Mr. Kenneth Clarke.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I understand that a significant statement is about to be made—I have not seen the text —on vocational education and training. May I inquire through you, Mr. Speaker, whether the Minister who is to make the statement will deal with questions about Scotland? I ask this because on the Order Paper there is a written question in the name of the hon. Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mrs. McCurley)—No. 140—which asks the Secretary of State for Scotland to make

"a statement on vocational education and training in Scotland."

A statement is something of a misnomer, as the response will be a written answer.

If the Paymaster General is not to deal with the Scottish aspects of vocational education and training, Scottish Members will not be able to raise any parallel or Scottish difference points and will not have rights that will be available to Members from other parts of the United Kingdom. I want to be clear on whether Scottish Members can ask questions of that sort and whether something can be done to protect their interests.

I am unable to answer that question because I have not heard the statement yet. But perhaps the Paymaster General will be able to enlighten us in his opening words.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Is it the same point of order?

It is in connection with this matter.

By arrangement with the House, Members of the Scottish National party receive advance copies of statements on Scottish business. I have checked and apparently we do not have a statement on this. If the statement is to refer to Scottish business, we shall be at a disadvantage.

The position in Scotland will, I trust, become clear in the course of the statement and the subsequent exchange of questions. My responsibility for the Manpower Services Commission extends to Scotland and I am making this statement because it appertains to the work of the MSC. It also has implications for Scotland and I shall be in a position to answer questions on that.

But, with permission, Mr. Speaker, perhaps I should first make the statement, which is about major Government decisions on vocational education and training announced in the White Paper published this afternoon. They are about the national extension of the technical and vocational education initiative and the reform of vocational qualifications.

The technical and vocational education initiative was launched on a pilot basis by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in November 1982. In chosen schools since then the Government have, through the Manpower Services Commission, made additional funds available to local education authorities to develop new ways of increasing the vocational content of the curriculum and offering pupils of all abilities between the ages of 14 and 18 more work-related learning.

By the end of this year there are likely to be almost 100 education authorities in England, Wales and Scotland taking advantage of the initiative; which will be covering over 600 schools and colleges and helping nearly 50,000 pupils.

As the pilots have developed, so too has appreciation of the way in which TVEI has been able to enrich the curriculum. It has opened up new opportunities for more young people of all abilities to see how school can be made more relevant to adult and working life.

We want to keep up the momentum and to extend the benefit to many more pupils. We have decided that the MSC should be asked to administer the extension of TVEI from a pilot to a national scheme beginning in the autumn of 1987.

The Government are making a substantial financial commitment to this improvement in our schools. We are setting aside sums which build up from £12 million in 1987–88 to £41 million in 1988–89 and to £84 million in 1989–90. The average annual expenditure over the next 10 years or so will be about £90 million. These amounts will be found from the provision we have planned for young people within the MSC's budget.

Each authority's TVEI proposals must be consistent with our overall policy of improving the school curriculum. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science, who is in his place today, is publishing separately today a statement of the curicular criteria which extension proposals must meet.

The extension of the technical and vocational education initiative to a national scheme is a major advance. But reforming and developing the curriculum in schools is not enough. We also need to improve the vocational qualifications system to encourage more people, young and old, to improve their skills when they have left school. For that reason we are also announcing a new system of qualifications for skilled work at all levels in England and Wales.

Last year we set up a working group under the Chairmanship of Mr. Oscar de Ville to review the pattern of vocational qualifications in England and Wales. The group's report was published in May.

The group concluded that the present system was complex and incomplete, and recommended that a new system of qualifications should be set up within a framework to be called the national vocational qualification. It urged that a National Council for Vocational Qualifications should also be established to work with the existing bodies to set up that framework. The Government accept those recommendations.

The council will be set up in the autumn of this year and will be asked to have the new system of qualifications in England and Wales and Northern Ireland in place by 1991. I am glad to say that Mr. de Ville has accepted our invitation to act as chairman of the council during its all-important formative period.

We shall provide pump-priming funding, but the aim will be that after three years the council will become self-sufficient, from income received from bodies whose qualifications it accredits.

The recommendations of the report have been generally welcomed and we believe that they will lead to a much better system of vocational qualifications, which will be widely understood and respected by individuals and by employers. We hope that they will be encouraged to invest more time and money in training.

It is vitally important that for young people moving from school to adult working life we have a good system of vocational education and training. All young people must be given the opportunity to leave full-time education or training with relevant qualifications and to build on them throughout their working life. The extension of the technical and vocational education initiative and the setting up of the new framework of national vocational qualifications are major advances towards that objective.

Regardless of the promises to us about other statements, this statement was made in another place at 3 o'clock. One would have thought that, on the auspicious day of the Paymaster General's birthday, the noble Lord the Secretary of State would have allowed him to go first for a change. If the statement on the extension of technical and vocational education means that technical, academic and practical education will be available to all our students, we broadly welcome it.

From reading the statement, we suspect that the amount of cash will not be enough. Will the Paymaster General tell us how much will be available per school for implementing technical and vocational education and how that compares with the pilot financing? Will he assure us that it is not a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul? Reading between the lines of the statement, it seems that the money for this expansion of the technical and vocational education initiative will come away from the youth training scheme. The YTS is already under-financed and under pressure and the quality of its training is inadequate. If money to fund the TVEI is taken from the YTS, that will lead to a further deterioration in training standards, and we are extremely worried about that.

The Paymaster General spoke about a review of educational and vocational qualifications. Will he think again about the way in which the new council will be set up? Many Opposition Members have great misgivings about the decision of the Government not to take the opportunity to review all qualifications at the same time. There is to be a review of vocational qualifications, but academic qualifications have been left alone.

We are fearful that we will see from the Government an attempt via the back door to introduce a 14-plus or a 16- plus examination to take the place of the 11-plus selection that we all know damaged children's opportunities and perspectives. Will the Paymaster General assure us that he is aware of the dangers of polarisation that arise because of technical education for some children and another more expensive and exclusive type of education for other children.

We have had many statements over the last few years and all of them introduced minor changes, some of which were welcome. Those statements were made against the background of a collapse in our training and technical training. As the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said just last week, there has been a 40 per cent. drop in training since 1982. This statement is small beer compared to the collapse of our training system.

The extent to which statements are first made in one House or in another depends on the procedure of both Houses. This statement was delayed in this House by the vital matter of Scottish questions. I was able to sit on the throne—[Laughter.]—on the steps of the throne in another place and there I listened to the noble Lord Stoddart of Swindon welcome the statement. He did so with a considerably lesser show of reluctance than the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) has shown, but in the end he welcomed it.

The cash that is being made available for the extension of technical and vocational education is substantial—an average of £90 million a year over a 10-year period. During that period, it will steadily increase as the applications come in and the benefits of the initiative are spread throughout our school system. It will be up to individual local authorities to determine exactly how that money is to be distributed within the schools put forward, but on average it should work out at about £30 extra per school —[Interruption.]—at about £30,000 extra per school in each authority which applies. That is a significant addition to the budget of each school, enabling it to broaden the curriculum and improve the relevance of its education to pupils.

I was delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman defending the youth training scheme, and I think there is a growing realisation among Opposition Members about its value. I am happy to be able to assure him that these arrangements do not in any way jeopardise the YTS or the financing of it. The money is coming from the provision we have made for young people generally. The exact spending will depend on the number of local authorities that take up the opportunity presented by this initiative, and the number of pupils between 14 and 18 years who choose to remain in school, taking part in this curriculum, compared with the number who leave and engage in YTS. Obviously, the total number of young people will not increase in the 10-year period. Indeed, it will fall markedly. For that reason we can make this generous financial provision to schools for extending the curriculum without jeopardising other provision for young people, particularly YTS.

The review of vocational qualifications has also received a general welcome. I believe that that was the implication of what the hon. Gentleman said. The particular qualifications that we have had reviewed and which we shall now have farther reviewed by this new national council are the maze of technical qualifications, which are difficult to understand for parents, would-he trainees and employers looking for qualifications of the right type. The new arrangements will be of benefit to all of them, and will enable a clearer system to emerge and people to know exactly what qualifications of what standard they should aspire to for any particular occupation.

I note what the hon. Gentleman describes as a collapse in training. We know that we have a serious problem and that more resources and effort need to be invested, particularly by employers, into the training and preparation for work, especially of our young people. I do not accept his description, especially when it is applied to the Government's efforts. He knows that as a result of our changes in training arrangements we have virtually doubled the number of adults whom we are assisting in training through Government programmes.

May I ask my right hon. and learned Friend two questions arising from this most welcome statement? First, regarding the new council or otherwise, does the White Paper contain any mechanisms for monitoring the effects of these new initiatives on academic achievements in schools, for example through the number of pupils taking A-level courses, bearing in mind the evidence published yesterday by the Education Select Committee which seemed to establish a linkage between YTS and the fall in the number of those taking A-levels? Is any monitoring envisaged?

Secondly, although I make it perfectly clear that I intend no personal reference, is this statement not one further proof that the time is past when training as a subject, however ably administered at present, should be brought within the ambit of the Department of Education and Science?

On his first point, I can assure my hon. Friend that we shall monitor the position closely. We are carrying out a number of surveys to see what happens to the post-16 age group. We are hoping to produce a system which will allow for a well-informed choice to be made by more pupils. They will decide whether they wish to remain in school and then pursue an academic course in further and higher education, to leave and join YTS, or to take advantage of this sort of curriculum in a school which has taken advantage of this initiative. We shall certainly study the Select Committee's report.

It is difficult to analyse what has happened to the figures, but it is probably in the interests of some pupils, for example, to contemplate the possibility of a YTS scheme rather than staying on in the sixth form to retake one or two 0-levels or going through to a full A-level course. We are carefully monitoring what is happening, and the main thing is to ensure that people take well-informed choices in the genuine interests of the individuals seeking to make the transition from school to work.

Obviously I cannot comment on the proposals that my hon. Friend makes about the structure of government, but on the issue that lies behind it, I hope that when he looks at the White Paper he will see it as a considerable breakthrough in narrowing the gap between the world of education and the world of work. It brings together the objectives of good education and good training policy very considerably. The two Departments are working closely together. The beginning of the White Paper contains a statement of the objectives of my Department, and it concludes with a statement of the objectives of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. Between the pages is a considerable improvement in the system that will bring the two closer together and make the transition from school to work much better.

Does the Minister agree that the careers preparation scheme for those between the ages of 14 and 18 has in recent years been confused and frustrating for such people? Therefore, the thrust of his statement is welcome. Can he also assure the House that in the new TVEI—as distinct from a regrettable lack in the pilot TVEIs—there will be ample bridges and ladders for young people who in midstream find themselves on the wrong course so that they can change direction and be assisted to a new level of learning if they prove able to take such courses?

As for the admirable de Ville recommendations, which the Government are so wisely accepting, what precisely will the Government do to enable the 35 per cent. of our adult work force with no qualifications to obtain them, or are they merely erecting new and rather impressive goal posts without assisting people to shoot for goal?

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman's extremely clear analysis of the problems that people are facing in moving to their careers from the ages of 14 to 18, and I hope that this statement helps to bridge that gap.

I shall certainly draw the hon. Gentleman's remarks to the attention of those responsible for looking at the applications submitted by education authorities. I am sure that the education authorities will seek to build in the necessary ladders to enable people to correct choices that they might make mistakenly during this vital period of their educational lives.

The criteria for the curriculum that we are setting down are today being published by my right hon. Friend, and it is important that these schemes are set up in the right way.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for welcoming the new system for national vocational arrangements. It is indeed important that a higher proportion of our population get training and qualifications of good quality before and during their working lives. The Government have already doubled the number of people that they are assisting to obtain that training, but it requires a greater effort on the part of society as a whole and British employers to increase the amount of training in our economy.

I welcome the extension of TVEI, which has been a great success in two schools in my constituency. Is my right hon. and learned Friend satisfied that employers will be able to play their part by providing sufficient work experience places for people on these courses?

I am delighted to hear that the pilot schemes have gone so well in Bolton. I believe that employers will readily provide the number of places required to give work experience to pupils. Such places are of enormous benefit to pupils, because they enable them to have an insight into what it will be like when they take up a career while they are still taking advantage of their

The Paymaster General referred to his MSC responsibilities in Scotland. How much of the £90 million coming from the MSC budget is earmarked for Scotland, and how will the new Scottish Vocational Education Council dovetail with the arrangements that are being proposed for England and Wales?

In answer to the hon. Gentleman's first point, Scotland has taken considerable advantage of the pilot schemes. As Strathclyde is such a large authority, it has several pilots within its territory. I believe that it is the only authority which has several pilot schemes. The announcement that I made today on TVEI applies fully to Scotland, which will receive at least its fair share of the available resources if experience is anything to go by.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has decided that he wishes to make progress with the changes already in hand in Scotland under his 16-plus policy. However, the Scottish Office will have observer status in the national council and will keep in touch with developments on the National Council for Vocational Qualifications which will apply directly to England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

I welcome the statement which my right hon. and learned Friend has been able to make on his birthday, which will help many young people to become better qualified through their education. However, has he had any discussions with the trade unions to enable them to become more up to date? Has he consulted the trade unions with the aim of encouraging them to provide apprenticeships and so help young people when they leave school and enter a place of work? The trade unions are still old-fashioned in that area and it is time that they came to terms with the 1980s and 1990s.

I was proposing to spend my birthday at Wimbledon at one stage. However, I was absolutely delighted to find myself spending my birthday in the Chamber delivering my statement instead, as it is of great value to the young people involved.

Oscar de Ville's working party contained people from the world of education, employers and trade unionists. It was a remarkable achievement that these bodies reached unanimity. They all agreed on the analysis of the problem and the Government have accepted their proposals. One of the most important facets of the new national council's work is that it will accredit qualifications which are based on measuring the standards of performance and ability of someone who has been trained for that qualification. It will rely to a much lesser extent than was previously the case, on time-served or academic qualification before admission can be obtained. That is an important step as it brings everyone concerned into the 20th century and into line with the modern economy that is likely to exist.

Will the Paymaster General confirm what some of us thought that he said, that the money that he has announced this afternoon represents £30,000 per school? Can he say when he will be ready to receive applications? Will he give an assurance that those local education authorities such as Bradford which have co-operated in the pilot study, will be given sympathy if applications are submitted for the national scheme, bearing in mind that Bradford has been starved of education resources and is unique amongst local education authorities in facing a considerable increase in school rolls?

I will not say that I was leaving a few noughts off my figures, but the figure that I finally gave of £30,000 per school was the correct figure. That would be an average figure. It does not mean that there will be precisely £30,000 for each school. In each case, the local authority will determine exactly how it distributes the money between its various schools. The new national extension will come into effect from September 1987. Obviously, applications will come in and be considered between now and then.

There are a few local authorities which, for one reason or another, have not felt able to participate in the pilots. We will expect these authorities to have a three-year pilot scheme before that is extended. It is important to build up the initiative in such a way that people build on their experience of TVEI. If, as I believe, Bradford has been participating, it should be well placed to submit an application and to take advantage of the scheme on a much wider scale.

Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that his presence here today supports the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Sir W. van Straubenzee) about the fact that this is a Department of Employment statement rather than a DES statement? Does he agree that it is odd that some local education authorities are not participating? If it is so important, and the previous Labour Government started this debate in 1977, to have a more practical thrust in British education, the authorities should be required to ensure that all pupils of that age group take part in TVEI.

Will my right hon. and learned Friend comment on the fact that a long time scale is involved under the national vocational qualification — to 1991 — and there is a pressing need to quicken the process up? It is not a good precedent to consider the Engineering Council and the Finniston report and the amount of time that has been taken to get more direction through that body?

On the first point, the present constitutional position is such that this is essentially a voluntary arrangement. It is up to each local authority to decide whether it wishes to participate and whether it wishes to apply for funds. There has, however, been a rapid increase in the number of authorities taking part in the initiative. I very much hope and believe that the remaining 18 will rapidly take advantage of the opportunity again being presented to them to come into the scheme, acquire additional funds and broaden the curriculum available to their pupils.

On the second point, there is a great deal of work to be done by the national council in beginning to pull together the present mish-mash of qualifications. Although 1991 seems some way away, the council has a formidable undertaking to take on in collaboration with all the certifying bodies and all the examination bodies.

Will the White Paper proposals be flexible enough to cater for the special needs of schools in socially deprived areas, where the big problem is in getting 16-year-old low achievers to stay on at school to take advantage of TVEI? If the proposals do not specifically include that, will he and his colleagues look sympathetically at such representations as may he made?

Each local authority will obviously look at the particular problems of its schools when putting in an application and deciding how it wishes to distribute the available funds among the various schools. I very much hope that broadening the curriculum in this way will make staying on at school more attractive to many young people, particularly those living in districts of the kind described by the hon. Gentleman who probably have the most advantage to derive from it. An average amount of £30,000 per school per year can make a significant difference in what a school is able to offer.

May I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on widening the scheme? Does he agree that the success of TVEI has been due partly to the value of the course content and thus the pupils' interest in what they are doing and partly to the fact that the scheme has always been well staffed? As the staff required will have to come out of a teacher shortage area, will there be any problems in staffing the widened scheme? Will he also consider giving parity of esteem to pupils involved in A-levels, YTS and TVEI? Does he agree that if one group is advantaged compared with another, pupils may not always make the right choice for their needs?

I note my hon. Friend's comments about the courses being well staffed. The money available will certainly extend to an additional member of staff—not necessarily always a member of the teaching staff, but perhaps a technician—in each of the schools involved, with other expenditure on equipment, and so on. That is what authorities find best. The extent to which this might increase demand for teachers in shortage subjects is outside my responsibility and outside the scope of my statement today, but it is no doubt being addressed, among other things, by all concerned in the discussions about teachers' remuneration and career structures currently taking place under the auspices of ACAS.

With regard to parity of esteem among the various qualifications, I agree with my hon. Friend. It is important that pupils of all abilities have a clear and intelligible choice before them and that they make the right decision for their own case in terms of what suits their temperament and career wishes. The various paths through A-levels, YTS and TVEI, possibly followed by A-levels or some other qualification, are now coming together to present a much better and clearer way forward for the average 14 to 16-year-old contemplating the possibilities available.

Does the Minister agree that to get the best value at 14 additional resources are needed for education before the age of 14 and that to differentiate between today's training statement and a possible education statement is dangerous and false in that respect? Is he aware that the recent report by Her Majesty's inspectors shows that the scarcity of resources for books and school buildings is having a damaging effect on education at all ages? Does he accept that until we put education right at an earlier age we shall not obtain the value of the money announced today to do the things that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has mentioned?

On this occasion, we are talking about new resources for local education authorities in a particular part of their education system. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science will clearly not diminish his interest in problems in the rest of the education system, including the need for more expenditure on books and repairs. I believe that recent reports on the education system show that more money alone is not necessarily the answer. The Audit Commission, Her Majesty's inspectors and others have suggested that improved management of resources also has a part to play.

I welcome today's statement, but has my right hon. and learned Friend considered taking the process further by discussing with our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science the setting up of technical and vocational schools on continental lines, particularly on the lines of the West German hauptschule which I suppose might be loosely translated as "secondary modern"? Do I take it that we are now rejecting the Socialist concept that there is something inferior about technical training and that all children should be force fed with academic training with the result that large numbers of children leave school without any qualifications at all and totally alienated from the education system?

Like my hon. Friend, I hope that we are rejecting any distinction in status between academic and technical education. The boundary is often artificial and impossible to draw. All these qualifications should be available to pupils of all abilities so that they may choose one route or another. Questions on the structure of our schools should continue to be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science.

As the Paymaster General purported to speak as a United Kingdom Minister, why did his statement not explain the impact of the new scheme on Scotland? In view of the disgraceful lack of information provided in response to the question put to him by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Craigen), will the Paymaster General now tell the House how the scheme will affect Scotland as we have had no information so far?

I made the statement because of my responsibilities for the Manpower Services Commission, which operates in England, Wales and Scotland. I have responsibilities for the MSC in all three countries but not for education in any of those places. I have made it clear that the part of my statement concerned with technical and vocational education applies to Scotland as much as to England and Wales and that we expect full Scottish participation in that initiative. On the review of vocational qualifications, the Scots are pursuing a separate path, having already embarked on their own policy, but they will retain observer status in what we are doing. Both Departments agree that we must have qualifications accepted throughout the United Kingdom. We are keeping closely in line on these matters, but my statement about the new national council does not apply directly to Scotland.

rose—

I will do my best to call those hon. Members who have been seeking to catch my eye.

I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's statement, but I am sorry that his Civil Service advisers did not read the whole of my maiden speech, including the part concerning qualifications, in which I suggested that the City and Guilds might be expanded. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that that institution, of well over 100 years' standing, enjoys international as well as national repute, that it has all the qualifications modules on base and that employers accept City and Guilds qualifications beyond all others? hope that it will not be stifled.

A large number of bodies give qualifications of one kind or another, but the field is dominated by a few. Bodies such as the City and Guilds, the Royal Society of Arts and the Business and Technician Education Council all provide very well known and well recognised qualifications and they will continue to do so. The new national council will not supplant them in any way by giving qualifications of its own but will set up a framework into which all the qualifications from the various certifying bodies can be fitted so that they can be accredited by the council and people can understand exactly how one relates to another. People seeking qualifications and employers seeking qualified people will then have a better understanding of the relationship between one qualification and another. The City and Guilds will continue its very distinguished work, but its qualifications will now fit into a far more intelligible framework governing the qualifications of all the certifying bodies.

I welcome the statement made by my right hon. and learned Friend. Does he agree that the important progress that the Government have made in the provision of opportunities for technical and vocational education needs to be complemented by a vigorous continuation of the programme of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education to make the content of education more appropriate for less academic children from the primary stage? Does not my right hon. and learned Friend agree that we have to devote too many resources of time and money to remedial education in basic numeracy and literacy in the 14 to 18-year-old age group?

I believe that this policy fits in with the Government's whole policy of examining the content of education in schools to ensure its relevance and to maintain good quality academic standards. Certainly I am told repeatedly that in many YTS schemes a great deal of time has to be spent in the first place on essentially remedial education to make up for deficiencies in the basic skills that my hon. Friend has described.

In the event that a local education authority asks for this money and is granted it, can my right hon. and learned Friend assure the House that it will be possible to ensure that that money is used on that project and not generally? For instance, would my right hon. and learned Friend be content to give that money to the alliance-controlled Devon county council which,while constantly criticising the Government for lack of funding for training and educational matters, has just approved £25,000 expenditure on a car for the chairman?

Education authorities can make application to the Manpower Services Commission for the appropriate sum of money. That money will be granted once a deal has been struck between the MSC and the education authority on what the money is to be spent on and what changes are to be made in the curriculum and content of the school's programme. One reason why some local education authorities are not participating at the moment is that they put in applications that were rejected because they would not bring themselves into line with the objectives of the technical and vocational education initiative. That is how we shall ensure that the money being allocated to TVEI goes on worthwhile TVEI objectives. Other than that, I do not want to get drawn into what I hope will be fruitful negotiation between the MSC and Devon county council if it chooses to apply.

In congratulating my right hon. and learned Friend on his most welcome statement, may I suggest that the success of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications is likely to rest largely on the calibre of the people invited to serve on it? Can he shed any further light on the criteria that will be used to select people to serve on that body? Can he assure the House that the qualifications that are approved by that body will bear a relationship to the actual rather than the theoretical needs of industry in general and of the service industries in particular?

As I have announced, during the early formative stages of the council the chairman will be Mr. Oscar de Ville. I am not in a position to announce the full membership. Our objective will be to have people with practical experience of the world of work and of education, who will represent a broad range of interests and experience required to make the system relevant both for trainees and for the needs of industry and the world of work outside. I accept my hon. Friend's introduction, that the success of the council will depend to a large degree on the quality of the people who are appointed and who agree to serve on the council.

Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the pilot schemes under TVEI in Bedfordshire have been enormously successful, both in the full schools and in the linked schools? Is he aware that almost every upper school will be looking hungrily at the £30,000 that might be available to it? How much, overall, can Bedfordshire expect to get in money terms out of the £90 million?

I am delighted to hear again that the pilot has been so successful in Bedforshire. I am sure that I shall find somewhere an example of a pilot that has not gone down so well, but I have not yet. The reaction of everyone concerned over the country has been pretty well as my hon. and learned Friend has described. Therefore, I suspect that there will be no lack of applications. I regret that off the cuff I cannot put a figure on the likely sum that might go to his county, but if anyone can make an estimate I shall put it in a letter to my hon. and learned Friend.

May I assure my right hon. and learned Friend that Crosby and other parts of Merseyside where skill shortages and a general lack of vocational training have been identified as problems, his statement will be greatly welcomed? Can he assure us that in the reform and development of the curriculum there will be adequate monitoring of the input that will be essential from employers and industry if the scheme is to succeed? As my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, North (Mr. Gale) has already said, it is important to ensure that people of the right calibre are on the council and that they have an input into the reform of the curriculum. That has long been identified as one of the deficiencies in developing vocational training in schools. Can my right hon. and learned Friend assure us that there will be adequate monitoring of that factor?

There will indeed be monitoring of the technical and vocational education initiative as it goes forward. Changes in the curriculum will be determined by agreement between the Manpower Services Commission and the individual local authority. My hon. Friend will be able to see in a written answer by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science the kind of criteria that we shall expect local authorities to fulfil when they make applications for funds under the initiative. I believe that one of the advantages of the change will be to bring industry and local employers into close contact with the schools, because it is in everybody's interests that schools turn out people who are prepared to meet the needs of local industry to help revive the economy in such a depressed area as Merseyside.

I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's statement and his continuing commitment in supporting technical and vocational training in schools. Does he not agree that one of the major problems is that careers guidance in schools has failed dismally and that the Government have to pick up the tab and give genuine advice? Does he not also agree that the successes of the YTS — [Interruption] —particularly in Leicester where 80 per cent. of those on the scheme now have genuine jobs, shows that the Government are totally committed to giving a real opportunity to the young, something that the Labour party always seems to be negative about. This Government provides real help, genuine qualifications and an opportunity for young people.

It is my impression that the quality of careers guidance available varies considerably from place to place. The criteria we are laying down for TVEI put emphasis on the need for good careers guidance within the schools that participate. I agree about its importance. I am grateful for what my hon. Friend said about the efforts that we are making to help young people. Of course, we still have a desperately difficult unemployment position and we still have far too many unemployed young people. I am glad that the rate of unemployment amongst those under 20 is dropping sharply—by 10 per cent. for that age range. Obviously we have to make sure that that continues. It will continue, partly as a result of the announcement today.

Can the Secretary of State clear up a mystery that seems to have developed during his answers to his colleagues? The figure of £30,000 per school does not add up to the right amount if he is talking about a national scheme. How soon will this be a truly national scheme covering all schools that want to take part and all pupils? When will he give consideration to the strong point made by the hon. Member for Wokingham (Sir W. van Straubenzee) that, to give real choice and real coordination of that choice at 16, we need educational maintenance allowances? His answer was not good enough. The extent of take-up in staying on at school in this country is appalling compared to our competitors.

The purpose of answering questions is to solve mysteries rather than create them. I shall check on the consequences of my arithmetic for a national scheme. The figures that I gave in the body of the statement show how we expect expenditure to build up over the first two or three years. We expect average expenditure over the next 10 years of £90 million each year on this initiative. Where we go will depend to a large extent on the way in which local authorities react to the initiative, how quickly they come forward with applications and on their decisions about the extent to which they intend to take advantage of the initiative. It will also in part depend on the way in which young people react and on the effect on the number who choose to stay at school and on the number who choose to go outside to YTS and so on.

In regard to the suggestion about educational maintenance grants to encourage young people to continue studying after 16, I know of no evidence to support the beliefs of some people that the lack of a maintenance allowance reduces significantly the number who stay on after 16. It would be extremely expensive to introduce such a scheme. One has only to consider student grants to realise the difficulties that arise in trying to get the right priority between expenditure on meeting the living costs of the pupils and expenditure on the educational system itself. The expenditure proposed on positive improvements in the quality of education that is available to young people is the first priority for our money.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. While my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East, (Mr. Bruinvels) was asking his question, I distinctly heard the hon. Member for Islington, North, (Mr. Corbyn) say that my hon. Friend had been raised in a circus. Judging by the dress of the hon. Member for Islington, North, if anyone has been raised in a circus, it is him. But did not the hon. Gentleman make an unparliamentary remark about my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East, especially as we were both educated at the same convent?

I am lost for words. Fortunately, my microphones do not pick up everything that is said in the Chamber.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Just to clarify the matter, I said that I thought that the hon. Member for Leicester, East, (Mr. Bruinvels) had started his career in a circus, and ended up in a pantomine.

I am glad that I did not hear.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to update the law affecting the importation of obscene articles and to increase the penalties therefor and to amend the Obscene Publications Act 1959 and the Customs Consolidation Act 1876.

The present law is completely anomalous. Any book or article imported into the United Kingdom is subject to the Customs Consolidation Act 1876. That Act leaves interpretation wide open to individual Customs officers, and sometimes gives rise to highly peculiar decisions about the seizure, impounding or prosecution of particular items. However, any book or article that is home produced and published within the country is subject to the Obscene Publications Act 1959, which carries with it the important test of a tendency to deprave and corrupt, along with the potential defence of literary merit.

For all its faults, the Obscene Publications Act is much better, and much more tightly drawn than the Customs Consolidation Act. It leaves less scope for the operation of arbitrary censorship. Sometimes, the same book can be treated differently under each of the two Acts. For example, a few weeks ago we learnt with sadness of the death of Jean Genet, the French author. Upon his death, the press rightly lavished much praise upon him. His book "Querelle" has been widely available, quite legally, and is approved under the Obscene Publications Act.

However, two years ago that hook was impounded by Customs when it was being imported into Britain, and was made the subject of a prosecution under the Customs Consolidation Act. It is surely nonsense that precisely the same material should be legally available under one Act because it is produced in this country, but should be open to prosecution under another Act, because it is being imported. There is an obvious need to clear up that anomaly and to bring all material, whether home-produced or imported, under precisely the same definition. That is what my Bill seeks to do: to bring all such material within the scope of the Obscene Publications Act 1959.

The law is not only anomalous but has, in recent months, been thrown into confusion. The European Court recently ruled in the Conegate case that any material that was imported from the EEC should be subject to the same provisions as material produced here, thus creating a difference between material imported from the EEC and material imported from non-EEC countries.

Further confusion has arisen following the Customs and Excise decision of last Friday to drop all its charges against the Gay"s the Word bookshop in Marchrnont street, London. It was right that it should take that decision. The outdated law—the Customs Consolidation Act—was being operated in a discriminatory way. I am delighted that that will no longer happen, but the decision of Customs and Excise leaves a legal uncertainty that requires clarification.

This Bill is the best way of clarifying the situation. Not only is the law anomalous and uncertain, but the existing state of the law inappropriately diverts resources which could be much better employed in the real protection of this country. With a flood of hard drugs coming into Britain from abroad, and with reductions in the staffing of the Customs and Excise service, Customs officers must have better things to do than to act as censors of what the British public can or cannot read or buy.

The Bill is a simple measure which carries within it a simple point. It is supported by the Booksellers Association, the Publishers Association, the Society of Authors, the National Council for Civil Liberties and the Society of Civil and Public Servants, which organises staff within the Customs and Excise service. The Bill will help to make sense of an anomalous, absurd and out-dated bit of law that has been, and can be, used in a profoundly discriminatory fashion.

I commend the Bill to the House.

I beg to move,

That the draft Supplementary Benefit (Requirements and Resources) Miscellaneous Amendment Regulations 1986, which were laid before this House on 18th June, be approved.

With this, I understand that it will be convenient to discuss the following:

That the draft Supplementary Benefit (Requirements and Resources) Amendment Regulations 1986, which were laid before this House on 26th June, be approved.

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Social Security (Unemployment, Sickness and Invalidity Benefit) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 1986 (S.I., 1986, No. 1011), dated 13th June 1986, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th June, be annulled.

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Supplementary Benefit (Conditions of Entitlement) Amendment Regulations 1986 (S.I., 1986, No. 1010), dated 13th June 1986, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th June, be annulled.

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Housing Benefits Amendment (No. 3) Regulation 1986 (S.I., 1986, No. 1009), dated 13th June 1986, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18th June, be annulled.

It must be acknowledged that any link, other than for debating purposes, between some of these regulations is somewhat tenuous. The regulations refer to two particular aspects of the benefit system, and so my speech will correspondingly fall into two halves. I shall discuss first those parts of the regulations that concern the position of students in relation to social security.

As the House knows, the background to the proposals can be found in the view expressed now for a long time by the Government, which is reflected in the social security Green Paper of 1985 and in the social security White Paper of December 1985, and which has been clearly stated by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and myself several times in the House. In the long term, it cannot he sensible that students be subject to two separate but related systems of support. It cannot be satisfactory to have students permanently dependent on a system—the social security system—that is principally designed for those who, for various reasons, cannot work, rather than for those who have withdrawn voluntarily from the labour market in order to study.

That general view is not confined to the Government. As the Opposition and others have fairly made clear, it also has their broad assent. The same is true of the Social Security Advisory Committee and of many students. The issue in relation to students is perhaps not one of principle, but of how we can return to a situation that almost everyone really wants.

In January, the Government published a set of proposals concerning social security benefits for students and associated proposals concerning the grant for students living away from home. Those were put to the Social Security Advisory Committee for consultation. I pay tribute to the committee. It engaged in a substantial and thorough consultation exercise. We are grateful to the committee for its work.

I met the National Union of Students in what I felt, and I hope it felt, was a useful and constructive meeting. I need hardly say that Ministers and officials received a substantial stream of representations from Members of Parliament and others about the consultative proposals.

It is fair to say that the consultation revealed a view that, while some steps on social security were generally thought to be appropriate, others went somewhat further than was generally felt right at that stage. It was felt that some of the proposals needed further consideration in conjunction with a review of the main system of student support.

The Government have responded considerably to both those lines of concern. The social security proposals have been modified significantly. However, they maintain the proposed £36 additional grant increase to students living away from home. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science said in a statement to the House on 18 June, the Government have

"decided to institute a comprehensive review of all aspects of financial support for students"—[Official Report, 18 June 1986; Vol. 99, c. 1046 ]

The debate is concerned with the modified social security proposals. It may be easier if I deal with them in terms of comparison with the proposals originally put forward in January. Essentially, we are proceeding with four of the original changes in the forthcoming academic year — 1986–87. First, supplementary benefit and unemployment benefit will be removed in short vacations. I emphasise the word "short" because there was some initial misunderstanding. It was never proposed that the measure should apply to long vacations. The benefits will be removed in short vacations. Support is provided in the grant for short vacations. That points to the fact that students are indeed students at such times, and not unemployed people.

We know that many students have course work to do in short vacations. They may even have to get their tutors' permission to do any paid work. In future, we shall treat them as being on their courses for the whole of the grant-aided period. There is also an administrative consideration. I think the House knows that we are in the somewhat absurd position whereby it costs £1 to deliver every £3 of unemployment benefit. The position is even more absurd with supplementary benefit when small sums of money are often involved.

Secondly, housing benefit will be removed for halls of residence. In general, hall fees need not be as high as private rents since the aim is simply to cover their costs. Therefore, we see no justification for bolstering hall fees via a kind of alternative housing benefit subsidy, especially since that entails wholly disproportionate administrative costs in which £5 of benefit paid out costs £3 to administer. I stress that there is one significant, and I hope helpful, modification to the proposal concerning halls of residence in that the exclusion will not apply where the education institutions are acting simply as intermediaries between students and private landlords. Using the jargon of the trade, the problem is known as head leases. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten) for the part he played in bringing the problem to our attention.

Thirdly, students' income will be averaged across the whole grant-aided period, instead of them being treated as having different amounts of grant available in the term time and in short vacations. That logical proposal has been widely welcomed. It is, again, something which is sensible not least for its administrative advantages. The change will prevent the need for local authorities to undertake up to six reassessments of housing benefit and will help to reduce delays in processing claims both for students and other claimants, especially those in university towns.

Fourthly, the regulations will restore our policy on the treatment of students' income from deeds of covenant. Some hon. Members will be aware, especially those representing university towns, that a commissioners' decision last year led to a position in which students would have had the parental contribution to the grant taken into account during the summer, which the grant is not intended to cover. As soon as that came to my notice during last year's summer parliamentary recess, I initiated urgent extra-statutory action to overcome the injustice involved. Since then, we have made extra-statutory payments to prevent losses to individual students.

The regulations will restore our policy that the assessed contribution to the grant should not be taken into account outside the grant-aided period. Should a parent choose to be generous and give his student son or daughter covenanted money in excess of the contribution to the grant, we shall take the excess into account over 52 weeks, subject to the usual disregard.

Those are the four social security proposals from the original package that are going ahead, broadly as originally proposed, but with some modification. Alongside those proposals, we are proceeding with the extension of the students' dependants' hardship scheme to cover two-parent families as well as single-parent families for the full year which is the position at present.

We shall continue to make two changes contained in the original package a year later than we originally intended. One concerns the proposal that housing benefit should no longer be payable to students who take accommodation specifically to study and then leave it empty in the long vacation for more than a brief period. We have made no secret of our view that it cannot be right that housing benefit should pay large numbers of students for accommodation in which they do not live—perhaps for over three months. The measure does not affect accommodation in which students actually live. It only affects accommodation in which they do not live.

What happens to property which is not occupied by students during the summer? Is it relet to someone else? Does the hon. Gentleman understand that enormous turmoil is caused in a student's life when he returns at the end of a vacation and someone else has taken the property?

Historically, students have managed to overcome the problem. It is only in recent years that students have received housing benefit on any significant scale. I acknowledge, in part, the point that the hon. Gentleman made. That is why the proposal was deferred. Our original intention was to implement it effectively from this month. We have deferred that until next year, because we have listened to the view that to have introduced the change this summer would have caused undue difficulty for students who would already have entered into commitments for the current year. To ease the problem, we deferred the proposal for a full year, until the long summer vacation of 1987.

It seemed right to us to defer the proposed improvement in the disregards for housing benefit — a disregard of the amounts in the grant for books and travelling costs. It must be right to bring housing benefit in line with supplementary benefit. That is what we intend to do. That is a helpful move. Alongside the deferment of the measure to which I have just referred, we are also deferring the proposal until the academic year 1987–88.

Apart from deferring the long vacation changes until next year, we propose to make a concession which will modify the effects of the proposal for existing non-grant-aided students. Those who do not live in their parents' home but have to rent accommodation are clearly the most vulnerable group. One effect of the fact that the regulations treat all students in the same way would have been a reduction in housing benefit entitlement for non-grant-aided students. To protect those already on their courses, who would have made certain assumptions about their income and the benefit they were likely to get, we shall allow them to carry on claiming on the same basis as before, so that they do not lose benefit. That concession will last until April 1988 and the introduction of the new housing benefit scheme. By that time, we expect that the vast majority of non-grant-aided students will have finished or be about to finish their courses.

Those are the two proposals which we have deferred rather than dropped.

Lastly, there is one proposal which we have withdrawn. It would have changed the method of calculating housing benefit for students, and would have taken the grant accommodation element fully into account instead of only partially. Although this can be seen as doing no more than putting students on the same footing as other claimants, it was clearly felt in the consulation process that it could cause disproportionate difficulty, perhaps particularly in London. We have, therefore, withdrawn that proposal. I think that is widely seen to have been an appropriate action.

On a number of occasions, when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made his statement and since, hon. Members have made it clear that they wish to know what the practical effects will be for students. More than 400,000 in all will be affected, and we estimate that some 140,000 of them will gain the full value of the £36 increase in the grant for students living away from home. The effect on the rest will vary, depending on their particular circumstances. I reaffirm what my right hon. Friend said at the time of his statement, that it is not possible to make generalisations beyond the 140,000 about the numbers and levels of the losses because students' circumstances vary so much, especially their housing benefit entitlements. Some students will gain less than £36; some will come out with more or less a neutral effect; and some will have a measure of reduced entitlement overall. Taken as a whole, it is now widely accepted that our proposed steps are a sensible move to simplify and rationalise the present system and to remove some of the worst anomalies and complications, while making some contribution towards the longer-term aim, which is generally accepted by both sides of the House.

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned three times the £36 extra that students will receive. Would he quarrel with the figure put forward by a number of students' organisations that during the eight-week vacation students will lose welfare entitlements worth £309?

Without the details of the particular calculation in front of me, it is obviously difficult to comment in detail, but that cannot be conceivably true of the general number of students affected by these proposals. The precise effect on any given student depends on his particular circumstances. It will vary according to those circumstances. For example, a student whose only benefit entitlement is a modest amount of supplementary benefit in the short vacations would not suffer a loss on anything like that scale. It would obviously be much tidier and neater for me if I could generalise. Points of the kind which the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) has reported were made in other quarters simply cannot be made to stand up as generalisations. It is grossly misleading to suggest that that represents the general pattern of the effect on students of these proposals.

Given the Minister's reticence in giving us figures on the impact of these changes on students, will he at least inform us of the number of students currently receiving housing benefit in respect of halls of residence who will cease to be eligible to receive that benefit as a result of his proposed changes?

From memory — I shall ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to correct this later if I am wrong — about 80,000 students are receiving housing benefit in halls of residence. I want to emphasise that most of the amounts are very small.

The student benefit regulations represent a sensible, limited step towards simplification and rationalisation and towards removal of anomalies. They are a step in the appropriate long-term direction and I commend them to the House.

I come now to the other set of regulations concerning board and lodging. Although their main subject is board and lodging, I should make it clear that the new regulations also cover a change announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in his uprating statement in February. The Supplementary Benefit (Requirements and Resources) Amendment Regulations make provision for changes in non-householder contribution and non-dependant deductions made from supplementary benefit. From 28 July no new awards of the non-householder contribution will be made to non-householders aged 21 to 24. Equally, no deductions will be made from the householder's supplementary benefit or housing benefit in respect of such non-dependants in that age group, so the poorest householders will therefore remain fully protected. This change is consistent with bringing the current supplementary benefit scheme into line with the proposed income support arrangements. The regulations provide only for changes in the supplementary benefit provisions. Regulations providing for changes in non-dependant deductions from housing benefit will be made shortly.

I come now to the main purpose of these regulations which concerns the board and lodging limits, both financial and other. As the House is aware, the draft regulations give effect to the outcome of the Government's proposed review of the financial limits from 28 July, the date of the supplementary benefit uprating. As I said in my statement on 18 June, we undertook to monitor carefully the operation of the revised arrangements introduced last year. We have now placed in the Library copies of the extensive—I might almost say voluminous—monitoring and statistical surveys which have been undertaken by us or for us, including the report by the consultants Ernst and Whinney on residential and nursing homes.

As I told the House on 18 June in respect of our concern about the growth in ordinary board and lodging payments, our latest figures show that the position at the time we acted was significantly worse than we had realised even then. In 1984, expenditure on ordinary board and lodging rose not to £380 million, as we thought earlier, but to more than £500 million, representing an increase of no less than 80 per cent. in a single year. At the same time, there was a 45 per cent. increase in the number of boarders, to more than 160,000.

As I said at the time of my statement, our monitoring fully confirms the existence of the accommodation market, heavily influenced by the available benefit rather than by normal commercial considerations, with widespread advertising to attract payments. In the light of our concern and the outcome of the monitoring, the House will be aware that one thing these regulations do not include is a general increase in the financial limits for ordinary board and lodging or in the related meals allowance. On our evidence, we did not believe that such increases were justified at the present time, and we felt that the evidence showed no case either for an increase in the hostel limits.

There is, however, one change in the shape of the regulations to which I should draw attention. We have taken the opportunity to incorporate in the regulations the main details of the ordinary board and lodging areas, the financial limits and the time limits by including them as a schedule. A number of representations were made to us that this would be more convenient than having them available only in a separate HMSO booklet, although that separate booklet containing maps and details of relevant DHSS local offices will continue to be available for the convenience of those who prefer to have it in that form.

There are two principal changes in the regulations in relation to ordinary board and lodging. The first is relatively limited and important and the other is of perhaps rather wider significance. The first is, of course, our decision that the ordinary board and lodging limit for couples without young children, which is currently one and three quarter times the single adult limit, should be increased to twice the single limit to avoid some of the difficulties about which representations were made to us. I hope that that will be thought helpful. The other, which has certainly gained wider notice and is of much greater general significance, is that the regulations incorporate the necessary provisions to prevent time limits being reapplied to claimants who were in board and lodging before November 1985, as had been intended on 28 July 1986.

The new regulations extend indefinitely the exemption that operated until 28 July 1986, which was included in the previous regulations, for those being paid as boarders on 24 November 1985. New boarders aged under 26 will continue to be subject to the existing time limits unless they come within the extensive range of exemption categories designed to protect those in need of board and lodging.

The limits for residential care and nursing homes were the subject of a good deal of that monitoring and research, including the study by Ernst and Whinney to which I have already referred. Following the significant increases of £10 a week in the residential care limits and £31.40 a week in the nursing home limits in November 1985, the evidence is that, in general, the average costs in homes fall within the benefit limits and in several categories it falls well within.

As I said to the House on 18 June, we concluded that no general increase in those limits was justified, but, on looking at the point at which the fit was tightest, if I may put it that way, we felt that there was a reasonable case for some further increase in the residential care limit for the elderly. Therefore, the regulations incorporate a further increase of £5 in that limit from £120 to £125, which makes a total increase of some £15 a week in just over a year. I should emphasise that the ordinary residential care home for the elderly caters for by far the largest number of claimants in homes.

Apart from that, on the evidence that had come to us, we felt that the appropriate course was to concentrate on some more specific problems that had emerged. I should like to pay tribute to the work of a number of groups within and outside the House — the Social Security Advisory Committee, the all-party group on social services, ably chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe), and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations which, among other things, held a useful conference a few weeks ago which I was able to attend. Having listened and sought to respond to the representations that had come from those and other quarters, we felt it particularly important to make some improvement in the limits for those very dependent elderly people in residential care homes, for whom there are clearly additional costs. For elderly people in residential care homes who are very dependent and who are, in most cases, at present limited to £120 a week we have put a new limit of £140 a week in the regulations where they qualify for the higher rate of attendance allowance, which seems to be the best available indicator of the degree of dependence which is the cause of concern.

I have a smallish number of constituents whose income from all sources, including the benefits that my hon. Friend has been discussing, does not quite match the charges of the home in which they are staying. That must be common across the land. I should be grateful for some sort of slightly more elastic procedure whereby there can be some adjudication process between what is available to the resident and the charge of the owner of the home so that some means of producing a match can be achieved. Perhaps it cannot be done. Perhaps the proprietor must be told that no more money is available. However, maybe the charge is legitimate and some more money should be made available somehow. Can anything be done?

I understand and appreciate my hon. Friend's concern in this matter. I should like to make two comments. The first is that the proposals I was outlining to the House are clearly and specifically designed to introduce a greater degree of flexibility into the limits to meet the sort of problem my hon. Friend has in mind. The second is that, as some hon. Members who are present will know, we have been actively pursuing discussions with the local authority associations through two working parties to see whether we can move towards a system in which there can be more individual assessment in relation to the needs of an individual claimant and in relation to the costs and charges of individual voluntary or private homes. Clearly the expertise involved in operating such a system significantly resides in local authority social services departments rather than in local DHSS benefit offices. That is why we have put so much emphasis on seeking to develop and carry forward this endeavour to work more closely with the local authority associations. We are actively seeking to pursue that and I can only hope, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) hopes, that it will bear fruit.

As part of that effort to work more closely with the local authority associations we are intending later this year to mount some pilot studies to test possible assessment procedures within that sort of framework. Although I cannot give my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North immediate satisfaction, I hope that he will accept that we recognise the importance of the point he has raised, and, far from being one we are ignoring or neglecting, we are actively exploring whether it is possible to move closer to the sort of policy which my hon. Friend has said he would like to see.

I have referred to the severely dependent elderly in ordinary residential care homes and our concern to give additional help to them through the device involving the use of attendance allowance as an indicator of the need for a somewhat greater payment. We are putting forward in the regulations similar proposals in respect of those who are blind, especially those who became blind in old age, but are in ordinary residential care homes. There, too, we are proposing a new limit of £140 for blind people over pensionable age where it is more advantageous than their present limit.

The other significant change, which I outlined in my statement and which is contained in the regulations, is the introduction of, effectively, a higher limit for residential care and nursing homes in London. Since my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North counts as being within Greater London, I hope that this will be of some help to him. We are proposing to increase the limits by a special extension of up to £17·50 a week. As I said to the House on 18 June, when taken altogether these proposals would mean, for example, that a severely disabled or a blind elderly person in a residential care home in Greater London could get extra help of up to £37·50 a week. That is a significant improvement.

One of the other concerns that emerged from our work and from the representations made to us by many hon. Members was about claimants who entered residential care or nursing homes before April 1985 when the revised structure of limits was introduced. We made what the Social Security Advisory Committee called generous transitional arrangements ensuring that benefit continued at protected levels, in most cases for life. We are now proposing, exceptionally in terms of the conventions that normally govern transitional protection, an addition of up to £10 a week above the protected rate for those transitionally protected at July who have had no extra help towards fees increases since April 1985. That has undoubtedly been welcomed by both sides of the House. There is another provision that has undoubtedly been welcomed, in respect of which I pay a special compliment to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State who took a particular interest in it. We are proposing new provisions to help meet retaining fees for those who are away from home for a short period such as a holiday with their family.

Apart from those main changes, the regulations contain some clarificatory amendments of a beneficial nature, and change to restore the original policy intention concerning the treatment of attendance allowance in relation to the transitional protection provision.

As I said in response to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North, the regulations, with the specific and well-targeted changes that we have proposed, introduce greater flexibility, which is welcome, while maintaining a firm framework for that part of the benefit system, which is undoubtedly needed. The regulations as a whole rest on our determination to see that help is given as effectively as possible to the many people who need such help, but in a way that can be justified as compatible with the sensible administration of the benefit system as a whole. I believe that what we have proposed has been widely welcomed, and I commend the regulations to the House.

On one point at least, I am glad to say, the Minister and I are agreed. That is that there should be a single channel of support for students, and that that channel should operate through the education rather than the social security system. However, that is about as far as agreement can readily go, because beyond that point the story of how that principle is being applied by the Government has been one of muddle and mishandling. It is our strong contention that, despite the Government's concessions, they are still far from getting it right.

The Rowe report on housing benefit and the Social Security Advisory Committee both insisted that a complete overhaul of the student grant system was necessary before benefit could be withdrawn from students. That fundamental principle is still being breached by the Government. Indeed, neither the Secretary of State, when he made his statement on 18 June, nor the Minister for Social Security today has answered the basic question why it is necessary to make changes, except, perhaps, for those involving short-term vacation claims, in advance of the new review of student support.

In effect, students are being asked to take losses in benefit now in exchange for some vague, uncertain IOU, cashable at some unspecified time in the future. For students this summer, the question is not so much whether they would buy a second-hand car from the Government as whether they would part with money for a third-hand review of student grants—not a very enticing prospect in view of the aborting of the first two.

Secondly, we question whether it is warranted to carry through that upheaval when it will now produce such relatively small savings while generating major inequities among students. The original proposals would have saved about £40 million to £45 million gross, according to the Government. That is before the compensating increase in student grants and housing benefit disregards. The net figure, after compensation, is £20 million to £25 million. It is now stated by the Secretary of State that the "overall saving"—that was his phrase—will be £8–5 million this financial year and £16 million next year. Presumably that includes the extra expenditure on grants and disregards. If not, the savings would be piffling and not worth all the confusion. Even if those savings are net of the extra expenditure, the gain to the Government is still small and is certainly obtained at disproportionate cost in increased hardship to students.

The SSAC concluded in paragraph 64 of its statement:

"While students paying the highest rents—and London-based students in particular—will sustain significant losses, up to 140,000 students will receive a windfall of £36 unrelated to their needs."

The SSAC goes on in paragraph 65:

"The proposal to switch some of the specifically targeted benefit savings to an indiscriminate increase in student grants does not, in our view, make sense, and would produce major inequity within the student population."

Our third major objection is that, even despite the concessions that the Government have made, the cuts that are retained, especially those on halls of residence and unoccupied property in the long vacation, remain unfair. I accept that the Government have adopted, in their statement on the SSAC report, a number of the protective measures suggested by the SSAC for the so-called "problem groups"—not a happy phrase. Examples are transitional protection for students without awards, head leasing—I did not know what that meant until I read that paragraph—of accommodation and short absences during the summer vacation. Nevertheless, there remains a core of inequity in the cuts on which the Government are still insisting.

The Government still intend to withdraw housing benefit for students in halls of residence, without compensation, as the Minister made clear today. The SSAC recommended that that was warrantable only on the basis of three conditions. I quote paragraph 41 of the SSAC's report:

"We recommend that the funds currently devoted to housing benefit for students in halls of residence should be transferred to the University Grants Committee and used to subsidise university accommodation; the Government should consider the problems of vacation occupancy; and steps should be taken to ensure that only halls of residence and similar accommodation and not other types of tenancy are

The Government's answer to those points, such as it is, is partial and unconvincing. The Minister hardly touched on it today. One feels when one reads the answer that the Government, having retreated a little, for which we are grateful, are still determined to have their pound of flesh, whatever the logic. That retained cut is one of the victims of that determination.

Another example is the retained housing benefit exclusion from unoccupied property in the long vacation. In paragraph 47 of its report, the SSAC said:

"we are seriously concerned about the possible short-term effects of the proposed change. Even if the student housing market responds in the desired manner students may suffer stress and hardship during the period of transition. We suggest that the results of the change should be monitored carefully so that if there is evidence of serious hardship appropriate steps can he taken."

The Government argue that by deferring the change for a year they are meeting the SSAC's objection. They are not. The same problems of uncertainty, confusion and loss will simply recur, but a year later.

More generally, the SSAC argues that students have little choice in their housing. The growth in student numbers has not been matched, in general, by the growth in the provision of university accommodation. Moreover, it is true that students are forced to compete at a considerable disadvantage in a shrinking private rented sector. They require only a short tenancy and they possess fairly low income, in general. Therefore, the effect of the regulations where there is a shortage of accommodation — I take the point made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill Mr. Alton)—will be to force students to take a 12-months lease without housing benefit cover for the summer months. That is the only way in which they can protect their housing when there is a shortage. That is scarcely fair or right. Like the iniquitous 20 per cent. cut in housing benefit for supplementary benefit claimants in the Social Security Bill, which is now rightly being struck out in another place, that is a straightforward, downright cut in benefit for which the Government have provided no adequate justification. For that reason, it remains as objectionable today as it was when the Government first announced it in December.

The Minister seemed coy about his mathematics on the housing benefit cuts. He said that 400,000 students will be affected, of whom 140,000 will gain. My arithmetic suggests that about 260,000 will be either in the same position or will lose. If he wishes to clarify that, I should be grateful.

I offer only a modest qualification. There is the possibility — I cannot put numbers on it — that some people who receive less than £36 a year in social security benefits, which may include those small sums charged by some halls of residence, will also be net gainers.

Are they included in the 140,000 who will gain or will they be in addition to that?

The 140,000 are those whom we estimate to be living away from home but not receiving any social security benefits. Therefore, they will gain overall by the full extent of the £36 grant increase

I understand that point. However, it would be a reasonable generalisation to assume that from 200,000 to 250,000 will lose, albeit some by only fairly small amounts.

What makes the housing benefit cuts all the more objectionable in principle is that, contrary to the Government's protestations that they are simply transferring support from social security to the education system, they are cutting both. We have been told that, even after concessions, the housing benefit cuts for students will amount to about £16 million in a full year. On the other side of the coin, student grants have fallen in real value by 20 per cent. while the Government have been in office. In terms of the current grant, that is a cut of £360 in purchasing power today compared with seven years ago.

I repeat that, although we accept in principle a transfer to a single channel of support via the education system, that is not what is proposed in the orders. The orders will bring about major cuts in housing benefit on top of the major cuts in the real value of the grant that have already occurred. To make, as Ministers have, meretricious noises about the possible conclusion of a future review of educational support which reopens the prospect of student loans is scarcely reassuring and does not begin to compensate for the reality of financial losses for students across a wide spectrum.

The other issue in today's batch of orders is the unrelated issue — I am not sure why they were all thrown together — of board and lodging. My hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) will concentrate on that when she replies, but I wish to make a few general observations in the light of the new information available from the social security policy inspectorate surveys. I appreciate that they are voluminous, but they are also informative and I am glad that we have that information.

Perhaps the most significant finding from the inspectorate's interviews with 272 board and lodging claimants, in what it says is a representative sample of areas, is that one third of claimants pay a board and lodging charge which exceeds the financial limit laid down by the DHSS. The amount by which the supplementary benefit fell short of their accommodation costs varied from a few pence to no less than £45 a week. Leaving aside those two extremes, it is especially disturbing that one in eight of all board and lodging claimants was paid as much as £10 to £25 a week less than his accommodation cost. If the sample is representative, as we are told it is, that must reflect the experience of between 12,000 and 13,000 claimants today. That shows that in a significant minority of cases, the board and lodging regulations are still producing serious hardships.

Of the claimants whose supplementary benefit did not cover their accommodation costs, one third told the DHSS inspectorate that they could stay in the lodgings only by meeting the excess charge out of their meals allowance, personal expenses or, in a few cases, their savings. In addition, as many as one in eight said that they were in arrears with the payment of board and lodging payments to their landlords and that the arrears ranged from £10 to £400. Furthermore, others in the sample have already been forced to leave their accommodation because they were in arrears. That is a serious and worrying problem.

Another worrying finding which emerges from this material is that, contrary to the Government's complacent belief that landlords would rapidly adjust their board and lodging charges to the new financial limits, it appears that the opposite has happened in almost as many cases. The policy inspectorate found that, although 8 per cent had their board and lodging charges reduced by between £5 and £30 a week, 6 per cent.—nearly as many—had them increased by similar amounts.

There is evidence that Ministers' claims about the extent of available accommodation which is within the financial limits is either exaggerated or fanciful. I see from today's copy of The Guardian—I do not know whether the Minister will wish to deny that it is his favourite newspaper —that the Minister rejected a claim by

"the Central London Social Security Advisory Forum … that 90 per cent. of over 700 hotels in London charged more than the DHSS limit."

That point was made in another context by the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway). The Minister claimed that his officials have located at least 20 cheap hotels that are within the limit. When the forum checked his list, it discovered that the Minister's claim was not substantiated in three quarters of the cases. I hope that the Minister will accept the validity of the serious comments made by the forum that almost all hotels in London now charge above the DHSS limit.

I intervene simply to say that, as a result of some discrepancies between the way in which the details were put in the CLSSAF's document and our report of this dipstick survey, there was an overlap of four or five cases. Nevertheless, our small survey—there was also a wider survey—showed 14 to 15 additional hotels. I emphasise that that was just the result of DHSS officials telephoning, on a one-off basis, in response to some advertisements that they found in the local newspapers. There is no attempt to suggest that the 20 hotels formed a great, comprehensive survey, simply that DHSS officials picked out 20 advertisements, telephoned and identified — we can haggle about the exact figures—14 or 15 of which were not within the limits. While we are on this track, I should say that one further address, which was said to be unobtainable despite continuous ringing, was contacted by my officials at 9 am today and it was confirmed that the accommodation was within the limit.

The Minister is a little less genuinely contrite than he normally is. I accept his latter point as that reflects one case. The truth is that, of the other 14 or 15 hotels, six were already on the list. I accept that those 20 hotels were taken at random, but the randomness makes it significant. Two more hotels were unobtainable —although the Minister now says that one is obtainable—one would not take claimants and four would take people within the DHSS limits only at three to a room. To suggest that that is readily available accommodation for unemployed, homeless people is a disgrace. One hotel had no telephone number or full address, so it would be difficult for claimants to contact. That left five which were correct. I accept that perhaps there are six. Out of the Minister's random list, only six out of 20 were available. The forum admitted that 10 per cent. were available within the limits, but that means that roughly 90 per cent. are not.

Will my hon. Friend confirm that, compared with the random sample of 20 hotels from which the DHSS drew its conclusions, the survey of the Central London Social Security Advisers Forum and other voluntary organisations was based on a sample of 710 hotels and might therefore be expected to give a more representative picture of what is happening in London?

I am getting in the way of a significant dialogue. Perhaps the Minister wishes to intervene, because my hon. Friend's question was directed more at him than at me.

I am prepared to be a little contrite if the CLSSAF or the housing advisory service feel that I have been unfair to them—I have considerable respect for the activities of both, and was not seeking to attack them—but I merely question whether their list is as comprehensive and up-to-date as they claim.

I make it clear that to call the smaller of the DHSS's samples a random survey is to over-dignify it. An adventurous DHSS official simply thought that he would see what would happen if he picked out 20 hotels and telephoned them.

We also conducted a more properly structured sample survey which showed that, in addition to those reported by pressure groups, more than 350 boarding establishments in London were within the limits. Unfortunately, we cannot pass the details of the hotels in our sample to the pressure groups because, in common with other such survey information, we do not have the permission of those included in the sample to do so. By definition, the information given in the smaller survey was publicly available as my Department simply responded to advertisements in newspapers.

I am grateful to have regained my speech. I thought that the Minister was about to make a second speech.

The key point is not the status of the 20 hotels that were telephoned; it is that an overwhelming number of hotels in London which provide bed and breakfast accommodation are charging significantly more for it than the DHSS financial limits provide. That fact is based on a detailed and comprehensive survey.

If the Minister wishes to challenge that fact he should produce detailed information and present it formally. Until that happens, the position in central London is as I have described and it is grossly unfair to subject homeless unemployed people to it. Simply providing sufficient money for their landlords will cut into the rest of their allowances. That is all that we are saying, but we are saying it strongly.

Another disturbing conclusion drawn by the policy inspectorate was that the overwhelming majority of boarders, including those in private households, have no alternative accommodation. One in seven of them could find some temporary accommodation, mostly with parents or relatives, but only one in 25 had access to alternative permanent accommodation.

That fact decisively rebuts one of the Minister's key arguments: that young people were leaving home unnecessarily to live in board and lodging accommodation. The main reasons revealed as to why those people became boarders were disputes with parents or relatives, the break-up of their marriages, or being forced to leave their previous accommodation. That shows clearly that they are simply people who have nowhere else to go.

That background calls into question the purpose of the board and lodging regulations. Are they designed simply to save money or to pressurise people into moving on to find jobs? If the latter, the board and lodging regulations have been a failure.

A DHSS document published last month, entitled "Monitoring the Impact of the 1985 Changes", stated:"

"There was no evidence to suggest significant moving between board and lodging areas."

More explicitly, the evidence shows that the number of people who cease to claim supplementary benefit because they have found work is tiny. To that extent, it has not been a job-finding exercise. The Opposition are not surprised because no jobs are available.

If the purpose of the board and lodging regulations is to save money, two other questions immediately arise. Is it reasonable to save money at the expense of people who have been forced by personal misfortune into board and lodging accommodation because they have nowhere else to go, and who are then forced to cut food or other essentials to pay the accommodation charge? Even more importantly, is it fair to penalise the homeless unemployed in general when they are hapless victims of policies beyond their control which have led to soaring youth unemployment and almost the collapse of the local authority house building programme?

Since we believe that the answer to both those questions is a resounding no, we continue to oppose the principle of the board and lodging regulations. At the same time we strongly oppose, and shall certainly vote against, the major cuts in housing benefit for students, which are matched by inadequate grant compensation and aggravated by the huge fall in the real value of student grants under this Government.