.

The hon. Member for Surrey, South-West mentioned the importance of continuity. In Scotland, it is possible to get a hearing before a children's panel very quickly and the aim is that the same panel should hear a case each time. If the child comes back to court a year or even two years later, the aim is to have the same panel hearing the case, thereby ensuring continuity.

If a different group of magistrates hear a case each time, they do not have much chance to make high quality decisions. We may be giving them a responsibility which it is unfair of us to expect them to discharge.

I do not say that all magistrates in juvenile courts are badly trained and inexpert, but there is a widely recognised problem. If magistrates sit on a range of cases, they do not build up the expertise that is accumulated in the Scottish system or would be built up here if we had a family court.

The training of magistrates is patchy and unsatisfactory. That is not the fault of individual magistrates; it is an intrinsic problem of the system. It is misconceived to believe that we can relax when we take the decision away from social workers and give to magistrates the responsibility to say that a child will be safe.

We must remember that in the Jasmine Beckford case the magistrates leaned on the social workers to send the child back home, where she was murdered. They limited the opportunity of social workers to keep the child in care.

Everybody will remember what Mr. Blom-Cooper said about social workers in the Jasmine Beckford report. No doubt those comments have contributed to the creation of the atmosphere in which the Bill has been produced. However, we should also remind ourselves what Mr. Blom-Cooper said about the magistrates. He said that they were "utterly misguided", that they did not protect abused children and that they should be "publicly upbraided".

The best course would be for the Government to use the Bill not as an excuse for inaction, but as a spur to action. The child care law review has attracted astonishingly widespread support for its work and its consideration of the substantive law changes that are required is well under way. The family court review is also underway, though it is proceeding more slowly.

The proposal for the introduction of a family court has had virtually unanimous support for many years, as is evidenced by the Family Court Campaign, which I thoroughly endorse. A family court would provide a speedy, expert, flexible system with an inquisitorial approach as well as the adversarial way of recognising the rights that have to be balanced in difficult cases. The Government should get a move on and overtake this Bill with measures to change the substance of the law and procedure in a comprehensive way, which is long overdue. If that happens, this Bill will have achieved its aim.

I join other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters) on his long overdue good fortune in the ballot and on his choice of subject. Over a number of years my hon. Friend and I have engaged in a number of exchanges and have co-operated on foreign affairs. It is of special interest to me to have the opportunity of responding to his important initiative in an area which is of such great national concern.

Hon. Members who have already spoken in this debate have vividly expressed the horror that all of us feel as we regularly learn from the media the details of yet another case of child abuse. It is easy to get the impression that never a week passes without the emergence of still one more alarming story of cruelty to children and of irresponsibility on the part of some of those who are specifically charged with the duty of caring for children. Disturbed though we all are by such cases, we must always seek to hold in correct perspective the small number of child abuse tragedies compared to the many thousands of children at risk who are protected by prompt action, and we must bear in mind the great deal of good work that is done by professionals and which goes largely unnoticed and unsung. We must set that against those few cases in which things go tragically wrong.

While accepting the sad truth that the death of some children in dreadful or violent circumstances will remain inevitable, as it has been throughout history, every such tragedy is one too many and we must strive to learn from each one for the sake of other children in future. This is a task in which we all have a role to play and a contribution to make. It is a challenge to every one of us, to the whole community, and cannot just be left to the professional worker employed by the public in the social services department of the local authority.

As relatives or as neighbours, there may be occasions when any one of us may have to take necessary but unpleasant action if it appears that children could be at risk of abuse from their parents. The voluntary organisations have a vital role in complementing the efforts of the statutory services and, as we all know, outstanding in this field is the valuable work carried out by the NSPCC. It is worth noting that that organisation has now moved into the second century of its existence, and that underlines the fact that, lamentable though it is, cruelty to children is not a uniquely modern phenomenon.

As legislators, we have a duty to provide the right legal framework and the object of my hon. Friend's Bill is to improve the effectiveness of that framework. Before offering comments on his proposals, I hope it will be helpful to the House if I set out some of the other action that the Government have put in hand to improve the quality of child care. As my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley) has recognised, on the basis of her long experience and deep knowledge of these matters, in many cases what has gone wrong recently has not been because of the law but because of bad practice. We should all be concerned about that and willing to tackle it.

The essence of the Government's function must be to ensure that all the agencies that need to prevent child abuse at local level fully understand what is expected of them and how they must work together. They must have established arrangements that work well to that end. This involves not just the social services departments, though they will have to be in the lead, and not just the health authority, but often education authorities, the police, the probation services and the voluntary sector. It can also mean developing ways of harnessing the help of members of the community.

The Government must constantly keep an eye on what is happening nationally and must help authorities to learn lessons from experience and raise the standards of their practice. All our recent reports indicate that, while much good work is being done in an area where decision-making is extremely difficult and emotionally demanding for all concerned, there are shortcomings in practice, in fieldwork and at more senior levels of management. We shall continue to use all the means at our disposal to put these matters right, working with local authorities, where I hope we shall have the support of the elected members of these authorities as well as their staff. I hope that councillors will be alive to their important responsibilities for ensuring the good management of their services and for monitoring their operation. Within the next few weeks, we shall, for example, be issuing for consultation a draft guide on child abuse procedures which will bring up to date the guidance on the handling of cases, concentrating on the inter-agency collaboration which is an essential element in effective work to prevent child abuse. The Department will shortly be publishing a report on the recently completed inspection by our social services inspectorate of the supervision of social workers and assessment procedures in child abuse cases. This report will make a number of important recommendations to improve the management of such cases.

In July last year, we issued a consultative paper on the conduct of child abuse inquiries. The consultation period ended on 30 November and work is now well in hand on the final version. We are also working on further guidance to improve the current arrangements for reviewing the situation of every child in care. a review which local authorities are required by law to carry our every six months. Three weeks ago, on 10 January, I was privileged to launch a well attended national seminar, in which professionals from all over the country participated. That seminar examined the results of a major programme of research which has just been completed on decision making by social workers engaged in child care. We are now organising a series of regional seminars and training aids developed from these studies. Those are some of the practical measures we are taking to improve the quality of child care and to prevent child abuse.

As I have said, all hon. Members have a special responsibility to see that there is an effective legal framework for child care. We need laws that above all else, provide for the protection of children while ensuring that at the same time proper recognition is given to the rights and responsibilities of parents. Where those responsibilities and rights are restricted or removed, there must be due legal process in which all concerned have a full opportunity to put their case and to appeal if they are aggrieved.

Our present law has been built up over many years and reflects in part swings in opinion about the relative weight to be attached to children's and parents' rights. Not surprisingly, it is complex, difficult to follow and lacks consistency. There is wide recognition of the need for reform, for which the Select Committee on Social Services cogently argued in its report on child care in 1984. Following that report, we set up a review of the existing law, and the report of the official working party was published last October. It made more than 200 recommendations.

The majority of the responses to the consultation exercise, which ended just a few days ago, have generally been favourable and there is a broad consensus on the need for a comprehensive reform to produce a coherent body of law in an area which has suffered from too much piecemeal amendment. We shall be reaching conclusions shortly on how best to proceed in the light of the responses to our consultation exercise and will then make our intentions known to the House. I should certainly like to see an early opportunity for Government legislation, as I am sure will many hon. Members.

A number of hon. Members have referred to the idea of family courts, and I think that it would be appropriate if I offered some comment on that subject. My right hon. Friends the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary have established a committee of officials to examine the feasibility of a unified court with exclusive jurisdiction in all family matters to identify the main options and to examine their resource implications.

Although, as has been pointed out by both sides of the House, there is now a consensus in favour of a family court, there is still some variation of view on the form it should take and how it should be organised. Major changes could be involved. Depending on the type of court selected, it could lead, for example, to considerable reorganisation of judges, staff, accommodation and welfare services and extensive procedural changes. It is, therefore an undertaking of some complexity with a number of inherent difficulties. We realise, as the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Ryman) pointed out with his customary charm, that it has taken longer to produce a consultation paper than many of the enthusiasts of the scheme would wish. Although it had been hoped to produce an initial consultation paper in the autumn, it has not proved possible for the family court review to keep to that timing. However, my right hon. Friends believe that careful preparation is necessary when moving into such complex territory.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that many people will be bitterly disappointed at his statement that, because a narrow area with respect to the jurisdiction and procedure of the family court does not as yet attract 100 per cent. consensus, the Government will not move on this matter? The Government are allowing themselves to become bogged down. The Government are not noted for waiting until there is unanimity and consensus on every point before bringing measures before the House. We can only suspect, therefore, that they simply lack the political will to make space for this important measure and to bring it before the House at the same time as the substantive law is changed following the child care law review. That is not good enough.

Clearly, the hon. Lady misunderstood the point I was making. I am grateful to her for giving me the opportunity to offer some clarification. I was saving that there were many matters of debate and many issues. Although it is regretted that the timetable has not been met, there is no question that we shall not move forward. The review is in hand. I am optimistic that the exercise will be launched before very long—I can say no more than that. We must recognise that this idea has been a long time coming. As my colleagues have pointed out, the Labour Government were a good deal more dilatory than the present Government. We have been working on this matter for a considerable time.

Has the hon. Gentleman or any other Minister in his Department received legal advice on this matter from any Law Officer?

It seems a pity that this important debate, in which there is a consensus, invites the hon. Member for Blyth Valley to make only that sort of intervention.

Will my hon. Friend accept that impatience at the lack of action on this front is not confined to the Opposition but that many Conservative Members feel that the delays, one after the other, in even producing a consultative paper are becoming unreasonable? We should like action to be taken. If action is not taken soon, it will strengthen the case for my hon. Friend to get cracking on the Bill.

I recognise the strength of feeling on this issue on both sides of the House. I am sure that it has been well and truly noted by my right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor.

I shall leave, for a moment, the subject of family courts. Clearly, that is a matter to which Ministers will return. I should like to emphasise that the comprehensive change in child care law which we are seeking does not need to await decisions that may be taken on a family court. I hope that it was helpful to the House to have that review of current developments in child care and the Government's position on the reform of the legal framework. I shall now turn to the details of the Bill.

Clauses 1 and 2 are intended to provide an extra measure of protection for the child who is already under a care order. As hon. Members know, as the law stands, the local authority in such cases has to exercise full parental rights and responsibilities in relation to the child, and at all times has to act in accordance with the so-called welfare principle—always to give first consideration to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of the child in accordance with section 18 of the Child Care Act 1980. There is no doubt at present about the statutory duty of the local authority. The focus of the social worker's attention must be the interests of the child.

The Bill proposes that there should be an exception to the general rule that local authorities have full discretion in the discharge of their parental responsibilities by requiring that, before a child subject to a care order can be returned home to his parents, they should satisfy a magistrates' court that the child would be,

"safe in all the circumstances"

those circumstances including a wide-ranging set of conditions which the court could impose.

My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury has explained why he believes such extra protection is desirable. It clearly would provide a defence against the danger that social workers, in their anxieties to help and support families, can return a child home in circumstances where the risks for that child are unacceptably high. This can happen, but good child care policies and social work practice should effectively prevent it. I have already referred to the action we are taking to see that all authorities have satisfactory arrangements to that end.

I agree with my hon. Friend that the need to get court approval before a child was returned home would ensure not only that the decision was subject to independent scrutiny and detached judgment but that all such cases were fully and properly considered by the local authority before putting their case to the court. The House has to consider carefully whether this approach is the only or the best way of protecting these children and the possible consequential effects. Now is not the time to go into every detail, but I hope it will help the House if I put before it some considerations which we believe are relevant.

First, is the magistrates' court the best place to take decisions of this kind involving what are essentially professional judgments? I suspect that there is no clear answer to this on which all would agree. The Select Committee on Social Services in its 1984 report on children in care was clearly strongly opposed to extending the powers of the court, preferring that it was concerned only with sanctioning legal changes of status, such as the making or unmaking of a care order. Much of the comment we have received on our own child care law review supports that view. This question is one not only of principle, but of practice. How in practice would the magistrates' court deal with such cases? How would they fit in with the traditional adversarial approach to issues in cases where the local authority and the parents were likely to agree to the return of the child? There would surely have to be provision for a guardian ad litem for the child, and, if necessary, separate legal representation. How, in turn, would the conditions proposed by the court be enforced? What would be the consequences of a breach by either parents or the local authority?

Secondly, what might be the effects on social work practice of this provision? Might it not lead to authorities being more reluctant to undertake positive rehabilitation work with children and families because of the inevitable delays and extra work involved in preparing for court hearings, and hence to be a disservice for some children whose best interests will be in a return home? My hon. Friend the Member for Westbury has covered those points and taken a positive view.

Much recent research emphasises the importance of maintaining links with families from an early stage of a care order if long-term prospects for discharging the order are not to be prejudiced. The need is generally for flexible, sensitive and responsive working with families, including the option of returning the child home while still under a care order. Would the delays involved in court proceedings and the inevitable inflexibility of applying specific conditions attached by the court be compatible with that need?

Thirdly, the courts have additional burdens of a wide variety. The clauses as drafted would bite on all children in care, many of whom may not be in care because of parental abuse or neglect. About 12,000 such children live at home at any one time. My hon. Friend said that he would be willing to see the Bill amended to restrict it as far as possible to abused or neglected children. Nevertheless, some problems would still remain. For example, if guardians ad litem for the children had always to be appointed, there would be a problem finding sufficient qualified people. Professional time taken up in court work inevitably means less time to devote to other pressing cases.

Those, then, are some of the questions we need, to address in reaching a view on the merits, or otherwise, of clauses 1 and 2. There is one further point. In the end the quality of any court decision will depend on the quality of the professional work done by social workers and others working with children and their families. Whether or not the Bill becomes law, our chief concern should be to see that standards of professional practice in all cases are as high as possible, and that local authorities are discharging their responsibilities as a "good parent". That is a matter which, as I mentioned earlier, we are already pursuing vigorously with local authorities. A key element in that follow-up is likely to be how decisions that a child should be returned home are taken, the level at which they are taken, and the need for such decisions and subsequent monitoring arrangements to be part of a well-considered plan for the child, following full assessment based on advice from all the agencies concerned, of whom there may be several. This is action which we and local authorities must take, irrespective of the progress of the Bill. It supports my point that the court avenue is not the only, nor necessarily the best way of protecting children at risk.

One final observation on the central proposal of the Bill is that no one is infallable, neither local authorities nor the courts. As the Blom-Cooper report so graphically made clear, and as many hon. Members have pointed out, in that sad case it was the court that initially encouraged the local authority to return Jasmine Beckford home. There was also one tragic affair some years ago — the case of Wayne Brewer—in which the magistrates went against a local authority's wishes by revoking a care order, and the child was subsequently killed.

Clause 3, which provides for appeals in care proceedings to go from the juvenile court to the High Court, rather than to the Crown court, and for local authorities to have a right of appeal, is broadly in line with the recommendations in our review of child care law. The proposal that local authorities should have a right of appeal fills a gap widely recognised as wrong.

Clause 4 would allow the magistrates to make parents and other interested persons full parties in care proceedings, and is again an objective similar to that recommended by the review. The Government are still considering responses to the child care law review and have not yet decided their position on these and other recommendations, so I cannot give a definitive view on the substance of these clauses today. However, I must express some concern about legislating for those specific changes ahead of more comprehensive legislation, in which a consistent coherent approach across the board can be achieved. Questions of court jurisdiction and procedure are more directly the concern of my right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor. I believe, however, that they too would prefer that changes in those areas are not made piecemeal, but as part of a wider package. Clause 4, in particular, could have considerable resource consequences for legal aid. One advantage of legislating across the whole spectrum of child care law is that increases in resource costs in one area may be offset by savings elsewhere, while in a partial Bill of this sort it is much less possible to achieve that.

Clause 5, which allows cases of unusual difficulty or length to be transferred from the magistrates' court to the High Court, was not among the recommendations of the child care law review. The apparent objective behind the clause may go some way to providing the more professional approach to care cases that some see as an advantage of a family court. Like clauses 1 and 2, this provision would break new ground in care proceedings, and it would be desirable for the House to know the views of those who would have to operate it. At first sight there are clearly questions to be asked about the criteria and procedure for transferring cases; how they would work in practice; and whether any possible improvement in the quality of decision-making for children would adequately offset the adverse effects on the child and family of delay in reaching court decisions and the trauma of further court appearances. There is a case for deferring legislation of this sort until the prospects for a family court are clearer, though, if there is support for it, I would not rule out the possibility of a measure on these lines in the comprehensive child care Bill that we hope to introduce in due course.

Clause 6 deals with the timing of implementation and, as it stands, seriously underestimates the time needed to introduce the changes proposed. However, that is no doubt a matter which can be considered later, if the Bill proceeds.

I am sorry to have spoken at such length, but the Bill raises important issues. Changes in this area need and deserve the most careful consideration. The Bill is both timely, and untimely. It grapples with issues which have greatly concerned all of us in recent months, and from that point of view it is most timely. But it also comes when we are well advanced with a major review of child care law and when, whatever else may or may not be agreed on, there is almost universal support for the idea of a comprehensive measure, rather than further piecemeal legislation, however well intended or appropriate. We must also beware of the risks of over hasty changes in the law too narrowly focused on specific problems that have been tragically highlighted.

If the House decides to give the Bill a Second Reading, I am sure that much detailed discussion will be necessary in Committee. Some of the questions and reservations which I and many hon. Members have expressed make it clear that we shall have to take those issues a good deal further. I hope that the Government will have a clearer view of what we want to achieve in the major child care law reform having considered the result of the consultation exercise. That may well affect our attitude to the provisions of the Bill at that stage.

Having offered some of our misgivings, for reasons which I hope my hon. Friend will understand, and having emphasised the concrete actions that we have already set in hand to improve practice, I hope that my hon. Friend will allow me to end where I began, which is by congratulating him on introducing the Bill, which is certainly important and seeks to deal with an issue of the greatest national concern. I congratulate him, too, on the spirit in which he introduced the Bill.

I apologise to the House for not having been present for the whole of the debate. I intervene briefly because the tragic case of Jasmine Beckford was in my constituency, and, inevitably, I have been heavily involved in it. I congratulate the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters) on drawing the matter so quickly to our attention after the conclusion of the Blom-Cooper report.

There has been a good deal of common sense in the speeches from both sides of the House, not least from the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims), and it is clear that there is a good deal of consensus. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) on stressing the many important points which she knows from her knowledge of my constituency. The House may not know that for several years my hon. Friend was a worthy member of the Brent community law centre, and consequently advised my constituents about social services and other matters.

In relation to the background to the Beckford case, I had close association with the six area teams involved. If there is an inner city responsibility for social services across the board, including what we are trying to do in the probation service, the wide responsibility of social workers has a great impact on how much and what expertise they can apply to their functions. That forms an important part of the Blom-Cooper report.

I heard the Minister's reply to this timely and untimely Bill. I have sat through many dabates when private Members have had a good cause, but they are like the man who seeks the one-handed lawyer, because, on the one hand, and on the other hand, they are never quite certain which hand they will receive. In relation to the Bill being timely and untimely, I accept that comprehensive legislation must follow, but the likelihood is that the Bill is a step in the right direction. The debate has highlighted several important background issues, not least of which is the framework of family courts and the Scottish experience brought to bear by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman). The possibility remains that we need not wait until the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted by the Government's legal department.

The legislative procedure of the House is always under severe pressure from priorities — what Bill shall be introduced this Session and what Bill in the next. I hope, from my impression of today's debate, that the Bill will succeed in reaching the objectives of the hon. Member for Westbury when he had the good luck to come out of the hat.

With the leave of the House, I should like to make a few brief comments on the debate.

There have been several helpful, constructive and well-informed speeches from both sides of the House, which show that my Bill has received considerable support. It has been slightly more qualified from the Front Benches but is supported on the main question of Second Reading.

Hon. Members will agree that most of the points that have been raised can be dealt with in Committee. However, I shall take up one or two of those points without delaying the House too long. The hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) made a good point about clause 1(4). It would be intolerable for a child to be removed again because of administrative delay. We will consider carefully that matter in Committee, but the key answer is for the application to be in the pipeline in good time.

The hon. Member also mentioned voluntary care. Clause 2 makes it absolutely clear that the provision applies only to children in care under orders or resolutions, so that preoccupation would not arise.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) raised two specific matters about children suffering from brittle bone disease and children who have been put into care on medical grounds. Those are sensitive issues and we shall consider them carefully. I cannot give my hon. Friend an answer at the present time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) raised several points, including the definition of "safe", which was also raised by the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman). That matter may need redefinition, but, as I said in my speech, if the system is to err it must err on the side of safety. That is a point that we shall consider.

I am grateful for the helpful and well-informed speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley) and for Devizes (Mr. Morrison).

The hon. Member for Peckham referred to piecemeal and patchwork legislation. Although the Bill is not meant to be full and comprehensive legislation, it does introduce measures that are specific and which have been carefully worked out. They are important measures and would in no way affect the more comprehensive legislation that will take place in due course.

The hon. Member for Peckham mentioned the Blom-Cooper report and the criticism of the magistrates. It is true that magistrates made a comment, but it was more a throwaway line on the basis that they hoped that the child would be returned to the family as soon as possible. In retrospect, that has been rightly criticised as a mistake. I do not believe that a similar situation would arise if my proposal was agreed to. Here, the magistrates would have to consider carefully whether an order to return a child should be made. I have emphasised the advantages of a detached, but concerned, group of people having to study the case as presented to them by those more closely involved. I believe this to be relevant and important improvement.

My final point is directed to the Minister. Comprehensive legislation eventually could do much better, but there is an old and boring cliché which says that sometimes the best is the enemy of the good. If we believe that the Bill is good, positive and constructive, let us not delay in getting it through the stages, especially if we believe that it has a contribution to make, as I do.

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

The Bill will make it an offence to interfere with the remains of crashed, sunken and stranded military aircraft and vessels without authority. The main purpose of the Bill is to protect the sanctity of wrecks that contain human remains. There are other reasons why it may not be desirable for the general public to interfere with the wreckage of military aircraft, such as safety and security. The Bill will help to prevent that.

During the last war, many military aircraft of various nationalities crashed in the United Kingdom, on land and at sea. Some landed in remote parts of the country and have become totally buried. Whilst it is possible to ascertain from Government records what aircraft went missing, in many cases it is not known where they came down.

In recent years there has been an upsurge in what has become known as aircraft archaeology. Several individuals, groups and organisations have been searching for and excavating crashed military aircraft. That has caused distress to relatives and friends of the deceased aircrew. As many of the aircraft contain munitions, their activities can be a danger to themselves and to others.

Similarly, many military vessels that sank during the world wars still contain the bodies of their crews. The activities of amateur and professional divers who like to explore the wrecks and remove treasures from them are a continuing source of distress, especially to relatives and ex-shipmates. Many of those engaged in such activities seek the consent of the Ministry of Defence and are prepared to desist when permission is refused.

Many non-military aircraft and vessels crashed or sank with their crews and passengers on board. Many would feel that similar protection should be given to those graves, although it must be recognised that, in general, there is little evidence of public concern — perhaps because special honours are always accorded to those who gave their lives defending their country. But any effort to protect all vessels and aircraft, civil as well as military, would create immense practical difficulties.

By limiting the Bill to military wrecks, including merchant vessels requisitioned or chartered for the direct support of the armed forces, enforcement becomes more manageable and protection is given to the wrecks in respect of which there is the greatest public concern. Therefore, the Bill would cover vessels such as the Atlantic Conveyor, but not the Titanic or the Lusitania.

The protection of the Bill is not limited to vessels and aircraft that contain human remains, nor to those that were lost in time of war. There are three main reasons for that. First, if the Bill made it an offence to interfere with only those wrecks that contained human remains, the prosecution would have to prove that the wreckage contained human remains. Digging up the evidence would defeat the purpose of the Bill. Secondly, although it might be relatively easy for a person to recognise the remains of a military aircraft or vessel, he may have no means of knowing whether they contain human remains. Therefore, the Bill as drafted enables a potential offender to know more clearly whether he would be committing an offence. Thirdly, a potential offender might have no means of knowing the date of a crash or sinking, and if the offence related only to wartime wrecks, he may not know clearly whether he was committing an offence.

The Bill extends to the remains of aircraft and vessels in the service of the armed forces of other countries which lie within the United Kingdom and its waters. There are many of those—American, Canadian, French, German and others—and it is right that they should be given the same protection as our vessels. I know that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) is worried about the German vessels that were scuttled in Scapa Flow. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will have something to say about that, and I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall try to make certain that the activities of divers round that fleet will not be affected by the Bill. However, in international waters, only the wrecks of British military aircraft and vessels are protected by the Bill. It will allow the Secretary of State to give a licence to any person to carry out any specified act which would otherwise be an offence under the Bill. He will also be able to issue a general licence, which should meet the point made by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. Such a licence would normally be issued in respect of a wreck that did not contain human remains and did not need protection for other reasons.

The Bill will protect the wrecks of British and foreign military vessels and aircraft in the United Kingdom and its territorial waters from interference by people of any nationality. The majority of British naval wrecks are in international waters. Although it will be impossible to assert jurisdiction over the activities of foreigners outside United Kingdom territorial waters, unless the offence is committed on a ship registered in the United Kingdom, the Bill will make it an offence for British subjects to interfere with such wrecks. Wrecks in overseas territories will not be covered by the Bill, but there is a power to extend its provisions to colonies by Order in Council. That would include the Falkland Islands.

The provisions relating to offences in international waters have been carefully drafted to avoid suspicion in other countries that the United Kingdom is claiming excessive jurisdiction. The size of a controlled site is strictly circumscribed, no powers of entry are prescribed, and jurisdiction in respect of offences is limited to those persons who have some connections with the United Kingdom or who commit offences on British-controlled ships. Furthermore, the Bill provides that no proceedings for an offence committed in international waters shall be instituted without the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. That will provide some assurance that considerations of international law and comity will be taken into account before a prosecution is brought. It has been thought necessary to provide powers to board ships for the purpose of investigating possible offences, and that power extends to foreign vessels in United Kingdom waters. Again, that provision has been carefully drafted to be consistent with our international obligations.

The Bill is small and relatively minor, and I shall detain the House no longer. We shall consider it in Committee, when I hope that any points that hon. Members may wish to raise can be covered. I hope especially that we have covered the point that will be raised by the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland.

I agree generally with the motives that prompted the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) to introduce the Bill, especially having regard to the sensitivity surrounding wrecks that contain human remains. That was brought home to us in recent years by the loss of life during the Falklands campaign. As the hon. Gentleman said, my special worry relates to the vessels of the German fleet that was scuttled in Scapa flow in June 1919. There are still substantial wrecks remaining which have proved popular to ever-increasing numbers of divers. The Orkney tourist bureau estimates that between £250,000 and £500,000 was generated for the local economy last year by the divers who wished to examine those wrecks.

I hope that the Minister will ensure that the diving can continue. I hope that he can tell me—if not, perhaps he will write to me—about the progress of the negotiations between the Orkney Islands council and the Ministry of Defence to buy three of the wrecks, the Dresden, the Bremer and the Koln. The negotiations have become bogged down in the legal department of the Ministry of Defence. If the process could be speeded up a little, it would be very welcome.

I welcome the Bill. Its objectives are honourable, and it should be supported by everyone in the House. It is revolting that people should wish to dive on those wrecks to, among other things, aquire mementos. My worry about the Bill—this was not mentioned by the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates)—is that clause 1(2) defines a protected place as one which contains the remains of such an aircraft or vessel at or near the site of

"the crash, sinking or stranding or is on or in the sea bed."

I hope that, in Committee, we can insert in the Bill a guarantee that there will be no interference with the lawful activities of commercial fishermen who fish above or close to wrecks.

Over time, wrecks become the habitat of a wide range of species of fish—shellfish and demersal species—so such areas become a productive ground for fishermen. Some British fishermen specialise in wreck fishing. That usually involves line fishing, or bringing nets — very skilfully—close to a wreck on the sea bed. I would like an assurance from the Minister that this fine Bill will not harm the interests of British fishermen. I am worried that fishermen may have to obtain a licence before fishing above or close to a wreck.

I note what the hon. Gentleman has said. For my part — my hon. Friend the Minister will no doubt give his own assurances—the Bill is not intended to restrict fishermen going about their lawful business as they have before. There may be a point about nets, but I should have thought that the nets would be more disturbed by the wreck. That often happens by accident. We must ensure that line fishing does not become an offence under the Bill.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He is right to mention nets becoming snagged on wrecks. I recall fishing on a large trawler off the Norwegian coast which lost its entire gear when its nets became snagged on a wreck. The overwhelming majority of fishermen welcome the Bill, as do I, but their interests must be safeguarded.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) on his good fortune in the ballot and on his presentation of the Bill. The Government welcome it.

I hope that the House will think it right to respond to public anxiety on this sensitive issue. For a number of years, concern has been growing in my Department and outside about our inability to prevent the desecration of the graves of airmen who crashed with their aircraft, and of sailors who went down with their ships, whose bodies have not been recovered.

There is no question of the Bill interfering in any way with the normal activities of fishermen. Most of those who are interested in the wreckage of military aircraft and vessels for pleasure or profit are thoroughly responsible people who take care to obtain our consent before they act. The main groups are those with a genuine interest in aviation or marine archaeology or marine life, commercial sailors interested in the cargoes of sunken vessels or in non-ferrous metal fittings such as propellors and sport divers who like to take souvenirs of their dives. Unfortunately, there are a minority who pursue their interest or business with little respect for the dead or regard for the feelings of others.

Public sensitivity about interference with vessels that are the tombs of those who died in them began to manifest itself strongly about 30 years ago. A growing feeling in the country that the naval vessels that were lost with their crews in wartime should be left undisturbed led the Admiralty to review its war grave policy in 1955.

I should stress that the term war grave does not have any formal significance or legal status. Indeed, it may be argued that the term war grave, used to describe a place where an unrecovered body lies, is a misnomer. These are not formal graves such as those for which the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is responsible. It is important to recognise that fundamental difference. Formal graves are already protected by statutory and other means. They do not need the protection of this Bill and are not affected by its provisions. I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the excellent and devoted work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in perpetuating the memory of the fallen.

In 1955 the Admiralty Board reconsidered its policy of selling wrecks for scrap. Until then, the only grounds for refusing to sell a wreck had been security. The question which the board had to consider was one that was being asked increasingly—should sunken wrecks which may contain the bodies of their crews be disturbed? The Admiralty was faced with a dilemma. If it adopted a policy of freely giving permission for salvage operations it could thereby hope to ensure proper treatment for the remains of ships' companies, but at the cost of appearing to condone the disturbance of the bodies in what many people would feel was their appropriate resting place. If the Admiralty declined to grant permission for such operations, they would not thereby be prevented, and desecration of the remains would normally occur whenever the salvage was successful. There had been examples of this in the previous few years, which included the salvage of ships near Anzio and of submarines near Helsinki.

The Admiralty therefore decided to establish a policy by which wrecks known to contain human remains were to be left untouched unless there were special circumstances. These special circumstances came to be defined as cases when there was a danger to navigation, the presence of explosives, a strong risk of unauthorised access which might be reduced by an official pre-emptive operation to remove attractive items and where reputable groups wanted to undertake valuable historical research. In all cases, there would need to be some guarantee that every care would be taken to minimise disturbance to any human remains.

Those criteria were applied to all naval wrecks from 1914 known to contain human remains. Older wrecks were dealt with on their merits. The problem is of course that the irresponsible elements do not usually bother to ask our permission. If they are not sensitive to our wishes, there is nothing that we can do at present.

On aircraft, it was also our policy to ensure that, as far as possible, human remains should not be disturbed. However, when aircraft are unearthed, it is customary to remove any remains for proper burial. The policy has the support of all concerned, including the Royal Air Force Association, the Royal British Legion, the Soldiers', Sailors' and Airmen's Families Association, the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund, and the War Widows of Great Britain Association.

The Department's guidelines continue to be respected by some and ignored by others. Every so often, a report in the press about souvenirs or more valuable items being brought up front a war grave, or about a world war 2 aircraft being dug out of the ground, draws public protest and renewed criticism of our inability to prevent such acts of desecration.

For example, in January 1967, a letter to the Daily Telegraph asked whether it was true that the British Government had given permission to a scrap metal firm to salvage three British cruisers—the Aboukir, the Cressy and the Hogue—that had been torpedoed in the North sea in August 1914 and sank with much loss of life. The writer thought it deplorable that British war dead should not be allowed to lie peacefully in what was their grave. The director of public relations to the Royal Navy wrote to the paper explaining Admiralty Board policy, but the correspondence nevertheless generated public concern. The Royal British Legion had complaints from some of its members, and one of its branches registered the strongest protest.

We were in that case able to explain that the wrecks had been sold to a British firm in 1954, and that the conditions of sale had included a clause requiring the nearest naval authority to be informed with dispatch in the event of the bodies of any naval personnel being recovered during the salvage operation, and for all reasonable steps to be taken to comply with instructions given regarding burial at sea or delivery to shore. Although the firm removed some external metal from the vessels, it gave an assurance that the inside of the vessels would remain undisturbed. Such assurances are welcome, but they are not of course enforceable in law.

In 1973, reports appeared in certain newspapers that the wreck of HMS Royal Oak had been looted and desecrated by amateur divers. This vessel, as hon. Members may know, was torpedoed in 1939 in Scapa Flow, with the loss of some 800 lives. The reports gave rise to ministerial correspondence and Parliamentary questions which appear at Column 299 on 12 June 1973 and at column 212 on 22 June 1973. As a result, the then Scapa Flow Dockyard and Port Regulations were amended to put a legal ban on unauthorised diving. The ban is now applied by an Orkney council byelaw. Similar protection could be provided for any wrecks in other dockyard port waters, but the House will recognise that this would only be scratching the surface of the problem.

The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) has written to my Department about the vessels that were scuttled in Scapa Flow. There is no question of our wanting to restrict diving and commercial activities associated with them. We recognise their importance to the economy of Orkney and Shetland and, as we know that there are no bodies in them, we shall issue a general licence virtually immediately to enable those activities to continue. That would not necessarily apply to HMS Royal Oak, where bodies lie.

A couple of years later, there was parliamentary and public concern about reports that the wrecks of the Prince of Wales and Repulse were to be salvaged. These vessels were lying in international waters off the coast of Malaysia. More than 800 members of their crews were lost when the ships sank following Japanese air attacks in 1941. The possibility of Japanese salvage companies being interested in those vessels led to Oral Questions in another place on 21 October 1975 and 13 July 1976. Feelings of outrage were expressed. There were critical articles in the press. The Daily Mirror's account began with the words

"The wrecks of two British warships which still entomb more than 800 sailors are in danger from Japanese grave-robbers".

The Royal British Legion at its annual conference passed a resolution calling for the wrecks to be protected. The City of London Branch of the Royal Naval Association passed a similar resolution.

That concern was again in evidence, both inside this house and elsewhere, in the wake of the Falklands compaign. Assurances were sought that the sunken warships in Falkland Islands waters would be protected. Two of those wrecks, the Ardent and the Antelope, lie in territorial waters and are protected under the Falkland Islands Protection of Wrecks Ordinance 1977. The Coventry, Sheffield, Atlantic Conveyor, RFA Sir Galahad, and the sea king helicopter which crashed into the sea with the loss of 21 lives, are outside territorial waters. They would all come under the protection of the Bill, on a basis analogous to the example of Prince of Wales and Repulse that I mentioned.

Two well-publicised salvage operations claimed particular public attention in recent years. In 1981, a salvage consortium was permitted to recover gold from HMS Edinburgh. Authority to dive under Government supervision was given on the grounds that the gold bullion on board was sufficiently valuable to tempt other salvors who might not respect its status as a war grave. Nevertheless, the operation provoked adverse comment, particularly from the Survivors' Association.

It was the salvage operation on HMS Hampshire which really brought matters to a head and convinced us of the need for legislation. HMS Hampshire sank in 1916 off the Orkneys after striking a mine, with the loss of many lives, including that of Lord Kitchener. In 1977, the Ministry of Defence was approached by a group of German business men who wished to be allowed access to the wreck. Permission was eventually given, on the understanding that only the external features of the wreck were to be filmed and that no attempt would be made to land on, gain access to or otherwise interfere with the wreck. Permission was again requested and given in 1979.

The consortium again applied in 1983 to dive on and film the wreck. Ministers considered the request in the light of the heightening in public sensitivity on the War Graves issue since the Falklands conflict and decided that it should be refused. Despite that refusal, the consortium arrived with a diving salvage vessel and in a well-publicised operation raised some 30 small items, some personal, together with the ship's wheel and her huge phosphor-bronze propellor. The matter was widely reported in the press and the Ministry's inability to enforce its War Grave policy attracted some unfavourable comment.

Legislation would appear to be the only effective way of curbing the activities of the more irresponsible elements and assuaging public feeling. I hope that, if the Bill is passed, it will act as a deterrent and that it will seldom be necessary to prosecute.

We have no wish unnecessarily to hinder the activities of responsible individuals and groups, and we will ensure that permission to dive on a wreck or excavate an aircraft is not unreasonably withheld. A list will be compiled of known wrecks and crash sites which we have no reason to protect. That will be pulished under the general licence provisions of the Bill. Among the wrecks for which a general licence will be issued from the outset will be those that sank with no loss of life: for example, the German fleet that was scuttled in Scapa Flow in 1919. We also have it in mind to publish a list of wrecks and sites believed to contain human remains.

In summary, it is hoped that the Bill will provide a more powerful deterrent than has been available in the past. It will give only partial protection to wrecks in international waters, notably Prince of Wales and Repulse, as it can only reach United Kingdom citizens or United Kingdom vessels interfering with such wrecks. It will cover all Her Majesty's ships sunk in peace or war since 1914. As in the past, authority to dive will not be withheld unreasonably from genuine scientific and archaeological research groups; my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence will be enabled to issue licences to such groups, and a general licence covering, for example, wrecks where there are not human remains.

Applications for licences will be dealt with as expeditiously as possible. Initially, it is not our intention to charge a fee on the making of applications, but if the work load becomes greater than expected, we may decide to do so to cover our costs.

I hope that the House will agree, in the light of the evidence, that there is an obvious need to introduce some means of controlling access to the remains of military aircraft and vessels and that the Bill's provisions offer a reasonable way of dealing with this often emotive problem.

I take on board and am grateful for the assurances that the Minister has given me. I have never been entirely clear about the legal status of some of the German wrecks off Scapa Flow. Some salvage rights belong to one of my constituents, a Shetlander, albeit that the wrecks are in Orkney waters. Will those rights be protected under any licence that is subsequently given?

It would be unwise of me to give a categorical assurance or firm commitment on that problem, but I guarantee to study it and to write to the hon. Gentleman.

Does the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) seek the leave of the House to speak again?

No, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Committee what day?

Now, Sir.

It is an unusual procedure for the House to take a Bill through all its stages on a Friday. Does any hon. Member have an objection?

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

It is a rare privilege to have an opportunity to present a private Member's Bill. When I was fortunate enough to draw 12th place in the ballot, I publicised that fact in my constituency and asked for some suggestions as to what legislation it would be appropriate to present to the House. Among the suggestions that came forward was one from the East Lothian local health council, which suggested that something should be done about the use of tobacco products by young people and children in Britain. That is an eminently sensible subject to deal with and I am delighted to have this opportunity to move the Second Reading of the Bill in the House this afternoon.

I said that it was a rare privilege to present such a Bill, but I suspect that it is an even rarer privilege to have an opportunity to have a proper debate on a private Member's Bill which has secured only 12th place in the ballot. So I am particularly grateful for that good fortune.

This is a modest measure with two fundamental objectives. The first is to clarify the law which makes it an offence to sell tobacco to children and young people under the age of 16. The second is to extend the definition of tobacco to include other tobacco products such as tobacco products for sucking or chewing, which obviously means the product that has had a lot of publicity recently-Skoal Bandits—which is being manufactured and marketed in Britain by the United States Tobacco Corporation.

I want to make two general points in the context of this Second Reading debate. The first must be to refer to the serious problem of tobacco use by young people in Britain today. The recent Office of Population Censuses and Surveys report showed that no less than 13 per cent. of secondary school pupils in England smoke regularly. That is an alarming enough figure, but in Scotland the figure is even higher and more alarming because 16 per cent. of secondary school pupils there are smoking cigarettes regularly.

In a written reply on 13 December the Minister told me that by his Department's reckoning no fewer than 1,600,000 people under the age of 20 are smoking in Britain. It follows from that that somebody is selling vast quantities of cigarettes to children and youngsters in Britain. In another written reply on 13 December the Home Office said that there were only 42 prosecutions for the sale of cigarettes and tobacco to young people in England and Wales during 1984—the same year to which the figures from the OPCS report refer.

A new generation is getting hooked on a dangerous habit and the matter is running out of control. It appears from the facts which I have cited that the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 and the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937, which are supposed to prohibit the sale of tobacco and cigarettes to youngsters, are not working. My Bill is intended to strengthen the prohibition which is already supposed to exist and remove any doubt that it is an offence to sell all tobacco products to children and young people under the age of 16.

Would "all tobacco products" include the infernal Skoal Bandits?

I am coming to that. I have been concentrating my remarks on conventional smoking tobacco, with which we have been familiar for a long time. However, we now have what my hon. Friend refers to as the "infernal" product, Skoal Bandits?

The second part of my Bill concerns new tobacco products which are for sucking or chewing, the best known example of that being the product mentioned by my hon. Friend. The manufacturers of that product can quite safely say that it does not cause lung cancer. That stands to reason, because one does not inhale sucking tobacco into one's lungs. However, such products are certainly addictive and they contain nicotine. There is sound evidence from the United States of America that they can cause cancer and other diseases of the mouth.

I have a report on the health implications of smokeless tobacco use from the consensus development conference of the National Institutes of Health in the United States of America which took place earlier this month. In the conclusion of that report it says:

"Use of smokeless tobacco has a long history in the United States, but trends in recent years, in particular the increasing use of snuff by children and young adults, have led to concerns about possible health consequences."

I believe that "snuff' is the word used to describe such products in the United States. The report goes on:

"The human evidence that the use of snuff causes cancer of the mouth is strong. Risk is particularly high for parts of the mouth where the snuff is usually placed … The primary behavioural consequence of regular use of smokeless tobacco is long-term nicotine dependence and its associated health risks."

That is recent evidence from the United States of America.

In April 1985, in this country, the chief medical officer of the Department of Health and Social Security warned that

"the habit significantly increased the risk of developing cancer of the mouth, an extremely unpleasant disease which might be difficult to treat and could result in disfigurement or death."

That is the risk to which children in this country are being exposed when they think of purchasing such products.

It is sad to relate that the Government—I think inadvertently to be fair to them—gave a £1 million grant towards the establishment of a factory to manufacture those products in East Kilbride in Lanarkshire. Although the United States Tobacco Company has given assurances that it will not pitch its marketing efforts towards youngsters I fear that we already have disturbing evidence of efforts to sponsor students in college and to sponsor activities such as sport, which is clearly directed to young people and children. The very nature of a product which is sweet flavoured and designed to be sucked like a sweet and sold in shops which also sell sweets must point towards sales to youngsters.

There is widespread alarm about the implications of such products for children. We have seen instances of mothers in a village in Fife in Scotland picketing a shop which sells Skoal Bandits because they are angry that their children are being exposed to such risks.

My Bill has the support of such organisations as Action on Smoking and Health, health authorities and local health councils all over the country. It has the active support of the British Medical Association, and I have received letters of support recently from people as far apart as Camberley and Caithness—the length and breadth of the country. Indeed, the Bill has all-party support in the House.

The most significant public supporters of my Bill are my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller) and the chief executive of East Kilbride district council, from whom I received a letter stating the council's wholehearted support for the objectives of my Bill. Jobs are very important in Lanarkshire, but not at any price.

My Bill is a modest and reasonable response to widespread public concern. I hope that it will improve and clarify the law for the benefit of all concerned. I freely acknowledge that the vast majority of people involved in the marketing and manufacturing of tobacco are responsible, and are not seeking deliberately to sell such products to young people, but the Bill is an endeavour to clarify the situation for the benefit of all concerned. I hope that it will help to protect young people throughout Britain from an extremely dangerous new tobacco product. I commend my Bill to the House.

I shall seek not to detain the House for long, not least because I have already addressed it at length on a previous Bill.

I should like to voice my support for the Bill, and I hope that it will be accepted by the Government. I do so not only in a personal capacity but as chairman of the all-party group on action on smoking and health. We are sometimes described as a bunch of anti-smokers. I make it clear that we do not look upon ourselves in that role. If people want to smoke, it is up to them, but we feel that it is our job to ensure that they are informed and educated about the effects of smoking and tobacco products. As far as possible, they should be dissuaded from increasing their consumption, or persuaded to decrease it, if they will not stop. In particular, people should be dissuaded from taking up the use of tobacco products altogether. By far the most important people at whom some of our ideas are projected are young people. It is so important that youngsters should be not only informed as to the dangers of tobacco products but dissuaded from purchasing them.

The hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) gave us the frightening figure that over 41 per cent. of children aged 16 are smokers. That is higher than the adult percentage. Something must be done to reduce that. As well as simply informing those people, we have to take every possible legal measure to make it more difficult for them to acquire the habit in the first place. One way to do that is to strengthen the law, as the Bill seeks to do, to prevent children from buying cigarettes.

The quantity of cigarettes being purchased shows that a large number of children must be buying them from shops. Indeed, a survey showed that 86 per cent. of children said that they bought their own cigarettes in shops or from machines. It is common knowledge that many tobacconists are prepared to sell cigarettes singly, for a few pence per cigarette. We must emphasise as strongly as possible that that is illegal. The Bill rightly strengthens the law on law on that front.

This week, the petition urging the Chancellor of the Exchequer to increase the tax on tobacco received much publicity. The selling price of cigarettes would be increased, which would be another deterrent and make it much more difficult for children to take up smoking.

If cigarettes had just been introduced to this country, they would almost certainly be banned forthwith. The tests on them are conclusive as to the harm that they can cause. One realises the impracticability of prohibition, but there is now a new tobacco product on the market. There is no doubt about its effect. In a written answer to a question that I asked in July, the then Under-Secretary told me:

"The Chief Medical Officer wrote to doctors following a recommendation by the Department's committee on carcinogenicity, which considered that there was evidence that the use of non-smoked tobacco products within the mouth is causally associated with an increased risk of oral cancer."—[Official Report, 25 July 1985; Vol. 83, c. 773.]

Given that, it is surprising that the product is allowed on the market. In reply to another question, the Minister said:

"There are at present no plans to prohibit the sale of Skoal Bandits or other tobacco products in this country".—[Official Report, 13 November 1985; Vol. 86, c. 202.]

The Irish are one step ahead of us, because the Irish Government have banned the sale of Skoal Bandits. It is a pity that they are not banned here.

It is to this Government's shame that a foreign country is allowed to set up a factory here to produce that product and that it was given taxpayers' money to do it. I hope that the Government will make some amends for that disgraceful decision by supporting the Bill.

I join colleagues on both sides of the House, not in the conventional congratulation of my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) on being successful in the ballot, but in offering him a sincere "thank you". I hope that I will not be accused of being jealous. My name has been in the hat at least 300 times for Bills and motions, but in 27 years my name has not come out once. The House will understand that I envy my hon. Friend. I have asked the "Guiness Book of Records" to include me because I have produced more Bills on this subject than any other hon. Member.

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has chosen this subject. I am also delighted that he has chosen the most important aspect of the problem, on which there is a consensus among all political parties and all shades of medical opinion. We are talking about an addiction. If that addiction is stopped when people are young, lives will be saved.

Addiction starts at an early age. A recent report shows that children of school age are spending at least £64 million a year on cigarettes or tobacco products. That is not peanuts. The figures given by my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian on the number of youngsters affected are important.

I cannot emphasise too much that the early addict is hooked for life, as the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims), who is chairman of the all-party group on action on smoking and health, said.

I had the privilege this year of being a member of an Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation on drug abuse. Hon. Members in all parts of the House are worried about drug abuse and the growing use of cocaine—the latest twist in the addiction spiral.

In my speech as a member of that delegation, I reported that 80 deaths in 1983 were caused by the abuse of heroin, methadone and hard drugs. The Royal College of Physicians produced evidence that the number of premature deaths in the United Kingdom from cigarettes was 100,000. The Prime Minister's figure for 1979 was 50,000. Whether the figure is 50,000 or 100,000, it is still important for us all to recognise that people under 65 are dying prematurely from smoking, with all the consequences of that. Lorry drivers smoke more than any other group and if a lorry driver dies and leaves a widow and young children, there is an enormous social services impact. We have to manage the debris.

Addiction starts at a young age. Many hon. Members have said to me, "I wish that I could kick the habit. I wish I had never started." The Bill reflects the mood of the House, because we all wish that people would not start smoking. If we tackle the problem at the start, we can hope for a better conclusion.

One difficulty about these debates is that too many people are inclined to take a moral attitude. Our concern should be solely for the health consequences to youngsters. Over the years, hon. Members from all parties have said to me, "Laurie, I am marvellous. I have given it up." They are priggish because they have demonstrated their willpower. Other hon. Members apologise for smoking and feel guilty. It is the boy scout syndrome: don't smoke; go out and chop wood instead. On both sides of the argument there is a confusion, which is not helpful to legislation.

If there were no health hazard to youngsters, I should be pleased to issue them with chimneys on their heads and the lethal Skoal Bandits. We are not talking about whether smoking is good or bad. We are interested in the health consequences, because the community has to pay the health bill and the youngster the penalty.

More young people have taken up smoking. Thanks to the excellent reports of the Royal College of Physicians the professional and middle classes do not smoke as much as they used to. The 10-year survey of general practitioners produced interesting results. Cases of chronic emphysema, lung cancer and bronchitis plummeted in those 10 years among doctors because, after the RCP report in 1961, general practitioners stopped smoking cigarettes and started smoking cigars.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian understands that kids do not smoke cigars. We cannot switch them from cigarette smoking to cigar smoking, so that they go behind the lavatories in the school playground and puff on cigars.

Kids buy cigarettes one or two at a time. There are few prosecutions of shopkeepers who sell cigarettes to underage children. Kids do not need to have the price of a packet of cigarettes. If they are short of money, they can buy one, two or three cigarettes and continue their addiction.

The new problem tackled by the Bill is the appearance of Skoal Bandits. Lung cancer is usually our prime worry for smokers, although it is not half as bad as chronic emphysema. We must all die sometime, but those who die of chronic emphysema die in torture.

Cancer of the lip, cancer of the mouth and cancer of the throat are diseases of ghastly proportions. They produce terror and pain that even the best analgesics cannot ease. Those who die of oral cancer die painfully. Is that what the House, the country and the Government wish on young people?

Should young people be allowed to chew something they think is like chewing gum? They will get a kick from doing it but after a few years could find themselves suffering from these dread diseases. Of course we want jobs, but not at any cost. There should have been greater liaison between the Health Minister and the Employment Minister before the Skoal grant was given.

I am worried about an extension of advertising on television now that these Skoal Bandits are here. Nobody is more prone to suggestion than a young person, and no instrument of suggestion is more powerful than television. Mr. Kenneth Robinson was the first Minister of Health to ban advertising of cigarettes on television. I hope the present Minister will examine with his Home Office colleagues the danger of advertising for Skoal Bandits sneaking into some sponsored programme. I am not worried so much about the paid adverts on ITV as about the millions of pounds spent on sports sponsorship.

Youngsters like sports programmes. They are interested in football, and nothing is more exciting to them than a car race on television. In such programmes there will appear large advertisements urging people to smoke a certain brand of cigarettes. I hope that in due course the House will be able to deal with that, because it is a scandal. In the meantime I ask the Minister to examine with his officers the possibility of advertising for Skoal Bandits creeping in by this back door, whereby millions of pounds worth of advertising is obtained by sponsorships at minimal cost.

One of our great chief medical officers of health in the Department of Health and Social Security more than 20 years ago was Sir George Godber. What shook me in his annual report and what shook Members of this House was his report stating that deaths and unnecessary suffering could be stopped. Members do not want unneccessary death and suffering. Ministers and Members of all parties always reach towards prevention and not treatment. That has been my theme all the time I have been in the House. I am a National Health Service man. If we can stop people from getting ill, Ministers will not be able to boast at the Dispatch Box about the huge increase in in-patients and out-patients from the year before, and about how great the Health Service is because more people are ill and are being treated.

Sir George Godber said in his annual report—he was able to put it across as Britain's representative on the World Health Organisation—that the greatest single step that any country could take towards preventing illness was to do something about decreasing cigarette smoking. This Bill is in the tradition of prevention rather than cure because it says that if we are to prevent illness it must be prevented early. I hope the House will give the Bill continuing support.

I was impressed by the speech of the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates). I have known him for a long time and have a great affection for him, because he once told me that if my wife put up against one of his hon. Friends he would be prepared to vote for her. I have never forgotten that remark and have always listened to him with a great deal of interest. I shall not say which of his hon. Friends that was, but he is on the Government Front Bench now.

I know the procedures of the House well, and I noticed that the hon. Member for Hampshire, East did some dextrous footwork on his Bill. I therefore immediately went to my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian and said, "What about putting the Bill through all its stages now?" You were kind enough, Mr. Deputy Speaker, bearing in mind the traditions of the House, to allow the previous Bill to be considered. My hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian informs me that his Bill can be improved and tightened in Committee. I hope that it receives full support on Second Reading from the Under-Secretary of State and that the full resources of his Department and his legal officers will be available to my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian to assist him in drafting any amendments that need to be tabled. It has been a great privilege for me to be one of the Bill's supporters and sponsors.

The appalling number of secondary schoolchildren estimated to be smoking—about 40 per cent.—must cause us all great anxiety. I support the Bill. Many comments have been made to me by parents, teachers, doctors and nurses in my constituency who are deeply worried. If we cannot prevent young people from taking up smoking, what hope have we that we will persuade them to give up smoking as they grow up?

Smoking is the greatest preventable cause of illness and early death in the United Kingdom. It accounts for at least 100,000 deaths a year, with enormous personal and national costs, individual suffering, lost working days and demands on Health Service resources.

I congratulate the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) on introducing the Bill. For too long children have been able to buy cigarettes. Parents and shopkeepers have not been vigilant. It is a matter not only of legislation but of enforcement. It has been said that 80 per cent. of all cigarettes smoked by children have been bought by them in shops. It must be seen as a casualty of affluence. When £90 million a year is spent on cigarettes by schoolchildren, we must ask serious questions.

In considering smoking by adults, there are more finely balanced arguments about the rights of individuals and the responsibility of Government. I believe that prohibiting the sale of cigarettes to young people, especially by extending the provisions of the Bill to include oral products, such as Skoal Bandits, is greatly needed. We should all greatly appreciate the efforts of the hon. Member for East Lothian. I give him my sincere and profound support.

I speak as a former addict of tobacco and heavy smoker, one who now finds the habit particularly pernicious. It should be confined to the privacy of the home. It is a habit that should not be encouraged among young people.

I welcome the Bill. As the hon. Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley) said, the number of young smokers is a sad sign of the prevalence of this form of addiction. I want to speak briefly because I have received a number of complaints from constituents who are concerned about what I called in an earlier intervention these "infernal" Skoal Bandits.

The Bill will strengthen the law to restrict the sale of tobacco products. I believe that we should follow the example set by the Irish Government and outlaw these products. This debate, brief though it is, outlines the dangers associated with this type of addition.

I welcome the Bill, but much more must be done to dissuade young pople from indulging in this appalling habit. We require more educational programmes aimed at preventing the spread of drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and other forms of abuse among young children. The Government and local authorities have a duty to warn youngsters at school of the dangers of those forms of addiction, especially that associated with cigarette smoking.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) on introducing his Bill. Where children's health is at risk, it is essential to take immediate action. There is no cause for delay. The morality of selling Skoal Bandits is highly questionable because they may lead to smoking. That will provide a tremendous extra strain on the National Health Service, as is at present the case with smokers. Moreover, it may lead eventually to death.

The morality of Skoal Bandits is particularly questionable as they are prepared in sweet form, which denies the reality of the product. We must prevent any form of pressurised selling of that product. In that regard we must particularly consider advertising.

Immediate action is required against the product because of its dangers to our young people. The Bill will provide that, so I support it.

I offer my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) on taking this initiative, and I support his proposal. I am grateful to him for bringing Skoal Bandits to the House today because it is the first time that I have seen them. It is appalling that such a dangerous product can be peddled as a sweet, either mint or cherry flavoured, to young children. The information disc inside the tins is headed:

"Getting used to Skoal Bandits."

It states:

"Like your first beer, Skoal Bandits can be a taste that may take a few days to acquire."

Overleaf it continues:

"but, whatever you do, stick with it."

That is an incitement to addition directed at young children. It is obscene, offensive and immoral, and should be banned. Skoal Bandits should not be on sale to young children, and are dangerous in their own right.

I shall not deal with the question of the money made available to the factory because the case against this offensive product has been dealt with effectively.

The House would find it hard not to accept the case for not selling the product to children. We banned the sale of fireworks to youngsters who appeared to be under the age of 16. Although fireworks are dangerous, they represent a minor hazard compared with the injury and damage resulting from the use of tobacco. I was astonished at the figure of £90 million given by the hon. Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley) which represents the total amount spent by schoolchildren on tobacco products. Perhaps the Minister can give us a more precise figure. The hon. Lady was correct. If the Bill is passed, it is equally important to enforce it. If we do not have enforcement back-up, the law becomes ineffective. In that context, the procrastination that is taking place in consumer protection round the country must be disturbing. I hope that the Government will not only support the proposal, but will show their support in a practical form by ensuring that there are sufficient consumer protection officers and trading standards officers to implement the proposals.

As my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian intimated, it is becoming increasingly apparent that we should reconsider not only where and when tobacco products are sold, but where they can be consumed. Tobacco has become an intrusion on the rights of non-smokers. We must reconsider a complete ban on advertising. Methods of advertising have now become so subtle that it is time to say that we have had enough and that we recognise that the present well-intentioned restrictions have not achieved our objectives. We should now go the whole hog and say that advertising of tobacco products must be stopped.

I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) on his success in the ballot, in contrast with the undeserved lack of success of his hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt). I congratulate him also on using his success to provide the opportunity for this important debate and to introduce a Bill that we all support. The hon. Member has explained the purpose of the Bill admirably, so I shall be brief and not cover again the ground already discussed by so many hon. Members, who have displayed a large measure of agreement.

The Bill touches on an issue of great concern to the Government—the degree to which young people are threatening their future health by the use of tobacco. Cigarettes pose by far the biggest threat to health. We recently published disturbing figures, which have been quoted by hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley). It is estimated that about £90 million a year is spent on tobacco products by children under the age of 16. Another alarming statistic is that 30 per cent. of fifth formers were identified as regular smokers—regular being defined as 50 cigarettes a week. The figures are increasing among the under-16s, but I am glad to say that in the adult population the incidence of smoking continues to decline at an encouraging rate. However, none of us is complacent.

Tobacco in any form is potentially hazardous, so it is essential that we should do everything possible to ensure the protection of our youngsters. It must be our objective to try and deter young people from using tobacco of any kind in view of the established health risks. Today's Bill will help towards achieving that aim by strengthening the prohibition on the sale of tobacco products to children, specifically to include smokeless tobacco products such as Skoal Bandits. It would amend the law on tobacco sales to make it an offence to sell any tobacco product to a person under the age of 16 years in any circumstances.

A tightening of the law is especially desirable to reduce the possibility of children being able to buy smokeless tobacco products, such as Skoal Bandits, which are now being promoted. The widespread anxiety about the appeal of that type of product to youngsters has been reflected in the debate. The right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) quoted with some effect the type of promotion employed by the company. Skoal Bandits pose the risk of oral cancer and may lead youngsters to smoke cigarettes and encourage dependence on nicotine.

Existing legislation, which was drafted long before Skoal Bandits became available, is clearly unsatisfactory. It is currently not an offence to sell such products to children if the tobacconist reasonably believes that they are for someone else. That makes it easy for a child to buy such products on the pretext that they are for a parent or an older brother or sister. It would be extremely difficult to obtain a conviction under the present law because of the defences available to the seller. By removing those defences, the Bill would remedy an obvious weakness in the law.

The Government already have a voluntary agreement with manufacturers which restricts the marketing of Skoal Bandits in ways which are intended to protect young people. The Bill would reinforce that agreement by tightening the rules affecting the point of sale and closing an apparent loophole. Although it is obviously less likely that children will try to buy pipes and cigars for their own use, it seems sensible to cover them in the Bill, thus putting all tobacco products on the same footing as cigarettes.

Simplifying the law thus would help the tobacconist. There would no longer be room for doubt about whether he was within his rights in knowingly selling tobacco goods to somebody aged under 16. I believe that, in many cases, the shopkeepers will welcome the clarification. If the Bill became law, the Government will want to consider means of publicising the new provisions so that tobacconists are made fully aware of them.

I should like to renew my congratulations to the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) and to assure him and the House that the Bill has the Government's full support. I strongly hope that it will be given sympathetic consideration today.

With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to reply to the debate.

Does the hon. Gentleman have the leave of the House?

Yes.

I am most grateful to the Minister, and others who have spoken, for their support. We hear much about rowdyism and how everybody is supposed to oppose everybody in the House for no good reason, but today we have had a succession of constructive debates on constructive proposals. This is the House of Commons at its best.

I am grateful to the Minister for indicating the Government's support for the Bill. I am also grateful for the co-operation that he and his officials have already given in the preparation of the Bill.

The hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) is the chairman of the all-party group on Action on Smoking arid Health. He and my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) suggested that we should be going a lot further and banning products such as Skoal Bandits. I quite agree, but we all know that politics is the art of the possible, and private Members' Bills demonstrate that more than anything else. It would have been foolish to introduce a measure that would have aroused strong opposition from those interested in the manufacture of tobacco products. Nevertheless, I would have loved to go much further. The hon. Gentleman said that Skoal Bandits have been banned in the Republic of Ireland. I agree that it would be desirable to consider a ban here. Perhaps we could explore that in the future.

I commiserate with my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Mr. Pavitt). He might not be lucky in ballots for private Members' Bills, but he has been an extremely consistent and doughty fighter to protect the health of people of all ages. He is quite right—if we want to stop people suffering from the effects of a dangerous addiction, the best action is to prevent them getting addicted. Prevention is obviously better than cure, and that is what we are trying to achieve today.

The hon. Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley) spoke in an earlier debate, in which she demonstrated her concern for the welfare of young people. She spoke principally about cigarettes and the danger of cigarette smoking. She also drew attention to the fact that, in a year during which an estimated £90 million was spent on cigarettes by people under 16, there were only 42 prosecutions for selling those products. The sale of such products to young people is supposed to have been illegal since 1933 in England and Wales and since 1937 in Scotland. Obviously, someone is driving a coach and horses and much more through the legislation. I hope that the debate and the Bill will encourage a further examination of the position.

Section 7(1) of The Children and Young Persons Act 1933, and section 18 of the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1937, whose terminology is identical, are circuitous, to put it mildly. They offer on a plate a range of defences against possible prosecutions for selling cigarettes and other tobacco products to young people. The primary purpose of the Bill is to clarify that prohibition. I hope that, if the Bill becomes law, we shall have much more effective control of the trade. My secondary purpose is to make it crystal clear that Skoal Bandits or anything like them are included in the prohibition.

My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow spoke with all the zeal of a convert. I welcomed with mixed feelings the support of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey), because last year I spent 10 happy days in his constituency trying to ensure that someone else won the seat. Nevertheless, I am grateful for his support. He referred to advertising. We should pay tribute to the Independent Broadcasting Authority for saying that it will not accept advertisements for Skoal Bandits. However, as someone else said, direct advertising is not the whole story. There is also the problem of the sponsorship of sports and other such indirect advertising.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) had not intended to speak in the debate, but, when I was rash enough to show him the product that we are discussing, he expressed his strong abhorrence to it. We have clearly achieved the rare commodity of unanimity in the House. I am grateful for the support of the Government and hon. Members of all parties, and I commend my Bill to the House.

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

The House will know that the original promoter of the Bill was my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Dr. Mawhinney), who has now been appointed to the Government and is thus disqualified from the exquisite pleasures of private Members' business on Friday mornings. I know that the House will join me in congratulating my hon. Friend on his appointment and wishing him well in his difficult task at the Northern Ireland Office.

It is most appropriate that my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squires) should have taken on the Bill, since he was responsible for the original Act which the Bill seeks to extend. It is a necessary and constructive extension, and I hope that the House will approve its Second Reading so that it can be modified, perhaps only slightly, in Committee.

Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he is speaking on behalf of the hon. Member whose name appears on the Bill as one of its sponsors?

I am speaking on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch, who authorised me to move the Second Reading, on his behalf today.

I am happy to respond to the telling speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates), and I associate myself with his remarks concerning the elevation of my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Dr. Mawhinney). I recognise the contribution that has been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squires) to this important matter.

The Bill seeks to provide for greater public access to meetings of joint consultative committees of health and local authorities, and to related reports and documents. This is a commendable objective, and I wish to make it quite clear from the start that the Government have no objection to the Bill on policy grounds. Joint consultative committees exist to advise district health authorities and local authorities in carrying out their statutory duty to collaborate in serving the community. We would welcome a greater public awareness of the existence and functions of those bodies, and would like to see their proceedings as open as possible. We feel that the degree of public accountability which such openness would entail would help strengthen the committees and emphasise the importance of their role in successful joint planning that we all seek.

Strengthening the joint consultative committees in that way was one of the recommendations of the working group on joint planning whose report "Progress in Partnership" was published at the end of November. That working group was set up by the local authority associations, the National Association of Health Authorities and my Department to look for ways of improving joint planning. Its establishment was prompted largely by a widespread feeling that over the country as a whole, services would better match the needs of users and be delivered more cost-effectively if all the opportunities for joint planning of services had been taken.

Some time before the Bill was first presented, we were preparing draft guidance to health and local authorities, aimed at implementing the working group's recommendations. We are now in the process of distributing it for consultation. In it, we strongly recommend that the meetings of joint consultative committees should be made open to the public and stipulate that minutes of meetings should always be made publicly available and that the press and the public should be kept informed of progress.

I am interested in what the Minister is saying. I have been trying to persuade the Government that it would be a good idea to include new town development corporations in the Bill's provisions. Will he consider widening the Bill to include new town development corporations?

The hon. Gentleman seeks to widen the role of the Bill much further than it is at present drafted, and outside the realm of my Department. I am sure that my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department of the Environment will have taken careful note of the point that he made.

If the Bill were enacted it would, of course, give the force of law to the recommendation that we have adopted. I am sorry to say, however, that I am advised that technically the Bill is defective. The defect is that the Bill seeks to apply the Local Government (Access to Information) Act 1985 to joint consultative committees. That cannot be done, because the 1985 Act is itself an amending Act inserting provisions in earlier Acts. The Bill would need to be redrafted so as to amend the earlier Acts before its purpose could be achieved.

In the circumstances, if the Bill receives its Second Reading today, it will need to be amended in Committee.

We have no objection to the principle of the Bill. We are keen to heighten the degree of public awareness of the existence and function of the bodies with which it deals.

I beg to move that the Bill be read a Second time.

I confirm that I am acting on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Sir J. Wells).

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise a subject which is of great importance to my constituents—the rate support grant settlement and the London borough of Sutton. It is interesting—I hope it will be an illuminating experience—to be on this end of an Adjournment debate, having sat for many hours on the Front Bench over the past six years.

I am encouraged and honoured by the excessive presence of the worthies from the Department of the Environment who have just joined us in the Box. I have great admiration and a lot of affection for them after my years with them, so I am glad that they are here today and I am sure that they will be able to assist us in many ways.

The rate support grant settlement was debated fully on 20 January, but, with hindsight, it seemed to many of us, not only in the House but outside in the wider world through the media, that there was a tendency for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and indeed others, to concentrate on the problems facing the shire counties. I do not make that for one moment as an accusation against my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department of the Environment. That is the way that it was largely presented. It absorbed much of the media's attention throughout those few days, as it tended to in December when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made his announcement on 18 December about the settlement for 1986–87.

That is why many of us who represent outer London boroughs feel that the problem is just as acute there as it is in the shire counties and it is to that to which I wish to turn my attention. I have every confidence that my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mrs. Rumbold), the Under-Secretary of State who is to reply, is well in tune with outer London politics and equally well in tune with outer London Government finance. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman), who is anxious to have a few moments in which to speak in this debate and hopes to catch your eye Mr. Deputy Speaker, when I have sat down — with the full recognition of my hon. Friend the Minister — has just the same problems. We both represent the London borough of Sutton. I want to express my warm thanks to my hon. Friend the Minister for the way in which she received a large delegation from both of us a fortnight ago, including various officials of the London borough of Sutton. That provided an opportunity for a detailed survey on Sutton's finances.

Sutton's financial control has been well in accordance with prudence and has reflected the Government's demands since 1979. Sutton has for many years complied with Government guidelines and target requirements. It has also given the fullest support to Government policies in connection with the abolition of the GLC and has cooperated more than fully in setting up the consortium arrangements to handle waste disposal in south London in spite of receiving a transfer station far larger than required. That is an important dimension for us in the overall assessment.

No charges of profligacy can be laid at Sutton's door, as opposed to the other inner London authorities which have for many years been locked in battle. I need not enumerate those except to say that we all know where they are and we all know what they have done to the ratepayers of Greater London. Indeed, many of the inner London boroughs and the outer London boroughs that make up the metropolis are in an identical position.

I did not support the Government's proposal on Monday 20 January, because the whole settlement is inequitable. I ask my hon. Friend to give urgent consideration to our problem with my right hon. Friend so that we may achieve a more equitable distribution. I am heartened by the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State who received a delegation of outer London Members of Parliament in the same week, and for that we are grateful. But I hope that there will be more to come from some of the comments and observations that he made.

A feature of the 1986–87 settlement is that it is supposed technically to benefit metropolitan areas, but the increased benefit for London is concentrated almost exclusively on the inner London boroughs. Having worked for some years in the Department of the Environment I am well aware of the problems in the inner cities, but we must ensure that our programme is not to the detriment and exclusion of the outer London boroughs which, in many respects, are facing problems similar to any other capital city.

It must be said that most of the metropolitan areas receive, justifiably, all forms of other additional Government support through the inner city partnership, urban development grants and derelict land grants. There is a whole series of additional sources of funding which we tend not to see in the outer London borough of Sutton.

I want first to look at grant-related expenditure assessments. That has assumed a far greater importance in 1986–87 because previously rate support grant penalties commenced for expenditure in excess of target. Now, withdrawal commences in relation to GRE level. Thus the more GRE received, the higher is the grant. Indeed, an analysis of the total percentage GRE change in London, excluding GRE related to services transferred from the Greater London Council shows that inner London receives an increase of about 15·4 per cent. Outer London, on average, receives an increase of 8·2 per cent., but in Sutton the increase is only 6·4 per cent. The figures including transferred services are: for inner London an increase of 51·7 per cent., outer London 21·8 per cent., on average, and for Sutton merely 20·5 per cent.

Officials in Sutton are concerned that details of individual GREA components for existing services were not made available to Sutton until after the debate on the settlement in the House of Commons. I know the reasons for that policy over the years, but the timing is difficult. Without access to data, any conclusions drawn fom the information available so far can be based only on assumption. That places us in all sorts of difficulties at this critical time with just a few months to go before the end of the financial year.

Pre and post-abolition GREs have been provided for former GLC services and one area where Sutton seems to have suffered is in the post-abolition highways maintenance GRE. I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary will say something about that when she winds up because that is just one of several features that concern my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington and myself.

I must make it clear to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary that we understand that we cannot expect detailed and specific answers to all the points we might hope to make during the debate, but I hope that in the immediate future it may be possible to have some follow-up guidance so that we can relate it to our colleagues in the London borough of Sutton.

I also want to make it clear that the electorate wholeheartedly approves the Government programme to reduce expenditure. We also applaud the containment of inflation, which is a key factor in all of this. It is also worth pointing out to hon. Friend that, on all services, Sutton had the lowest net cost per capita in 1984–85. Sutton is an efficient local authority. It had the third lowest rate rises in outer London and between 1981 and 1985 rate rises were contained at just over 10 per cent. when the RPI increase was 28 per cent. for the corresponding period. That speaks volumes for Sutton's financial management. Indeed, I venture to suggest that many other local authorities should follow that. So far, we have had some recognition from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State towards our problem, but I should like some answer. Can my hon. Friend say whether the reduced budget for the London Residuary Body helps Sutton and by how much can it help?

From the correspondence I have received in recent months it seems surprising to ratepayers that the benefits derived from abolition do not seem to be followed by a good grant distribution. Accordingly, we need specific details. I expected, as a firm supporter and believer of the abolition of the top tiers of Government in this country —the seven metropolitan authorities—that there would be such a distribution.

During his speech on 20 January my right hon. Friend used the phrase "grant recycling". I do not think that I would have chosen that phrase myself, but I know what he means and it is a graphic description. He spoke about grant recycling for low-spending authorities, meaning that those that have been in penalty will be required to help low-spending authorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington and I are curious to know, as will other outer London borough Members who are in similar positions, how that will help the boroughs and, more specifically, how it will help Sutton. Can my hon. Friend be specific on that?

Third, is the all-important question of GLC balances — which my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington and I discussed before, when we went to see my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary and her officials at the Department — and their future distribution, based on the population of each borough? It is important for us to know precisely what that means. It is an important concession that the distribution of GLC balances might be on a fairly equal basis throughout the population of each borough. Have any studies been pursued by my hon. Friend's officials? If not, can they get in touch with officials in the London borough of Sutton? We need to know what the help will be. Again, the timing is crucial, bearing in mind the fact that it is only a couple of months until the year end.

Those are critical points for my constituents in Sutton and Cheam, Belmont and Worcester Park. Sutton's problems are not unique, but we are talking about specifics in this debate. I fully understand that my hon. Friend might not be able to reply to all the points that I have raised, but I should be grateful if, in the fullness of time—within a couple of weeks, I hope—she will provide answers to the more detailed points that I have raised.

I associate myself wholeheartedly with the well-expressed arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Macfarlane), with whom, over the past few weeks and months, I have been engaged in an extensive lobbying exercise of Ministers. I should like to place on record my gratitude to the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mrs. Rumbold), for their courtesy and the helpful way in which they listened to our representations and sought to respond to them.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam said, we cannot expect definitive and detailed answers this afternoon. None the less, the debate gives us yet another opportunity to emphasise, if emphasis be necessary, the importance of the issues to our constituents throughout the London borough of Sutton.

My hon. Friend referred to the three concessions resulting to some extent from the representations that we have made. We are grateful for that. However, it is important—indeed, vital—that numbers be attached to those concessions as soon as possible so that the ratepayers and councillors of the London borough of Sutton know exactly where they stand at the earliest possible date, and so that they can then come forward with the low rate increase that I know they would like.

The three concessions that my hon. Friend mentioned are equally important in the long run. There is a distinction between the concession on the London Residuary Body budget and the concession on the GLC's balances and their distribution, on the one hand, and the concession on grant recycling, on the other hand. The distinction is that, in the third category of grant recycling, we are talking about something that is dependent upon the best estimates that the Department can make of the overspending that might occur. There is a certain logical problem because that overspending is something which the Government are dedicated to contain and if possible avoid through the various machanisms to deal with the overspenders. It is ironic — this has not escaped my constituents in the London borough of Sutton — that to some extent the benefit that we expect to derive as a low-spending and responsible authority has to flow inexorably from the misbehaviour of local authorities elsewhere — mainly Labour-controlled—whose action we deplore.

In the short term, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam and I need the best possible settlement for the London borough of Sutton, to take account of its exemplary financial record, but wider issues arise than those of local government finance narrowly defined. If we can get a satisfactory settlement on those key issues, it will enable the people of Sutton to continue to enjoy living in a local authority which, over many years. has benefited from low rates, and which has attracted much new industry and activity to the borough.

A local authority with an exemplary education policy in terms of results would be put at risk if the arguments about local government finance went awry. The borough has one of the lowest unemployment rates in London and the south-east. We are naturally pleased about that because of the tragically high unemployment rate nationwide.

My hon. Friend the Minister must understand that there is more at stake than the simple technicalities of local government finance and arrangements for RSG. Broader issues are involved to do with the future quality of life for our constituents. I hope that the Minister and her colleagues in the Department of the Environment will give a high priority to what we regard as our convincing arguments.

I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Macfarlane) and for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) for the kind words with which they began their contributions. I am also grateful to them on behalf of the civil servants who worked in Marsham street for many a long year with my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam.

I do fully understand my hon. Friend's arguments about the manner in which the London borough of Sutton has conducted its affairs over a number of years. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington paid tribute to the local authority's good management and spoke of how such good management affects people who live and work in that outer London borough. I sympathise and I do not want anything that we do to be to the detriment of such boroughs.

My hon. Friends will accept that the rate support grant system is at the best of times undeniably complex. This settlement has been more complex because of the additional task of accommodating the abolition of the Greater London council and the metropolitan authorities. I welcome the opportunity to try to reassure my hon. Friends and their constituents about the borough's position.

First, I shall deal with how the 1986–87 rate support grant settlement might have affected Sutton if we had not made any changes to the grant system. Like all other outer Londer authorities the borough would have lost block grant because we have reduced the proportion of overall spending which is met by the Exchequer grant, of which block grant is a part. We have followed that policy because we wanted to reduce the Exchequer support to local government in an attempt to improve local accountability. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam accepted that. The loss of grant for this reason amounted to over £1·5 million. Sutton would have lost a further £333,000 due to increased rateable values. It would have gained about £800,000 because we have moved resources between various services.

With some other smaller losses and gains, overall Sutton would have received about £900,000 less in grant than in 1985–86 if we had simply rolled the old system forward to 1986–87.

However, we could not leave the basic grant system alone. The most important feature of the settlement next year is that we have removed targets and holdback. At the same time, we have increased the effects of the existing mechanism so as to continue the constraints on spending. Sutton gained £1 million in grant from that move.

We have also continued the development of grant-related expenditure as an objective measure of spending need. Sutton gains a further £1·2 million in grant from those changes which mainly affect its education and concessionary fares provision. As I said, we have abolished the GLC, which means that Sutton has gained a further £1·5 million of grant towards the services that it has taken on as a consequence of abolition.

The net result of all the changes to which I have referred is that if Sutton were to spend at a level equal to its own 1985–86 spending and include its share of the GLC's 1985–86 spending — increased by 3·4 per cent. — its block grant would increase by £2·8 million to £27·8 million—an increase of 11·3 per cent.

Many outer London boroughs have claimed that profligate inner London boroughs have been rewarded rather than penalised, as the outer boroughs would wish. However, many inner London boroughs are subject to lower expenditure limits next year. For example, Greenwich is being required to reduce its expenditure by 10 per cent. in real terms, Hackney by over 12 per cent. and Lewisham by 14 per cent., all as a direct consequence of rate capping.

Such demands are difficult to achieve, as I know to my cost. It is hard for a local authority to achieve much more than a 3 per cent. direct cut in expenditure during the rollover of one financial year. However, we are required to operate the block grant system on general principles which have to be consistent. We have no power to single out authorities for favourable or unfavourable treatment. The rate support grant system is based on the principles of need and resources equalisation. The aim is for authorities to provide similar services at broadly the same rate poundage cost to their ratepayers, regardless of differences in their needs and rateable resources.

Although we are not here today to decide the future of the local government finance system, it would be appropriate for me to mention that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has just launched a major Green Paper which addresses the fundamental issues of equalisation and the extent to which it should continue under a new financial system for local government. We shall certainly welcome all thoughts and contributions from local authorities in the coming months. I hope that my hon. Friends will take that message back to their local authority.

The abolition of the GLC is particularly important to the London borough of Sutton. My hon. Friends will recall that we intended that the financial effects of abolition would be neutral—there would be neither gainers nor losers arising out of the abolition. We have not built into the rate support grant settlement any assumption about what savings can be made by the successor authorities.

Our aim has been that, taken as a whole, London will receive the same level of grant to which it would have been entitled if the GLC had continued to exist and to spend at the level assumed in the settlement. We have done that by allocating the GLC's grant-related expenditure and its 1985–86 budget to the successor authorities on the most objective assumptions that we could find, after a full process of consultation with the local authority associations.

We have also extended the London rate equalisation scheme to replace the equalising effect of the GLC precept. That was necessary to avoid windfall gains to the central boroughs at the expense of ratepayers outside London.

It is important to understand that not only do authorities inherit expenditure obligations from the GLC, and the grant-related expenditure to go with them, but they inherit an obligation to raise some of the resources to meet those needs from their own ratepayers, just as the GLC did by precepting. That means that there is no uniform relationship between GRE increases and grant increases due to abolition.

However, in Sutton's case the grant entitlement on our spending assumption of an increase of 3·4 per cent. would suggest a rate rise of only 2·5 per cent. If Sutton could repeat last year's use of balances, the rise could be even lower—perhaps even zero.

My hon. Friends asked me to touch on Sutton's grant related expenditure. I know that Sutton is unhappy about several aspects of that. It lost about £500,000 from figures provisionally announced in October 1985, mainly due to new data on traffic flows affecting the highway maintenance grant-related expenditure. We made it clear that such changes were possible. The concessionary fare GRE does not match what Sutton believes it will be required to spend according to the statutory scheme, although the new GRE methodology is better for Sutton than the old one. I assume my hon. Friends that we are, looking at whether we can help on this aspect for future years. We are acutely aware of the problems that arise from continually looking at the grant-related expenditure assessment. That throws up problems not only for Sutton, but for other authorities, and one has to be careful about how one changes the assessments.

I know that Sutton has been worried about the costs associated with the abolition of the GLC. The ikely reduction of the proposed London Residuary Body levy from £180 million to around £60 million, to which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred in the RSG debate on 20 January, represents a saving to Sutton of over £3 million.

My hon. Friends may also know that no less than £200 million of the provisional charges, London-wide, circulated by the LRB in November, related to housing debt that the boroughs already pay for. To add this as a new expense due to abolition would be mistaken. It would result in double counting, and this may help to explain some of the figures for rate increases put about by boroughs generally, although I know that Sutton has not made that mistake.

Furthermore, my right hon. Friend announced that the GLC's balances will now be distributed on a population basis. Sutton will get £250,000 instead of £150,000 for every £10 million of balances distributed. I hope that takes care of that point.

I should like to refer to a mistake that has occurred in the split of the GLC's highway maintenance expenditure to the boroughs when the RSG settlement was being prepared. I recognise how difficult it is for anyone not immersed in this system, which is known for its Byzantine complexity, not to become confused, but this error is different from the changes of highway maintenance and other GREs between provisional announcement and settlement which I talked about earlier. It has to do with the calculation of the expenditure to be taken on by each borough from the GLC, which is necessary so that limits are set on the gains and losses of grant as a result. These limits—safety nets—were needed to achieve the neutral effect that I mentioned before. The grant loss to Sutton is almost £800,000. I am urgently considering how this can be corrected within the grant year. There are various ways in which we might do this. I am committed to consulting the local authority associations with a view to producing a solution which will correct this error before boroughs have to make a rate.

I know that the council's latest forecast for next year's expenditure, taking account of some of these changes, is now about £1·5 million less than when I met my hon. Friends with a deputation from the borough of Sutton. But at £71 million, it is still almost £2 million above our settlement assumption. It would be about 9 per cent. up on last year — a far bigger increase than can be accounted for by inflation. On these figures Sutton could lose about £3 million of grant overall. I hope Sutton can find ways of reducing that forecast.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State used the phrase "grant recycling." Last year, penalties incurred by overspending authorities went back to the Treasury. This year, grant lost by those spending above the settlement assumptions will be recycled to all by the traditional process of close ending. My right hon. Friend showed to the House in the RSG debate the effects of distributing a pool of £400 million. Sutton would have received nearly £1·25 million as a result. How much of this is a grant gain will depend upon how much Sutton contributed to the pool by spending above the assumptions we have made. If it can keep its own spending down, it will maximise the benefits for ratepayers.

I think it is fair to say that Sutton has not had a bad settlement. I would be fairer to say that Sutton had rather a good settlement. If its overall spending goes up in line with inflation—4·5 per cent.—we estimate that its rates need only go up by 5·2 per cent. That will be as little as 2·7 per cent. if Sutton can repeat last year's use of balances. If it can get its spending below that figure, rates rises could be even lower.

I hope that I have provided additional information which I am sure my hon. Friends can take back to help mitigate some of the differences between the borough's estimate of expenditure next year and our own. Therefore, the message I should leave with my hon. Friends is to urge the council to keep up its record of exemplary housekeeping. The rewards for its ratepayers will be great.