I beg to ask leave to present a petition on behalf of All Saints church, Fulham, signed by 89 petitioners who are concerned with the position of Irina Ratushinskaya and calling on the Government to assist in representations to secure her release.

I beg to ask leave to present a petition on behalf of 68 members and worshippers of Deane Avenue Evangelical church, South Ruislip, Middlesex, about the poetess Irina Ratushinskaya, who is currently confined in a Soviet labour camp.

The petitioners pray that

your honourable House encourages the Foreign Secretary and his colleagues in their representations to the Soviet Government with the purpose of obtaining both the release of Mrs. Ratushinskaya from the labour camp and her urgently needed medical assessment and treatment.

I wholeheartedly associate myself with the petition.

One day, a little less than three weeks ago, the population of the world for the first time exceeded 5 billion people. Well, so what, most might reply with a yawn? In the course of the next few minutes I want to try to provide some answers to that question and to ask the Government how they are responding.

I do not know — I do not think anybody knows—what population the world can carry, but there is a limit, and whatever that limit may be we are racing towards it at an ever-increasing pace, not because the world population growth rate is increasing—fortunately, it is marginally decreasing — but because, on the basis of compound interest, the number of people throughout the world is growing at an alarming rate.

There are some people who doubt that there is a limit to the number of people that the world can carry, but in my judgment they are deluding themselves and are being quite unrealistic. Anyone who knows anything about animal populations will know that excess numbers lead to starvation, disease and sometimes strife and madness.

Among human populations the effect of starvation and disease in recent times has been self-evident. With regard to strife or madness among animals, why else do lemmings behave as they do, or even the Gadarene swine as they did?

In principle, there is no difference between the human race and other animals. Thus it is that world wide we must urgently demonstrate that the superior wisdom of the human race and the application of knowledge available to it can lead to a control of human numbers before any misfortune should occur.

Furthermore, in the immediate future we must ensure that population growth does not exceed economic growth. If it does, although total national income may grow, the standard of living per head will fall and there will be still more hardship and poverty.

Thus it is that we should take note of population growth and do what we can to control it. Ultimately, all our constituents or their successors will be affected by population growth. Our constituents may not realise it, but they will be affected simply because excess population will lead to dwindling world resources and shortages of raw materials necessary for the wellbeing even of our country, relatively wealthy though it may be.

So it is important that we should take note that it took from the beginning of time to 1830 for the world population to reach 1 billion. It took another 60 years for the population to double to 2 billion. It took another 30 years to reach 3 billion and only another 15 years—to 1975—to reach 4 billion. Today, 11 years later, it has reached 5 billion, and 6 billion will be notched up well before the year 2000.

It is true that statistics mean more in those countries where population growth is most rapid. In the past two years I have had the opportunity of visiting some of the most populous countries in the world and joining in discussions at conferences in Delhi, Mexico City and Harare, in addition to a small conference held in Britain involving parliamentarians from European countries.

In each of those conferences the population statistics became still more mind-boggling. For instance, Mexico City is scheduled to grow to 26 million people by the year 2000 and already totals 18 million people, 46 per cent. of whom are living as squatters or in slums. The World Bank estimates that India's population will peak at 1·6 billion. That is a good deal larger than the population of China today.

In both Mexico City and Delhi I had the opportunity of meeting Members of Parliament and experts from developing countries for whom rapid population growth is a day-to-day problem known to be undermining the prospects of the countries and their people.

In Africa, the population crisis has been brought home to every family in Britain by the famine in sub-Saharan Africa. The result here has been the most impressive show of public generosity to Live Aid, Band Aid and Sport Aid.

In May this year I attended the all-Africa parliamentary conference on population and development in Harare. It was attended by 31 out of 36 African countries with Parliaments and by representatives of nine African countries without Parliaments. The quality of the speeches was high and showed a strong commitment to programmes for population control. Ancient beliefs about the need for large families throughout Africa were not just questioned; they were refuted. Prime Minister Mugabe, in his opening speech, took pride in his country's family planning programme, and correctly stated that no population programme should be considered in isolation from policies and plans on health, housing, education, employment, the environment and the use of available resources.

Those words were echoed again and again by experts and Members of Parliaments alike, as well they might be, given that at present the population growth rate in Africa at 2·9 per cent. per annum is the highest in the world with a population doubling time of 24 years. Those statistics include the figures for Kenya, which has the fastest growth rate of all and which are therefore even worse. Kenya has a current growth rate of 4·1 per cent. and a population doubling time of 17 years. It is the target of the Kenyan Government to reduce that growth to 3·6 per cent. by 1989, and that is a considerable target.

In such circumstances as I have described, I am glad to note that at the United Nations special session on Africa on 28 May this year my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary said:

"on present trends the population of Africa will approach 900 million by the end of the century. How is such population growth to be reconciled with decent living standards? Africa, if she is not careful, will find herself having to run in order merely to stay where she is. I know the sensitivities. But the problem must be faced. We shall give any help we can."

My right hon. and learned Friend could not have uttered wiser words.

Therefore, I should like to hear from the Under-Secretary a little more about what help the Government are giving. The scope is unlimited. When in Zimbabwe in May, I spent one day with the local Save the Children Fund representative, Simon Metcalfe, looking at the Save the Children Fund farms health service, which provides excellent health care and education at a basic level. The weakness is that the area that it covers is so limited. Small wonder that in some parts of Africa the maternal death rate is still about 1,000 per 100,000 live births, in comparison with only 6 per 100,000 in some European countries.

In my one day in Kenya on the way home I looked at services provided by Kenya's family planning association. They were excellent as far as they went, but the size of the task and the need for better provision was emphasised when I was told that in the particular area where I was there were 16 advisers or lay educators, as they were called, to cope with a population of 1·8 million people.

It should not be forgotten that the knock-on effect of the excessive population growth is enormous and cannot be stressed too loudly. For example, although fuel wood accounts for only one tenth of world energy, and although Nigeria is oil rich, fuel wood accounts for 80 per cent. of domestic energy consumption. That level of fuel wood consumption leads to deforestation. In turn, that leads to soil erosion and to desertification. In turn that leads to less land available for food production and forestry. Therefore, there is a greater chance of starvation.

Population programmes must play a major part within the Government's overall aid programme. I am not convinced that the part that these programmes play is large enough. The increase in population aid from £7·8 million in 1984 to £12 million in 1986 to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the United Nations Fund for Population Activities and to the World Health Organisation is helpful and welcome, especially in the light of the highly regrettable cuts in aid to IPPF by the United States Administration and the cut in 1985 by $10 million by the United States Administration to UNFPA.

Unfortunately, in the United States there is a small minority of extremely vociferous people who have influenced the American Government to the extent that politically they are fearful of maintaining, let alone increasing as they should, aid for population programmes. I hope that the British Government will not fall into the same trap simply because there are a few vociferous people here as well. None the less, the percentage of overseas aid spent on population activities from this country amounts to only 1 per cent. of all aid. Is that enough? Frankly, I doubt it.

In 1980 the late Sir Neil Marten, when Minister for Overseas Development, directed that when development projects were under consideration full accont should be taken of, and wherever possible include, a population element. Does that policy still exist? If it does, for how many development projects has that policy been relevant since 1983? When my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs replies, will he tell me what aid and expertise ODA can offer to countries wishing to establish a better health infrastructure? Without such aid and expertise, population projects will be much less successful. What population, health and family planning projects in Africa and elsewhere are aided by the United Kingdom Government? I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can provide answers to some of these questions.

Before my hon. Friend finishes his speech, may I ask him, while he is drawing the attention of the Minister to these matters, and while he is talking about the vociferous minority, to emphasise that early-day motion 25 has more signatures to it than any other early-day motion this Session, and that more than 300 parliamentarians have signed that early-day motion calling for an increased aid programme?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his helpful intervention, just as the House and I am grateful to him for his work on the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. That Committee has also drawn special attention to the adverse effect of excessive population growth in developing countries.

The world is said to be threatened by two explosions, one nuclear and the other population. Due to the balance of power and, I hope, balanced disarmament, the likelihood of the first, in my judgment, is slight. However, the threat from the second grows ever larger. I trust, therefore, that the Government will do all in their power to defuse that threat.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison) for allowing me to speak in the debate. This is a very important debate and I congratulate him on his choice of subject. I will be brief as I believe another hon. Member wishes to speak before the Minister replies.

I would like to concentrate my remarks on the principles that should underlie family planning programmes. As the hon. Member for Devizes told the House a moment ago, there is some concern about the way in which family planning projects are implemented in some Third world countries. It is generally agreed that, in this important and sensitive area of human relationships and conduct, we must proceed by the principle of voluntary choice. There must be no element of coercion.

The Parliamentary Group on Population and Development, of which I have the honour to he joint honorary secretary, heard a talk recently from Dr. Malik from the Ministry of Health and Family Planning in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is one of the countries that figure in a motion on the Order Paper in the name of my right hon. and hon. Friends who are critical of what they understood to be the way that family planning programmes are implemented. We talked to Dr. Malik about the criticisms that have been raised and the fears expressed by hon. Members and organisations outside the House about what is happening in Bangladesh. Dr. Malik assured us that the principles upon which the Bangladesh Family Planning Association and the Ministry of Health and Family Planning based their programmes were voluntary principles. There was no element of coercion. He emphasised the principles, and these are important as they should apply in every country and certainly in every developing country.

The first principle is full information for clients. The second is comprehensive criteria for acceptance or rejection of clients for sterilisation. Sterilisation is obviously a very big step for men and women to take. There must be full information available to those considering that step. Thirdly, clients should have to sign a form to show that they have understood the implications of the chosen method of contraception. That does not simply apply to sterilisations; it applies to the pill and IUD and so on.

Dr. Malik assured us that for the Bangladesh Government, the authorities and bureaucracy, the principle is one of voluntary choice. However, as in many developing countries, the efficiency of management below the top level leaves a lot to be desired. There is a shortage of people who can effectively manage programmes. We must admit, and this is true of many developing countries, that the people at the top do not always know what is happening at the grass roots. It is therefore essential for people at the top, in the Ministries, not to set targets that would lead people to the conclusion that they should take exceptional measures, as happened in India in 1976–77, when Gandhi put forward plans that were misinterpreted and led to accusations, which, in some cases, were justified, of enforced sterilisation. Such sterilisation is obviously out of the question and unacceptable. More must be done in the management of projects at the lowest level in Third world countries.

At grass roots level, voluntary projects as well as official family planning projects aided by the ODA can play an important part. Some of us know the actress Miss Susan Hampshire very well. She is running a project in the slums of Bangladesh, for which she has raised a lot of money and, I am glad to say, the ODA is now part-funding her programme.

When extra money becomes available for family planning programmes, more consideration should be given to the part-funding of voluntary projects. The management is rather more within the control of those supervising the project and it is possible to ensure that nothing goes wrong and that there is no question of coercion.

I would like to endorse the remarks made by the hon. Member for Devizes. If this and other Governments, as aid donors, do not make this issue a bigger part of their aid package, the scale of the problem in places such as Bangladesh will become so great as to place so many stresses on internal economies and development that Governments may be forced, even against their better judgment, into coercive measures. We do not want to see that happen. To prevent that, I hope that in this country, at official and unofficial level, we shall take family planning programmes and mother and child health care programmes in the Third world more seriously than we have done.

I wish to take just one minute on behalf of the all-party group on overseas development and the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs to support all that has been said in the debate. The population question is an important element in aid provision, but it is only a part of any developmental aid programme.

Those of us who know Africa and other parts of the world know that the one thing that the poorest families need and are able to create is manpower. Children are seen as a means of planting and harvesting the bare necessities of life. Population figures show that as standards improve and people can afford more things the population declines.

I make that point because it is important that any development aid programme should be designed first to relieve poverty. That will relieve hunger and the population programmes will then begin to fit in.

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison) on his success in the ballot. I thank him, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) and the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins) for putting their case so effectively and acting as such a responsible pressure group in the House and the country. They have a genuine commitment which, on a personal basis, I share.

There should be no doubt about the importance that the Government attach to population activities within the total aid programme. It is noteworthy that we have more than doubled our assistance in this sector from £7·5 million in 1980 to just over £15·5 million in 1985, an increase that compares extremely well with other aspects of the aid programme.

I am particularly grateful that hon. Members have linked the issues of health and family planning. As the hon. Member for Walthamstow said, family planning can be a sensitive subject and raises important moral and emotive questions with which society has grappled in the 20 years since modern contraception became readily available. I am sure that we shall continue to debate those issues, but in so doing we must recognise that family planning is a key preventive health measure and that in poor countries it is a real force for improving child survival and maternal health.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins) has said, sterilisation is a major question, but reversible vasectomy could be a different proposition in terms of the ability to persuade people to accept the operation. Will the Minister examine that aspect?

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but there are differing views on methods and morality in this area. I shall not take time to stress the dramatic growth in world population, as my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes has already done so, but I should point out that the problem in Asia is different in both type and scale from that in Africa and that we must not regard the problems as being the same throughout the world.

The slackening in the rate of global population growth at the end of the 1970s represented a considerable achievement by the developed countries, international aid agencies and non-governmental organisations in the population sector, but it was most of all an achievement on the part of the developing countries. Those countries realised the considerable threat of increasing population to economic and social development, as was emphasised at the conference in Mexico City to which my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes referred.

Despite the good trend towards the end of the 1970s, we cannot afford to be complacent because the trend requires continuing reinforcement and assistance. In addition, substantial challenges remain before all individuals can enjoy the prospect of a long and healthy life. Despite the lack of reliable information, it is clear that infant mortality remains unacceptably high in many countries. The introduction of public health measures and vaccination campaigns has reduced death rates but, sadly, the improvements of the 1970s in this area have given way to a stationary or even deteriorating situation in the 1980s. Every year, 17 million children die from simple preventable diseases such as diarrhoea, malaria, pneumonia, and so on. Virtually all those preventable diseases occur in the developing world and we estimate that between half and two thirds of them could be prevented with relatively simple measures at relatively little cost. As my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes said, maternal mortality is grossly under-reported. Last year, almost half a million women in poor countries died as a consequence of pregnancy and many more suffered injury and permanent ill-health.

What can the international community do to improve the situation? Many countries have already recognised the importance of population considerations in their general development. We must encourage them to turn statements into action and to devote resources to it, but in a sensible and humane way. Sadly, some countries still do not accept the need for population policies. We must encourage them to do so, but ultimately the responsibility for population growth must lie with national Governments. Developed countries and the international community can help, but their assistance is worthless without the political, moral and financial commitment of the developing countries themselves.

Our aid programme finances a number of multilateral programmes working specifically in the population and health sectors. Indeed, the largest proportion of our population assistance is given in the form of contributions to the multilateral organisations operating in the population sector. We do this because recipient Governments often find it more acceptable to receive assistance in this relatively sensitive sector from the international community acting jointly through multilateral agencies. The British Government's contribution to multilateral population agencies has risen from £5·5 million in 1980 to £11 million in 1985 and I am pleased to say that in 1986 we intend to provide a total of £12 million in contributions to the various United Nations agencies.

My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes asked three detailed questions about the 1980 Neil Marten guidelines. I shall write to him on some of the points, but we do not keep a record of all projects in which those criteria have been applied. Nevertheless, Overseas Development Administration guidance to all staff responsible for direct spending on aid programmes makes it clear that special efforts should be made to ensure that population components are built into new aid projects wherever possible.

In the health sector, it is clear that the responsibility for developing health service facilities must rest with national Governments, but there are important aspects of health care which cannot be tackled in a nationally oriented and often piecemeal fashion. The transfer of bio-medical expertise to developing countries is a good example.

In recognition of the importance of transfer to developing countries, we support a number of health-oriented multilateral development programmes. As the House knows, we are a major contributor to UNICEF, the major United Nations agency concerned solely with improving the well-being of children throughout the world.

As the hon. Member for Walthamstow said, population is a development sector in which much can be, and, in some countries, is being done by non-governmental organisations. We very much welcome that. We have recognised that trend and the advantages that the NGOs have in that sector. In recognition of that, under the joint funding scheme, our Overseas Development Administration will fund population-related projects by up to 100 per cent. of the cost, rather than the 50 per cent. which, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is the rule in other sectors. The health and population projects that we have helped through NGOs are many and varied. They range from support for the Save the Children Fund to help to mount an immunisation programme in Mali to assistance with a training programme in Bangladesh to improve the skills of local midwives and traditional birth attendants.

We also support health services, medical and population research. Research in health covers both the development of the means of controlling the major communicable diseases and the improvement of delivery of existing technologies. Projects that we have recently supported range from studies on the epidemiology of leprosy in northern Malawi to a study in Nepal which pinpointed the need for reliable year-round water supplies by demonstrating the links between infantile gastrointestinal infections and contamination of water supplies during the rainy season.

In the population sector, research is broadly based. In Botswana, the Gambia, Kenya and Sierra Leone, the programme for the introduction and adaptation of contraceptive technology was contracted to research the design, production, field testing and evaluation of pamphlets, booklets and flip charts on contraceptive methods. Those materials were specifically designed and aimed at illiterate and semi-illiterate groups and developed to meet their specific needs and concerns. Hon. Members will know the importance of that. Training in those countries was also provided for primary health care workers in the use of the various materials.

Another area in which we are active is in trying to overcome the shortage of staff in developing countries, who understand the difficulties and dynamics of population growth, and to develop in those countries the necessary technical expertise to run the population and health programmes that those countries may wish to establish. We finance a substantial health manpower assistance programme designed to strengthen developing countries' health manpower and services and to help in the development of national health policies and strategies. That is complemented by a British training package under which trainees from such countries can undertake courses either in this country or elsewhere.

I have tried, in the short time available to me, to outline the various activities that the Government carry out in the population sector and to reassure members of the all-party group that we are committed to a significant contribution in that sector. I should like to make it clear that we do not in any way underestimate the importance of the different points that they have been making.

The matters that I have just outlined are not limited simply to the work that we do in the health and population sector, important though those are. They run throughout our aid programme. Our approach reflects a basic philosophy underlying the aid programme that we should meet the real needs of developing countries, focusing particularly on the poorest developing countries. Population work is an excellent example of the way in which aid can help the struggle against poverty in the world, and I am sure that that is an aim that will commend itself to hon. Members on both sides of the House.

I welcome the courteous presence of the Leader of the House, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) and the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Sir H. Atkins). I should like to express thanks on behalf of many other hon. Members for the volume of work put in by our colleagues on the Committee, from all parties, and for the quality of presentation of the report. I thank not only our parliamentary colleagues on the Committee, but particularly Robert Rogers and other Clerks for their philologically elegant work. It is a superbly presented document, which has enhanced the standing of Select Committees as a whole.

I attended several of the meetings as a spectator when the Select Committee saw Sir Robert Armstrong and the right hon. and learned Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan) and the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). It would have made fascinating television. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) was right yesterday when he said that one cannot get the full flavour from the written record.

Why have this debate the day after the report was published? I believe passionately that the House of Commons should be told the truth. Yesterday the Prime Minister reiterated four times that we would have a debate in due course. Why not this morning? In particular, why can we not have a statement this morning on the matter raised by the right hon. and learned Member for Southport (Sir I. Percival) yesterday, when he complained that the Attorney-General could not speak in his defence. The shadow Attorney-General is here. It was an official request from the Opposition Chief Whip that the Attorney-General might care to take the opportunity of replying. He has not done so. I do not make any complaint, but, in the light of what was said by the right hon. and learned Member for Southport last night, I want it to be placed on the record that he was given an opportunity.

The Prime Minister talked to her party last night about the virtues of unity. This debate is about the need for the virtue of integrity in public life. I say to the Prime Minister that political integrity may be more important than political unity. While we are on the question of unity and integrity, let us ask about another "ity"—responsibility; ministerial responsibility. Does the Prime Minister take ministerial responsibility for the cover provided by her office for the leak of the Solicitor-General's letter, or does she not? If, as constitutional convention suggests, she accepts that responsibility, she has to take the blame for the leak operation. Under the old-fashioned doctrine of ministerial responsibility she cannot say that it was the fault of her office, and it does not matter whether she knew about it or not. If, on the other hand, the Prime Minister does not accept such responsibility, her office, and Mr. Ingham in particular, is guilty of unacceptable conduct and should be disciplined. I say to the Minister responsible for the Civil Service, because it is particularly his area, that if he answers little else, will he tell us what has become of the doctrine of ministerial responsibility?

Does my hon. Friend recall that on Tuesday 27 January the Prime Minister claimed that

"there was a genuine difference in understanding between officials".—[Official Report, 27 January 1986; Vol 90, c. 655.]

but on the previous Thursday, 23 January, the day before the dramatic resignation of her then right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, she said when defending him:

"They did not seek my agreement: they considered—and they were right— that I should agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry that the fact that the then Defence Secretary's letter of 3 January was thought by the Solicitor-General to contain material inaccuracies which needed to be corrected, should become public knowledge as soon as possible".—[Official Report, 23 January 1986; Vol. 90, c. 450.]

Does that not show that, far from misunderstanding, they understood only too well and did what the Prime Minister wanted and carried out her policy? Does that not mean that while the right hon. Lady may have full confidence in civil servants, her party, Parliament and the people should have no confidence in her?

I have enormous respect for my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing). He put in a power of work on another Select Committee report, together with my hon. Friends the Members for Bow and Poplar (Mr. Mikardo), for Doncaster, North (Mr. Welsh) and for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) which was treated as a fag-end of Session document last year. I refer to the Foreign Affairs Committee report on the Belgrano sinking, Cmnd. 9647. Any question that my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South asks is a serious question and I hope that Ministers will bear that in mind.

Where is the evidence that public servants' conduct does not call for any action being taken against them? Why should the House accept that there is no case for disciplinary action being taken against the civil servants concerned, when all the House is told by the Prime Minister is that a report, which has not been made public, says so? Why cannot Sir Robert Armstrong's report be made public, especially as the question of national security is not involved? Does the report contain something that the Prime Minister wishes to hide?

As the Prime Minister answers questions that are put to her by introducing information that is not directly related to the question, the following unanswered questions should be put to her yet again. Does the Prime Minister take ministerial responsibility for the cover provided by her office for the leak of the Solicitor-General's letter? What is the distinction between authority and cover? My right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House never had that question answered, so we put the question again.

Paragraph 187 of the report states:

"It must therefore be the case that Mr. Ingham and Mr. Powell were in a position to tell the Prime Minister on 7 January what turned out to be the principal findings of Sir Robert Armstrong's inquiry more than a fortnight later."

Paragraph 188 states:

"Yet on 7 January Mr. Ingham and Mr. Powell did not share their knowledge — not with Mr. Nigel Wicks, the Prime Minister's Principal Private Secretary, not with Sir Robert Armstrong and not with the Prime Minister."

However, Sir Robert Armstrong was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) at the Committee hearing on 5 February 1986 — an unforgettable occasion:

"did the Prime Minister make any of her own private inquiries, to your knowledge, as to who the culprit or culprits might be prior to your being authorised to conduct you inquiry?"

Sir Robert replied:

"I do not think she did, no. She knew very early on 7 January that there was a probability of a more formal inquiry and she could well have thought that she would be criticised if she anticipated that inquiry by some more informed method of proceeding."

Are we expected to believe that the Prime Minister knew very early on 7 January that there was a probability of a more formal inquiry concerning the conduct of her staff and that she did not get to the bottom of it immediately in case she should be criticised for doing so? The reverse is true. She can be seriously criticised for looking the other way when she knew that something serious had happened in her office. At best, she turned a Nelson's eye. That is a grave dereliction of duty by a Prime Minister.

I now turn to a topic that concerns me deeply. The legal advice from the Solicitor-General on 6 January was that the Government were

"under a duty not to give information which is incomplete or inaccurate in any material particular."

If it was argued that the right hon. Member for Henley was completely inaccurate, it would have been the Government's duty to inform the shareholders. In the event, the letter of the right hon. Member for Henley was not inaccurate. It was based on evidence in his possession. As the Prime Minister said to the House on 27 January, it was thought that there was a "possible inaccuracy" in the letter from the right hon. Member for Henley to Mr. David Horne of Lloyds. Because those responsible failed to leak the qualification—the possibility of inaccuracy—they committed the very offence of which they had accused the former Secretary of State for Defence that day. If they alleged, as they did, that the former Secretary of State for Defence had misled the shareholders, they too were guilty of misleading. They were in direct breach of their duty not to give information which is incomplete or inaccurate in any material particular. Having committed the very offence of which they accused the former Secretary of State for Defence, should they not apologise to the shareholders? We now know, thanks to the Select Committee, that the former Secretary of State for Defence was justified in writing the original letter.

It flows from that that the Prime Minister's men and Miss Bowe orchestrated a campaign against the Secretary of State for Defence. More than that, they were in breach of a legal duty—I refer to the appendix on page 1xix. What is more, that was done in the full knowledge that the leak was also a breach of that duty. What is the basis of that duty? Is it moral, or statutory? If it is the latter, those involved were acting in breach of civil or criminal law. Therefore, are they open to litigation or prosecution?

For the sake of time, I shall not go over the interchange that took place last night about paragraph 195 between my right hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, East (Dr. Gilbert) and the right hon. and learned Member for Southport. I shall simply say that I received a characteristically courteous letter from the Attorney-General in his own handwriting. It said:

"Dear Tam, Thank you for your letter — perhaps the best way to deal with your question is to show you my written answer I gave today. Yours ever, Michael."

How, on 30 January, could the Attorney-General say that his first knowledge of the direct involvement of the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry was on 22 January and yet the indemnity was given before or on 16 January? On what basis do we give any kind of indemnity? That is a deep question, because one does not give indemnity lightly. I am not a lawyer.

I return to the point made by my right hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House. He was talking about paragraph 195 of the report. The Attorney-General said that when he was asked to grant immunity

"he was also told enough 'to make it clear to me that under no circumstances would I have prosecuted her in any event.' These statements are unequivocal."

This may be an occasion to answer my right hon. Friend's question. I also have questions I wish to put. On the reply to the hon. and learned Member for Fylde (Sir E. Gardner) by the Attorney-General, how did the Attorney-General have

"reason to believe that the disclosure had been made by the official concerned"?

Secondly, how did he know that the official had acted in "complete good faith"?

If it was important that the inquiry should discover as fully as possible the circumstances in which the disclosure came to be made, why was the right hon. and learned Member for Richmond, Yorks not interviewed by Sir Robert Armstrong? Does not protocol, apart from common courtesy, demand that Sir Robert Armstrong should have gone to the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in the first place? I have to repeat what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, East, that the opportunity was not taken in the official answer to the hon. and learned Member for Fylde to deny the conclusion that the Committee had come to in paragraph 195.

In paragraph 201, why did the Attorney-General decide that there was

"no justification for the institution of proceedings under the Official Secrets Act 1911 in respect of those concerned."?

Can the House see the evidence? Has there been a change of policy since Ponting and Tisdall? Will the Minister make a clear statement?

I attended all 11 days of the trial at the Old Bailey. Clive Ponting could only too easily have been languishing in prison at this moment. That is the backcloth to some of this debate, and it comes to "sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander."

Then there are the unanswered questions of the right hon. and learned Member for Richmond, Yorks. As the Prime Minister claims that she has nothing whatever to hide, will she now do the House a service by requiring the right hon. and learned Gentleman to answer the Defence Select Committee's questions in paragraph 203? When was he first involved in discussions about releasing information? When did he first speak to anybody in No. 10 about the publication of the Solicitor-General's letter? Did he have any conversation with the Prime Minister about the fact that he had authorised disclosure of part of the Solicitor-General's letter? Did he discuss with his private office or with other members of his staff the likely course of the leak inquiry?

The only reason for not answering those questions is that to have done so honestly would have landed the Prime Minister well and truly in the soup. If the Prime Minister claims that she has nothing to hide, now is the time for the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to answer those questions that were properly asked by the Defence Select Committee.

Paragraph 202 refers to Sir Robert Armstrong's appearance on 5 February. In relation to the authority of the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to leak the letter, Sir Robert said:

"I naturally addressed that matter in the inquiry and I found absolutely no evidence whatever that he did."

However, at that time Sir Robert Armstrong had not interviewed the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who was the only person who could have definitively answered the query. Is that the level of investigation that Sir Robert Armstrong pursued? If so, his efforts are little less than a charade.

Why did Sir Robert Armstrong not just call the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and ask him whether he authorised the leak? Why did the Prime Minister not ring the Solicitor-General and ask for his consent to the publication of the letter? Why did Sir Robert Armstrong not interview Ministers, especially the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the Attorney-General? Why did the Prime Minister not ask or instruct Sir Robert Armstrong to interview Ministers, especially the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and the Attorney-General?

The final sentence of paragraph 196 gives Sir Robert Armstrong's finding that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry had authorised the leak before the inquiry began into the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Sir Robert Armstrong, Mr. Ingham and Mr. Powell. Is it remotely feasible that neither Mr. Powell nor Mr. Ingham never mentioned, hinted at or discussed that vital knowledge with the Prime Minister? If not, they should be fired for gross dereliction of duty.

As the Prime Minister has so much confidence in Sir Robert Armstrong, as we were told yesterday, will she publish his report about the leak? Why cannot the rest of us see it? This is not a matter of national security. Who, other than Sir Robert Armstrong and the Attorney-General, discussed whether the police should be involved? Were the Prime Minister, the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Sir Gordon Reece, Mr. Nigel Wicks or Mr. Powell consulted?

Did the Prime Minister agree Sir Gordon Reece's employment by Westland? Did she not see a conflict of interest? If not, why not? Are not the activities of a Prime Minister's closest adviser, whether formal or informal, in these circumstances, of considerable interest? It is being claimed that the former Secretary State for Trade and Industry was responsible for determining the form of disclosure. If that is so, why did the Prime Minister state that the former Trade Secretary

"expressed no view as to the form in which disclosure should be made."?—[Official Report, 23 January 1986; Vol. 90, c. 450]

Why, after the internal inquiry had been completed, were the police not called in, as was the case with Clive Ponting? The Government were quick enough to bring the police in on Clive Ponting and Sarah Tisdall. Was that to shield somebody, and, if so, who?

The extracts from the Committee's minutes relating to its sitting on Wednesday 9 April on page 1xii show that all three questions aimed at calling evidence from key Civil Service witnesses were negatived. No reason was given for that. Why were steps needed to block the evidence from such key witnesses? It is not good enough to say that they had already been questioned by Sir Robert Armstrong. If they had done nothing wrong, they would have nothing to fear from the Committee. Mr. Bernard Ingham, whatever else he is, is not a shrinking violet. They should now give evidence, and I welcome the final clause of the report.

Senior civil servants were asked to do something which they knew to be improper. In normal circumstances such experienced and highly placed civil servants would have asked whether they should do such a thing. With the arguable exception of Colette Bowe, not one did so. Why? They knew that they were acting in accordance with the Prime Minister's wishes before the Solicitor-General was ever asked to write the letter. Sir Robert Armstrong and Mr. Ingham are not exactly minnow civil servants remote from Ministers. Sir Thomas Dugdale resigned. They are as close to the Prime Minister as Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were to Richard Nixon.

I recognise the hon. Gentleman's interest in pursuing the matter in detail, and in the nature of politics it is understandable that he seeks to attack my right hon. Friends. Before he concludes, will he address his mind to paragraph 214 of the report of the Committee, on which I had the privilege to serve? It refers to the problem of Sir Robert Armstrong combining the jobs of head of the Civil Service and Cabinet Secretary. If the hon. Gentleman is prepared to address his mind to that problem, surely he will see that many of the matters to which he has referred are manifestations of that problem. Will he address himself to the principal issue rather than to the minutiae?

I have addressed my mind to that. I was present during the evidence given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Callaghan). He argued before the Committee chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) that from his experience as Prime Minister those two jobs should be separate. I strongly agree with the public statements of Lord Bancroft, Lord Allen of Abbeydale and many others on that matter.

The reason why civil servants are not being disciplined is outlined in a book that I wrote. I hesitate to refer to "Thatcher: Patterns of Deceit". It states:

"After some press coverage in The Times Diary and The Guardian of this debate, I was given the following information which I am authorised to use, by a participant at a dinner for the Turkish Minister of Technology, Mustafa Tinaz Titiz, on 30 January at Lancaster House.

At this dinner officials of the Department of Trade and Industry, in a position to know, raged about the behaviour of politicians for all who cared to listen. They were extremely angry at the fact that the blame for the leaking, the selective leaking, of the Solicitor-General's letter had been put on them and their colleagues at the DTI. It could be argued, they said, that what the Prime Minister had told the House of Commons, in a narrow sense, was technically correct: that there were no telephone calls for 'permission to leak or selectively leak'.

Why?

Because there was no need for such telephone calls.

The agreement to leak had been reached between the Prime Minister and an uneasy right hon. Gentleman for Richmond, who had demurred, but was eager to please the PM, before ever inducing the Solicitor-General to write a letter to the then Defence Secretary [Michael Heseltine].

When my right hon. Friend, the Leader of the Opposition [Neil Kinnock], questioned the Prime Minister on her actions, he did not get very far. Nor did I do any better, nor any of the rest of us, because we were all like an audience looking at a conjuror and looking at the wrong part of the trick to see how the conjuror did it. The hanky panky of the selective leaking was at the very beginning of the performance and did not take place after the letter was formulated. The latter was the point we were all looking at, because even the most hardened of us had not expected that degree of cynical, underhand behaviour from a British Prime Minister.

To be fair to Colette Bowe, although she had the instruction to leak from Mr. Bernard Ingham, she certainly kicked out against what she was being expected to do. The House will remember that she said very little, but what she did say in public was that every enquiry should be referred to Number 10 Downing Street. No wonder! Nor, technically, was Mr. Bernard Ingham lying to the Armstrong Enquiry: just possibly he did not discuss the leak after the letter had been leaked, with the Prime Minister. Such a discussion would have been superflous, since Mr. Ingham knew, a priori, explicitly what the Prime Minister wanted done, and what had been cooked up beforehand between the Prime Minister and her uncomfortable Trade Secretary.

Will the Minister answer the specific charge against his Prime Minister that the 'dirty work', the decision to leak a Law Officer's letter, took place before it was suggested to the Solicitor-General that he should write the letter.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I hope that the Law Officers will study what I have just said, because the House of Commons is entitled to know what the right hon. Gentleman for Wimbledon and the right hon. Gentleman for Royal Tunbridge Wells think about what I have just said. Put in colloquial language, the Solicitor-General was set-up, used and abused. No wonder the Law Officers were reported as being on the very verge of resignation. But I chide them not, because had they resigned on this issue, at that time, their whole Government would have been at risk and that would be a fearful responsibility to take on their shoulders.

However, the Law Officers do now owe the House of Commons the truth as to what did occur.

Let us be clear. It is nauseating what this Prime Minister has done in her tantrums. Mad with anger against her erstwhile Defence Secretary, she and Bernard Ingham, with the eventual acquiescence, but against the better judgment of, her Trade Secretary hit on the idea of putting the right hon. Gentleman for Henley wrong in law and making him look publicly foolish. So these three cook up the scheme of getting one of the Law Officers — the other one, the Attorney-General, was away sick — to send a letter, which they intended to leak wholly or in part. Leaking it, Mr. Speaker, selectively or in full, was the raison d'être of the letter— that was its purpose— to do down the infernal nuisance, that the right hon. Gentleman for Henley had by then become. So they prompt the Solicitor-General to write his letter. The right hon. Gentleman for Tunbridge Wells imagines, naturally enough, that every Law Officer's letter to a Minister of the Crown is strictly confidential. In all innocence, he writes the letter. Routinely, a copy goes to Downing Street. I understand from those who have worked in Number 10, both under Lord Wilson and under the right hon. Gentleman for Bexley that any Law Officer's letter, because it may have consequences for the Courts, is handled with the utmost care, and rightly so.

Can one imagine the career diplomat, Mr. Heath's Press Secretary, Sir Donald Maitland, using a Law Officer's letter for such a purpose. It is inconceivable! Moreover, it is a pertinent question to ask why a Law Officer's letter went anywhere near Mr. Ingham's desk, unless the whole purpose was to make use, or abuse, of it in public? The only way in which the Downing Street Civil Service machine would allow a Law Officer's letter anywhere near the Press Office would be because they knew they had to act under Prime Ministerial instruction.

To continue the narrative: Mr. Bernard Ingham, knowing his Prime Minister's predetermined plan, orders a protesting Colette Bowe to leak the Solicitor-General's letter to Chris Moncrieff at the Press Association. They imagine that the leaked letter will serve its purpose of helping to discredit the right hon. Gentleman for Henley: that it will be a two-day wonder, ephemeral and quickly forgotten like so many two-day wonders in British politics. They take the view that the situation will be manageable, and that the House of Commons will, as usual, move on to other interests.

Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, an outraged Government employee, livid at the treatment of the Civil Service meted out to them by the Prime Minister, confirmed my information that it was Colette Bowe who phoned Mr. Moncrieff, and that Miss Bowe acted under Ministerial and Prime Ministerial instructions. Otherwise, I would not have named her in this House. With the naming of Colette Bowe, the situation which the Prime Minister and her accomplices thought was manageable, became unmanageable. The paramount consideration now became the need to protect the position of the Prime Minister. The only way to do this was to put the onus, the blame, on understandings, or misunderstandings, between Civil Servants, no matter that. it involved impugning, without good reason, the competence and integrity of Civil Servants caught up in an impossible situation."

I expect the Minister with responsibility for the Civil Service to say something about the honour of the Civil Service.

Finally, I say this, and I really mean it: it is now up to right hon. and hon. Members of the Conservative party to reflect upon whether they should continue to be led by a person whose whole detailed background, in my view, as a Member of the House of Commons for 24 years shows her to be unsuitable to lead one of the great parties of our country and to be the occupant of No. 10 Downing street.

I have literally one minute, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in which to speak. I want to bring back to the attention of the House the fourth report of the Select Committee on Defence, of which I was a signatory. For the last quarter of an hour the speech of the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) was nothing but pure froth and speculation. It had nothing to do with the report that I signed. After the hon. Gentleman's peroration, I am, as a member of the Conservative party, proud to be led by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Also I want to bring back to the attention of the House paragraph 183 of the report, the most important paragraph, which states quite dearly that

"The evidence is that the action of the Prime Minister's office on 6 January in relation to the disclosure was without her direct authority … We accept this."

Every national newspaper that I have read this morning says, in essence, that the Prime Minister has been cleared by this report. That is the important point.

I refer the hon. Gentleman, since he did not refer to it, to paragraph 184 where he will see that Sir Robert Armstrong said:

" 'I have inquired about it separately and my inquiries confirmed what the Prime Minister said, that there was a discussion on Tuesday 7 January, in which she was told in general terms of those contacts.'"

The hon. Gentleman referred to ministerial responsibility. The whole point is that this misunderstanding came about and that this unauthorised disclosure was made without the approval of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. There is no ministerial responsibility.

As for the inquiries of Sir Robert Armstrong, I refer the House to paragraph 190 of the report. The Committee's comment was:

"This was normal procedure."

As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Sir I. Percival) said yesterday, just because there has been an authorised disclosure it does not necessarily mean that it has been authorised by a Minister. The report is quite clear. It clears the Prime Minister.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) introduces a refreshing sense of perspective into the debate. The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) is well known in the House and outside for his persistence and determination in pursuing issues. We respect him for that. But I have to let him into a secret. He does sometimes get so obsessed with an issue that he loses his balance and objectivity. One obsession he has is that there is a continual conspiracy in Government against the nation. This impression that he gives, that he lives in a world of illusions, does very often diminish the credibility of his case. Indeed he is notorious for raising issues which fascinate a part of Westminster and the press but which bore the rest of the country stiff. [Interruption.] I do not think that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is interested in listening to the reply, because he is simply not interested in objective discussion.

The third and fourth reports from the Defence Committee on Westland were received by the Government only yesterday. These reports are based on lengthy inquiries that the Committee has conducted and the Government will naturally be studying them carefully before responding to Parliament in due course. I note that the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) recognised yesterday the need for the Government to have time to reply. That is why I find it all the more astonishing that the hon. Member for Linlithgow was expecting there to be an immediate reply from the Government within 24 hours of the issuing of a substantial report. He knows all the conventions of the House and it is only reasonable that the Government should have time to reply.

In responding to the points that the hon. Member has made, I do not propose to go over the entire series of events in detail. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave full accounts to the House on 23 and 27 January and has answered many questions in the House since then. Sir Robert Armstrong gave extensive and detailed evidence to the Committee on two occasions; and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General has answered numerous questions in the House concerning his position and that of my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General.

But the hon. Gentleman has insisted on making several points, often despite the information already made available, and I propose to deal briefly in the time available with a few of them and to raise related issues.

First, on the Prime Minister's involvement, the hon. Gentleman continues to allege that the disclosure of the Solicitor-General's letter was made in some way with the Prime Minister's authority. The Committee report states clearly in paragraph 183:

"The Prime Minister stated that she had no knowledge on 6 January of what was taking place. We accept this."

I hope that in the light of that clear conclusion from the Committee we shall hear no more from hon. Members on this matter.

Will the Minister give way?

No; I have been given absolutely no time. The hon. Member for Linlithgow has taken up a large part of the debate, and I should have time to respond to it.

The hon. Gentleman repeated his earlier allegation concerning the Attorney-General, suggesting that my right hon. and learned Friend knew when he instituted the inquiry that the disclosure had been authorised by the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I refer the House to the reply given yesterday by the Attorney-General in which he made the position abundantly clear. As it is on the record, there is no need for me to repeat the reply, in view of the importance of answering some of the other points. As it was a full reply that put on the record his response to the allegation, I can add no more to it.

I now deal with the hon. Gentleman's allegations about individual civil servants. He was right to say that I am the Minister responsible for the Civil Service. I have the greatest admiration for the professionalism, impartiality and loyalty of civil servants which they bring to Governments of every complexion. Once again, I refer hon. Members to what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in the House yesterday on this matter:

"First, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and I have total confidence in our officials referred to in the report. As the House will be aware, those responsible for decisions on disciplinary action have already concluded that there was no case for such action. Secondly, I do not accept that Committee's comments on the role of the head of the home Civil Service. He continues to enjoy the Government's total confidence. He is a very distinguished public servant, who has performed great service to Governments of both parties."—[Official Report, 24 July 1986; Vol. 102, c. 590.]

The Select Committee said that it finds extraordinary the fact that no disciplinary action was taken against any of the officials concerned in the disclosure of the Solicitor-General's letter. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already expressed to the House, in her speech on 27 January, her regret at the manner in which the disclosure was made. As the head of the home Civil Service said in his evidence to the Select Committee, clearly things were done in this affair which would have been better done differently, and in that sense people made wrong judgments. The question is whether those errors of judgment were such as to call for disciplinary action. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear yesterday, those responsible for decisions about disciplinary action concluded that there was no case for such action in these instances.

As the Committee's report acknowledges, the disclosure was made with the authority of the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Indeed, the House will need little reminding that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Britian), in his statement to this House on 27 January, accepted full responsibility for the fact and form of the disclosure. He went on to make it clear that officials acted in accordance with his wishes and instructions.

The overriding importance of the principle of ministerial accountability has been stressed in the Government's response to the seventh report from the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee, which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister presented to the House yesterday.

Will the Minister give way?

I have great respect for the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but the hon. Member for Linlithgow took about 30 minutes of the debate, and I must reply to it.

Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves this point, will he address his mind to the Select Committee's request in paragraph 231? In the absence of ministerial authority, civil servants were not allowed to give evidence and Ministers did not answer questions fully. At the end of the paragraph, the Select Committee says, "This we now do", in relation to making a special request for the authority of the House.

That proves my point. It would have been better had I proceeded with the debate because I shall deal with those points in a moment. Now I am dealing with the Government's reply which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister presented to the House yesterday.

The right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) said that the Select Committee has requested the support of the House in obtaining the attendance of civil servants. If he reads paragraph 231 again, he will see that that is not the case at all. We said that we wished to complete our inquiry as far as possible on the evidence before us before reporting to the House, and then we said, "This we now do." The right hon. and learned Gentleman is quite wrong.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for clarifying the position.

The Government's response to the seventh report of the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee stated:

"Any attempt to make civil servants directly accountable to Parliament, other than the strictly defined case of the Accounting Officer's responsibility, would be difficult to reconcile with Minister's responsibility for their departments and civil servants' duty to their Ministers."

That is an important point. The response makes several other points about ministerial accountability.

It is important to quote from the Procedure Committee's report, which stated:

"It would not, however, be appropriate for the House to seek directly or through its committees to enforce its right to secure information from the Executive at a level below that of the ministerial head of the department concerned … since such a practice would tend to undermine rather than strengthen the accountability of Ministers to the House."

I should mention the increasing tendency to summon officals to appear at Select Committee hearings. The House must reflect carefully on this important issue, especially the tendency to examine the performance and conduct of individual officials. I hope that the Select Committees will return to the principles that have hitherto been accepted as the basis upon which officials give evidence to Select Committees.

In the last few minutes available to me, I shall deal with Sir Robert Armstrong. The hon. Member for Linlithgow singled out for special criticism the head of the home Civil Service and the Prime Minister's chief press secretary. They have long been accustomed to such allegations from the hon. Gentleman. But that is no reason for leaving those allegations unanswered, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it clear to the House many times, including yesterday afternoon, that they retain her total confidence. She has asked me to confirm that again this morning.

The Select Committee's report claims that Sir Robert Armstrong's dual role as Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service may have caused a conflict of interest in the conduct of the inquiry. The Government's response to the seventh report from the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee already makes it clear that they see no grounds for changing this arrangement, and nothing said in the Defence Select Committee's report affects that.

The Select Committee said that the head of the Home Civil Service failed to give a lead in this case. I cannot accept that view. He has stated on the record, in evidence to the Select Committee which has been reported and broadcast, that it would have been much better not to have disclosed the information in the way in which it was disclosed. He issued a note of guidance in February last year on the duties and responsibilities of civil servants in relation to Ministers. The Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee has accepted the validity of those principles, and they have been reaffirmed by the Government in the response to the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee which was published yesterday.

The head of the Home Civil Service conducted, with assistance from a colleague from the Cabinet Office (Management and Personnel Office), the inquiry into the disclosure of the Solicitor-General's letter and reported fully to the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General on the disclosure. He took the view, in my judgment rightly, that it would not be fair or reasonable to expect the officials who had given an account of their role to him and co-operated fully in the inquiry to appear before the Select Committee. He offered to give evidence to the Select Committee, and answered its questions fully and fairly at two sessions lasting altogether for nearly five hours. Far from that being a failure of leadership, it demonstrates the exercise of leadership with great responsibility and integrity.

If I had had more time, I would have tried to deal with some other issues, including the guidelines that are being given to civil servants on matters of conscience. However, the hon. Member for Linlithgow will see, in the reply that the Government gave yesterday, that we acknowledge that some changes might be considered. Discussions will take place to see whether changes can be made to take the issue a stage further. The matters to which I have referred are but a few of those raised in the Committee's report. The Government will, of course, be making their full views known in due course.

Mr. Speaker, with permission, I would like to make a statement about the Turks and Caicos Islands.

On 27 March the House was informed that a commission of inquiry had been set up by the Governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands, one of our remaining Caribbean dependencies. The commission was asked to investigate allegations of arson of Government offices, corruption in the Public Works Department and related issues. The Commissioner, Mr. Louis Blom-Cooper QC, submitted his report to the Governor in London on 4 July. Mr. Blom-Cooper has found arson of a public building by persons unknown. He has also found the Chief Minister and two of his ministerial colleagues unfit to hold ministerial office. The report states that Ministers have indulged in unconstitutional behaviour, political discrimination and administrative malpractices. The commission also finds that the leader of the Opposition party and a senior Opposition figure have been involved in a conspiracy to commit public order offences to overthrow the present Government. The commission observes that such is the corrupting effect of patronage throughout the system that this was the only means of protest available to them.

We have agreed with the Governor that we must treat these findings extremely seriously. It is essential that we put right what has gone wrong. Many islanders would like to see an end to present abuses. We have accordingly decided that, in the interests of the islanders themselves, the administrative structure of the islands must be changed to prevent ministerial abuses. This is partly because the present constitution, dating from 1976, was drafted on the assumption, which was not borne out, that local Ministers should be given wide responsibilities in preparation for eventual independence. The Chief Minister and his colleagues resigned yesterday morning. The Governor then announced in the Turks and Caicos Islands that we have amended the constitution by means of an Order in Council. This replaces the existing Executive Council with an Advisory Council consisting of members nominated by the Governor from among the most respected and responsible islanders. It will include members of the elected Legislative Council, which will remain in existence. The Governor has already received assurances of support from a number of respected islanders.

This is an interim measure. We are not suspending the constitution and substituting direct administration through the Governor. We are not taking away the franchise. We will appoint a Constitutional Commission to review the constitution and make recommendations for the future. It will aim to conclude its review by the end of the year and will be followed by fresh elections.

These decisions offer the opportunity for active cooperation by the islanders themselves. Reports we have received so far show that the essential interim measures we are taking to restore good government will receive the islanders' full co-operation and understanding. We and they have a common interest in ensuring regional stability. We are keeping Commonwealth Caribbean Governments and others closely informed.

I shall not be tempted by the echo of the previous debate that the statement has clearly evoked in some of my colleagues, because this is an important matter for the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Given the difficult situation on the islands that the Minister has described, and the dependency status under the 1976 constitution, the Opposition accept the right of the British Government to take the action described. We believe that it is in the best interests of the islanders, in the light of what we understand to be the findings of the Blom-Cooper report. We welcome the Minister's assurance that there will be full and continuing consultation with respected leaders in the islands on all the action to be taken, and also the assurance that there can be a swift return to administration by elected island representatives.

I have a few questions to ask the Minister. First, will he confirm that the Blom-Cooper report will be published today—it is not yet available in the Vote Office—so that the House can know the background to this statement? Is not assistance urgently needed to tackle the growing drugs menace on the islands and to develop a healthy economy so that they will not be dependent on money from drugs, which is a growing market? Will assistance be given to equip the coastguard and the police to tackle that problem? The drugs barons have greater resources than have the islands Government. Will the Minister look with his colleagues at the Overseas Development Administration to see what financial help can be given to the Government on the islands for this purpose?

Will there not remain a problem of organising political and administrative structures, not just on the Turks and Caicos Islands, but on a number of island dependencies with small populations? Will the Government look at the options for tackling this problem?

My next question is on an important matter, which has been pressed on me by people who know the islands and the situation in the Caribbean well. Will the Government refrain from using anything other than civilian forces to deal with law and order on the islands, unless it is absolutely necessary?

As the House is about to rise, will the Minister give us an assurance that he will keep all the Opposition parties informed over the next few months and report on what we hope will be a speedy return to stable democratic government on the Turks and Caicos Islands?

I welcome the tone and content of the hon. Gentleman's questions. We value the support that we are receiving from the official Opposition on what, as he says, is a difficult and delicate situation.

We hope that the Constitutional Commission will report by the end of the year, but we can give no firm assurances. The Blom-Cooper report is to be placed in the Library, not in the Vote Office. If hon. Members want copies, I am sure that we can make them available.

I have taken careful note of the points that the hon. Gentleman made about drugs and general crime prevention. We have a regional police adviser stationed in the Turks and Caicos Islands and a number of measures have been taken in this sector. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the islands are already in receipt of some £5 million per annum of both budgetary and capital aid from the ODA, and that is a considerable commitment.

I am delighted to be able to say that we are just about to commence a long-term review of our remaining dependent territories, and I hope that that will be welcomed.

The hon. Gentleman stressed the need for the use of civilian police rather than other forms of support for law and order, and I share his desire that that process will be used. I willingly undertake to keep Opposition parties informed, as well as other hon. Members on both sides of the House.

Who will lead the Constitutional Commission? Will the Legislative Council still be able to legislate while these temporary measures are in force? What is the reaction among the islanders to these measures, which are recognised on both sides of the House to be regrettably necessary?

We are not yet able to announce the name of the person who will head the Constitutional Commission, but we have every expectation that it will be a leading Caribbean statesman. We also hope to appoint to the commission a citizen of the Turks and Caicos Islands. The Legislative Council will remain in place, but the Governor will take executive decisions as advised by the Advisory Council, which is replacing the Executive Council as an interim meas0075re. The announcement of the change was made in the Turks and Caicos Islands yesterday. It is now about 5 am there. The initial reports are that developments have been generally welcomed by the vast majority of the population.

I welcome the statement and endorse the Government's action. It is obviously right to purge Ministers who do not behave themselves. Does the Minister agree that the only long-term hope for the economy of the islands is development of tourism and the financial centre there? Does he agree that that can be done only against a background of international confidence? The Government's action has gone a long way to underpin such confidence.

The report contains much useful background and historical information. It merits wider circulation than the House. Will the Minister consider making it an HMSO paper? Will he examine the North Creek situation? There is widespread feeling that it requires urgent attention before the commission is put in, as there is wide scope for scandal and corruption. That issue is developed in the report.

Does the Minister agree that this is an example of why we should have a longer-term policy for smaller dependencies such as Pitcairn and Tristan de Cunha and other legacies of the colonial age? Is it not time that we had a longer-term policy to deal with such issues?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support, which we value. I take his point about the future of the islands lying with tourism, and perhaps a financial centre. There is some evidence to suggest that the arrest of the Chief Minister last year, and other incidents, has led to a loss of confidence among external investors. We hope that the measures that we have announced will provide a different atmosphere, restore stability and encourage people from outside to invest in the islands in sectors such as the hon. Gentleman described.

I shall consider what the hon. Gentleman said about the report. It is bulky and lengthy, and I am not sure whether it is appropriate to make it an HMSO publication, but we shall consider ways in which to make it more generally available.

I note what the hon. Gentleman said about North Creek. As for longer-term policy, I have said that we are embarking on consideration of just that.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the sensitive and sensible way in which he has approached this difficult problem. Will he elaborate on what he said about consultations with other Caribbean countries in the Commonwealth? What support has he received from them? I hope that he will consult them closely on how to deal with the problem in the longer term.

In his review of the constitutional arrangements in the Turks and Caicos Islands, will my hon. Friend take account of the difficulties of running an independent nation with such a small population without there being any reserve powers outside? He has had to take extra constitutional means to bring to book Ministers who have misused their powers. It is essential that, in any future arrangements, reserve powers should lie somewhere outside the islands.

I thank my hon. Friend for his initial remarks. We have informed several Caribbean states and others of our actions. We will keep them closely in touch with developments. We intend to have the Constitutional Commission headed by a leading figure in the Caribbean. We believe that we can benefit in the next few months from help and exchanges of information with other Caribbean countries.

We have reserve powers, and have effectively exercised them by the Order in Council. My hon. Friend's general question about reserve powers is, however, something that we will want to consider in the light of the review of our future relations with dependent territories.

I visited the Turks and Caicos Islands a few years ago. Is the Minister aware that the previous Governor impressed on me the high quality of Ministers, the quality of whom has now been found to be less than high, coming from so small a population? Did the Government, through that Governor, receive advance advice that all was not well? Is the Minister satisfied that Club Mediterranée and other conspicious investment such as that is the best way to get over the islands' immense paucity of water and other natural resources?

The present Governor is very well respected, and it is largely as a result of actions that he has taken that the Blom-Cooper report and other measures that I have been able to announce today have been instituted.

As for Club Mediterranêe and Providenciales Island, I agree with the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) that the economic development of the islands must be associated at least in part with the development of tourism. Despite the anxieties that have been expressed by hon. Members and others about the level of expenditure on the runway on Providenciales Island, the Club Mediterranêe development has been spectacularly successful. There has been a large increase in the number of beds in a short time and it provides a significant amount of employment. It is significant that that island is the most economically self-sufficient in the Turks and Caicos chain.

When considering the problems of the Turks and Caicos Islands, will my hon. Friend remember that a mini-state such as this just does not have the internal resources necessary to deal with any serious internal or external threat? Will he also remember that a fully independent mini-state would be under constant threat from drug smugglers, the Mafia and political extremists?

I entirely take my hon. Friend's point. I should like to endorse what he said about the considerable threat posed to our dependent territories, and to independent states, in that part of the world by the activities of drug traffickers. It is also impossible to underestimate the problems that the industry associated with drug trafficking poses.

The Minister mentioned the £5 million investment and praised the current economic development that it has generated. Does he remember that, on the half-day debate on this matter on 14 March 1983, the House thought that the investment would not succeed? Will he confirm that the budgetary support that it was supposed to eliminate continues? Does he recall that the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, in HC26 for 1980–81 and HC112 for 1982–83, showed that the Minister who was then responsible, the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), fudged the figures to get such investment and demonstrated a certain amount of shady land development?

I welcome what the Minister said about a review. Will other Commonwealth countries be consulted?

I do not for one moment accept the hon. Gentleman's remarks about my right hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley). Indeed, I notice that my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells), who was also a member of that Select Committee, does not agree with that interpretation of the report.

The Club Mediterranée development has produced considerable benefits for the Government of the Turks and Caicos Islands in the form of taxes and employment. We shall certainly consult other Commonwealth Governments, particularly other Caribbean Governments, and keep them in touch as matters develop.

Is my hon. Friend aware that the corruption and maladministration in the Turks and Caicos Islands have been notorious for years in the Caribbean? Why have the Government delayed so long in dealing with that? Such corruption and maladministration may be commonplace in the independent territories of the Caribbean, but it is intolerable that they should have gone on for so long in a colony under direct British administration. Does it not illustrate the need for us to take a fresh look at all our dependent territories and to institute something like a council for the dependent territories to ensure that there is continuous supervision at a parliamentary level?

I shall certainly take that suggestion into account when we go through the review of our relations with our dependent territories. Prior to Mr. Blom-Cooper's report we did not have clear or sufficient evidence of ministerial abuse on which to take firm action. It is true, however, that there were some rumours. Because the report and inquiry produced evidence of abuse that would stand up, we took the line recommended by Mr. Blom-Cooper.

Is the Minister aware that there is nothing so pompous as a Tory Minister giving a report to the House of so-called malpractices on an island where the population happen to be black on the very day of a debate about the malpractices, political discrimination and unconstitutional behaviour of the Prime Minister of Britain? My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) is just passed on with a wave of the hand when he raises that matter—

rose—

I have not done yet. Get down.

Order. The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) should bear in mind that this is a private Members' day, and should make his questions succinct and to the point, on the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Does the Minister agree—

rose—

I have not finished. The hon. Gentleman crawled to get that job.

Order.

He did. He made a crawling speech.

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman put his question briefly?

Does the Minister agree that in the report that he read he referred to the Chief Minister being dismissed because of unconstitutional behaviour, administrative malpractice and political discrimination? Are they not crimes of which the British Prime Minister is also guilty? If we want to make progress in this country, it would not be a bad idea to get Louis Blom-Cooper to deliver a report on this Tory Government and get the seedy lot out.

We can always rely on the hon. Gentleman to lower the tone of any discussion. I just hope that he will take the opportunity afforded by the recess to work out his bile.

May I urge on my hon. Friend the desirability of giving additional financial resources to the Turks and Caicos Islands at the time of these new and welcome measures? British forces have been very effective in Belize in helping the Government there to handle the drugs problem. Will serious consideration be given to deploying British service men in a similar role in the region of the Turks and Caicos Islands?

I have taken careful note of my hon. Friend's first point, but we must be careful about involving our forces in drugs work in Belize or other areas. The forces are really there to do another type of work. We must always bear that in mind.

I wonder whether my hon. Friend can help me with this matter, which he will no doubt agree has some immediacy. As the Government of the Turks and Caicos Islands banned their athletes from appearing at the Commonwealth Games but have now, to all intents and purposes, fallen, can those athletes take part in the games? If so, will my hon. Friend encourage the organisers of the games to welcome them, no matter how late the hour of their appearance?

As far as I am aware, the Turks and Caicos Islands did not have an entry in the games, so there is no point in their withdrawing or staying in.

Is my hon. Friend aware that drug trafficking and related criminal activities affect not only the Turks and Caicos Islands, but the region as a whole? Will my hon. Friend ensure that the closest consultation is carried out with the other Caribbean Governments mentioned in his statement and with the Government of the United States of America in order to defeat such activities?

I agree with the point made by my hon. Friend. Indeed, only three or four weeks ago I had discussions with United States Government agencies in Miami about the drug problems in the Caribbean area.

We now return to the Adjournment motions. May I suggest that the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Baker) and the next hon. Member to speak, the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon), split the five minutes between them, so that they have two and a half minutes each on their half hours?

I am glad to have this opportunity to conduct this important debate, and am pleased that so many of my colleagues want to stay to hear it. Indeed, if the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) leaves as well, there will be no Labour Member present to hear it. No, I am mistaken, there are two Labour Members present, and I am grateful to them for that. This subject is important. The previous Adjournment debate was raised by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell)—an extreme pessimist who looks very much at the past. I am an optimist and I prefer to look to the future, and particularly to the EEC's agriculture policy. However, I must say that I see there the same sort of Scotch mist and gloom as the hon. Member for Linlithgow saw elsewhere. Trying to reorganise the EEC's agriculture policy is like working in a shadowy dream world, where our limbs are ineffective.

Our debates in the House need to be directed not just at our own Ministers but, rather, at the Ministers of our Common Market partners. The CAP system was not designed for Britain. The circumstances that it was arranged for have changed. French agriculture has been dramatically modernised. German agriculture and its social needs have been protected. Europe is now producing large surpluses, and reform of the system is urgently needed. However, I do not see the necessary European political will to change that system. Perhaps that is why I seem to share in the sort of gloom spread by the hon. Member for Linlithgow.

My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has received a grossly unfair share of personal criticism during the past year or two. I do not believe that the institutions involved with agriculture fully understand the need to work together and to direct our shots at the EEC. The co-responsibility levy for cereals increases my pessimism. That levy will not reduce overproduction or improve the efficiency of our agriculture. It may raise revenue for the EEC Commission, but it should not have been accepted, and I very much regret its introduction. Its introduction came about in an unfortunate way. I am told that the Commission had the documents and plans ready for this scheme in January and that, as our Ministers have told us, our Government resisted such a levy until the last possible moment. It was introduced by a statutory instrument that was laid on 15 July, no fewer than 15 days after the levy came into effect. For that reason our industry has not been able to prepare and there has been no advance warning to the trades related to agriculture.

I represent one of the largest concentrations of dairy farmers in Britain and I recollect with some sorrow the introduction of milk quotas. In most cases the quotas have settled down remarkably well, but the way in which they were introduced made it difficult to get a system that was fair, fully understood and capable of working in an equitable way. I am sorry to say that I see the same pattern in the introduction of this levy.

Surely the Ministers who run the Common Market must want to run it and to affect the businesses in their countries better than this. What is the purpose of this levy? We were told originally by the Commission and the Government that it would be a way to tax surplus cereal production and to reduce prices for the benefit of cereal consumers. A levy of £3·30 per tonne will not do that. Tax will be raised by the processor and in the end it will probably be paid by the consumer. I shall come back to that in a moment. I do not think that there will be a reduction of cereal prices that will benefit cereal consumers.

If it will not achieve that, perhaps it is designed to reduce cereal production. As I have said, that is a proper objective but I do not think that it will happen as a result of this levy. It may even encourage an increase in cereal production. It will be a petty annoyance and be too small to have any great effect upon production. If that was the aim, it would have to be achieved through the price reduction mechanism and by a really savage act. Cereal growers would have to be influenced when they made their plans before planting their corn, that is to say in the long-term rather than at the last minute. The levy would provide some revenue for the Commission but I am not persuaded that for that reason alone it is a good idea.

Let us look at the effect upon farming. We are told that this levy should cut prices for farmers who produce grain but it will not necessarily do that. More likely, it will be passed on as a price increase to the consumer, especially the livestock farmer, who will have to bear the brunt of this tax. I looked at the price of grain the other day and noted that it had already increased, taking into account the tax that has now been introduced.

The levy will have a detrimental effect upon the small and medium-sized family farm producing pigs and poultry. Such farms will be hit quite hard and, if they can, they will turn to cereal substitutes. The burden of cereal surpluses will again be shifted, but will not be dealt with on an EEC basis. Either way, I do not envisage any cut in production arising from the levy. It discriminates against those who are able to process cereals and those who buy in feed for livestock. Farmers who have to do that will suffer serious discrimination.

I shall turn now to look at the effect upon the grain trade. Integrated grain users who produce, process and use grain on their own farms will be exempt from the levy, provided that their farms are within a radius of 15 miles. Outside that radius all grain processed will be subject to the levy. That discriminates against the compound feed industry, as the people who work in that industry will lose turnover as more milling takes place on farms. I see no result other than an increase in the amount of grain used by producers themselves and this will create great distortions in the grain trade.

If there were other justifications for this levy it might be necessary for an industry to have to adjust to distortions, but to have it imposed in this sudden, arbitrary way is unfair. Perhaps when she is replying to the debate my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will tell us her expectations about the effect of the levy and about the revenue that it is likely to produce for the Commission. I and many people affected by this levy fear that the amount it will produce will be much lower than expected, and that next year that will result in an application for an increase in the levy.

Grain merchants do not wish to become tax collectors and are rightly concerned about the administrative burden they will have to bear. For them, this is yet another tax. I know that my hon. Friend and her Ministry are conducting discussions with the grain trade. Perhaps she can tell us the latest state of those discussions and how far her Ministry will be able to reduce the administrative burden that merchants will have to bear.

The exemption of mobile mill and mix companies which travel around mixing grain for farmers is considerable. Some of these companies are very big and this large exemption will considerably distort the trade. I hope that my hon. Friend will bear that in mind. I also fear that the small processor will come under yet another pressure because this exemption will encourage the growth of giant companies which may grow even more, eat up the smaller processors, and regain an increasingly dominant position in the market.

As I have said, the statutory instrument laid last week covers the introduction of this levy. It contains extremely tough powers relating to the production of documents and wide powers concerning entry into premises. I am sure that my hon. Friend will say that it is necessary to have such powers to police the levy to ensure that it is fairly and properly extracted. The powers are similar to those given to VAT inspectors, and I regret that it should be necessary to take further powers of this kind. There are still considerable opportunities for fraud and for ways around the rules that have been introduced. It is extremely hard to assess what a pile of grain lying in a farmer's yard or grain bin represents. What will it cost to police this system? Does my hon. Friend have in her Ministry sufficient experts to do the job?

I see nothing responsible about this levy. It will not attack the basic problem of overproduction of grain within the EEC and I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister is concerned about the prospect of about 80 million tonnes of grain in intervention stores by 1991. That prospect still faces us and is not diminished by the introduction of this levy. It is a tax mainly upon the livestock producers, and it will hit the small family farms rather than the large ones. It has been introduced at the request of the Commission. I regret that we did not have the opportunity to discuss it and prepare the industry for it.

I conclude as I began—I do not believe that the levy is necessary. I hope that my hon. Friend will reconsider the matter and do what she can to reduce the impact. I hope that she will answer some of the points that I have put to her today.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North (Mr. Baker) for giving us the opportunity for a further discussion about the cereals co-responsibility levy this morning. No one would deny that the levy is a major new factor affecting the operation of the cereals market, and it deserves our most careful consideration.

The levy will require changes in trading practices and, inevitably, there will be a period of uncertainty before it fits into the trading routine. I pay tribute to the good will and co-operation that we have received from trade organisations in dealing with this subject. We have striven to keep them informed of the twists and turns in the negotiations, while they have made sure that we understand the practicalities of the levy implementation so that we can operate a feasible system.

I emphasise that none of us in this House favoured the introduction of a levy on cereals. Although it has a similar effect to a price cut on the producer, it does not have the same advantage to consumers as a price cut across the board. But in the negotiations in the Council of Ministers, my right hon. Friend had to recognise the importance attached by so many other member states to the levy. It would clearly form part of the price-fixing package which, in other respects, was consistent with our aim of bringing the market into better balance. In those circumstances, our best course was not to remain inflexibly opposed to the concept, but rather to try to change the proposal so that it was less discriminatory against the United Kingdom. That we did. The exemption from levy for sales up to 25 tonnes, which would have discriminated against the United Kingdom, was dropped and the application of the levy to all sales into intervention meant that it had much more the effect of a direct price cut, which would have been our preferred method. Instead of the United Kingdom having to contribute a greater proportion of levy revenue than other member states—as would have been the case under the original proposal—we now estimate we will pay levy on about three-quarters of our production, which is the same proportion that the Commission expects for the Community as a whole.

Some may, of course, doubt whether other member states will enforce levy collection and contribute as they are meant to do. But as a significant proportion of the levy will be collected on sales into intervention and on export, which are already subject to official controls, and as any member state not collecting the levy will be subject to disallowance, I do not think that is a point that should be over-emphasised. We will make sure through the Commission that we receive data on levy collection in other member states. We are confident that we will be able to ensure that it is collected in the United Kingdom.

There have been many complaints — and my right hon. Friend raised it today—about the confusion caused to the trade by the delay in reaching agreement on the implementing regulations. We regret these delays very much, but to some extent they are unavoidable when 12 member states have to agree. We did press hard for early finalisation of the rules and only when the Commission rules were finalised at the end of June were we able to draft our own statutory instrument, which we then did as quickly as possible in order to lay it before the House well before the end of the Session. Throughout the period of uncertainty we kept in close contact with the trade organisations involved.

I cannot pretend that all the delays and uncertainties are now over. Clearly a scheme like this will, I am afraid, throw up problems for some time to come. Only yesterday in Brussels a series of changes was adopted to the regulations that were agreed so arduously at the end of June. These measures will not require any change in the way in which the levy is to be applied in the United Kingdom. In fact, they bring the Community rules closely into line with the guidance that we issued last week to clarify uncertainties surrounding who would be exempt from the levy. I, my colleagues, and officials in the Department and in the intervention board will continue to work to solve any remaining problems, to the benefit of those affected, just as quickly as we can.

I appreciate that, whatever guidelines are drawn up, there will inevitably continue to be complaints about distortion. It would be impossible to avoid some degree of discrimination unless the levy were applied to all production or to all cereals acreage. That was clearly not negotiable. In its present form the levy is bound to discriminate between those able to process cereals on their farms and those who rely on bought-in feeds. It is also bound to discriminate against the compound feed industry because it encourages more milling on farms. But our aim has been to minimise this discrimination and the arrangements now adopted mean that all grain processed for sale will be treated in exactly the same way and that the exemption of on-farm use is on a logical and reasonably clear basis.

I am not surprised that the practicalities of the current scheme have been questioned on the issue of passing on the levy to the producer, while collecting it from the processor. This is certainly a thorny problem, because, particularly when feed grain is sold off the farm, it will not be known whether its use will ultimately be subject to levy. It is a problem that we have talked through at length with the trade and with farmers. Clearly there are a number of ways in which the requirement that the levy should be passed back to the producer could be fulfilled, but that is largely a matter of presentation rather than economics. The key to the economic impact of the levy is that it is collected on all sales into intervention. As the market for grain is supported by the intervention price, this means that the market price of all feed grain will fall, regardless of its use. There is no reason why one processor should be prepared to pay more for his grain than another just because he is exempt from the levy. The benefit of exemption from the levy therefore accrues to the use of the grain, and the only way of passing that benefit back to the cereal producer would be by making the user pay more. As well as posing enormous administrative problems, that seems wrong in principle and inconsistent with the intention of the Council when it agreed to impose the levy.

While I do not want to minimise the traders' worries, I must stress that this is a matter of how the documents relating to transactions in grain are presented, rather than a real economic problem. It seems to me that such a problem is best handled by farmers and traders themselves, and that this is something with which the Government should not become involved.

My hon. Friend made a particular point about the small farmer. The United Kingdom receives more than 5 million ecus out of the 120 million ecus that the EEC gives to small farmers—and that is basically with a national flexibility as to the definition.

My hon. Friend also asked what would be the estimated income levy. The EC estimates that it will be about 650 million ecu or about £400 million in a full year. That is in the EC, but the yield in the United Kingdom depends on the harvest. My hon. Friend expressed concern about administrative costs. Like any other provision which affects trade in CAP commodities, administrative costs will have to be absorbed in trading costs. My hon. Friend also asked about mobile mill and mix units. Those will be exempt so long as the equipment is rented by the farmer using them. If they were not exempt there would be discrimination between those farmers big enough to operate their own equipment and those who cannot afford to operate their own equipment.

I assure my hon. Friend that we shall continue to monitor the operation of the levy closely from all points of view. We shall do our best to ensure that any new problems are sorted out as quickly as possible and we shall go on when the House is no longer sitting and I hope that when the House returns it will find that the grain market has adjusted fully to this levy placed upon it.

I welcome this opportunity to deal with housing in my constituency in south Tyneside. May I preface my remarks by saying that today is the last day for the last steel plant in my constituency? The rolling mill in Jarrow closes today and 250 men will join the already too long dole queues in my constituency. It is rather ironic that today is the 50th anniversary of the Jarrow march, as a result of which industries were eventually sited in Jarrow.

Housing is a problem in Britain, not just in Jarrow or south Tyneside. In 1986, over 1 million British households are living in homes considered unfit for human habitation. A further 250,000 have nowhere to call a home. Many more live in homes that are considered habitable but with leaky roofs, damp walls and serious overflow.

If Britain were too poor to provide for those families, that would be a misfortune, but not only is this nation rich in economic and human resources, but millions of pounds are held by local authorities which they are not allowed to spend, even though they raised it for the specific purpose of investing in public and private housing stock.

There are in Britain 1·2 million people on the council waiting list; 250,000 are registered as homeless; and there is £3·5 billion in the banks from the sale of council houses. Almost 500,000 construction workers are unemployed and the total cost of dealing with disrepair, unfitness and defects in our total housing stock is estimated at about £50 billion.

The Secretary of State for the Environment is visiting my constituency today. Unfortunately, he will not be looking at the housing stock. He is going for another purpose. I applied for this Adjournment debate to draw to the Government's attention the deteriorating position of housing in south Tyneside where my constituency lies, as does the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark). Both he and I have frequent meetings with the authority to discuss this particular concern.

The Government have constantly argued that they need to control local government spending. They have particularly argued that they need to control local authority spending on houses. They claim that to provide homes for those who need them is wrong because it leads to inflation. I disagree with that argument. It is eminently suitable to provide homes for those who need them. I go further. I regard a decent home as a right for everyone. A decent home is a basic need like proper food or good health and to claim that we should not build homes for people who need them because it may lead to inflation is morally indefensible. The Government seem to have no moral scruples and base this matter on purely financial grounds.

But it is not true to say that housebuilding by local authorities leads to inflation. Local authorities do not contribute to inflation by using their own capital and revenue to build homes for their own people on their own land using their own labour. Yet the Government pretend they must prevent councils doing that.

In south Tyneside there are 7,200 applicants on the council waiting lists. That does not mean 7,200 people; it means that 7,200 families require accommodation. That includes individuals, single-parent families, pensioners and others. They are desperately looking for someone to help them get a decent home. If South Tyneside local authority was allowed to do so, it would provide homes as it has been providing well designed, soundly built and traditionally constructed homes for many years. These would he homes for families, single persons and the elderly. The authority has provided 34,000 homes. Last year, because of Government restrictions, the authority built the magnificent total of 47 houses.

When I was chairman of the housing committee less than 10 years ago, the council built more than 7,000 houses a year. That made an impact on the waiting list. Under this Government, the authority built only 47 houses last year and this year it will complete 26. There is no shortage of labour, as there are plenty of unemployed tradesmen. There is no shortage of expertise. The record shows that houses can be built under a decent Government. There is no shortage of land. The council has sold land to private builders because the Government will not allow the authority to develop that land. Indeed, one of the prime sites in Jarrow, the Croft terrace school site, has been sold to private builders for development. That site would have been ideal for pensioners' bungalows as it is in the centre of town, near the shopping centre. However, because of Government restrictions, the authority has not been allowed to build and the land was advertised for sale to private builders.

What can the Minister tell the 7,200 applicants on the waiting list? Will he tell them that the Government think that they should wait a little longer? At the current rate of building, they will have to wait 276 years for a house. I appreciate, as a former chairman of the housing committee, that the waiting list is not static. I accept that waiting lists change. However, the Government are hoping that waiting lists will magically disappear when everyone becomes a house owner. The Government are determined to make house ownership compulsory.

I have no objection to people owning their own home. I built my own home. It took me 15 months. I worked in the shipyards during the day and I left every night and at the weekends to build my own home. That was quite an achievement and it gave me a lot of satisfaction. However, not everyone can do that.

South Tyneside council has sold 4,300 council houses. If it had been able to re-use the money from the sale of those houses, it would have been able to provide more homes for those on the housing list. The Government have said that it cannot do that. If the problem was simply the 7,200 applicants on the waiting list, that would he bad enough, but that is not the only aspect of the problem. Last year, the council rehoused 800 families from the waiting list on relets, yet they built only 47 houses. A further 1,310 families joined the waiting list. The list was increased by 510 families. The current building rate and the relets will not even meet the annual increase.

Not only are fewer houses being built; the existing houses are getting older. The sale of the better houses means that fewer houses are available for relets. The long-term, traditionally built houses are becoming defective and must be demolished. The council is being hampered in carrying out that operation because of the cut in its housing investment programme allocation. In 1986–87, the HIP allocation for south Tyneside was £5,840,000. That was a reduction of £560,000 on the 1985–86 allocation.

That may not appear to be a large amount, but it is a vast change when viewed in the context of the allocation of £14·3 million in 1979–80 when I was chairman of the housing committee. Since then, the HIP allocations have been reduced every year. In order to keep pace with inflation, south Tyneside would have needed £27 million in 1986–87 in comparison to the 1979–80 figure. In all, the authority has lost £69 million over the years. In addition, the council received £7 million in subsidies in 1980–81. Today, it has not received a penny in subsidies.

Recently the Department of the Environment asked authorities to complete a questionnaire about defective buildings. That revealed that, nationally, approximately £20 billion must be spent to improve housing. South Tyneside requires £15 million. More than 99 per cent. of dwellings in south Tyneside are currently occupied. That is a credit to the housing department and to housing management. There is a void rate of less than 1,000. In the private sector, the void rate is 4 per cent., according to the figures released by the Department of the Environment. Virtually all the buildings provide accommodation for someone, but it is not all satisfactory accommodation. Those buildings may count as housing units in the Government's statistics, but they will never be homes. I am talking not about statistics or housing units, but about families of people in the homes to which they have a right.

Precast concrete housing of the Orlit, Airey and Dorvians type were built on the cheap to make profits for industry. South Tyneside has 2,700 houses of this type and the council has already demolished 450 Orlit houses. The problems caused by that type of housing show the foolishness of building down to a price rather than up to a standard. That is the result when pound notes are regarded as more important than human beings. That is where Governments—I do not blame this Government alone — went wrong, making councils build precast industrialised housing with flat roofs. When I was leader of Jarrow council and chairman of the housing committee, we were told by the Government, and by the Labour Government, to build housing with flat roofs because it would save £147 per house. Councils are now having to live with the results of that foolishness.

Penny pinching by Governments has created the problem that local authorities have to put right today. To deal with the 2,700 precast concrete houses in south Tyneside would cost at least £25 million. Those dwellings need to be substantially renovated or demolished, as the Government apparently agree — but only for private owners lucky enough to receive grants from the council's dwindling HIP allocation. When will the Government acknowledge that authorities must be given the resources to deal with the problems of the houses that they own before the buildings literally fall down around their ears?

Another problem on south Tyneside is defective wall ties caused by the use of black ash mortar in the 1920s and 1930s. The cost of putting that right is at least £1,000 per house and if the outside leaf has to be taken down the cost is at least £7,000. I am informed that it would cost £6 million to put those houses right.

Jarrow has only one high-rise concrete block in the centre of the town and another in Hebburn, but there are many medium-rise blocks with concrete stairs, communal entrances, ramps and refuse areas. The council needs finance to put those problems right, but the Government's only response is to set up yet another body of experts—the urban housing renewal unit — to collect expertise from authorities and consolidate it in a glossy magazine. Funds are then distributed to authorities prepared to sell council housing stock to private builders. That money comes from the local authorities in any case. More than £50 million of the national HIP allocation has been creamed off by authorities politically responsive to the Government's offer.

The Government claim to be committed to a policy of rehabilitation rather than new building. They maintain that the preservation of communities in improved dwellings is infinitely preferable to bulldozing them to make way for new housing, and to some extent I agree. Indeed, that is one of the first things that we did; in 1979 I had the honour on behalf of the council to receive from the then Minister an award for the St. Paul's road development in Jarrow. The council has rehabilitated many of its houses as well as building new ones.

More than 800 private tenants in south Tyneside still have to boil kettles for a bath and more than 1,200 occupiers of private dwellings still have outside WCs. That is only a small proportion of the 1 million dwellings in the country that lack amenities, and an even smaller proportion of the 3 million dwellings that are known to be in a state of gross disrepair. Those people look to the Government and the local authorities for help, but unfortunately receive none.

Because of the cut in the HIP allocation, south Tyneside has had to restrict improvement grants to owner-occupiers — those in private dwellings. There is a six-month backlog. The council allocates only £1·5 million for mandatory grants or repair grants, so 500 people are waiting to improve their houses. Because of the restriction on finance, south Tyneside has to tell them that there is a six-months delay.

The stupidity of all that, apart from the human misery, is that it does not make economic sense to stop giving grants. Many houses in the older areas could make good family homes. Many have already been improved with grant-aid, but potential for further improvement and finance already invested is being put at risk by the Government's shortsighted policies. The Government claimed to be committed to housing improvement and the need to improve inner city areas, but they misled the local authorities on that. The Government encouraged authorities to embark on improvement programmes, but now apparently they have changed their mind. Previously, the local authority could help private tenants when the private landlord refused to face up to his responsibility for a sub-standard house. As a last resort, the local authority could purchase the dwelling by agreement or by compulsion, and then improve it. Now authorities are forbidden to purchase by agreement. In any case, they do not have the resources to do so.

Also related to improvement aid previously given to provide basic amenities is mortgage assistance. In South Tyneside and, indeed, in many areas in our region there is a type of house called the Tyneside flat, consisting of two-storey terraces with a separate flat on each floor. Traditionally, they were sold in pairs so that the owner-occupier of one was the landlord of the other. Many have been handed down through the generations and many are owned by the elderly. South Tyneside, by providing council mortgages, has assisted many of those elderly owners to repair and improve their property. Because the building societies would not give mortgages for that type of house, those people had to rely on the council, but since the reduction in funds the council's finances have been too limited to continue assistance through mortgaging.

Because of the restriction in finance and the cutback on house building, the authorities have attempted to use existing stock to the best advantage, but again that has been hindered. In south Tyneside there are 3,506 households in council stock that is unsuitable for their needs. Elderly tenants in three-bedroomed houses would like bungalows. I have a surgery tomorrow in Jarrow, and I have no doubt that many elderly people will come to me and say, "Can I put my name down for one of the bungalows in Burn Bede road?" They want a bungalow, but the council is prohibited from building those houses. The council could use the larger houses for families. Many of the elderly people who come to see me at my surgery are too frail to manage the stairs and want bungalow accommodation, but it is not being provided by the council because of the Government's cutback. Thus two sets of households suffer. There are many single people occupying a family house in my area. For example, when her family has left, a widow might still be in the family home. Such people want a decent bungalow in the area where they have lived all their life. That is the sort of thing that south Tyneside wishes to provide.

South Tyneside has a massive housing problem. As I said, 7,200 families are waiting for houses and 3,506 families are waiting for transfers. The council has the officers who are capable of designing and managing those houses. It has the construction workers, who are now on the dole, who are capable of building those homes. It has the councillors who wish to provide homes for those who need them. All that is required is for the Government to release finance or let the council use the finance that it has raised from the many council houses that it has sold. If the Government were to do that, the council could get on with the job.

Councillor Elliott, the chairman of the housing committee, and Mr. Jack Brown, the housing director in south Tyneside, are doing a magnificent job with the resources available. The councillors are doing a magnificent job, and so are the housing officers, architectural staff and everyone else. However, finance is needed. I offer an invitation for the Minister to pass on to his hon. Friend the Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction. We would welcome a visit to south Tyneside so that the Minister responsible for housing can look at the magnificent job that those people are doing with the limited resources. They require some Government finance or, perhaps, the release of their own finance so that they can provide houses for the people in south Tyneside.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) on the way in which he has presented his constituents' case and on drawing the attention of the House to the housing problems in his constituency. I shall of course pass on his invitation to my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction. I know that if he can fit it into his diary he will be delighted to visit the area.

Before I turn to the specific problems of Jarrow, I shall deal with some of the more general points touched on by the hon. Gentleman in his opening remarks. The hon. Gentleman is a fair man and I am sure that he will agree that the problems of disrepair, especially in the public sector stock, have not simply arisen over the past few years. Sadly, they are the result of many years of underspending on management, maintenance and repair. Because of the concern we felt, we initiated a survey last year, through the local authorities, which came up with the figure of £19 billion to put the disrepair right. We then increased the provision for housing investment this year by £200 million to take account of the backlog and to try to make a start in putting it right.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about reductions in public sector investment in housing. The major reductions in public sector investment in housing took place under the previous Administration. The figures he used, which contrasted the allocations for 1978–79 with the allocations for the current year, left out of account capital receipts. As he said, there have been substantial capital receipts and the local authority can supplement its HIP allocation with the prescribed proportion of capital receipts. That factor is far bigger than it was in 1978–79. Simply comparing the allocations between now and then ignores that and gives a somewhat distorted picture.

The hon. Gentleman also fairly pointed out the decline in the number of new houses built by local authorities. It is generally accepted by both sides of the House that the real emphasis should now be on making better use of the stock we have, tackling the problems of disrepair and improving and converting the existing stock rather than embarking on a somewhat expensive programme of new build. Given that many properties are empty, the top priority is to bring those back into use and restore the missing amenities, about which the hon. Gentleman spoke movingly, rather than, as I said, embarking on a new programme of build for rent.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about specific groups such as the homeless, the elderly and the disabled. We have asked the local authority to concentrate its resources on those groups for whom it is difficult for the private sector to make proper provision.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about unemployment. One interesting development over the past few years has been the growth of community refurbishment schemes whereby those who are unemployed can, through the community programme, work on improving their estate, sometimes doing unskilled building work or environmental work or installing security systems. That is one area that the Government are interested in pursuing.

I shall now move to the more specific problems that the hon. Gentleman touched on. Jarrow shares many characteristics with the rest of the South Tyneside borough council. I am heartened by the sensible and constructive attitude of the borough council towards the improvement of housing conditions and diversification of housing opportunities within its area.

The borough council has clearly set out policy objectives. One of the main objectives is eliminating substandard housing and ensuring an adequate provision of new housing. That includes widening the housing choice in the borough and encouraging self-help groups.

In south Tyneside at present, nearly 50 per cent. of the housing stock is in local authority ownership. Therefore, there is scope for private sector resources to be harnessed and used to help finance the improvements and rehabilitation required and the borough council has adopted and demonstrated a pioneering approach.

South Tyneside was the first authority to launch a self-build programme and the hon. Gentleman explained how he had built his house. In his area there are a number of schemes whereby skilled tradesmen and labourers work together as a team to build each other's houses. The final cost of the houses is some 25 per cent. lower than similar houses on the open market. In that way people can be taken off the council waiting list and, through their own endeavours, become house owners. The borough council started the eighth such scheme in March 1986 and has recognised the approach as an alternative method of financing housing construction.

South Tyneside has also shown a positive approach towards tackling the problems of difficult-to-let estates. Some six years ago the borough council converted unpopular three-storey flats and maisonettes at Queens road, Jarrow, to two-storey self-contained terraced houses with gardens at front and rear. At the same time it improved housing management techniques, remodelled the estate layout and improved the environment by landscaping and other works. Some properties were improved for sale, with priority given to existing tenants. The advantage is that the local authority gets some money from the sale of the properties and it meets its housing needs because existing tenants are offered the properties, so it gets a useful relet without expending part of its valuable HIP allocation.

When I was chairman of the housing committee the Queens road area was a difficult-to-let area. The houses had flat roofs, so the council erected pitched roofs and improved the area, so that it is now a success. I appreciate the Minister's comments about it. However, south Tyneside council still has many houses with flat roofs which cause problems, and give tenants all sorts of anxieties.

I hope that it will be possible to pursue that approach elsewhere. If some of the properties can be improved for sale, the demand on the council's HIP allocations will be less than if they are improved for rent. I understand that the scheme has been successful and has transformed a run-down estate, resulting in popular dwellings in a good environment.

By releasing land for the private sector to develop low-cost starter homes and small family homes specifically targeted at first-time buyers, the council has further helped to widen the choice of tenure. In that way it has been able to offer people on housing waiting lists the opportunity to own their home.

In 1985 the private sector started 292 new dwellings and completed 346. If one considers the total picture, it is fair to include private sector starts, together with public sector starts. Nationally known builders, such as Barratts, are providing a range of housing types, and local developers, such as Lemmington Estates, are building low-cost starter homes and small family homes.

At the other end of the market an attractive large site for detached and semi-detached executive housing at Cleadon park is to be released by the local authority. It will be the first such development in south Tyneside and will be within the hon. Gentleman's constituency. Its release will further widen the housing choices available within the area.

The borough council has a long record of allowing tenants the right to buy. Since April 1979 it has sold almost 4,700 council houses, more than 13 per cent. of its original housing stock. The capital value tied up in both land and houses has thus been realised, and the council has been able to reinvest the prescribed proportions of those receipts in its capital expenditure programme. The hon. Gentleman argued that it should be able to spend more. He may know that at present we are considering the whole system of capital allocations for local government to see whether we can come up with a better system.

The Government are committed to widening the opportunities for home ownership. I was pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman endorse the philosophy of home ownership. It results in advantages for individuals in a property-owning democracy. The success of those measures demonstrates that the people of south Tyneside and Jarrow agree with our philosophy and are willing to take responsibilities to meet their housing needs, given the choice and opportunity.

The reason why 7,200 people are on the waiting list is that they cannot buy a house and do not have a mortgage. They require rented accommodation which is why they have applied to the council for it. Unfortunately, the council has not been allowed to build rented accommodation for them.

The approach that I have tried to outline is that if the local authority can make available to builders in the private sector land upon which to build, on condition that the properties are offered either to people on the housing waiting list or to existing council tenants, the council gets the benefit of the relets or of the reduced pressure on the waiting list without having to dig into its own housing investment programme allocation. That is the kind of approach that the Government have suggested, and in fairness to south Tyneside it has adopted it. I suspect that there are quite a lot of tenants in south Tyneside who are interested in becoming home owners but who do not necessarily want to buy the property in which they live. That kind of approach has considerable possibilities for them.

As for the public sector housing stock, we want, if possible, to reduce reliance upon public sector expenditure and subsidies by encouraging private sector involvement in housing renewal. In that way we can bring resources to bear more quickly and help to tackle problems at an early stage. The hon. Member for Jarrow referred to the urban housing renewal unit in my Department which I set up a year ago to try to engage the interest and resources of the public sector to turn round some of the difficult-to-let local authority estates. There has been a good response to that initiative from local authorities of all political persuasions.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that this is not just about privatisation. Of the 25,000 properties that have been helped or that are about to be helped under the scheme, privatisation encompasses only about 1,000, so we are interested in proposals for improving the estates. It is not a precondition that any part of an estate should be sold off. We are not dogmatic about it and I hope that the local authorities will not be dogmatic about it.

An early example of the type of scheme which the urban housing renewal unit is advocating was undertaken by South Tyneside borough council at the Hepscott estate, to which the hon. Gentleman referred in his speech. Here several terraces of 1880s houses in local authority ownership had become unpopular because of poor location and structural faults. Having considered various options, the council decided to sell the estate to a private builder for refurbishment and sale at low cost.

The developers, Bellways, were able to remove unsatisfactory prefrabricated extensions, knock two units into one to create larger dwellings, repair the structure and services and instal new bathrooms and kitchens. Externally, private back gardens were created and traffic was diverted away from the estate. All the houses were sold quickly to first-time buyers. That scheme was described in the glossy publication to which the hon. Gentleman referred, the booklet entitled "New Homes for Old." It illustrates very well the progress that can be made when a local authority is prepared to join forces with the private sector to tackle the problems of run-down housing.

Members of my unit team visited south Tyneside in October last year and were very impressed by the Hepscott estate and also by the intensive management arrangements at Cumberland court in Hebburn new town which has improved a difficult-to-let eight-storey block of flats. In December, the unit invited south Tyneside to apply for an additional HIP allocation — the £50 million represents additional resources, not something that is provided at the expense of the basic allocations—relating to the capital expenditure element of any housing improvement scheme that is approved by the unit. I understand that an application for a grant towards the cost of renovating the flats and maisonettes in the Grange court—North court development in Jarrow is under consideration.

That initiative by the unit will enable local authorities to combine capital funding from an additional HIP allocation with, in some cases, urban programme funding and, in other cases, funding under the community refurbishment scheme. This harnessing of expenditure programmes to tackle the problems of an area is imaginative and it is not new to south Tyneside. We have pursued it elsewhere.

The hon. Gentleman referred to specific problems, and first to wall tie failures. He rightly pointed out that the failure of the metal wall ties between the inner and outer leaves of cavity walls of traditionlly built dwellings is now a major problem in the district and that early estimates of the replacement cost are about £6 million. The hon. Gentleman also referred to system-built housing. The borough council inherited about 2,750 non-traditional housing units, one of the highest totals in the northern region, including Orlit, Sheppards, Myton, Skarne dwellings, Wimpey Mo Fines, Spooner, BISF and Airey. You name it, south Tyneside appears to have it. The majority of the Orlit houses have been demolished. The council's policies for most of the other types have yet to be decided, but, as with the wall tie failures, these are matters that we shall take into account in the discussions that are beginning with council officials about the HIP allocations for next year.

Assistance to private housing development is also available through urban development grants. A scheme of 18 flats for sale at Mill dam on the riverside at South Shields is being built by the Northern Rock housing trust with the help of an urban development grant. Another large private housing project is being considered for a site in Hebburn, but no urban development grant application has yet been submitted to my Department.

The hon. Gentleman said that there has been a considerable reduction in resources for capital spending on housing. As I said a moment ago, gross provision for local authority capital expenditure was increased by £200 million to £2.5 billion for the current year. However, because of the need to allow for the increasing spending power available to authorities from their capital receipts, the national total for HIP allocations was reduced from £1,600 million to £1,465 million.

We recognise the special problems of south Tyneside, not least those associated with system-built dwellings and the council's responsibilities under the Housing Defects Act. The HIP allocation of £5·8 million was a lower reduction compared with the regional allocation as a whole. I must say that £5·8 million is a considerable sum of money. A proportion of it can be used to lever in private sector funding to help tackle many of the problems described by the hon. Gentleman. The borough council of South Tyneside has already demonstrated many different approaches to tackling the problems.

Officers of my Department in the urban housing renewal unit are always available for further talks with the local authority to promote good housing initiatives. In the light of what the hon. Gentleman said, I shall take a special interest in the HIP allocations for south Tyneside in 1987–88.

I am grateful for the opportunity to debate the future of Birkbeck college in the University of London. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsburg) also hopes to catch your eye during the debate, Mr. Speaker, and my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart) has told me that, although he is unable to be here today, he supports what I have to say. Many of his constituents, like mine, are past, present and prospective students and supporters of Birkbeck college, and they wish him to express his support for it.

I left school at the age of 15. It was a very good school, but that was the end of my school education. The war was on and all London schools and university colleges had been evacuated. I got a full-time job, but I aspired to higher education. Only one college of London university then remained in London. It was sited in Breams Buildings, just off Fleet street. It was founded in 1823 by George Birkbeck to teach arts and sciences,

"during the hours of the evening."

It has continued to provide part-time evening study for adults for 163 years. Of the 2,794 students at the college last year, 91 per cent. were part-time students in full-time employment.

In 1941 the blitz was on every night so, characteristically, Birkbeck opened all day Saturdays and Sundays. It had a distinguished academic staff, including such well-known names as Dr. C. E. M. Joad, Professor J. D. Bernal and Professor E. G. R. Taylor. I obtained permission from my employer to have Saturday mornings off in return for working later during the week. I joined hundreds of other Londoners of all ages, paying the fees myself and participating in all the college and student activities. Those were exciting and rewarding days for me.

Eventually, I got an intermediate degree, by means of which I was able, after war service with the Royal Air Force, to go on as a full-time student to London and then to Oxford universities and to be called to the Bar. The House will understand that I have a great affection for Birkbeck and that I owe it a debt that I wish, if possible, to repay.

The concept that it serves is one that should be applauded by the Government, for it enables men and women whose education has been interrupted or foreshortened, or who are late developers, to aspire to higher education by their own efforts at their own expense. The student body at such a college is of high quality in every way. Birkbeck graduates achieved a higher proportion of first-class degrees in 1984 than any other London college, except Imperial. Birkbeck was operating for the benefit of the likes of me for over 150 years before the Open University was even thought of, and the College of the Air is an even later comer.

Now Birkbeck is in great difficulties. The finances of this excellent institution are arranged by a complicated formula based on full-time equivalents and organised between the University Grants Committee and the Court of the University of London. The present crisis started when the UGC made known on 20 May 1986 that it had employed a national standard conversion factor of 0.5 per cent. for all part-time students. When applied to Birkbeck, that would have meant a major drop in the college's funding base line over four years, which could not be less than £2 million by 1989–90. Last year, it received £7·7 million. This year it may get only £6·2 million. Neither the college nor the University of London could be expected to replace lost income on this scale.

There has recently been a review of the position and the conversion factor has been raised, but the result is still a prospective cut of about 21 per cent. in Birkbeck funding, which could eventually cause the closure of the college. That would be a tragedy, and a humiliation for the Government and the principles for which they are supposed to stand.

Why is the conversion factor operated in this way? Is it because 91 per cent. of Birkbeck's students have full-time jobs? Do its laboratories, lecture halls and academic facilities cost less to acquire than in full-time institutions? Mr. Michael Prouse, in the Financial Times of 23 July, wrote:

"The overall cost to the economy of a Birkbeck education is only about a third of that at a normal college."

Is that a good reason to reduce the state's investment in this college? Is it wrong that students should pay for their education? On the contrary. We need more part-time students paying their own way and earning their own living, and not fewer. If we had more, we would have fewer problems with full-time students, because they are subsidised by the taxpayer and expect to be kept in funds even during the vacations. Birkbeck students do not even get tax relief on fees that they pay for tuition. If the Government really believe in an enterprise society, they should encourage, not discourage, hard-working mature students who strive to help themselves and find a solution that will encourage Birkbeck to continue and expand its good work.

My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, who I am glad to see on the Front Bench, said in a letter dated 9 July:

"It would not be right for the Government to intervene in internal university decisions."

That may be so, but the Government have a duty to see that Birkbeck survives and, what is more, that it is encouraged.

It is an ill wind that blows no good. All the publicity about Birkbeck has demonstrated what an excellent institution it is and how it could be used to further the Government's education programme. A mere reprieve is not enough. The task of defining a new role for the college is beyond the purview of London university and the UGC. The problem should be tackled in the context of the work of the Open University, the home counties polytechnics and the needs of the secondary school system for better teachers, especially in the hard sciences. There is overlapping and duplication amounting to over-provision in some subjects in the south-east, yet, as the Tight report on part-time degree-level studies in the United Kingdom shows, provision is patchy and inadequate away from the south-east. There is a real job for a committee to do. It need not take long, however, because all the required data are readily available.

At the college, the faculties of arts and of social sciences could phase out bachelors degree courses, except in psychology, and possibly the history of art, and offer only taught masters degree courses and research facilities. Birkbeck, the Open University, the London Institute of Education and the home counties polytechnics could then collaborate to provide fresh courses of general degree standard in the science subjects which are taught in secondary schools, starting with physics and mathematics, in which the shortage of school teachers is critical.

A combination of distance learning, face-to-face evening teaching and full-time vocational work could be developed. Generous incentives could be offered to serving teachers of arts subjects who want to convert to science teaching. Mature new entrants could receive graded financial support amounting to a full teacher's salary if pedagogy is intercalated full-time in school term time. A five-year guarantee of employment could be offered to those who complete the course successfully. The departments which undertook that role could retain facilities for masters degree level teaching and research. Other science departments could be transferred to other colleges of London university.

Those are just suggestions to illustrate that, far from there being a case for closing Birkbeck, there is an opportunity to develop it and make it serve the role for which it was devised 163 years ago, and which it can and has so successfully fulfilled. Birkbeck is known to and trusted by the teaching profession. It is to have a new Master from October next year. Given a newly-defined role, proper financing and a realistic scheme of student support, Birkbeck could make a major contribution to a critical situation in our secondary schools.

For all those reasons, I ask my hon. Friend to persuade his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to intervene in this matter. I urge him not to sit back and allow a tragedy to occur, but to ensure that this excellent institution continues its good work, and is positively encouraged to do so.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) for allowing me to intervene in this important debate. I wish to make just two points, as my hon. Friend has already put the case exceptionally cogently. However, I shall confine my remarks to the present.

I appreciate that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will give the stock answer that a Department of Education and Science Minister has to give, namely, that the Department must not interfere with the UGC. However. I hope that he will convey to it the strength of feeling in the House over one of the most inept and stupid decisions that it has ever taken. The UGC tried to justify it, as my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington said, by changing the conversion factor. Having received a deluge of protests from hon. Members representing London and elsewhere, it thought again and rejigged the conversion factor. It thus showed that it is just tinkering in order to try to justify its original foolish decision.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will not let the UGC get away with that, and that he will indicate as firmly as possible that the House does not accept that sort of argument. As my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington said, Birkbeck may have a different role in future. However, I am pleading for the present.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook), both for the careful and reasoned case that he has presented, and for taking the opportunity of bringing the affairs of his old college to the detailed attention of the House. It is a matter about which many hon. Members are concerned. There have been a stream of questions, and my postbag has been full of letters about Birkbeck. That is a tribute both to the pulling power of the college and to its pushing power. The college is also fortunate in having in my hon. Friend not only one of its most distinguished alumni but a doughty champion. I have also received personal representations from the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart) is interested in the debate and shares the concerns that have been expressed.

If I had not already been very well aware of the valuable work undertaken at Birkbeck and of its special role in the teaching of part-time students, I would be a new convert now. As it happens, I needed no convincing. No doubt my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington saw me nodding vigorously at some of the points that he made. He is quite right. Some splendid work is done at Birkbeck. Many people would be a good deal worse off but for the opportunities that the college has provided and which, let me make it quite clear, the Government hope that it will go on providing.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not ony individuals who will be much worse off if Birkbeck is not allowed to continue as at present, or cannot function as well as it has done? Institutions, particularly schools and universities, and many commercial organisations that have profited from the added qualifications that people have obtained following part-time courses at Birkbeck, will also suffer.

The normal response would be to say that I was about to make that point, but I was not about to do so, and I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for adding to our debate in that way.

Most of what has been said in recent weeks has been about Birkbeck's value as a teaching institution. The UGC's recent assessments of research quality reveal beyond doubt that the college is more than that. Research in six departments — psychology, crystallography, geography, economics, the history of art, and philosophy — was assessed as of above average standard in the United Kingdom. A good part of the rest was judged to have research of around average standard. Birkbeck clearly has academic strengths in both teaching and research.

Perhaps I may now turn to the cause of the recent controversy— funding. It is not a straightforward tale, so I had better tell it in full. In parts I shall be reiterating what my hon. Friend said. I hope that he will forgive me, but it is important that all the facts are laid out clearly. In a number of respects this is a field in which honest men may differ, but it should be on interpretation that they differ, not on facts.

There is considerable irony in the fact that all the disputation is rooted in a decision by the UGC, as part of its current major planning exercise, to increase the resources allocated to part-time students. Previously, the unit of resource used for funding part-time students was lower per full-time equivalent student than that for full-time students in the same subject. The UGC decided that this discrimination should stop and that henceforth the same unit of resource should be used for full-timers and for part-timers on equivalent courses.

Many commentators have accused the UGC of introducing discrimination against part-time students. Its intention, as spelt out in circular letters to universities, was quite the reverse. However, when the UGC came to put that intention into practice some difficulties arose. The increased unit of resource had to be multiplied by the full-time equivalent of part-time student numbers, and when the committee examined the full-time equivalent figures submitted by universities, it had some doubts. These doubts arose because, in submitting their figures, universities had used conversion factors ranging between 0·2 and 1. The committee had insufficient information and time to examine these more closely if it was to announce its overall grant allocations in May. Therefore, it decided that it would be fairer to use a common conversion factor of 0·5 for part-time students at all universities. With hindsight, as Sir Peter Swinnerton-Dyer has freely acknowledged, that was a mistake. However—and here I come to the second important point — it was not a mistake that was wrapped up and conveniently buried.

The UGC's resource allocation procedures are now much more open than previously. The committee explained to all universities precisely how it had allocated resources for part-time students, and, because of the concentration of such students at Birkbeck college, it particularly drew this to the attention of London university. Not surprisingly, it was not long before Birkbeck college realised that the implications of the UGC's approach were not to its advantage. It protested, and at a meeting between London university and the UGC on 11 June the committee agreed to review the matter in the light of further information about Birkbeck to be submitted by the university.

A month later the UGC announced the twofold outcome of this review. First, it decided that for 1986–87 its grant to London university in respect of Birkbeck should be calculated on the same basis as in previous years, and thereby that the total grant to London should be increased by £600,000. Secondly, and perhaps more important, the committee decided that from 1987–88 part-time students should be resourced on exactly the same basis, taking their course as a whole, as full-time students on equivalent courses. That means that if a part-time course at a university takes six years to cover the ground in a three-year full-time course, students on the part-time course will in future be weighted as 0·5 full-time equivalent.

At Birkbeck, undergraduate courses are normally four years while taught postgraduate courses are of two years compared with the normal one year full-time course. The weightings attracted will thus be 0·75 and 0·5 respectively. Information on the normal period for postgraduate research students at Birkbeck and for all classes of students at other universities is not currently available, and that explains why the UGC is not introducing this new approach until 1987–88.

Several commentators have dismissed the committee's approach as simplistic. It is not for me to defend it in detail, because that is the committee's business, but I should point out that arrangements with a strong underlying rationale are often simple. For someone watching from the sidelines, like me, there certainly seems to be a sound and reasonable basis for the UGC to say that the most sensible approach is for it to provide the same sum of money for a particular type of course whether it is taught full-time or part-time. Those who believe otherwise will need to deploy detailed arguments to prove a different case.

From the Birkbeck side I have heard a lot about the Ashby formula. On inquiry, I discovered that that formula weighted Birkbeck undergraduates at 0·8 and postgraduates at 1, that it was derived from a 1967 report and that it originally related solely to accommodation requirements. Before such a formula can be accepted, it seems to me that someone has to produce strong arguments that the situation has not changed in the past 20 years and that an assessment based on accommodation requirements can equally well be applied to overall funding.

The other main Birkbeck argument is that because the college has so many part-time students it incurs certain costs disproportionately which, in universities with fewer part-timers, can otherwise be offset against full-time costs. But at this point Birkbeck omits to mention that it is part of London university. Although the college is an important institution in its own right, part of its strength, academically and otherwise, surely lies in it being part of the university also.

In fact, the university's role is quite central in this whole affair. The UGC pays a block grant to London university, and it is for the university court to determine how much is allocated to each of its constituent colleges, schools and institutes. The UGC provides the court with information on how the total grant was calculated, but the court is free to adopt quite different criteria in its own internal distribution of funds.

In recent years London university has allocated well in excess of £1 million more each year to Birkbeck than the UGC had allowed for the college in its block grant. It is because the university court has decided to reduce that supplement in 1986–87 that the grant to Birkbeck will fall by 5·5 per cent. —despite a slight increase in what the UGC has allowed for the college within the block grant.

The university argues that this action is forced on it by the stringency of the Government's funding policies generally. I shall come back to that point in a moment, for there is another aspect that also deserves mention. London university has been very active in rationalising its provision and in taking a whole host of measures to ensure that its available resources are used as effectively as possible. I applaud that, and there are a number of other universities that could well learn something from London. My point, however, is simply that if Birkbeck, as it claims, incurs costs which at other universities are not a charge on part-time provision, there may be some scope for increasing the co-operation between Birkbeck and other London colleges so as to spread those costs. Let me say rapidly that I do not know whether such scope exists, and I certainly have no package of new joint arrangements to offer. I suggest simply—as the UGC has already—that this is an area which should be investigated.

Before I dig myself deeper into territory which is not the Government's direct concern, let me return to some of the general issues. My hon. Friend will have heard me say on a number of occasions that the Government have a good record on student numbers. Home full-time numbers have increased by almost 80,000 since 1979 and the proportion of 18 and 19-year-olds entering higher education has increased by an eighth. All very well, one may say, but in the context of a debate on Birkbeck, what about mature students and part-timers? Well, the news on those fronts is good, too. The number of mature entrants to full-time courses has increased by 15 per cent., and the number of part-time students is up by 60,000. Those figures speak for themselves. In describing the whole ethos of part-time education, my hon. Friend will be gratified to learn that it is vey much on the up and up. The Government's clear aim is that there should be yet further increases in the whole area of continuing education in every form.

Finally, I return as I promised to the general question of university funding. The Government have already announced their willingness to increase financial provision for the universities—provided that they demonstrate real progress in implementing and building on the changes that are needed. These changes include better management, improved standards of teaching, selectivity in research funding and rationalisation of small departments. We shall be discussing the way forward with the University Grants Committee and the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals over the next few months, before future public expenditure plans are finalised in the autumn.

If the universities do commit themselves to the necessary changes, extra funds will be forthcoming. Without doubt some part of that addition will be allocated to London university. Together with the UGC's new arrangements for the funding of part-time students, that should help Birkbeck, but I stress that, whatever the level of funding, there will always be a need to get the relationship between full and part-time funding right, and that is what this dispute is about.

Before my hon. Friend sits down, will he say something about the possibility of using Birkbeck, with its excellent traditions and high quality education, in the Government's future plans, especially to meet the particular problem in secondary schools by producing more science graduates?

As I believe a Welsh poet once said, I was coming to that.

My hon. Friend's typically imaginative suggestions about the Open University, the London Institute of Education and Birkbeck will be noted by the Government and certainly by the University Grants Committee which, in my brief experience, makes a habit of keeping a close eye on all debates on this subject in the House. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making such an interesting and constructive suggestion.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg) accurately anticipated my reply that this is an area where the prime responsibility is with the UGC and the universities concerned rather than with the Government, but he, too, made the point that he hoped that the UGC would take note of the representations being made in the House, and I can assure him that, on my experience, that will certainly be the case.

Finally, I point out, with all due respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington, that there seems to be no basis at all for the horror stories in the press about the possible closure of Birkbeck college. It is by no means the Government's wish that that should happen—quite the contrary. Our hope is that the good work done by Birkbeck will continue and that the college will continue to offer what are necessary opportunities for part-time study.

I welcome the opportunity to raise in the House the agreement on coal supplies between the National Coal Board, or British Coal, as we now choose to call it, and the South of Scotland Electricity Board. That title is a little different from that on the Order Paper where the electricity boards are listed in the plural, but the obvious concentration is on the agreement that I understand was concluded on 2 July between the NCB and the South of Scotland Electricity Board on coal supplies.

The broad compass of that agreement shows that for the year 1986–87 the NCB will undertake to supply and the SSEB undertake to take something like 3·6 million tonnes to the year ending March 1987. That is in the public domain. What is not in the public domain is the price at which that agreement or quantity has been concluded. Therefore, we are a little suspicious about the Government's overall attitude and inter-relationship with the boards as to any measures that the Government might take or make to sustain coal output in Scotland.

I want to look briefly at the pattern of coal consumption by the SSEB over a varying period of years. If we take the average over the four previous years, the consumption by the SSEB has been in the region of 4·5 million tonnes. A longer time scale, over about 10 years, would give us about 6·4 million tonnes. However, if we take the coal and slurry delivered in 1985–86, the total taken by the board was 7·6 million tonnes Therefore, a straight interpolation of figures would give us a reduction against the 3·6 million tonnes of 4 million tonnes. The 7·6 million tonnes for 1985–86 reveals a level of restocking after the miners' dispute. It would not be unfair if we considered the range of reduction over the period to be between 2·5 million tonnes and 4 million tonnes. I shall not be surprised if the Minister disputes these figures when he replies. However, I would be grateful if he could give us his figures of the reduction in coal uptake by the South of Scotland Electricity Board.

What are the reasons for this reduction? Obviously, there are short-term market considerations. I have examined table 9 in the current issue of "Energy Trends". That table shows the figures for February to April 1986. I have deducted the England and Wales figure from the total United Kingdom figure in that table. That may be something of an interpolation. However, I suggest that the figures show that there has been a drop of nearly 44 per cent. between February and April in coal consumption by the SSEB and an increase of oil consumption of around 50 per cent. That appears to confirm reports that the SSEB is leaning in short-term considerations towards cheaper oil.

We all know that it is very difficult to forecast energy trends. I became interested in energy and specifically in oil matters in the 1960s. I have tried to keep up my understanding of what is happening in that market ever since. I remember a conference in London in December 1973 when I put a point to Sheik Yamani—

Name-dropping.

That is not name-dropping. Ministers must not put their prejudices on other people. They must try to resist that temptation.

I told Sheik Yamani that OPEC was embarking on a policy that would be severely detrimental to western industrial economies and to the international economy. He gave me a succinct reply. He said, "What do you want me to do? When someone offers me $15 for a barrel of oil, should I say no, I only want $10?" Repartee is the answer which you think of on the way home. I could not think of an immediate response to the Sheik. It is very difficult to think of an answer to that question, even today. However, the tables have been somewhat reversed. OPEC would now like to get $20 a barrel but because it cannot get its act together, the world is offering about $10 a barrel.

It would take a brave man to forecast the price of oil in six or 10 months' time. A few years ago people said that oil prices would double in real terms by the end of the century, My bookshelves are littered with books and studies by people of great repute worrying about a shortage of oil in the latter years of this century. That worry has now disappeared. I am not sure whether that is a short or long-term view, but it is extremely dangerous to suggest that the United Kingdom can operate wholly on market considerations in terms of energy policy.

We might arrive at the wrong energy policy but the Government do not have any kind of energy policy. I echo the words of the Fraser of Allander Institute:

"The drop in oil prices is the biggest immediate threat to the coal industry."

That drop imposes a temporary strain on the coal industry. It could be long-term unless the Government take action and give guidance.

What is the Government's attitude to the boards, especially the South of Scotland Electricity Board, reacting to the temptation to bring in cheaper oil-fired power stations at this time? What is their response generally and what discussions are taking place between Ministers? In this context, I welcome the presence of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland.

My. hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) has been kind enough to give me a copy of a letter from the Secretary of State for Scotland dated 22 July. There has been a great deal of quoting both in and out of context in the House recently, but I hope that I shall not be accused of quoting the Secretary of State out of context on this occasion. In that letter the Secretary of State seems to take the view that

"The SSEB, like British Coal … must"—

I emphasise the word "must"—

"operate in the market as it exists at present."

What are the implications of that? Does it mean that the future of the coal industry in Scotland will be subject to short-term market considerations? If so, what view do the Scottish Office and the Department of Energy take of oil prices? The House deserves an answer. If the Government say that the industry must be subject to market considerations, what is the Government's view of the market? If the Government intend to adopt an arm's length position and say that that is a matter for the boards, what is the function of the Scottish Office and the Department of Energy? It is important to consider also how that view fits in with the longer-term attitude of other industrial nations inspired by the International Energy Agency which has sought to persuade industrialised countries in particular to reduce their reliance on oil. Are the Government contracting out of that? The House and the nation are entitled to know the Government's view.

If the Government are adopting an arm's length, hands-off attitude and the Secretary of State for Scotland wishes his words to be taken literally, the whole Scottish coal industry is under threat because, despite improvements, it is a marginal coalfield with high production costs. I have put the point extremely fairly and we are entitled to a reply from the Minister. The recent agreement for 3·6 million tonnes shows the pressure placed on the coal industry by international oil market considerations. I do not expect the Minister to tell us today the price that has been negotiated, but if the price reflects international oil market considerations the Scottish coal industry will be denied the cash flow that is essential for future investment. Although the impact on individual pits is a matter for the Coal Board to determine, the Government must surely have a view.

I give a preliminary welcome to the change in management that is shortly to take place in Scotland. Mr. McAlpine is due to take up his duties on 1 August. We naturally give him a welcome. With great respect to Mr. Loudon, who is a gentleman with whom we have had many good discussions, the previous incarnation, Mr. Wheeler, was not beneficial to good industrial relations in the Scottish coal industry.

What cash flows are likely to be forthcoming to Mr. McAlpine through British Coal for investment in the Scottish coalfield? I am always hesitant about mentioning pits and activities in other hon. Members' constituencies. I welcome the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown), who has miners in his constituency as well, but I think that it is only fair for me to ask: what are the implications in terms of investment policy for Seafield? We understand that some negotiations have been under way with the miners' union. What decisions have been made? What discussions have there been about Solsgirth? Over the water, what discussions and considerations have there been about Monktonhall and Bilston Glen, and, indeed, the Ayrshire coalfield?

I should like to refer to two pits in my area. The first is Castlehill colliery. During the strike, it was the subject of much publicity. There were photographs in the paper of the pit under threat. I visited the colliery on several occasions. It was saved by the activities of two individuals in particular—not constituents of mine, but constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill). That pit is returning to good productivity— indeed, excellent productivity. What have those two individuals got for their pains? Despite winning their cases in front of an industrial tribunal, they are still out of employment with the Coal Board. At present, if my figures are reliable, over 120 people who were dismissed during the strike are still not re-employed.

The second colliery that I should like to mention is Comrie. I was down in that pit a few weeks ago. I would not say that it would be the best job in the world. The face that I crawled along was in a pretty bad state. However, the longer-term prospects for that colliery will not be there at all unless there is investment in the five-ft seam. I am a realist. One should be honest and truthful with the 500 men who are there. I would not argue that people should work in terrible conditions just to have a job, but one cannot destroy men's bodies and morale by asking them to live from hand to mouth. They have to have a view of the longer-term employment prospects. The Minister and the Coal Board should give that now. Over and above that, I plead with the incoming director to wipe the slate clean in regard to good industrial relations in Scotland by bringing all those men, many of whom won their cases at an industrial tribunal, back to employment.

Something else that might have an impact on employment is the possible, indeed probable, bringing on stream of Torness. This is not the place or the time to develop all the arguments about nuclear power. I know that Scottish Ministers would say, "If you do not bring Torness on stream, the price of electricity will rise dramatically in Scotland." That may or may not be so. It depends on how one spreads the cost—whether it is on the SSEB's books or throughout the nation. But it would be prudent to call a halt to bringing Torness on stream in the light of what has happened at Chernobyl. Each day in the press there are new revelations about Chernobyl.

I put it to the Minister that the long-term prospects for new nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom are not good. I do not think that any Government could now embark—I will not anticipate the Sizewell conclusions—on getting sites in Scotland or anywhere else for new nuclear power stations. Thereafter, we have to turn back to coal. Indeed, the power station in my constituency, Kincardine, which is under-utilised, is an admirable site for the future development of a further coal-fired station. The problems of planning permission and other difficulties do not exist.

Perhaps I am asking for the moon. However, the Government, the SSEB, and the Scottish Office should be turning their minds to refurbishing stations such as Kincardine. I am not speaking for the Labour party in terms of policy but I am saying that we cannot subject coal mines and the coal industry in Scotland to short-term market considerations because one cannot mothball coal pits and then expect them to be brought into production over night.

In terms of morale, we have to have some guarantees for the present 6,000 to 8,000 people. The Government's policy if I read it right, allowing short-term market considerations to operate, would mean that the whole of the Scottish coal industry would go to the wall. We require some reassurance from the Government and some indication of what discussions are taking place between the Department of Energy and the Scottish Office.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) on having been successful in securing this debate. The coal industry in Scotland, and its relationship to the SSEB, is clearly very important, and I am glad to have this debate.

In opening debates of this kind it is always difficult to strike a balance between recognising the contribution of the hon. Member and making life difficult for him in his constituency because of an excessive amount of praise from a Conservative Minister. However, I shall pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman. He is undoubtedly one of the energy experts in the House, and he is extremely diligent in promoting the cause of the dismissed miners. During the debate he managed to deliver a powerful plea for them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. MacKay) has been in the Chamber since the start of the debate. He has listened carefully to all the points that have been raised and has expressed concern on several occasions about the need to guarantee the future of this important industry in Scotland. I am also pleased to see present the Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Hirst), the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown), the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. MacKenzie) and the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. McKay) who always expresses a great deal of interest in this great industry.

As the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West knows, I have visited the Scottish coalfield on a number of occasions since I assumed responsibility for this great industry. The Scottish coalfield—I must emphasise that I speak on behalf of my colleagues in the Scottish Office as well—is vital to Scotland. It is also vital to the coal industry and to the Government.

When I have visited Scotland, the people whom I have met have been anxious to tell me not only about what is going on in Scotland now but about plans for the future. Their determination to continue cutting costs and improving productivity is the best indicator that we could have of the future of the coal industry in Scotland. There is a great resolve among the people whom I have met to ensure that they get their industry on to a more competitive and profitable footing. I share their determination, and I believe that they can do so.

I welcome the hon. Gentleman's response to the appointment of the new director, Mr. McAlpine. I also welcome his praise for Mr. Loudon. However, he will not be surprised if I reject his criticism of the gentleman who I believe to be one of the most able directors in British Coal, Mr. Wheeler. A great deal of unwarranted criticism has been made of the recently concluded deal on coal supplies that has been struck between British Coal and the South of Scotland Electricity Board. I was pleased to hear that those two great industries had reached a mutually satisfactory outcome.

In the past, Labour Members have urged the Government to step in and tell the industries what to do and to impose some sort of rigid policy within which they must operate. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman strayed into that in his speech. There seems to be a feeling that the Government can see more clearly than anyone else what will happen in the future and should produce a formula that waves away the problems. I assure the House that the Government recognise that the long-term interests of industries, including nationalised industries, are best served if they are free to behave in a way that conforms to their commercial judgments and interests. That is how they will succeed. The SSEB and the NCB, trading as British Coal, have reached a satisfactory agreement which provides the prospect of a reasonably stable long-term coal take through to the mid 1990s and beyond.

The new agreement relates to the SSEB's requirement to meet the Scottish demand for electricity. In the present financial year the SSEB will purchase 3·6 million tonnes of coal from British Coal. That figure cannot be compared with the level of coal taken by the SSEB in the past, because it takes no account of the amounts taken into stock or of coal for use in exporting electricity to the CEGB system. In 1985–86 the SSEB total coal take from all sources, excluding coal slurry, was 7·2 million tonnes, of which 6·6 million tonnes were supplied by British Coal and 600,000 tonnes by private coal producers. The SSEB's total coal consumption was 6·3 million tonnes, of which 1·1 million tonnes related to exports of electricity to the CEGB. This year the level of electricity trading between the SSEB and the CEGB is a commercial matter for them, and, subject to price and other considerations, I understand from both boards that they fully expect this trading to continue.

The effect of the new agreement has been to allow the SSEB to maintain the reduction of about 3 per cent. in electricity prices which it introduced earlier this year to reflect savings in fuel costs. The hon. Gentleman will agree that that is good for SSEB customers. It is important to recognise that the SSEB has a statutory duty, in accordance with an Act of Parliament introduced by the Labour Government, to promote the economic generation of electricity. In pursuing that objective the board must take full account of the relative prices of primary fuels, including nuclear fuels, to achieve the most economic balance.

The SSEB, working closely with the North of Scotland Hydro-electric Board, has a good record over the years of building up a flexible, economic, generating system. That is reflected in the fact that average tariffs in Scotland are lower than those in England and Wales. Since 1981 electricity tariffs in Scotland have decreased in real terms. The benefits of that are felt by both domestic electricity consumers and the industry. It is important that primary inputs for industry, such as electricity, are priced as competitively as possible. Cheap electricity is vital if Scotland is to expand, retain its existing industrial face and secure inward investment.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the role of nuclear power, and it has an important part to play. Without it, electricity prices in Scotland would have to rise by between 25 and 30 per cent. Power from the new station at Torness should allow the SSEB to save some £130 million in system fuel costs. I recognise that the hon. Gentleman is realistic about the need for Torness, although I would not go so far as to say he welcomed it. To abandon Torness would mean abandoning £1·7 billion of public expenditure and the prospect of cheaper electricity.

The nuclear power station at Torness should be viewed, not as a threat to the coal industry, but as a welcome further source of cheaper power. Cheap power means more demand, and more demand will increase the demand for coal, if the prices stay right. The future balance of fuels is of course a matter for the SSEB, but it will depend crucially on the pricing position.

Any suggestion that the SSEB is seeking to destroy the coal industry in Scotland is completely unfounded. It is simply not in its interests to prejudice its future supplies of coal in this way. It is obliged to provide not only an economical but a secure supply of electricity. The SSEB sees an important and continuing role for coal-fired generation in Scotland for the foreseeable future, and British Coal clearly has a vital role. A healthy, robust coal industry in Scotland is what everyone wants to see.

This Government have contributed a substantial amount of money to the support of the coal industry in Scotland. The Scottish area has sustained substantial losses in the past. To some extent, this is a reflection of the difficult geological conditions at some of the pits. However, the Scottish area is still operating at a loss. The Government have underwritten those losses through the provision of deficit grant. In addition, substantial amounts have been made available in social grants. This, too, has benefited the Scottish coal industry.

The hon. Gentleman raised with me the question of dismissed miners. As he knows, the dismissal of miners and their re-employment are matters for British Coal. Over half of those dismissed have now been taken back by the National Coal Board. I understand that in respect of some men who have been dismissed in Scotland the NCB has appealed against the judgment of industrial tribunals. I cannot comment on those cases. More generally, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the law does not require an employer to re-employ staff where this is the ruling of the tribunal, because compensation may be paid instead and there are certain rights of appeal. It is for management to decide which course to follow in each case, in the light of relevant circumstances, and the extent to which reemployment is possible when taking into account the effect on working miners.

I have asked and encouraged the mining unions to take cases to the industrial tribunals. Will the Minister take this opportunity to encourage the NCB, as a public body, to honour the decisions of industrial tribunals, which in many cases in Scotland have recommended reinstatement for dismissed miners?

I recognise that on many occasions the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East has pressed the cause of dismissed miners. I hope that, equally, he will recognise that my right hon. Friend and I have been consistent in stating that this is a matter for the management of the Scottish area. That answer may not please him, but I hope he recognises that it is an answer that I have consistently given. The hon. Member for Dunfermline, West, who initiated this debate, recognised that fact by addressing his plea more to the new director than to me. It is a matter for the director of the Coal Board and for the management of the Coal Board in Scotland.

I think that the hon. Gentleman also recognises that the future of individual pits is a matter for the management in Scotland, in consultation with the trade unions, within the general colliery review procedures. I understand that reconvened colliery review meetings at a number of pits in Scotland are planned, but that is a matter for British Coal.

All this is perfectly in line with the board's policy of open communication with its employees. The hon. Gentleman was right to stress that it is vital that the men should be told exactly what the future holds, and I endorse that. I think he recognised that I would not be predicting the price of oil either today or on any future occasion. He said that it would be a brave man who would. We have made it clear that the board, like any other commercial organisation, has to respond to the market forces that a re working around it.

In conclusion, I repeat what I said at the beginning. I firmly believe that there will continue to be a steady demand for Scottish coal, not least from the electricity industry, because I believe in the continuing determination of those in the coal industry in Scotland to maintain the progress made in cutting costs and becoming more competitive. That realistic approach makes me optimistic about the future. As the hon. Gentleman knows, where pits must close—as they have always had to close—there is record investment by British Coal Enterprise in Scotland. It has invested £2·2 million of the total £15·5 million to create more than 1,100 initial jobs and 1,700 job opportunities. That presents a balanced approach to the future of the coal industry in Scotland in the light of the latest agreement with the SSEB.

The purpose of this short debate is to focus on the growing awareness of the needs of the terminally ill and to highlight some of the problems that they face. The topic has implications for social security, health services and local authority social services. We have this desperately unfortunate group of people who, it is known, are likely to die within a short period, and the perceived need is to help them to die with dignity and to assist their families to cope with the harrowing later stages of terminal disease, the fact of death and the practical and emotional problems that surround it.

In dealing with the terminally ill, most emphasis is placed on cancer patients. It is estimated that 130,000 people die each year from various forms of cancer. Sixty per cent. die in hospital, about one third die at home, and the remainder die in hospices.

In the past, people in such circumstances were left to cope as best they could. In the close-knit communities that used to exist, the presence and practical help of extended families and neighbours frequently gave the emotional and material support that was needed. Families and communities are no longer so internally supportive, and there is a need for more organised help in our increasingly fragmented society. This is just one example of new pressure and demand for service provision within ever-growing resource allocations to the National Health Service and other aspects of social policy provision.

The initial response to the problem of terminal illness came through the remarkable growth of the hospice movement, which has mushroomed throughout the United Kingdom and which provides invaluable expert personal care. In that context, it is right to pay tribute to the unparalleled work of Dame Cicely Saunders in starting and leading the movement. She perceives the need for a liaison between the hospice movement and the community and for community nursing and other social services to become involved with the hospice movement.

I mention especially the Overgate hospice at Elland in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Mr. Thompson), which serves his constituency and mine. In its case, as in the case of most other hospices, there are significant contributions from NHS funds. Nevertheless, the hospice movement is still essentially funded from voluntary donations. The volunteers who work at Overgate put in long hours and carry out excellent work in raising the bulk of the funds. That pattern is reflected throughout the country. The public have given generously, but often the financial base of hospices is precarious. One must also mention the Macmillan fund, which does excellent work for the terminally ill, especially in providing extra nursing services and a range of welfare assistance.

A relatively new development has been the creation of terminal care support schemes. They are called different things in different areas, but their essential approach is the same. There are now over 80 support teams throughout the United Kingdom. They are essentially advisory and aim to deal with the control of pain and symptoms for patients suffering primarily from terminal cancer. They seek to offer emotional and practical support to the families and carers of the patients. They will endeavour to co-ordinate the various agencies involved, and include general practitioners, community nurses and social workers. They will act as a bridge between hospital and community-based services. They are not intended to supplant the necessary nursing and medical care, but should provide supplementary services.

Terminal care support teams aim to provide the optimal relief of the distressing aspects of terminal disease, whether those aspects are physical, social, psychological or spiritual. Often, support for the family will continue after a patient dies, and that can be very important to many people, particularly where, for example, a relatively young parent or spouse dies from cancer, as regrettably happens all too often, or where an elderly person is left very much alone after the death of his partner.

Terminally ill patients often have a three-to-six months prognosis and may well be ill for a short time. During the time of their illness, their condition can change dramatically and they can deteriorate rapidly. Because of this frequent short time span of their illness, they do not fit into the accepted categories of the disabled and chronically sick as we have recognised them in legislation. The attendance allowance, the mobility allowance and, for carers, invalid care allowance are specifically geared to the needs of the long-term sick and so the terminally ill with the three-to-six months prognosis often do not qualify.

Those who are elderly, who would not in any case qualify for mobility allowance, may at times be in receipt of a supplementary pension, which would qualify them for a series of single payments whether for additional needs or lump sum payments. The nature of their illness and the circumstances surrounding it require speedy and sensitive treatment, which may not always be readily possible in the application of the complex rules and regulations which, of necessity, apply.

The patient of working age may find that he is terminally ill and that he must stop working straight away. This produces the first traumatic experience for the family. The spouse, whether in employment or not, needs to take a considerable share of the burden of caring for the family.

In many cases, there is a regular pattern of movement between hospital or hospice and home. Patients will obviously not be left in hospital unless they need to be there specifically for treatment purposes. They will often wish to be at home if there is no need for the intensive care provided in hospital or a hospice. The transition from hospital to home and back again, perhaps on several occasions, can produce its own emotional problems.

Not all patients have such a short-term prognosis. Some are able to obtain attendance allowance or other benefits. However, the pattern of moving in and out of the caring institution then produces its own difficulties. While in hospital or a hospice with NHS funding, which is usually the case, they cannot obtain social security benefits, as the taxpayer is meeting the cost, at least in part, of their care. That makes financial planning difficult for families and may mean delays in benefit payments.

Sometimes, the variety of problems—medical, social security and emotional — means that families cannot cope at all and patients spend their last weeks, or even months, in hospital, at an average cost of £1,000 per patient per week to the taxpayer. Ideally, there would be a weekly allowance payable to terminally ill patients prior to the time when they may qualify for attendance allowance. The allowance should take account of the need for additional nursing care, extra heating, extra bedding, telephone rental if necessary and any appropriate practical aid and appliances. A single payment to cover such items in addition to a small weekly allowance would also solve the problem.

There are obvious and enormous obstacles to such an ideal solution, even though it might save the taxpayer money and provide the financial and emotional security that patients and their families need. Any such social security support would depend on the provision of a medical certificate stating that the patient was terminally ill. The first problem is to define a terminally ill person. It would have to be a person who is suffering from a progressive disease for whom treatment is no longer curative and who is likely to die in a short time —probably six months.

Medical science has advanced enormously and it may be able to make firm predictions, but it cannot always be so exact. People are individuals. Some fight cancer successfully and win through against the odds, some fight and lose and some give in as soon as they know that they are terminally ill. If an allowance were given, Parliament would have to approve a definition, and a doctor would have to write a certificate conforming to Parliament's specification. Whatever definition was made, there would be various interpretations of it and doctors' approach to signing certificates might vary, just as it does now with sickness certificates.

A person might rightly be defined as terminally ill but be psychologically unable to cope with the fact. Any terminal illness allowance would have to be paid to the patient, so there could be adverse medical and emotional effects on some. Relatives might not be able to cope with the fact of a loved one's impending demise, and receipt of a terminal illness allowance could add to the family's trauma. Nevertheless, terminally ill people need additional assistance.

The answer might lie in the social fund, which my hon. Friend the Minister has presented to the House while piloting through the Social Security Bill. The fund has been devised as a flexible response to a variety of urgent needs. It is well suited to assessments of individual circumstances. Social fund officers, perhaps working in liaison with terminal care support teams, could respond, having to hand expert medical, nursing and social work advice. There would not be the rigidity of an allowance, but there would still be the capacity to respond to different financial, family and medical circumstances.

There is a difficulty, in that we might already be expecting too much of the social fund. It might be seen as the solution to many problems. Thus far, however, the terminally ill have been a neglected group. That is especially true of those on a short-term prognosis. They could reasonably be considered as a priority claim on the fund's resources. The solution could be the allocation of a block of social fund money to a charitable organisation, which would administer it on behalf of the Government and supplement the charitable funds that are already available, although thinly spread.

I recognise that steady improvements have been made in regard to the disabled, the sick, carers and certain groups of disadvantaged people. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and his colleagues in the DHSS have done an extremely good job in recent years. We have seen the numbers of those receiving attendance, mobility and invalid care allowances grow substantially. The severe disablement allowance has helped an additional number of people. The payment of invalid care allowance to married women has been a great step forward. The two-tier disablement premium within the proposed income support system will be of great help to many.

Nevertheless, one seeks further improvements if resources permit. The needs of the terminally ill are clear and pressing. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will acknowledge the growing awareness of that group of people, and that if resources are available it will be possible to encourage the development of more terminal care support schemes and to use the social fund to give specifically targeted help to the terminally ill and their families.

My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Galley) has raised a matter that touches us all, and has done so in a gentle and sensitive way. I am glad that he has had the opportunity to do so while my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Mr. Thompson) is in the Chamber. Alas, to the loss of the House, he is silenced by virtue of his responsibilities as a Lord Comissioner to the Treasury. Both of my hon. Friends have a long-standing and deep interest in the care of the terminally ill, and I am grateful to them both for the representations that they have frequently made to me in the past. The sick are, indeed, fortunate to have such advocates in the House.

Terminal illness is one of the great fears that we all have. For both the sufferer and those who do the caring, it is a time of great emotional stress, quite apart from the sheer physical, practical and financial problems that are often involved. I share the admiration expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax for the work of the hospice movement and for its growth from the pioneering work done in London at St. Joseph's. My hon. Friend also rightly mentioned the remarkable work of Dame Cicely Saunders at St. Christopher's. The St. Helen's hospice for children also provides an excellent example of the dedicated work carried out to provide a tranquil setting for terminally ill patients.

In the area represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax, and specifically I think in that represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley, wonderful work is done at Overgate hospital, Elland, where the district health authority provides £44,000 a year—the equivalent of four beds in an eight-bed unit. I understand that that authority also supports the Sue Ryder home at Oxenhope.

Important as the hospice movement is, it caters, as my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax will know, for only about 5 per cent. of those who are terminally ill. About one third of all terminally ill people are cared for at home by relatives, and it is right that they should attract our heartfelt thanks for the tasks that they undertake on behalf of their families and of society as a whole. Caring involves a commitment of time, resources and energy, often at the expense of the carer's own social or working life. It is a wholly admirable commitment.

For that reason, as my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax said, several NHS hospitals have established teams of doctors and nurses to provide practical help in the management of the patients by providing a 24-hour on-call service, and a support and counselling service for patients and relatives, and also the ward staff of the hospital. In addition, they co-ordinate the smooth transfer of patients from one setting to another, and help to train medical students and nurses in the care of the terminally ill. There are several terminal care support teams in Yorkshire: at Pinderfield general hospital, Wakefield; the Royal Hallamshire hospital, Glossop; and at the Doncaster Royal infirmary. Hull health authority also runs such a team, which is one of a range of services that the authority has available to meet local needs by mixing home and day or in-patient care as it finds most effective.

The Department's policy on terminal care was clearly and crisply set out in the 1980 Wilkes report, which recommended an integrated system of care to be developed by health authorities, with an emphasis on co-ordination between the primary care sector, the hospital sector and the hospice movement. A current departmental initiative began last December with a conference opened by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales and addressed by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health, which was organised jointly by the Department and the National Association of Health Authorities. The conference was aimed at promoting collaboration between the National Health Service and voluntary organisations in planning and providing services for the terminally ill. My hon. Friend will be interested to know that the proceedings are to be published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

Other parts of this initiative include the promotion of medical and nurse training in terminal care; a scrutiny of regional health authorities' strategic plans to ensure adequate provision for terminal care; and the preparation of guidance to the NHS on planning services for the terminally ill. The Department is also working with the National Association of Health Authorities on the publication of a guide to good practice in terminal care, aimed for the autumn.

I have been speaking about services provided by health authorities and by voluntary organisations to care for people in hospital, in hospices and in their own homes, and of our efforts to improve these services. I turn now to another important aspect of the overall support for these households and families under emotional and practical stress — financial assistance through the social security system.

Many of those who provide care are married women, and I am glad that my hon. Friend has welcomed our initiative in extending invalid care allowance to married women. This extension will give an estimated 70,000 married women carers an allowance of their own for the first time and remove the discrimination which has existed in legislation since the allowance was introduced. As the House will know, we have backdated the extension to 22 December 1984 and any claims made by married women which we receive by 31 December this year will be backdated to 22 December 1984 if the conditions were satisfied then. This is a tangible illustration of our commitment to care in the community, and I know that it has been widely and warmly welcomed as a recognition of the role of carers and of married women in particular.

I shall now turn to the new measures on income support and the social fund. My hon. Friend will know that our proposals for income support are intended to ensure that disabled people receive help much more easily. We are moving away from the system of weekly additions for specific items, which has become complex and confusing, and in which help often depends on detailed, often intrusive, questions and out-of-date criteria. We intend that in future additional help will be based on clear, understandable and objective criteria, and disabled people will receive a new disablement premium. On the illustrative figures published with the White Paper, the overwhelming majority of people who qualify for the proposed new premium will gain. On average, those under pension age will gain over £4 a week and 90,000 people will gain over £5 a week. I know that my hon. Friend, who played a distinguished part in Committee on the Social Security Bill, will welcome this.

In addition, we have recently introduced a new element to income support, directed primarily at helping severely disabled people. This is in response to concern expressed about the small group of severely disabled people, particularly those who might currently receive supplementary benefit in respect of high additional requirements for domestic assistance. We have therefore announced that an additional premium will be paid to severely disabled people who are living alone if they receive the higher rate for attendance allowance and there is no one eligible for the invalid care allowance—or receiving it—in respect of that person's need for care. In that fashion we are directing help simply and without an elaborate assessment to a group of people most likely to need extra support care. We estimate that up to 10,000 people could qualify for this extra premium.

These improvements in income support are complemented by the recognition given in the social fund to community care objectives. My hon. Friend spoke about this matter, which has been the subject of some debate and some controversy in recent months.

From the beginning we have made it clear that, while payments from the social fund for other than maternity or funeral expenses should be recoverable from the person seeking help, this would not apply to payments made for the purposes of care in the community. I emphasise that point because the social fund is in two quite distinct parts. The part that deals with community care will be determined with grants and not recoverable loans. Those payments can cover a variety of contingencies and I shall certainly look most carefully at my hon. Friend's suggestion of payments to meet special needs faced by disabled or frail elderly people who might otherwise be forced into residential or nursing home care. I reiterate that in these circumstances a payment is likely to be a grant rather than a loan and therefore not recoverable. I am sure my hon. Friend will accept that and agree that it shows our concern to ensure that cash benefits remain in tune with our wider community care objectives.

I have listened with care and sympathy to my hon. Friend's remarks about the problems which the six-month qualifying period for attendance allowance can cause when terminal illness advances quickly and there is less than six months between the onset of disability and its conclusion. The proposal that there should be an easement for terminally ill people is one which I am sure attracts great sympathy, and cannot lightly be dismissed, but, as my hon. Friend said, the problem lies in finding a workable definition of terminal illness. Somebody diagnosed as terminally ill may decline rapidly within weeks, but may— and often does, with drugs, surgery and medical care—live for several months or years and need varying degrees of care during that time.

The main focus of concern is, of course, on those who die within six months, or so soon after that that attendance allowance offers little or no support. To extend allowance to these people would entail some system where they could be formally diagnosed as terminally ill and thereby escape the present qualifying period. That would create considerable practical difficulties, despite its attractions. In some cases, the doctor may for good reasons withhold or delay telling the patient and the relatives about the diagnosis of terminal illness, because of the belief that they would not be able to handle the explicit recognition of a situation that they might not even suspect. There is also the problem of possible time limits — should the six-month qualifying period be waived only if death is expected within, say, a year or some other period? In many cases, doctors would be reluctant to commit themselves to such a firm prognosis, and, even if they could be persuaded to overcome that reluctance, there would be practical difficulties, a number of which were set out by my hon. Friend, if the prognosis proved incorrect.

We have considered very carefully the representations made to us. I fear that I can only confirm that we have found no workable departure from the principle —accepted for many years by successive Governments—that attendance allowance is for the additional costs arising from long-term disability, and that this necessarily entails a qualifying period of, currently, six months. I have no doubt that this is one of many aspects which the Government will have to look at again in their comprehensive review of benefits for disabled people, which we have proposed should take place when we have the results in 1988 from the current survey by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys.

The care of terminally ill people is clearly a deeply important and emotive issue, and I am glad that my hon. Friend has provided this opportunity to set on record what is being done. Obviously there is much more that can be done, but both in the field of services and of cash support we have substantial improvements in hand. But none of this can replace the care and devotion of both family and relatives in the home, and of skilled staff in hospitals and hospices, and it is right that I should close as I began by putting on record the debt of gratitude that we all owe to them.

The last words spoken in Parliament in this Session will be on the Metropolitan police. Had I been able to make the speech I wanted to in the debate on 11 July, there would have been no need to have applied for this Adjournment debate. That was not possible because there was not time. Members could take only a few minutes each, and some could not speak at all. That graphically underlines how woefully inadequate that annual debate is. It is farcical to pretend that it constitutes any form of proper accountability.

All authority in a democracy has to be legitimate and accountable. At present, the formal position is that the Metropolitan police is accountable to the Home Secretary, and through him to Parliament. That is the theory. The commissioner, when reporting to the Home Secretary, signs himself, "Your obedient servant". What has become clear to me as a London Member of Parliament is that this is hopelessly out of date and inadequate in modern circumstances. Parliamentary questions are frequently sidestepped, and no one can pretend that the annual debate we have had in recent years could conceivably constitute the effective police accountability we need.

We are obliged to ask: is there any accountability at all? It is certainly minimal as far as Parliament is concerned. There can be no doubt that things cannot be left like that. Parliament will have to devise another, better, more effective and more democratic system. Nor is there any reason to suppose that it will be against the interests of the police to have that, or that they would object. Doubtless we shall have to wait until after the next general election and a new Government for that.

Policing, particularly in London, is becoming increasingly problematical and complex in our modern society, especially since the huge increases in crime that we have seen since the Government took office and the collapse of their policies on law and order. Crime has increased by over 40 per cent. since 1979, including theft, burglary, violence to the person and criminal damage.

Last week, the report of the chief constable of Greater Manchester, Mr. James Anderton, said:

"Burdens on the police have grown against the background of alarming unemployment — of more telling significance, from the standpoint of law and public order, is the fact that the figure for long-term unemployment among"—

what he called—

"the crime-prone younger age groups … ranges from 50 per cent. to a staggering 80 per cent. or more."

He spoke of the difficulties

"where almost the entire population is out of work and living on social security."

Unemployment, of course, cannot be blamed on the police. But they understand how it creates the conditions that nurture crime and disaffection. In "Thatcher's Britain", where bitterness and frustration are created among people living without hope in a society which rejects them, the fabric of that society can be ripped violently apart in disturbances, as we have seen. Those disturbances do not take place in the Home Counties or the wealthy constituencies of Home Office Ministers. As the poet Benjamin Zephaniah puts it,

"You don't riot if you have a nice job and home to come home to at night, You don't riot if you are well fed And unemployment does not pressure your head ֵYou don't riot if you have your share and by chance you have a lot You don't riot with a big bank account. With American Express you can always bail out."

But some people cannot bail out. As "Thatcher's Britain" becomes more unpleasant, more violent and more brutal, there are those in authority who see increased use of the police as the remedy to social problems and industrial disputes. They want to transform the nature of the police service and to escalate its use of force. The talk is of armoured cars, water cannon, CS gas, plastic bullets and NATO helmets. Instead of the neighbourhood bobby or the citizen in uniform, we are to have a paramilitary force to suppress the symptoms of social stress caused by Government policy.

As my text for this part of my remarks, let me give the words of David Webb, the ex-commander in Handsworth with 27 years in the force, writing recently in the Police Federation magazine. He said:

"We can only succeed if we retain the co-operation and collaboration of the public. We must not allow political parties to divide the police from the community they serve, or use them in a reactive way to keep the lid on a society angered and frustrated by their neglect."

He went on to say that he had campaigned to retain the traditional police role and that he thought that the vast majority of police officers preferred that.

However, David Webb is now out of the police and it is the paramilitary role that is being emphasised. Units now exist, equipped, trained and prepared to use unprecedented and quite frightening degrees of violence. They have already been deployed with great brutality against ordinary people such as trade unionists. That is a deplorable development.

It is not anti-police to discuss this. If we are to debate these matters rationally, it is absurd to do so in simplistic terms of being for or against the police. It is absurd to believe that the police, alone among our institutions, should be immune from scrutiny, investigation and accountabilty.

We must consider what sort of policing we want, how the service is run, its relations with the public that it serves and who pay for it, its effectiveness and to whom it is responsible. Only simpletons believe that to subject the police to scrutiny is anti-police. On the contrary, it is our duty as Members of Parliament to do so. The day that we are frightened to do so will be the day that we take a long stride towards a police state.

To say that the police never fall below the standard of perfection would be as silly as to say that they are all part of a conspiracy against the rest of us. I speak with feeling because I witnessed this paramilitary policing and excessive force at Wapping on the night of 3 May. I was shocked and appalled by what I saw and I have not yet recovered from that experience. I do not need to recapitulate all that happened on that night for I gave a full account to the House on 8 May. Suffice to say, the print unions had organised a May Day parade—as they had a perfect right to do — to greet those who had marched from Scotland in support of 5,500 of their colleagues who have been robbed of their jobs by Rupert Murdoch, a conscienceless industrial mugger if ever there was one.

There were two parades of men, women and children as is traditional. The police were waiting for them in ambush, already tooled up and raring to go. They needed no excuse. An incident occurred which lasted seconds. Immediately, and without any warning, the mounted police charged up and down the road called The Highway scattering everyone —men, women and children—who had come for a traditional May Day parade. They cleared the road and forced the people into Wellclose street and Wellclose square, where they constituted no conceivable danger to anyone. Then a squad of riot police who had been waiting in their outlandish paraphernalia appeared from Virginia street. They were just a few yards from me. They were in a "V" formation, evidently psyched up, jumping up and down with wild looks on their faces waving truncheons. Upon a signal, they charged into the people, knocking men, women and children to the ground indiscriminately. They regrouped and inexplicably, with no possible justification, repeatedly launched further baton charges causing many serious injuries and casualties among completely innocent people.

Most inexplicable of all, people were not allowed to leave Wellclose square. They were penned in, imprisoned by police, and subjected to repeated baton charges in a sickeningly brutal fashion for some two hours. I could not believe what I was seeing. I never thought that I would see anything remotely like it on the streets of London and I have not yet recovered from the shock. That is why I am making this speech. As a parliamentarian, it is my duty to do so.

I took a deputation, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), the constituency Member, and trade union leaders to the Home Office about this matter on 8 May. We saw the Minister of State. He told me that he

"accepted that there had been severe damage and injury to innocent people."

He also said that

"the police were only entitled to use minimum force."

Well, they used very much more than that. I have a record of what was said at that meeting taken by one of my colleagues. Brenda Dean is a moderate and measured lady, not given to hyperbole. She is reported as stating:

"Ordinary law-abiding citizens have been alienated against the police. People were in fear of their lives from the activities of the police on the evening in question. The police had clearly over-reacted."

Brenda Dean added that she was

"prepared to give eye witness evidence at any tribunal that was called."

She said

"People do not take their children to an event that is determined to be violent."

Brenda Dean said that she would welcome an independent inquiry into the policing of that evening.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene and I endorse every word that he has said as I was also there on 3 May. I was injured trying to escape from being run down by a police horse. Does my hon. Friend accept that it is the role of the police at least to be able, if necessary, to absorb a certain amount of intimidation or offensiveness from a crowd? I can tell the Minister that I saw a couple of missiles thrown at the police. The next thing that I saw was exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) has described. There was an over-reaction. The police were wearing the kind of equipment that would allow them to absorb a certain amount of aggravation in a disciplined manner, before they reacted in the way that they did.

My hon. Friend and neighbour is absolutely right. The police are now very highly paid professionals and we expect them to make an intelligent response, but their response that night was neither intelligent nor commensurate with what had happened and it was the police action that caused the problem. That is why I am making this speech today.

When the deputation met the Minister of State, the general president of the National Graphical Association, Bryn Griffiths, asked why the police kept people trapped in Wellclose square for approximately two hours. He told the Minister that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) had asked Inspector Goodall to remove his men so that people could leave the vicinity in a peaceful fashion but that the request was refused. Mr. John Geleit, London region assistant secretary of the NGA, informed the Minister that access for ambulances to tend injured demonstrators was refused and that one ambulance was attacked by a policeman. Additionally, he and the general president had seen a television crew attacked by the police.

The Minister of State said that it was essential that a report of the meeting went to the police, adding that the permanent secretary would be seeing the commissioner the same afternoon to give a verbal report. The Minister stated that the unions had the right to demonstrate but that he did not feel it right to set up an independent inquiry and that his intention would be to have an internal inquiry.

We must make it clear that there is no confidence whatever in any internal inquiry. Why can we not have a public inquiry? What are the Government and the police afraid of?

Chris Robbins of SOGAT made the point that in relation to a police inquiry it is most difficult to identify police officers without numbers or means of identification. The Minister asked specifically whether the riot police had numbers on their uniforms and was told that they had not. The Minister said that for police officers to be on duty without numbers being shown was against regulations and that they would be told to put that right.

Those are just a few of the points that came out of the deputation and I am grateful to the Minister of State for receiving us so courteously. It was agreed that there would be a meeting between union leaders and assistant commissioner Wynn-Jones. The meeting took place, but what was the result the following Saturday? The Guardian headlined its report on 10 May:

"Wapping Peace Deal Batoned Down".

The report stated:

"Mr. Michael Britton, chief marshal of the pickets, who had been present at the talks earlier between Brenda Dean, General Secretary of SOGAT '82, and senior police officers, found himself pulled to the ground and stood on by police officers as he tried to tell his men to stay on the pavement and remain calm. 'It would appear certain officers had no control over what they were doing' he said. 'The agreement does not seem to have filtered down to the policeman on the line'"

As I have said, there was no proper accountability by the Metropolitan police to Home Office Minsters, who clearly had little idea what was going on. It was clear that the Minister of State had not known that no numbers were worn by the riot police and he seemed genuinely shaken and concerned at what we had to tell him. The Home Secretary has no inkling of what has been happening at Wapping. In the debate on 8 May, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield gave an accurate eye-witness account of what happened on 3 May, but the Home Secretary did not believe it. The Home Secretary's face registered incredulity, he began to laugh and then, with a gesture as if to say, "This cannot possibly be true," he ostentatiously walked out. From his position of invincible ignorance of what had occurred he simply could not believe what he heard, but his duty was surely to listen and to learn. Where is the accountability to Parliament if the Home Secretary does not want to know and does not even listen to a Privy Councillor?

If Ministers do not know what is happening on the ground, what about the senior police officers? Commissioner Newman was certainly not present on 3 May, but what about assistant commissioner Wynn-Jones, whose main contribution in return for a salary of more than £32,000 lies in the manipulation of propaganda? The following day, the Sabbath, he held forth at a press conference at which he is reported as saying:

"The police have been the victims of a determined and undeniably pre-planned attempt by many people to inflict as serious injuries as possible on unprotected officers".

If he was talking about the printing unions, he was either telling deliberate lies or did not have a clue what he was talking about. I was so astonished by his trumpetings that I wondered whether he could possibly have been at the same event that I witnessed. Accordingly, I put down parliamentary questions asking where he was positioned at 10 pm, 10.30, 11 pm, 11.30 and 12 midnight on 3 May. What did I discover? At all those times, he was in Leman street police station. In other words, he was not on the spot at all. He had not witnessed a single thing. He was riot there. I was. He did not know what he was talking about.

I should like to raise another serious matter. I was approached by a London official of the NGA who told me something disturbing. I said that I was disturbed about it, and that if he wanted me to take it up, he must put it in writing because it was so serious. I have his letter here, and the Minister of State has had a copy. He refers to the

"police attending Wellclose Square at 9.30 a.m. on Sunday May 4th … the School Caretaker had witnessed the police carefully removing rocks and boulders from the centre of Wellclose Square from a contractors pile of such rubble. Clearly this was to be used in the Press Conference headed by Deputy Assistant Commissioner W. Jones later that day. More seriously, he witnessed the removal of a spear type railing from outside of the school at about the same time. As this railing was the only one removed he was surprised to see it displayed by Mr. W. Jones at the Press Conference on television later that same evening."

That school caretaker is prepared to give testimony to that effect. His name is David Boyle and he is the schoolkeeper at St. Pauls, Wellclose square, London El. That is a serious matter, and should be looked at. It is one of the things that should be examined at a public inquiry.

Commissioner Newman, in his public order review, says that the situation often calls for

"the skills of a field commander dealing with public disorder".

I note the military terminology. Whoever was field commander on 3 May should be sacked. He should answer for himself at a public inquiry. There is absolutely no public confidence in an internal inquiry. In a parliamentary question, I asked who was in charge of the riot squad that night. I was not told. Why not? Why should we not know who was responsible for that intolerable behaviour? Why should he not be required to answer for himself?

I also asked who gave the order that the people penned into Wellclose street and Wellclose square should not be allowed to leave while they were being repeatedly baton charged. I was told in a parliamentary answer that no such order was given. Whoever drafted that reply simply did not know what he or she was talking about. That reply is either a demonstration of ignorance or a cover-up, because I was told on the spot that night by police that no one could leave because of their orders. So, in practice, parliamentary questions as a method of getting information about the police are a farce and completely ineffective. In the interests of everyone, including the police, there must be better and more effective accountability than that. Things went badly wrong that night. The lessons should be learnt and not swept under the carpet. I have in my possession a letter to the Home Secretary from my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) who is present. I was going to refer to it, but there will not be time. My hon. Friend has not received a proper reply.

Very, very much more than minimum force was used. Truncheons were used, not in self-defence, or to resist violence, but indiscriminately, and not just on the body but on the head as well. That was action outside the law. The riot police breached the law, and the peace; they did not defend them.

But has anyone been disciplined? What was the result of the internal inquiry? Is it not plain that no one has any confidence whatsoever in an internal inquiry? The only conclusion that one can come to is that on these occasions the Met is a law unto itself, and currently accountable to no one at all. I say that that is not acceptable, and must be changed. I also say that the riot squad acting as it did should never have been deployed against a May Day parade of men, women and children. That was a wicked and grossly mistaken act. Those responsible should be brought to book.

The present position is indefensible and cannot be allowed to continue. Far-reaching reforms must be made in the interests of both the public and the police. The only reasonable, sensible and practical solution is a democratically elected police authority within a framework set up by Parliament. If that is right for, say, education, it is right for the police service. Any possible scaremongering about "political" control is absolutely unconvincing. The Met is under political control now — that of the Home Secretary, who does not even come from London. Would those people say that Parliament should not be under political control, or the Government, or the Army? That would be ludicrous. As generals, admirals, air marshals and civil servants are all subject to elected accountability, why on earth should senior policemen be the sole exceptions? There is no public support for that. The sooner we get this elected accountability the healthier it will be for all concerned, and I intend to press for it energetically.

The hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) who has been using his rights as a London Member to deploy arguments in the House about policing in London has taken 20 minutes or more to do so which makes it difficult for me to respond to the points that he made. However, it is an eloquent testimony to the rights of Back Benchers and London Members to air their views about police accountability and police operational procedures, and it is an eloquent testimony to the efficacy of the present arrangements.

The hon. Member for Newham, North-East is arguing for a different form of accountability. As he said, he wants to see an elected form of accountability to replace that which Parliament has bestowed upon the Home Secretary for upwards of 150 years. It is a system which has been in place, with the support of all parties in government, from both sides of the House, for a considerable time. Moreover, it is a system of accountability which was recently endorsed by the report of the Public Accounts Committee, which has just been published. It said:

"In view of the special constitutional and operational responsibilities of the Metropolitan Police for policing the capital and seat of Government, and their additional national and international functions, the essential focus of accountability should be to Parliament not local authorities."

I hope that the hon. Member for Newham, North-East will bear that in mind.

The reason for the special relationship between Parliament and the metropolis and between Parliament and London Members lies in the nature of London itself. I do not want to go too far into that, because it is not a matter for discussion or dispute.

rose—

I am sorry, but I shall not give way.

The fact remains that the accountability that is offered to Members of Parliament through the Home Office and the Home Secretary is very substantial in relation to Metropolitan police matters. In fact, the force is open to more direct questioning by Members of Parliament than is any other force. The Home Secretary and Ministers through debates in this House, and the commissioner through his report, are opening an accountability for scrutiny and public examination in the full light of media exposure which is frequently denied to many other persons who wish to expose policing matters in their provincial force. The Metropolitan police as a whole are very much exposed to full scrutiny on this matter.

I remind the hon. Gentleman of the steps that have been taken in that regard. In the Home Office we have the Home Secretary, who is the police authority for London, and we have other Ministers, who spend a significant proportion of their time on Metropolitan police matters. We have a deputy secretary in charge of the Police Department, one under-secretary, one assistant secretary, who have a considerable part of their responsibilities addressed to the Metropolitan police, and seven officials, including a senior principal, working exclusively on Metropolitan police matters. All those people are available to handle issues raised by hon. Members in the House.

A considerable number of questions have been asked in the House in recent weeks, as the hon. Member for Newham, North-East knows. We have had 76 parliamentary questions in one month to 18 July alone. Many of them are on detailed matters affecting the Metropolitan police. Therefore, it is wrong to impugn accountability, as the hon. Gentleman has done. He may prefer a different form of accountability, but the fact is that in London there is massive accountability through this House, the Home Secretary and in other ways.

Problems arise when local authorities set up police committees claiming to exercise responsibilities that they do not possess. The police cannot lend credence to such claims. The police may talk to any individual or group in the community about practical matters. However, police officers are right to be careful that they do not involve themselves with committees claiming responsibilities and roles which they do not possess in ways which obscure the proper structures of accountability or undermine the role of the consultative groups which Parliament has so recently established.

I remind the hon. Gentleman that with the development of consultative groups under section 106 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 there is now widespread in the Metropolis a much broader-based forum than councils alone can provide to ensure that policing is rooted in the local community. When the riots took place in Brixton last year the local police consultative committee met for three and a half hours to debate the police role on that occasion. The position in Brixton was restored to normal much sooner by the substantial exposure to police activities at that committee than might have been the case without it. I am confident that such an approach is important in establishing the accountability that the hon. Gentleman wishes to see.

I certainly agree to consider some of the points that the hon. Gentleman has raised separately. He asked what report would be made from the internal examination on the events at Wapping on Saturday 3 May and I shall respond to him on that. Regarding the wearing of numbers, not only did the commissioner remind all divisions of the necessity for doing that subsequent to the meeting to which the hon. Gentleman referred, but I went to Wapping to examine for myself whether the police were carrying out that instruction, and I saw that they were. I agree that that important matter was raised by the hon. Gentleman's delegation. The fact that he brought the delegation and that he could discuss the matters as he did is another potent example of the proper accountability of the Metropolitan police to hon. Members and to Ministers reporting to the House.

The wide range of Metropolitan police responsibilities, crime, the pattern of policing, and mobility stretch London wide. Therefore, I accept that there could not be any sensible arrangement between individual boroughs or any form of police arrangement leading from one borough to another. Policing has its ingredients London-wide. Therefore, it is right that from the centre within the Home Office there should be a London-wide responsibility which can he made available to the House and to hon. Members who represent London boroughs.

Hon. Members have influence and the right to consult, delegate and question the system for information, but they do not have control of the police service itself, other than through the controls provided by the Home Secretary to Parliament. There is no control of the police service through police authorities in the provinces either. It is a tripartite structure which rests fundamentally on the Police Act 1964, which gives operational independence to chiefs of police, including the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. That operational responsibility is not subject to the control of either the police authority outside or the direct control of the Home Secretary for the Metropolitan police. Operational decisions rest with the commissioner, where they belong. Those operational decisions lie at the basis of the concern expressed by the hon. Gentleman.

I assure the hon. Gentleman that in terms of accessibility and responsibility to the House and in relation to the London-wide nature of the responsibilities which the Home Secretary carries, we have a proven system which we have absolutely no intention of changing.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As the three hon. Members who represent Newham are present, would it be in order to wish you a happy, most peaceful recess? Long may we catch your eye and remain vigilant on behalf of the people of the London borough of Newham.

I accept that as being wholly in order and I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman has said. Indeed, the proper role of all hon. Members is to be vigilant on behalf of their constituents.

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

• Finance Act 1986
• Appropriation Act 1986
• Crown Agents (Amendment) Act 1986
• Gas Act 1986
• Insolvency Act 1986
• Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986
• Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986
• Wages Act 1986
• Agriculture Act 1986
• Social Security Act 1986
• British Council and Commonwealth Institute Superannuation Act 1986
• Dockyard Services Act 1986
• Building Societies Act 1986
• Ipswich Port Authority Act 1986
• Alcoholics Anonymous (Dispositions) Act 1986
• Bournemouth-Swanage Motor Road and Ferry Act 1986
• Bromborough Dock Act 1986

In the very last Adjournment debate of this Session of Parliament I congratulate you, Mr. Speaker, upon your timely selection, because what I have to say in a few moments' time will have a bearing on certain matters that are to take place within the European Community during the parliamentary recess.

I thank also my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment for kindly being here to reply to the debate. The subject which appears on the Order Paper — EEC infraction proceedings on United Kingdom zero-rating policy on value added tax for the building industry—is all very heavy stuff, but the subject of this debate is not to be taken lightly or wantonly by the private sector of the building industry, and in particular not by those who ultimately will wish to buy the houses that the private sector provides.

Hansard recorded in February 1984 that on the Adjournment I raised the subject of value added tax on construction work. On that occasion my right hon. Friend the Minister for Health, who was then Minister of State, Treasury, was kind enough to reply. I should place on record the fact that in one sense I am sorry that my hon. Friend who is now the Minister of State, Treasury is unable to be here to reply, but I am particularly delighted that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State is here to reply. I do not know, Mr. Speaker, whether in your office or elsewhere in the Palace of Westminster there is a league table of those of one's right hon. and hon. Friends who reply to Adjournment debates, but I am bound to say that if I were a betting man my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State would be nearly at the top, if not at the top, of that table because of the assiduity with which he attends Adjournment debates.

I was reminding him a few moments ago that during the seven illustrious years that he has adorned the Government Benches I have raised on the Adjournment of this House on Friday afternoons subjects which almost invariably have led to my constituents being satisfied. In the absence of my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Treasury, who, because of his responsibilities in Europe this week, is unable to be here to deal with this specific point of VAT on housing, I look to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for an assurance, as do my constituents and the construction industry, that certain matters that are now being considered by the European Court will ultimately be settled to Britain's satisfaction.

The matter to which I wish to refer is that of infraction proceedings. In an Adjournment debate in 1984 I said:

"I should not seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment"—

the matter was value added tax on construction work generally—

"but for a somewhat sensational article in The Sunday Times, Business News section, of 13 November last. Its front page lead read:

'A Common Market move to force Britain to levy value added tax on commercial and industrial property development could put thousands of jobs at risk'. The following Thursday 17 November, there was an article in the Financial Times which said:

'The European Commission is inquiring into the desirability of maintaining the zero value added tax rating for commercial and industrial property development in Britain.'"

As recently as 1983 and early 1984, neither the British public nor those great national newspapers believed that VAT might be levied on private housebuilding, let alone on commercial property development. At column 366, I said this:

"Since the introduction of VAT in this country more than 10 years ago, it has been clearly established and accepted on both sides of the channel that all new construction work should be zero-rated for VAT purposes. Goodness knows what our constituency mailbags would be like if we woke up one morning and found that new homes, domestic construction work, had a 15 per cent. VAT price tag placed on them. I hasten to add that these infraction proceedings, which are the subject of immediate concern to the construction industry, have nothing directly to do with new homes or residential construction work."—[Official Report, 29 February 1984; Vol. 55, c. 365–6.]

That was only two years ago.

VAT zero-rating is an option allowed under the rules of the EEC provided that it meets these two criteria: first, it must be for the benefit of the end user, who is the customer and the constituent of every right hon. and hon. Member; and, secondly, it must be within a social policy objective. Under that concession, the United Kingdom applied zero-rating to a range of goods from food to newspapers and including most building work. In 1984, to the great regret of many people on both sides of the House and outside, zero-rating was removed from repair, maintenance and improvement work.

A range of bodies, including the Building Employers Confederation, the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the British Property Federation and the local authority associations, blamed that removal for the increase in the volume of small building works now undertaken by the black economy.

As long ago as 1981, the European Commission expressed anxiety about the amount of zero-rating in the United Kingdom, and last year — five years later — it commenced infraction proceedings in the European Court. As a result, the Government have had to show that their zero-rating policy meets the tests of the two criteria that I mentioned: that it benefits the end user, and that it is within a social policy.

At the end of last month, no doubt after a robust defence by the Government, the European Commission told the court that it did not accept the Government's case on construction. Today's debate is timely, because the Government have until 4 September — almost equidistant between today and when we return on 21 October —to make their final submission to the court, following which the court's verdict will be known some time between the spring and autumn of next year.

To those of us used to Anglo-Saxon legal proceedings, evidence and pleading are public and open to cross-examination by both sides, whereas those of the European Court are obscure and secret, occurring behind closed doors. One hesitates to say it, but it smacks of Star Chamber proceedings. The proceedings are not as open and above board as they would be in a British court. Perhaps more importantly, some Conservative Members harbour the suspicion that the decision is based more on political objectives than on a balanced view. That is what the construction industry believes.

Although the loss of zero-rating would seriously affect all building work, with the consequence of increasing the cost to the consumer and, inevitably, reducing the workload in the industry still further, with the consequent knock-on effect on job vacancies, its consequences would be most severe on private housebuilding. The customer is not a large institution but the private individual. Inevitably, if VAT were to be imposed on private housebuilding, it would put the price up eventually, if not immediately, by 15 per cent. As night follows day, secondhand prices would rush to catch up and they, too, would be caught up in this house price inflation.

We do not know whether the European Court has it in mind to impose this VAT levy across the board for new housebuilding in both private and public sectors. If it is to be across the board, that will have the effect of putting up the cost of local authority housing, high as it is. Who is to define the social objective? The construction industry, whether private or public, is providing the same sort of commodity whether for the ultimate tenant or the ultimate purchaser. The private sector is taking up much of the responsibility that was once that of the public sector. Sheltered housing is now provided, to a large extent, by the private sector. What will happen if the European Court case goes against us in, say, just the private sector? What will happen to those properties being developed on what we know, colloquially, as the half and half scheme, where the private sector joins in partnership with the public sector to provide homes for those who want to buy part now and part later?

If the European Court decision went against the Government, it would be a fundamental challenge to the housing policies of the Government in the new build sector, particularly with its emphasis on the switch from the public to the private sector. This point was made last week by the president of the House Builders Federation in a letter to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I understand from the federation that it was invited by the Department of the Environment to discuss the defence of private housebuilding zero-rating and that it was satisfied with the case that it had prepared. It fully covered the range of social objectives sought by policies for both public and private housing and it made clear that the indivisibility of the housing market precludes any distinction between luxury and non-luxury housing. It may well be within a social policy objective to ensure a wide range of new houses built in an area, including luxury homes.

The United Kingdom places a far greater emphasis on home ownership and private housing than many of our European partners. If VAT were ultimately to be added to the private housing sector, this would discriminate against us as a nation and in favour of our European partners. I am thinking also of the inner cities and the role of urban development corporations such as those in London and in the Liverpool docks. In the revival of confidence in such areas, new housing across the price and social spectrum plays a large part. It is a major objective of social policy and for that reason, as much as for many others, this sector should be zero-rated.

Should the court refuse to accept the strong case being put up by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, the immediate difficulties facing housebuilders and purchasers of new homes, particularly first-time buyers, would be considerable. If VAT is added to the final price, it will immediately add to the cost and reduce the market, reflecting the scale of VAT that has been imposed.

As the president of the House Builders Federation wrote to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister:

"the imposition of VAT on new homes will requre higher selling prices where they are built on land bought at current prices. This will inevitably reduce demand — and hence output—quite considerably."

It will also reduce jobs.

"Moreover, the threat of its imposition will put builders who are in the process of acquiring land in great jeopardy, not knowing if VAT should be included in the residual calculation of value, and if so, at what rate. This will further reduce output and increase unemployment, in the short-term at least."

Some people will argue that the price addition due to VAT will be subtracted from the land price and that the market will quickly readjust, so that the short term referred to by the president's letter could be just that. That is theorectically a neat proposition but it leaves two major problems.

The first is the transition and the effects of output on land bought recently at current prices. That is what is referred to in the president's letter. How many housebuilders could be bankrupted in the short term and how many jobs could therefore be lost? Secondly, the practical effects on the market, even in the longer term, will not be quite so tidy. Housebuilders, and those of us with practical knowledge of the land market, know that the price of land is very sticky downwards. Land will just not be put on the market. As it becomes scarce, so its value will increase, thus adding to the upward pressure on the price of the house that is finally built on it.

Landowners take a long time to accept that land values have fallen. The first effect of falling prices, which could last some time, is that landowners will withhold that most essential commodity. The supply of land will simply dry up indeterminately. I understand that the purpose of the EC imposing VAT is to make every state capable of trading on fair and free terms. None of us would contradict that policy but harmonisation has no hearing on United Kingdom housing policy.

There is no question of competition between member states. There are no obstacles in Britain to European building firms. Housing markets are highly localised, even in the United Kingdom. Housing in Lichfield, Rugeley and Stone in my constituency does not compete with housing in Kent or Scotland or even with housing in Birmingham just 20 miles down the road. Still less does housing in those markets compete with housing in Hamburg, Paris, Rome or Madrid.

Once a European company is competing in a local market and everybody is on the same VAT footing, competition faces no obstacles, so the removal of United Kingdom zero-rating is harmonisation for its own sake. It serves no fundamental Community purpose. It would damage the British private housing market, probably for many years, without conferring any advantage on our European partners. It would be a tax on home ownership for the benefit of the European Community and not for my constituents or those of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State who is to reply.

I invite my hon. Friend to assure the House, the construction industry and the buyers of private homes, whom we all want to be properly housed and not to have to endure the long and frustrating wait for a key to a council house, that the Government will submit a robust and positive defence to ensure that there is always a free supply of private houses to buy.

May I conclude, Mr. Speaker, by wishing you a happy and rewarding recess? I should like to associate with that sentiment my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Whip and all Officers of the House. I hope that we shall return in October renewed, refreshed and invigorated.

The House is very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Heddle) for raising today the important issue of the infraction proceedings being brought by the Commission against the United Kingdom, alleging that we are in breach of certain of our obligations under the treaty of Rome with some of our VAT zero ratings.

I was delighted to learn that I have been of some assistance to my hon. Friend and his constituents in the past, and I hope to uphold that record. Until now, I thought that infraction was something that happened when a straight stick was put into a bowl of water. However, I now understand that it is something wholly different and far more serious. I should like to make two points clear. First, the Government fully appreciate the great concern felt in the construction industry about this threat. We know the effect that it could have on the industry's work load. We share that concern, and my hon. Friend has dramatically outlined the potential implications.

Secondly, the Government are determined to fight those proceedings. We have been doing so all along, and that remains our position. My hon. Friend said a word or two about the timetable. We are seeking an extension until 4 October to lodge our rejoinder to the Commission's reply. I understand that, as I think my hon. Friend said, the oral hearing before the court will follow, but it is unlikely until March 1987 at the earliest, and the court's judgment will not be available until several months after that.

Perhaps I could say a word about the background of this. Zero rating of new construction in this country goes back a very long way. Indeed, it goes back to purchase tax days and beyond. When we joined the Community in 1972, it was recognised that there had to be transitional arrangements. These were provided for in the relevant VAT directive. There has never been any disagreement between us and the Commission that these zero ratings were in force at that time. They do not represent anything new or changed on the part of the United Kingdom. What has happened is that, for reasons best known to itself, the Commission has chosen to challenge those zero ratings. We do not think that it is right to do so, and we have said so very publicly. My hon. Friend will be well aware, looking specifically at the question of house building, which I know is of deep concern to him, of the letter of 5 July 1984 from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the then HBF president, Terry Royden. It is worth quoting that letter in full. It says:

"I am happy to confirm that we have no plans to alter either the present zero rating for new housing, or the current base of mortgage interest relief. We shall also continue to resist firmly moves within the European Community to bring the current VAT concession to an end."

That was what the Prime Minister said two years ago and that remains the Government's position. My hon. Friend will know that that stance was reiterated by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer very recently.

The current position is that the Commission has initiated proceedings against the United Kingdom in the European Court of Justice. We have lodged a defence for that case, the Commission has replied, and we are currently considering our rejoinder to the Commission's reply.

The Commission's case is based on the sixth VAT directive, which states that zero-rating may be applied only as a transitional measure

"for clearly defined social reasons and for the benefit of the final consumer".

The Commission contends that our current concessions for new construction do not meet these criteria. We deny that utterly. Whether or not we are in pursuit of a social policy must be for us to determine. It is a matter for our discretion. Moreover, we believe that it is for us to define what those social reasons are, and not to have our social policies determined by the Commission, nor even to have them challenged.

The same is true of our interpretation of the phrase "the final consumer". We do not believe that that can be narrowly equated with just the private individual who is the immediate recipient. "Consumers" can be defined more widely than private individuals — they are the people at the end to the distribution chain for a particular product, and that can be treated more widely than individuals.

The Commission's current challenge is to a wide range of goods and services. It is not restricted just to the construction industry. For instance, it covers news services, water for industry, protective boots and helmets for industrial use, and so on. I make that point to draw attention to the peculiarity of some of the Commission's current challenges.

When it comes to construction, there can be no doubt that it is for social reasons, and for the benefit of the final consumer. The built environment is one of the most important ingredients of our social fabric. What we see about us in terms of building, whether it is aesthetic, efficient and well maintained or ugly, inefficient and run down, has a big effect on the morale of the community and its power to earn its living with ability and enthusiasm. In that sense, a good working environment is essential to the contentment and social stability of society. More specifically, what happens when the working environment is run down can be seen in the examples of riots in our inner cities last year, in Brixton, Toxteth, Tottenham and elsewhere. My hon. Friend spoke of the implications of the Commission's action for our inner cities. A new tax on construction would be a deterrent to development where it is most needed.

I have spoken about the industrial and commerical sectors, but, as I am sure the Commission knows, the United Kingdom was the first country to industrialise. We still have a large stock of obsolete buildings, more than any other comparable country. In many parts of Britain, and especially in the north, there are vast areas, hundreds of acres of wasteland, covered with obsolete factories, warehouses and offices that can never be used again as they stand. They must either be totally modernised or demolished and replaced if they are to play an effective part in the social and economic life of the country.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the renewal that we have seen in docklands and the renewal that we are trying to encourage in places such as Liverpool would he gravely prejudiced if we agreed to this measure?

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire spent some time speaking about the work of renovation in our inner cities and he paid tribute to the work of the London Docklands Development Corporation and the Merseyside Development Corporation. He rightly drew attention to the barriers that would he placed in their path by this additional imposition. I totally agree with what he said.

House building is the most bizarre part of the challenge by the Commission, and I say that for three reasons. First, the Commission, almost as a throwaway line, casually lumps the £5 billion a year that we spend on new housing alongside safety boots and helmets. I do not decry the importance of safety boots and helmets, but I wonder whether the Commission really has any sense of relative values when it can lump those things in a flimsy, ill-considered and narrowly based approach.

Secondly, the Commission has simply asserted that it does not think that our zero rating is justified. This seems to be one of those occasions when harmonisation is being pursued for its own sake, without regard to the merits of the argument or any detailed consideration of what is involved. As my hon. Friend said, any builder in the European Community is perfectly free to come here, buy land and sell houses in competition with our domestic house building industry. One cannot trade houses across frontiers, and the moment one looks at the industry one sees that economic theory which may be valid for other goods and services does not apply to that industry.

Thirdly, I find the Commission's stance legally bizarre. The sixth directive is quite clear and says that zero rating may be applied

"for clearly defined social reasons and for the benefit of the final consumer".

What is more clearly for the final consumer than a house? All our houses are lived in by private individuals. I do not believe the Commission can, on any sensible grounds, challenge that part of it.

In terms of social policy, housing as a whole in the United Kingdom has for many years clearly played a major part in the broadly defined social policies of Governments of all parties. We had major investment in housing in the 1960s. We have the policy of subsidising rents through housing benefit, fixed rent levels, security of tenure and tax relief for owner-occupiers. All those things are designed to encourage either public or private sector housing through the use of taxation or other financial advantages for the good of the final user and in pursuance of social policies.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this subject. He has performed a service for the construction industry and I hope that what I have said will reassure him about the complete and utter rejection by the Government of the Commission's case. We have fought it steadily all along the line and will continue so to do.

As the final speaker before the House rises, I should like to extend to you, Mr. Speaker, and to your fellow occupants of the Chair our deep appreciation of the patience, good humour and impartiality with which you have supervised our proceedings, not least during July, when the temper of the House is often raised. We are also greatly indebted to the Officers of the House. As you cancel the papers and put out the milk bottles and go on your holiday, Mr. Speaker, you do so with the good wishes of the whole House.

I thank the Minister for his final comments, and I also thank the hon. Members for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Heddle) and for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks). This is an admirable way in which to finish a very busy sitting. We have had hard-hitting debates, but they have been conducted in a spirit of mutual respect and good will. I hope that every hon. Member and every member of our staff, who serve us so well, will have a restful holiday.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Three o'clock till Tuesday 21 October, pursuant to the resolution of the House yesterday.