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

I thank my hon. Friends and those Opposition Members who have jointly sponsored the Bill. There is a common view on both sides of the House that acclaims successes in the agriculture industry, but there is also a common view that expresses concern about the need, as a result of that success, for farmers to think of other ways of earning income because of the need to curb the surpluses that are now occurring. I should also thank my hon. Friend the Minister and his officials for the advice that they have given me in the preparation of the Bill.

It is a short and, I am sure hon. Members will agree, non-controversial Bill. It is designed to enable the Agricultural Training Board to offer, on a fully commercial basis, training in various rurally related activities not previously within its scope. The offer will be made to all those employed in the industry and their families and will enable farmers to diversify their businesses. The board will also be able to offer those outside commercial agriculture and horticulture training in what I have referred to as amenity skills.

Before going into greater detail about the content of the Bill and its effects, I should like to set the scene by outlining the history and background of the board. Although I am sure that many hon. Members are aware of the existence of the board and its functions, I am equally sure that there are many, especially those in urban and suburban constituencies, who may not have had an opportunity to become familiar with its activities

The Agricultural Training Board was established in 1966 under the Industrial Training Act 1964. That Act provided for the setting up of other industrial training boards, each dealing specifically with training for workers in its own sector of employment in Britain. In common with the various industrial training boards set up under the 1964 Act, the Agricultural Training Board was originally the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Employment. The transfer of its functions to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Secretaries of State for Scotland and Wales took place in 1969 and it accompanied a transfer in funding arrangements for the board from the self-funding industry levy system to direct Government funding. That became necessary as the extremely disparate and remote nature of the industry, together with its preponderance of small businesses, made the business of levy collection somewhat difficult.

The current legislation governing the board's activities comprises the Agricultural Training Board Acts 1982 and 1985 and the Agricultural Training Board (Amendment) Order 1975. Under that legislation, the board is allowed to provide, approve and make recommendations on courses, test standards of training, give advice, and carry out research connected with employment in the agriculture industry pay maintenance and travelling expenses to trainees, pay grants or loans to course providers and to pay fees to providers of further education and make payments to employers for attendance of workers on those courses.

There is one all-embracing constraint in the current law. These functions may be exercised only in connection with training for those employed, or intending to be employed, within the commercial agriculture or horticulture industries in Britain or equivalent employment overseas. The board exercises these functions through its central committees and its unique system of training groups nationwide, together comprising a form of training co-operative for England, Wales and Scotland. If hon. Members have not seen the "Review of Training in Agriculture and Horticulture 1985–86" published by the board, they may find that helpful where they have problems over training in their constituents.

Each of the training groups consists of a number of local employers in agriculture and horticulture. They arrange their own training courses as required by their members, often on their own premises. This ensures that the courses that are provided have a much greater relevance to their area. Many groups employ their own group training organiser to co-ordinate the training activities, working in concert with a local agricultural college, a careers office and relevant institutions.

The board's local training officer makes the necessary arrangements for those groups which do not have their own resources. The board contributes directly to training through grants to the groups, and more directly by developing courses, course materials and training trainers. A great deal of course training material is available and this is sent out in booklet form to local groups. The students can take these booklets away with them after their on-farm training.

There are about 650 groups in Great Britain and every farmer and farm worker should be within reasonable travelling distance of a training group. In my county of Cornwall there are 10 training groups, and of these five employ a part-time group training organiser. In 1985–86 these Cornish groups held a total of 501 training course days. These included adult training and training for those on the board's apprenticeship scheme—the Agricultural and Horticultural Training Scheme—and for those on the youth training scheme in agriculture and horticulture in the county.

Why does the board need to broaden its scope of activity even more? The principal reason, as I stated at the outset, is that the demands upon, and the expectations of, agriculture are changing dramatically. There is a growing need for the relevant training courses to be made available to meet the new demands and expectations. When such a need becomes apparent it would be churlish to deny those who wish to acquire such training access to the board's undoubted expertise. There is a good precedent for allowing that access. As recently as 1985 the need for the board to extend its activities overseas was identified. This was principally to complement the United Kingdom's other export efforts in the agricultural sector, not just to export a new agricultural system, but to sell the training courses to foreign people. At the same time, that profitable enterprise helped to broaden the board's financial base, not only by reducing its reliance upon Government funding but by helping to reduce costs of courses and course materials to students in Great Britain.

My hon. Friend served with me as a member of the Select Committee on Employment when we considered a number of training boards. Will my hon. Friend clarify the relationship between the Agricultural Training Board and other training boards? As I understand it, the other training boards come under the responsibility of the Department of Employment. I believe that the Agricultural Training Board is the only board that is dealt with separately. Is that so?

The Agricultural Training Board is the only board that receives direct funding from its sponsoring Ministry. However, it has representation across the country in a different form from that of any of the other boards, a number of which have now been abolished.

I want to consider the additional training needs that have been identified. Over the past few years the total Great Britain farm income as identified in the annual review of agriculture White Paper has fluctuated widely, but there is an underlying downward trend. This has been coupled with pressure on farmers to reduce production of a wide range of agricultural commodities that are in surplus. Particular measures in that area include the introduction—and subsequent cut—of milk quotas, the recently agreed package intended to reduce surplus beef production, and suggestions under discussion that some land should be diverted from cereal production. Farmers are therefore increasingly and often apprehensively having to look for ways other than the growing of traditional crops to maintain or increase their incomes. Many have considerable investment and loans involved in their land, buildings, stock and equipment which must be funded.

In addition, with the demand created by the increased leisure time available to the population generally, coupled with a growing awareness of the need to conserve, protect and enhance the environment, a greater need for training in these areas has developed rapidly. Some training is available from rural agencies such as the Council for Small Industries in Rural Areas, and the Countryside Commission. Other courses are provided by specialist training agencies such as the Forestry Training Council and by the agricultural colleges. However, the existing level of training is not sufficient to meet the ever-increasing needs of the agriculture and horticulture industries.

Manufacturing industry and commerce in Cornwall suffers from a comparatively uncompetitive location. Meanwhile, Cornwall's agriculture contributes about twice as much to the local gross product than is the case with the national economy. Agriculture in Cornwall is heavily dependent upon livestock, with dairying providing about 36 per cent. and other cattle about 25 per cent. of farming activity, much of which is carried out on small farms. It is evident that any measures intended to cut milk or beef production could have a more serious effect on the local economy than in other countries. Fortunately, we are blessed in the county with a mild climate and excellent scenery. This offers many opportunities for farmers to diversify their business, provided that they can acquire good quality training for themselves, their employees and their families.

Such diversification can take many forms. A major opportunity exists in the provision of tourist accommodation and other facilities. Indeed, a farm holiday group has already been established in Cornwall. Holiday makers are understandably keen to visit rural areas for recreation, and there are already a number of "model farms" in the county of Cornwall which attract significant number of visitors. Other opportunities exist to expand on that theme and to provide a whole range of activity holidays such as pony trekking, painting, photography or sport holidays in rural areas. Despite the poor weather in the county last year—it was a particlarly freakish year in that respect—we are trying to use every means available to influence the weather in subsequent years to ensue that those who wish to come to Cornwall for a holiday are guaranteed a hospitable and enjoyable time. I am sure that many more farmers will be ready to accommodate people should they wish to take that kind of holiday.

Farmers or farm workers may also wish to exploit their own or their family's skills in particular crafts or in technical areas. One particular craft that springs to mind in relation to Cornwall is the manufacture of surf boards. Surfing has become a very popular sport in the west country. Many farmers have redundant barns which can be used for the production of such equipment. This craft is typical of the latent artisic and technical skills that can be trained and directed to profitable effect.

The operation of services such as farm shops, taxis and village bus services may also be commercially more viable when operated in conjunction with existing agricultural businesses. Finally, we should not forget the on-farming processing if the products of farming itself. The obvious examples are cream, cheese and Cornish pasties. Some on-farm businesses have shown remarkable growth in those areas recently, in Cornwall and elsewhere.

In addition to specific training in the operation of all those activities as part of a business, we should not ignore the importance of training in marketing techniques. It is of little value to have an excellent product if it cannot be sold, and the board is mindful of that.

My Bill does not merely extend the board's scope to train those involved in farming in new activities. It will also permit the board to offer training in what I have termed "amenity activities" to those outside commercial agriculture and horticulture. Training should be available in skills relating to the care of land or animals, with sport, recreation and conservation in mind. Once again some training is available in those areas, but not enough. The Agriculture Training Board, with its highly regarded training methods, its knowledge of and relationship with the farming industry, and its expertise in land-related skills, is ideally placed to meet those various needs.

The Bill is a short one with only two clauses. The objective of clause 1(1) is principally to insert into section 4 of the Agricultural Training Board Act 1982 enabling powers for the board to undertake training activities in addition to those that are already permitted. The new activities are defined in new section 5A. To avoid unnecessary duplication of courses and facilities with other public and private sector agencies the addition to new section 4 requires the board to have regard to any courses or facilities otherwise available for the purpose before providing training in additional activities.

Clause 1(2) inserts new section 5A into the 1982 Act and specifies the additional training activities which may be undertaken. As section 5(1A) of the Agricultural Training Board Act 1985 is unamended, the board may not undertake these new activities outside Great Britain.

New section 5A(1)(a) specifies those who may be trained by the board in diversification activities. The section refers to training in

"activities not comprised within the industry."

That means the industry as defined in the 1975 order. Broadly speaking, then, the section is referring to non-agricultural skills of the type that I have mentioned.

Paragraphs (i) and (ii) of new section 5A(1)(a) define more closely the groups of people involved. Paragraph (i) refers to those employed in the industry. That does not mean merely employees, but employers and the self-employed; in other words, all who are actively engaged in a commercial agricultural or horticultural business. Paragraph (ii) refers to members of the families of people so employed. This is to avoid the position where a farmer or worker may be trained by the board, for example in the provision of tourist facilities, but a spouse, not strictly being employed in the industry, may not receive such training.

New section 5A(1)(b) introduces the other new area of activities which the board may undertake, namely, training in amenity skills of persons not currently employed in the industry. New section 5A(2) defines amenity skills for the purposes of new section 5A(1)(b). For ease of reference the definition falls into two parts. The first, new section 5A(2)(a), refers to skills directly connected to the land. There are three general areas of land use identified—sporting, recreational and environmental. I intend that the phrase,

"development, improvement, conservation or maintenance"

of such land should be all-embracing and cover all the activities which would need to be undertaken to make and maintain land fit for the purposes described.

The second part, new section 5A(2)(b), refers to skills connected with the rearing or care, but excluding the training, of animals for sporting, recreational or environmental purposes. I recognise that the board, with its expertise in land-related skills, has much to offer in the training of people who keep or rear animals. This will include animals which may need to be protected or encouraged in the wild, and sport birds and fish, from which there may be associated benefits in conservation through the care of habitat.

New section 5A(3) obliges the board to consult the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food together with the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Wales before providing new categories of courses or facilities.

New section 5A(4) imposes a duty on the board to conduct its affairs in such a way that revenue received from its new functions under section (4)(1)(bb) will at the earliest possible date at least meet the expediture incurred in the exercise of those functions, thereby ensuring that the board suffers no financial losses and that the activities are not funded by Government grants. This will make it fully competitive with other agencies which offer such training. This requirement is identical to that already accepted in 1985 by the House, which covers the board's overseas commercial activities.

It is intended that the board's new activities should not be a charge on Exchequer aid; rather, that by acting commercially the board may show some profit. If it should transpire that diversification and amenity skills activities do not prove to be self-financing, section 6 of the 1982 Act empowers Ministers to direct that the operation of such activities shall cease. Meanwhile, any pump-priming moneys required to finance these new activities must be found from income from existing commercial activities, rather than from grant-aid.

Clause 1(3) extends the Minister's powers under section 7 of the 1982 Act to disclose information to the board which will assist it in carrying out its new functions. Information already supplied under section 7 could be relevant to its new functions, and this clause merely expands the section in line with the board's new powers.

Clause 1(4) inserts a new paragraph, paragraph (aa), into section 8(1A) of the 1982 Act, as amended by the 1985 Act. Section 8(1) requires the board to keep proper accounts and records and to prepare a yearly statement of account in the form determined by Ministers and the Treasury. The 1985 Act amplified the section of the 1982 Act requiring the board to keep separate records and accounts for its commercial overseas activities. New paragraph (aa) requires that a similar separate account should be kept, covering the new functions described in section 4(1)(bb). Although the Bill will expand the ATB, such expansion can only be for the overall good of the agriculture industry and, indeed, for the amenity and leisure industries. Not only will farmers and amenity workers who wish to learn a new skill benefit from receiving expert tuition in what is potentially a wide range of subjects, but basic agricultural skills training will benefit from the reinvestment by the board of additional income derived from these new sources. The record of the ATB in agricultural training shows that the board warrants not only continuing, but further, support in the direction outlined in the Bill, and I commend the measure to the House.

I wish to make a short speech in support of the Bill as I am one of its sponsors. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Neale) on his important initiative in bringing the measure before the House. It is important in terms of extending and diversifying acquired skills in rural areas and equipping agriculture to adapt to the changing circumstances of the future. That was perhaps the most important point made by the hon. Gentleman. Agriculture must face future changes in circumstances and it is essential that people involved in agriculture are trained to meet the new challenges. I hazard a prediction that when this short Bill reaches the statute book it will have more far-reaching significance than a good many other measures that have had a higher political profile in the House.

I have two purposes in giving the Bill my support. First, I agree wholeheartedly with what it tries to do in principle. Secondly—here I shall make a regional point—in the medium and long term there will be substantial opportunities through which the rural and industrial economies of East Anglia can benefit. East Anglia is predominantly an arable farming area. The long-term view for arable farming, in a much wider context than East Anglia, is that we simply cannot go on piling up arable surpluses without making some attempt to reduce structural excesses to a manageable proportion. In doing that, there must be a ground change whereby agriculture can adapt to new opportunities and provide new employment prospects.

The Bill seeks to amend the scope of activities of the ATB. Like any other organisation, it must operate under working definitions of what it can and cannot do. The Bill seeks to widen the terms of reference of the ATB and allow it to do more in areas such as recreation and the environment. Those two aspects are interconnected. The training activities that currently exist outside the remit of the ATB's agenda clearly should be part of the ATB's future responsibilities. If agriculture and rural areas are to adapt to future changes in circumstances, there must be a change in the ATB's training agenda.

The hon. Member for Cornwall, North clearly explained the purposes of the Bill and he outlined what the clauses seek to do. I shall refer to two areas mentioned in suggested new section 5A(1)(a), which states:

"with a view to the diversification of the trades or businesses carried on by persons so employed".

The important word is "diversfication". There must be diversification in the process of adaptation and aiming towards doing new things in rural areas. Proposed new section 5A(2)(a) refers to

"the development, improvement, conservation or maintenance of land for sporting, recreational or environmental purposes."

Those two aspects are important as they provide a way out of some of the pressing problems in agricultural employment and activity in rural areas.

The work of the ATB in Suffolk has been a success story, despite existing limitations, and I pay tribute to those who, over the years, have made this enterprise such a working success. It works through training groups and it has a training officer. Its training is conducted through both apprentice-type courses and regular participation in the YTS scheme. It has adapted to local circumstances. The training that it offers occurs on farms and in an agricultural college, and one group in Earl Soham has its own training centre. There are eight groups, five in agriculture proper and three in horticulture, and they have been a success on two counts. First, they have equipped young people with marketable skills and, secondly, they have meant that East Anglia is well to the front in agricultural quality.

East Anglia agriculture owes a debt to the board's training. The courses are diverse and by no means tied to the predominantly arable nature of the region. With the increased use of sophisticated machinery and the responsibility entailed by the increased use of chemicals and pesticides, some courses have a high-tech approach.

East Anglia supports the change in the Bill for very relevant reasons, because it wants to look to the future. First, farming in this country is in an age of surplus and the aims of public policy must change accordingly. Structural arable farming surpluses can no longer be financed on the scale on which they have been financed in the past. We cannot, as an aim of public policy, produce food on the scale that we did in times gone by. In the past, ever-increasing production and productivity were fundamental aims that overrode other matters, but that is no longer the case. There is a need to diversify and to look to other activities to ensure employment in rural economies. If this is to be achieved, training must be put on a wider and more flexible basis. For this reason, the changes highlighted in the Bill are not only desirable but essential.

We no longer need an agricultural policy—we need farm and countryside policies that are interdependent and can benefit from each other. In the post-war period in East Anglia, tens of thousands of people left the land, many of them young persons. If there are to be new opportunities for activity and if the ATB is to widen and build on the success of its past performance to include the new scenario, we in East Anglia stand a chance of halting and reversing the decline.

I wish the Bill well. It is based on need and is a welcome and thoughtful step towards improving the economy of the countryside.

I am grateful for this opportunity to support my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Neale). This is a good Bill and will be of great benefit to the south-west and many other areas. I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing it forward. It also gives me much pleasure to support my hon. Friend, after the support that he gave me on the Okehampton bypass issue, particularly when I could not be in the House because I was ill. My hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, South-East (Mr.Hicks) has asked me to say that he fully supports the Bill and regrets that he has to be in his constituency today.

There is no doubt that the Bill is needed. Great changes have taken place in agriculture over the years. Having been involved in agriculture since I was a boy of 14, I have seen the enormous problems that have arisen because of the changing scene. The changes have caused considerable sacrifices to be made by rural people—sacrifices, as my hon. Friend said, including loss of employment, with all that that means.

We must face the fact that the demand for food has dropped—last year, a staggering 18 per cent. less butter was consumed—but production has been encouraged to increase dramatically. When I was a very young man, we thought that it was good if we produced 25 cwt of cereals to the acre. Now it has all changed. Modern machinery has meant that vast numbers of men are not required. Huge surpluses, because agriculture has been too successful, have resulted in cuts and quotas. This has meant a considerable drop in income and a decline in the economic life of rural areas affecting everyone—not only farmers but farm workers, machinery manufacturers and all those who service this great industry. We cannot be blind to those facts.

The worst sin of all is for some Opposition parties—I exempt the Socialist party—to say that there is no need for these cuts. I regret the fact that the Social Democrats and Liberals still carry on in their speeches in the south-west as though there were no problems. A letter which I received from the chairman of the economic and employment committee of Devon county council, Councillor Walker, an ardent Liberal, was written as though nothing had happened and he and others could continue misleading farmers into thinking that the status quo should continue. That is not true. It is unfair. There must be changes and cuts.

Is my hon. Friend aware of the recent remarks by the president of the National Farmers Union, Mr. Simon Gourlay, when referring to a speech by the leader of the SDP? He said:

"You will annihilate UK farming. You do not begin to comprehend what you are suggesting".

The average size of a farm in Britain is so much greater than the average size of a farm in Europe that any policies that might be beneficial to small farmers in Europe will be ruinous in this country.

I am well aware of that. One of the distressing problems in the political scene is that the policies of the Liberals and Social Democrats vary from constituency to constituency. It is sad that misleading statements are made. We must reduce agricultural production and find alternative ways of assisting farm workers and farmers. The Bill will do that.

We need to plan for a "revival"—a term that I like—of rural activity, and the Bill will assist. Activities must be encouraged to make up for the loss of production in normal farming. The Agricultural Training Board needs to have its powers and functions widened to offer training outside the scope of the industry to allow farmers to be trainined to take up other activities and to diversify their businesses. I do not think that anyone would argue against that view. Everyone should support the Bill.

I believe that this Government will support the extension of training to achieve a rural revival. Other measures are needed. It is no good men and women being trained in new skills if they are not allowed to set up businesses to use those new skills. There are currently too many central and local government planning restrictions and other, probably unnecessary, bureaucratic controls which stultify and frequently totally prevent farmers from diversifying and developing new and constructive uses for their land and buildings, not necessarily totally oriented towards traditional farming.

Probably the biggest problem is the heavy-handed planning restriction. No one wants this to be totally removed, so as to allow pre-war ribbon development and other uses that might be adverse to the rural environment, but there needs to be a more common-sense approach to opportunities for new businesses to be developed in the countryside. Only if such development occurs will employment be maintained or increased in rural areas while employment in traditional agriculture inevitably drops.

If the skills of farmers, farm workers and their families are to be widened and other enterprises set up, planning permission must be given.

indicated assent

I am glad that my hon. Friend is nodding his head. I hope that the instructions to the planning committees of the various councils will be tougher and stronger, so that that becomes a reality.

Will my hon. Friend take account of the fact that, in park areas such as the Lake District, where I live, planning permission is required to be given by not only the South Lakeland district council but the special planning board, which leads to more difficulties?

I have similar problems with the national parks planning committee in Dartmoor. That is an important point. Local planning authorities should listen and act on Government advice to allow more small businesses to start up in rural areas. Germany has a good system of small factories where some members of a farmer's family can work while continuing to maintain the farm. We must develop that system in this country.

Redundant farm workers need the chance of work in their villages, but that will never happen if planning restrictions mean that small businesses are not allowed to start. I know of a disused Methodist chapel outside a village in North Devon. The planning authorities caused endless trouble to the two people who were trying to use the chapel as a small factory. The authorities demanded double glazing, sound proofing and goodness knows what else. Such petty conditions hinder people in starting businesses. There is no doubt that many disused barns and other buildings in the countryside could be used for these purposes.

Training skills are needed, and the Bill will assist in providing them. We need a balance in rural society again. Work in the form of rural crafts, light industry and farming will be of benefit, if we can get the combination right to the rural revival and the rural environment about which I am so keen.

The south-west faces a problem because the fastest growing group in the south-west are retired people. I beg retired people to remember that people have to work. As I have said before, we cannot all live on fresh air and a view. Some of us have to find employment. There must be readjustment in rural life, because traditional ways cannot go on. A big change must take place.

There are restrictions other than planning. Farmers and their staff, because they live in the countryside, are still those most concerned with the conservation of the environment and the health of their animals. Unhappy, uncared-for stock do not grow and are not profitable. Extreme views on animal liberation, conservation of the environment, diet and health must not be allowed to take over the in the interests of short-term political expediency, often fuelled through substantial ignorance. The rural community needs to be assured that the urban politicians will not be too easily be swayed into making the farmers' already difficult financial position unnecessarily impossible.

Many other factors besides just training are involved if we are to achieve this rural revival that is so important for our areas, especially the south-west. Such factors are training, planning and allowing the farmer and the farm workers to get on with the skills and the jobs that they know so well.

I give a fair wind to this Bill. It will help effect the changes that must take place because of surplus production. If those measures are carried out, the rural scene will be revived.

We in the alliance support the Bill. The legislation contained in it aims chiefly to assist the farming industry to diversify its activities. Diversification, whether into tourism, crafts or similar ancillary activities, offers an important opportunity to strengthen agriculture, but the Government's wish to be seen to be promoting the Bill arguably emphasises its sensitivity to the current malaise of British farming.

Before discussing the details of the Bill, it is perhaps appropriate to reflect for a moment on the need for that diversification. The slump in farm incomes, recorded at 43 per cent. in the 1986 annual White Paper, with not too great a recovery expected in the imminent review, the high levels of indebtedness, damagingly high interest rates and uncertainty about production practices and future prospects are symptomatic of a general failure by the Government to supply a lead to the industry.

The Bill, essentially an employment measure, is being introduced at a time when the number of jobs in agriculture, fisheries and forestry has fallen by more than one sixth since 1979. The immediate prospects are no less stark. Last week's Public Expenditure White Paper referred only to a "partial and modest recovery." The reasons are not hard to discern. Support for structural measures alone, which are particularly important in the hills and uplands—have some of those in my constituency—forecast to fall to £256 million in 1986–87 against £302 million last year. spending in that area alone has fallen by more than one third since 1983. So the welcome for this Bill is tempered by the recognition of the deep and continuing decline in agriculture that has taken place in recent years.

I shall comment briefly on some of the remarks made by Conservative Members. The alliance agricultural policies are directed to the preservation of the small farmers, but in recent years the policies of the dairy quotas, the co-responsibility levy on cereals and the variable beef premium have all added to the problems associated with people who have perhaps only 50, 60 or 70 acres. Those who have a large acreage—2,000 acres—will lose on profits; the livelihoods of the smaller farmers are at risk.

As the hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) said, we cannot live on fresh air, and neither can small farmers. At present Government policies are forcing more and more small farms out of business. Perhaps the Government should take note of the many bankruptcies that have occurred as a result of their policies.

The Bill proposes two changes to the current operation of the Agricultural Training Board. First, it allows the board to provide training for those employed in agriculture and their families through

"the diversification of agricultural businesses".

Secondly, it allows the board to offer

"training in amenity skills of persons who are not employed in the industry".

The need for the first dispensation arises from the Government's growing interest in diversification as a means of alleviating these problems of the industry.

Even though belated and modest, the Government's response to the case made by the alliance, not least at the time of the Second Reading of the Agricultural Bill in November 1985, for a change in direction in agriculture is welcome. Successful diversification could ultimately help to stop the outflow from farming to other employment—though only of course where that is available—as well as to maintain existing jobs in rural areas.

Diversification, which includes the judicious promotion of tourism, is certainly welcome. The maintenance and, in some cases, the revival of ancient handicrafts could bring interest and employment to our rural areas, not least to many in my own constituency where our Ryedale Quest will again encourage visitors to explore the delightful villages of north Yorkshire and thereby help to keep them alive.

It may also be argued that the Bill is a logical step in the progressive development of the ATB which has taken place since its foundation in 1966. Since that time, the board has developed from simply providing training for agricultural employees in agricultural techniques, and currently enjoys considerable support in the industry. The ATB's new responsibilities will have an important role to play, if only to restrain producers from trying to go into unsuitable enterprises or to diversify without the appropriate skills. These duties have therefore been welcomed by the National Farmers Union and the Tenant Farmers Association. It seems sensible for the board to provide training in, for example, farm machinery maintenance for those who, although not employed in agriculture, nevertheless work with tractors, combines and other equipment.

In addition, the increasingly technical nature of modern farming results in a growing need for training and retraining to acquire new skills. Boys and girls can no longer go into farming on leaving school by simply staying on a farm. They need training in various and many agricultural techniques.

There is general agreement that the quality of training provided by the ATB is high, and that it should be more widely available than at present. Therefore, I believe that the Bill is a useful measure but it does not relieve the Government from their central task of providing consistent, considered and strategic advice to the industry. The future health of our rural economy depends upon the adoption of such an approach.

I shall refer briefly to the speech of the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mrs. Shields). She said that she was going to speak on alliance policies. What causes Conservative Members the greatest concern is that there are so many policies that it is difficult to determine exactly what policy the alliance is trying to put forward. No doubt if an attempt is made shortly to re-launch the various Opposition parties we shall hear more about a single policy rather than about policies. The hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East (Mr. Freud) has now entered the Chamber, so no doubt we shall hear a little more about some of the additional policies that the alliance is putting forward.

I assure the hon. Gentleman and all Members in the Chamber that the alliance will have one policy and that it will come out next week. It is a question, not of may be, but of will be. There will be one unified policy. Anything that applied when the two parties came together will be made one. It will be seen as one unified policy.

That will have to be prepared at great speed, because the hon. Lady referred to policies. Presumably much work will have to be done in the next few days to bring everything together into one single policy. We shall look forward to that with the greatest interest.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Neale) on his good fortune in winning such a high place in the ballot. Hon. Members are always interested to know the result of the ballot and the place that they have secured. I remember listening with great interest to the announcement of the ballot results in a Committee Room. The higher one's place in the ballot, the greater one's chances of success. Having secured a high place in the ballot, however, it is most important to introduce a Bill that will gain wide acceptance on both sides of the House. I am sure that my hon. Friend will be successful in securing that acceptance. I assure him that he will have my support in his efforts to place the Bill on the statute book.

I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North (Mr. Burt) is about to leave the Chamber. I note that his Bill is listed on the Order Paper, and it is to be hoped that time will be available to debate it. He might be interested to know that production of agricultural products has increased so enormously because of improvement in livestock production. Embryo research has led to considerable improvements in livestocks, and those who are engaged in agriculture will know that this has been an important factor. Developments and improvements in agriculture in Australia, for example, have led to that country being in the forefront of human reproduction studies. The world's second test tube baby was born in Australia.

Order. It is difficult to relate test tube babies to agricultural training.

I am anxious, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that we should retain the interest of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, North. I should hate him to miss some of the issues that will arise in this debate that might be of interest to him at a later stage today.

As I have said, it is important to introduce a Bill that is acceptable to both sides of the House. I remember that last year my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam), although lowly placed in the ballot, was able to bring forward an excellent Bill dealing with corneal grafting. I think that his position in the ballot was No. 14, but his Bill gained rapid acceptance on both sides of the House and found its way quickly on to the statute book. I commend to hon. Members the idea that they should introduce Bills that gain wide acceptance on both sides of the House.

It is a pleasure to speak in the Chamber on a Friday when the atmosphere is conducive to a good debate, and I hope that we shall have a good debate today. I remember that when I first spoke in the House on a Friday I had only recently completed some calculations that showed that the cost of running the House was £10,000, or perhaps £20,000, an hour. I think that we should all be conscious of the length of time that we speak and ensure that we take the greatest advantage of that time. Fridays give us the opportunity, however, to have a constructive debate that can be of interest to Hon. Members of both sides of the House and to those outside who are concerned with the subjects that we discuss.

I served as a member of the Select Committee on Employment with my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North, and before this debate we discussed the fact that the Agricultural Training Board is not within the province of the Department of Employment. It is unique in coming within the direct sponsorship of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. In the same way, the wages council for agriculture is not within the province of the Department of Employment. Thus, the Agricultural Training Board has slightly greater scope in the way in which it can relate to industry. This is possible as it does not have to meet the bureaucratic requirements that other training boards may feel they must comply with if they are to work in harmony with the relevant industries. We shall have to consider whether the activities of the Agricultural Training Board will conflict with those of other boards. It is important that the taxpayer is not involved in funding over provision.

Before speaking in detail on the Bill, I must declare a personal interest. I am a small-scale farmer in Cumbria, with rather more than 200 acres. Most of the land is tenanted, but part of it is freehold. My wife and I are engaged in agriculture and we are concerned with broader aspects of farming, including the use of older buildings. There is a listed building on our farmland. It is a Pele tower, which is unique to our part of the country. It is a listed grade II building, and the use of such buildings and the wider interest that the public display in our heritage are factors which the board should take into account when widening the provisions and scope of the training that is being offered.

I was pleased to see my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in his place for the early part of the debate. My farm is in his constituency and he knows of my personal interest in the subject.

Both my own family and my wife's have long connections with fanning. My father was a tea planter throughout his working life. He planted originally in south India and then worked for Brooke Bond, being responsible for its tea estates worldwide. One of the better provisions of the Bill is that it gives the board scope to gain income from abroad by charging fees for the training that it can provide for those overseas who wish to learn about the great advances that have been made in agriculture in the United Kingdom.

My mother's family was engaged in market gardening for many generations, and my wife's family, too, has been active in farming. My wife has three brothers and they are all farmers. I am a refrigeration engineer and my business involves the provision of cold stores to keep food refrigerated. I am worried about the extent of United Kingdom food surpluses. There are 2 million tonnes of butter and beef in cold storage and this is costing a great deal. One of the effects of this is a distortion of the cold storage industry. I understand that it is costing £1 million a day to store the surpluses. We cannot tolerate any growth of the surpluses and we must seek ways of reducing them.

Anyone who is concerned with rural life must understand the need for diversification. It is important that farmers have other sources of income, and that has always been possible in traditional tourist areas. We must consider every form of income that can be brought into the farming community, so that there is less reliance on products that are in surplus. This must be to the benefit of farmers, who will have a broader source of income. Another beneficiary will be the taxpayer, who cannot continue funding products that are in surplus.

I well remember my first meeting with my wife's family, who farm just outside Cambridge. I became involved in a lively discussion about subsidies. I found myself in considerable trouble when I suggested that it would be expensive to pay for parkkeepers to keep the countryside tidy. To say that to a family of hardworking farmers who had acquired additional farms so that all three sons could go into farming meant that my courtship started rather stickily on that day. I think that all those who are involved in agriculture will accept, however, that we cannot continue producing commodities that are in surplus. It is necessary to take a much broader view.

I am surprised that my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North has not proposed that we should rename the Agricultural Training Board the Rural Training Board. The thrust of his speech was that we must address ourselves to the rural community. Consequently, it might be simpler and more straightforward if we regarded the board as a rural training board.

indicated assent.

I note that the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) agrees with me. That is interesting, as the hon. Gentleman is one of the Opposition's spokesman on agriculture and is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench. I think I am right in saying that I read today's newspaper yesterday. Sometimes I am confused about which day's newspaper I have read, especially when I read the day's newspaper the previous night because I have received an early edition of it, with the result that I cannot remember when referring to a newspaper article whether it was in the day's newspaper or in the edition that appeared on the previous day and found that it contained an article stating that the Labour party would launch a discussion document today.

No, that was yesterday.

It appears that the Labour party proposes to have a Department of Rural Affairs, which would no doubt have greater scope than the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It is possible that the hon. Member for East Lothian will propose that the board should be renamed the Rural Training Board. We might be able to discuss that issue on another occasion.

It is excellent that there should be more self-funding provision. One of the best features of the Bill is that it does not call for additional public funding. My hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North is looking for direct funding by the beneficiaries of the training themselves. If the Agricultural Training Board is to stand on its own feet and charge for its services, does my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) consider that it could be privatised? Presumably not every agricultural activity has to be funded by the state. If we live in a market economy, I believe that the more agricultural provisions that can be provided on a market basis the better. My hon. Friend should consider that.

My hon. Friend may not be aware that the Government have pegged the amount of funding for the board for some while. The board is looking increasingly for outside funding of its courses. I am sure Labour Members feel that because people had to pay for courses this can endanger the courses that are offered. However, on the contrary, the board has found that people are willing to pay for courses, if they are good, and therefore the board has become more market orientated. However, it would be a dangerous course to remove all Government funding. The Government must retain an interest, to ensure that the board continues.

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. My hon. Friend may think that it is dangerous to remove all Government funding, but it is also dangerous to become too dependent upon that funding. Nothing could be better than for any organisation to be fully funded by the market that it serves. By doing so, it escapes the fate that has befallen so many training boards.

I believe that in 1981, 16 of the then 23 training boards that came under the scope of the Department of Employment were abolished. That fate could befall the Agricultural Training Board if another party came into power and financial stringencies were imposed. My hon. Friends will recall that in 1977 the International Monetary Fund had to bail the country out. It may be that at a future date the training board, funded by Government will be abolished. Therefore, the more funds the Agricultural Training Board can obtain from elsewhere, the better.

May I remind my hon. Friend and the House that, besides the Agricultural Training Board, the young farmers clubs run excellent courses in proficiency and so on, for which the members pay themselves. That could be encouraged and certainly in my role as chairman of the Conservative Back Bench agriculture committee I would suggest to the young farmers clubs that they move out and organise courses not only for agricultural training, but for other training, to take account of the changes that are taking place.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Perhaps the members of the Agricultural Training Board who are taking an interest in today's debate—I hope that they are—will consider in a future annual report extending the scope of training and acknowledging the contributions made by other people. The latest report that I have, that for 1985–86, shows that the Government funding in that year was £7·74 million, which accounted for 84·6 per cent. of total funding.

The big change has been the amount of money coming in from the Manpower Services Commission through the youth training service. The Agricultural Training Board should change the balance of its funding and seek other sources that will strengthen it and make it less liable to difficulties in the future.

Is my hon. Friend aware that Government funding is taken from the agricultural support market for the industry and therefore the funding comes from the agriculture industry?

The total cost of the agriculture industry to the taxpayer is £2 billion. I am sure the taxpayer hopes that, over the course of time, if farming continues to be as productive as it is, agriculture will be less rather than more dependent on the taxpayer. I hope that the board will extend its sources of income by widening the scope of its activities as set out in this excellent Bill.

The Bill is not in the business of making a levy. Only last week we debated the Construction Industry Training Board and there was a proposal to increase the payroll levy from 1 to 2 per cent. for certain classes of contracted-out labour. When the Agricultural Training Board was set up it was found that it was not possible for the board to raise its funds through a levy because of the nature of the industry. Of course, farmers are always reluctant to part with any money, and that would have been necessary if a levy had been imposed. I sincerely hope that there will be an opportunity to increase outside funding, because that must be to the advantage of the board and its future operations.

I welcome the widened scope of services offered. We certainly need more training and to remove restrictions on the type of training. I am surprised that in the Bill there are restrictions on the type of training to be provided. There is the strange anomaly of the exclusion of the training of animals. I do not understand why such training has been specifically excluded.

A near neighbour in Cumbria recently applied for planning permission for an indoor riding centre. Unfortunately, permission was refused. This is one of the difficulties faced by farmers. Show jumping would have been an integral part of that centre. I do not understand why we should exclude the training of show jumpers, in which this country leads the world, from the rural activities that we are trying to encourage.

When the Bill is in Committee, as I am sure it will be shortly, I hope that my hon. Friend will reconsider that provision most carefully. There should be fewer restrictions. I read somewhere that there is anxiety that the Agricultural Training Board will, in some ways, turn itself into a racehorse training board. What is wrong with the training of racehorses if it is an activity that can contribute to the life of the countryside? Such training provides an enormous levy for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, which in turn helps to pay for the agricultural subsidies. I do not understand why there is any restriction at all on the training provided.

I hope it will be made clear in Committee that the Bill restricts the training of people to train animals.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out that it does not go as far as I feared.

I am sure that the general intentions of the Bill will be welcomed by town and country dwellers alike. We are not merely proposing greater training for those who live in the country. It is the ambition of many town dwellers to get a job in the country. If we widen the scope of jobs that are available in the country, that must be to the advantage of town dwellers. I welcome the provisions in the Bill to provide training for those who are already involved in agriculture, and also for those who are outside the agriculture industry at present. If the board is funded by the taxpayer in the future, as it has been in the past, it is important that all the people who contribute to the funding of the board should benefit from its widened scope.

For farm workers, anything that reduces their reliance upon the strict specialisation that operated in the past must be an advantage. It is a tragedy that the restrictions that applied to the Agricultural Traning Board in the past resulted in people being trained so narrowly that all they could do was to contribute to the surplus of labour that was already presenting a problem to the industry. I hope that in future that will be less of a difficulty.

The west country has always been a favourite area for tourists. My favourite product from Cornwall must be clotted cream, for which it is renowned. There is little to rival the quality of farmhouse cream teas in Cornwall. I have always thought that Cornish farmers were in no way behind the times in their knowledge of how to market a fine product. Marketing will, no doubt, be one of the disciplines that can be taught by the Agricultural Training Board in future under these wider provisions. I am sure that those who are concerned with the industry in Cornwall will be able to teach others quite a lot about marketing. They are not behind the times in knowing how to market their services there.

I am a member of the council of the Cumbria tourist board. When remarks are made that are damaging to the tourist industry, they cause enormous concern. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North is not suffering in his constituency from the trouble that we have experienced in Cumbria. The would-be Member for Knowsley, North, Mr. Huckfield, made the most damaging remarks about the tourist industry in Cumbria, and they have led to great setbacks and difficulties. It is important that in its widened scope the Agricultural Training Board should be able to educate all members of the public who are in a position to influence opinion that they should not make remarks that are as damaging to the tourist industry in Cumbria as Mr. Huckfield's remarks have been. He spoke about the effect of the nuclear industry on Cumbria, and his remarks have led to reductions in employment in Cumbria's tourist industry.

I support all the provisions of the Bill. They will enhance tourism, for which there is great scope. Farm buildings have traditionally been a good place for a holiday. I hope that the Agricultural Training Board will be able to work closely with other training boards that are involved in the tourist industry. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has been able to consider the relationship between the ATB and the Hotel and Catering Training Board. The two must overlap to a great extent. As provision is being made for farmers to learn other skills, the provision of farmhouse accommodation will bring farmers into the hotel and catering industry. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has been able to consider whether there should be joint provision of training by the two training boards.

It is not the intention—indeed, it is not possible under the Bill—for the Agricultural Training Board to enter into the substantial duplication of existing courses. The intention of the Bill is that by encouraging those who are involved in farming to diversify, the board should find out how best it can fill the gaps in training that need to be filled if the industry is to take advantage of the new opportunities.

I am glad that my hon. Friend has been able to consider the point. If the board is able to fill gaps in the existing provision of training, that can only be welcomed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West referred to the difficulties caused by planning restrictions. If we are to expand the rural economy from its traditional activities in the past to new activities in the future, planning will be one of the most sensitive and difficult areas. I hope that the Government's great interest in reducing the burdens on industry, and also in deregulation, will lead to it becoming easier for the countryside to be used in a broader sense for the enjoyment of all, instead of restrictions being imposed because of a narrow view of what should or should not be done.

Whether or not there should be more housing development in the countryside is a sensitive area that will have to be considered with great care by local planning boards. However, I hope that new industries will be looked at in openminded and constructive ways by the planning boards, so that training can be provided in new occupations as they arise. It is impossible to know what new industries will develop that are suitable for the countryside, but it is important that planning restrictions should not throttle and stifle new developments.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North referred to training boards in particular parts of the country. The Lancashire agricultural training board is the training board that is of the greatest significance to my constituents. I am glad to say that we have more training groups in Lancashire than my hon. Friend has in his county of Cornwall. I understand that there are 12 different groups in the county, managed by local farmers. I imagine that those groups are managed in much the same way as they are managed in Cornwall. In the current 12-month period, 350 course days will have been held. Over 300 youngsters have benefited through the new training scheme from training in the industry.

I am a little concerned that the Lancashire agricultural training board's activities should still be very much related to the provision of agricultural skills. I understand that, in special training, emphasis has been placed upon beef production, soft cheese making and yoghurt making. The training has been aimed at dairy farmers, but we must find a way of extending the scope for training people who have depended upon farming in the past for their livelihood. We must encourage a move away from the traditional industries. Cheese making and yoghurt making should be encouraged, but we must look much more widely than that. I hope that the Lancashire ATB, under the excellent chairmanship of Mr. Talbot, will be able to widen the scope of its activities.

I am conscious of the time and am aware that other hon. Members wish to speak in this debate. Therefore, I end by congratulating once more my hon. Friend on introducing a Bill that will extend the scope and activities of this industry. I hope that the bill will be welcomed as it continues on its way through both this House and the other place. I shall give it my greatest support.

The hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) prefaced his remarks by saying that he wanted to have a constructive debate on the subject of the Agricultural Training Board Bill, and he went on to give us a blow-by-blow account of his courtship of a farmer's daughter in Cambridgeshire. Anyone who makes the mistake of reading this debate, or any members of the public who are making the mistake of listening to it, must wonder what on earth is going on. At the beginning of his speech, the hon. Gentleman made it abundantly clear that what he was really doing was taking up time in order to prevent the Unborn Children (Protection) Bill, which is third on the Order Paper today, from being reached and debated.

I hope that I made it clear that, being involved in farming myself and with my wife being the owner of over 200 acres of land, I have a very great interest in the Bill. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting in any way that my contribution to this debate was on anything other than a proper and genuine basis.

Of course the hon. Gentleman's speech was entirely in order; otherwise you, Mr. Speaker, or Mr. Deputy Speaker, would have stopped him in his tracks. However, I am amazed that he managed to make that intervention with a straight face.

We have had an interesting debate so far, which I understand will be interrupted in about three minutes by the Leader of the House. Perhaps, therefore, I may tread water for a minute or two as well and then try to take up the thread of the debate a little later.

The hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) referred to his deep commitment, and that of his party, to the rural revival. He could have fooled me, in view of the conduct of this Government and this particular Minister of Agriculture towards the rural areas of Britain throughout the seven years of this Administration. It is worth noting that, although the hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West is committed so deeply to the rural revival, the Government that he supports have published no White Paper on rural policy. They have staggered from one crisis to another and farming is in dire difficulties.

We do not know what is the Government's policy, any more than we are yet familiar with the policy of the alliance, although I am delighted to see that the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) has seen fit to come and take part in the debate. He made an interesting speech recently on the subject of agriculture, in which he suggested a policy which at a stroke, would increase European Community funded support to all farmers in all countries on the mainland of Europe, while cutting the support to farmers in Britain.

I understand from the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mrs. Shields) that the alliance intends to publish a document on agricultural policy in the next week or two. We shall be fascinated to see what it says and whether it includes the sort of ideas that were being suggested by the right hon. Member for, Devonport during his recent lecture that he delivered recently.

With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a short statement about changes in the business announced for next week.

In the light of your ruling yesterday, Mr. Speaker, and following discussions through the usual channels, the business for Tuesday and Wednesday will now be as follows:

TUESDAY 27 JANUARY—Until about seven o'clock, there will be a debate on a Government motion arising out of Mr. Speaker's decision on 22 January.

Afterwards, Second Reading of the Ministry of Defence Police Bill (Lords)

Motions relating to the Dockyard Services (Devonport) (Designation and Appointed Day) Order and the Dockyard Services (Rosyth) (Designation and Appointed Day) Order.

WEDNESDAY 28 JANUARY—Oppostion day (6th allotted day). There will be a debate on an Opposition motion entitled "The failure of the City to serve the nation".

Motion on the London Regional Transport (Levy) Order.

Second Reading of the Parliamentary and Health Service Commissioners Bill will be taken at a later date.

After the exchanges yesterday on Mr. Duncan Campbell's film and his article in the New Statesman, the House is not surprised that the Leader of the House has made a further business statement today. But why have the Government not tabled a motion on the Order Paper? Is it because it is the Government's intention to seek a limited debate on Mr. Speaker's action yesterday, or are they contemplating a motion that has wider scope and may be much more controversial? When shall we be told the Government's intentions?

I appreciate the point that the right hon. Gentleman makes. The choice of motion is a matter of sensitivity and judgment. The Government are considering the terms of the motion, and will draft and table the motion as soon as practicable.

When my right hon. Friend considers the terms of the motion, will he ensure that there is nothing in it that might impair the rights of the Select Committees of the House? At the same time, will he ensure that its terms are sufficiently widely drawn to enable those of us who want to do so to debate the extraordinary willingness of some hon. Members to use the procedures of the House to breach the defences of national security?

I can give the undertaking sought by my hon. Friend in respect of Select Committees. I take note of his concern about the terms of the motion in respect of the second point that he makes.

Will the Leader of the House consider using time after the debate on Tuesday for a continuation of the proceedings on the Local Government Finance Bill not for the Ministry of Defence Police Bill [Lords]? Is the Leader of the House aware that the House will be in extraordinary difficulty if the remaining stages of the local government Bill including Report, are taken on Monday? The Government have amended the Bill 38 times. There has to be a Report stage, but under Standing Orders that is not possible until the Committee has reported to the House, which means that the House will not have any copies available of printed amendments.

As the hon. Gentleman will have noted, Monday's business stands unaltered. Perhaps the points that he makes may be considered through the usual channels, but I do not hold out any substantial hope of alteration.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the House will welcome the opportunity to discuss and support the decision that you, Mr. Speaker took in difficult circumstances? When the Government frame the motion will they take into account the fact that any attempt to lay down regulations that may in any way restrict the activities of private Members should not be undertaken lightly or in haste? The decision deserves most careful consideration and should not be taken on Tuesday in the heat of the moment.

I appreciate the point that my hon. Friend makes, and makes more effectively by the moderation with which he puts it.

This is a delicate balance, but will the Leader of the House lean towards a narrow motion? Will he reflect—if he is thinking of a broader motion—on the debate that took place in the House and the view that was expressed on both sides that a mechanism of scrutiny of the intelligence services, and all the areas that relate to confidentiality, must now be achieved by the House? Some form of procedure involving Members from both sides of the House capable of being given sensitive information in rather carefully guarded circumstances is a necessary part of safeguarding democracy.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for acknowledging that there is a question of balance when considering how best to proceed with the debate on Tuesday. I note his substantive point. He will recognise that this is somewhat controversial, and no doubt will be raised again and again.

I am sorry that time which had been set aside for deliberation of the Health Service Commissioners Bill should be lost while we spend time debating procedures of the House that have been misused by some people to try and pry into matters that they should be content to leave alone.

My hon. Friend's question contains a degree of controversy, which is a prelude to the lively debate that may take place on Tuesday, but the House would have thought it very remiss if arrangements had not been made for the topic to be taken as speedily as practicable.

The House will be grateful to the Leader of the House for reacting so positively in respect of your ruling, Mr. Speaker, and Mr. Duncan Campbell's film. But is the Leader of the House satisfied that a proper debate can take place when some Members of the House have seen the film officially, some unofficially, some have seen excerpts of it on ITV and others have read accounts of the film in the New Statesman? Is it not time that the House was encouraged to see what it will debate before the debate?

I shall have to distance myself from that observation, because the debate will essentially deal with the problems of an injunction. If we begin to pick and choose whether we think that the injunction should or should not have been granted, we shall be in some difficulty in these matters.

If we can return from the consideration of a non-existent film about a non-existent spy satellite to the more mundane affairs of the Agricultural Training Board Bill, I shall return to the pattern of the speech that I originally intended to make.

I commence by congratulating the hon. Member for Cornwall, North on his good fortune in achieving the high place in the ballot for private Members' bills, and his choice of the useful and constructive subject. I have some experience in the lottery for Private Members' Bills; last year I came 12th and brought in a Bill, how the Protection of Children Bill (Tobacco) Act, which had widespread support and eventually reached the statute book.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

For goodness' sake, the hon. Member has been havering on for some time already. Is it necessary for him to intervene again?

I want to commend the hon. Gentleman on having brought a Bill forward from 12th in the ballot, that gained acceptance and got on to the statute book. I commend to other people who are drawn in a similar position that they bring forward Bills which will also gain acceptance.

I do not have the termerity to advise other hon. Members of the House on what sort of Bills they should bring forward. Hon. Members must make their own choices about the nature of their Bills.

The hon. Member for Cornwall, North has given us a useful opportunity to improve the legislation in relation to the Agricultural Training Board. I am in a rather curious position here, because on the one hand I am the official Opposition spokesman dealing with agriculture and given the responsibility for covering the Bill and its progress through the House; and I am also a sponsor of the Bill, which shows that there is widespread support for the principle of the Bill. Indeed, it is a happy coincidence that this debate comes only one day after the launch of the Labour party's new Green Paper on agricultural policy, which suggests that active steps should be taken to diversify the rural economy and to help farmers to develop new uses for land and buildings in order to protect and promote employment in rural areas. That, as I said before we were interrupted, is in marked contrast to the drift and lack of policy from the Government. I hope that our suggestion will help to promote debate in that area.

It stands to reason that any process of extending and diversifying agriculture and extending employment in rural areas will require training in new skills which may not be directly related to agriculture and horticulture. Therefore, it is vital that steps should be taken to make such training available and the Agricultural Training Board is the obvious candidate for that task.

I am familiar with the activities of the Agricultural Training Board. It has carried out courses on my farm on the maintenance of machinery, the operation of chain saws and other things. The board runs a range of courses on farms and market gardens in my constituency of East Lothian.

However, I have been advised that on at least a couple of occasions current restrictions on the board's scope of activity has cramped its style in potentially useful work in my constituency. A group operating under the community programme of the Manpower Services Commission asked the Agricultural Training Board to assist with training to restore and convert an old farmsteading near Musselburgh in East Lothian for alternative use. But the people on the project were outside the legislative scope of the training board as it stands. Similarly, the Agricultural Training Board was approached by the Lothian health board for help with training some of its staff in the safe spraying of chemicals. Again, that was outside the scope of the board. As I understand it, the Bill will overcome that problem and in that sense it is clearly worth while and necessary.

In my constituency we have been giving much thought to rural development, which has been touched on by several hon. Members—my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) and the hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West. In my constituency the East Lothian district council has set up its own rural policy committee, working on a range of initiatives to revive our village and countryside communities. It is imperative that farmers should play their part in that process.

Mercifully, we in East Lothian have been spared the worst ravages of the milk quota cuts, but that is only because there were few dairy farms in that part of the world in the first place. However, East Lothian has some of the most fertile land in Scotland, which is inevitably making its contribution to the cereal surpluses just now. Therefore, it is only a matter of time before drastic changes will have to be imposed on the industry in one form or another. I am determined that the economy and the landscape of the area must be protected in that process.

That means finding new uses for farm buildings and new enterprises on farms—whether tourism, crafts or any of the alternative enterprises that various hon. Members have mentioned, such as sport. Indeed, we have a lot of golf courses in East Lothian already. The open golf championship will take place at Muirfield this year. If anyone is angling for an invitation I will see him afterwards. The Government leak stories to The Observer and other newspapers about some obscure Cabinet committee code named ALURE suggesting that there may be interesting new developments and the lifting of planning restrictions to make it possible for golf courses to be spread all over the countryside, but I suspect that we have enough already in East Lothian. However, that is certainly an idea. What would worry me about that—several hon. Members have talked about the possible lifting of planning restrictions in rural areas—is that I would not like to see Barratts and the like given a free hand to build rural shanty towns all over the countryside. There is a need to retain reasonable planning restrictions, while recognising the need for development and diversification in the rural economy.

There has been some pioneering in agricultural diversification in my constituency. Only a few months ago, I visited a farmer who had started a new enterprise rearing a specialist breed of goats for the production of cashmere, which will apparently be rather lucrative. I can think of a mushroom enterprise and other involving fruit and vegetables, flowers and fish farming—all strictly agricultural operations. In addition, in East Lothian we have had one of the first farming, forestry and wildlife advisory groups in Scotland. Therefore, the farmers in my constituency have shown their willingness to support and protect the environment in that part of the world.

I should like to see a number of ways of encouraging alternative enterprises, whether tourism, craft or other types of industry, and, indeed, forestry. It is important—this is part of the Labour party's new Green Paper on this issue—that there should be a Government scheme to promote the planting of trees on agricultural land, and that must include arable land if it is to have any impact on the production of surpluses.

I have had experience of the agricultural training systems. I went to the West of Scotland college of agriculture, as, I think, did the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr. Stewart), and the agricultural course that I did there made no mention of trees. No part of that course dealt with how to plant and protect trees, the different species of trees and what types of land were most appropriate for the planting of different types of trees. Farming and forestry have hitherto been completely divorced. There must be changes in that area and that will require specialist training and skills which are not currently covered by the agricultural training board.

I have had several representations from my constituency and other bodies in Scotland showing their support for the Bill. I know that the agricultural workers section of the Transport and General Workers Union in Scotland has shown its support for the Bill, as has the National Farmers Union of Scotland and a valuable and worthwhile pressure group called Rural Forum, which is working for rural development in Scotland. Willie Swan, the chairman of Rural Forum, has written to me saying:

"We believe in Rural Forum that if the ATB is to be able to provide the training which will be required by a diversified agriculture, it should have much wider powers and become in effect a rural training board."

That point has already been made in the debate. Therefore, there is full support for the principles behind the Bill.

I want to raise three specific points, two of which are Committee points for the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Neale) of which it is fair to give him notice now, and one broader point which is really for the Minister's attention. My first point concerns the drafting of the Bill and the definition of the people who will be eligible for training under an amendment which refers to

"the training and skills relevant to the carrying on of activities not comprised within the industry of persons who are employed in the industry and members of their family."

There is also a case for including people who have been employed in the industry, because many people in rural areas have been made redundant. People are losing their jobs particularly on dairy farms just now. I fear that someone who has been made redundant and is no longer employed on a farm could find himself excluded from the scope of the Bill as it stands. Perhaps we could consider that point in Committee.

My second point has already been touched on. That is the definition of amenity skills which will be eligible for training under schemes within the new legislation. They are defined as

"skills which are relevant to the development, improvement, conservation or maintenance of land for sporting, recreational or environmental purposes or the rearing or care of animals for any such purposes."

There is one potentially controversial area about which we should be open, and that is sport.

If a partially publicly funded body is to give training or any kind of support for controversial types of sporting, for example fox hunting or hare coursing, that would give rise to some difficulties. The hon. Gentleman and the Government should be given fair warning of that point, which we shall be able to discuss in Committee.

Does the hon. Gentleman include fishing in those comments about what he may consider to be controversial sports in which some people do not wish to participate?

I was not expressing a personal opinion about any of those sports. I was simply putting the point, which I think is self-evident to hon. Members in all parties, that those two sports are controversial and some people feel very strongly against them. I did not include fishing in my remarks; I talked specifically about fox hunting and hare coursing and we shall need to address ourselves to that point in Committee.

My third detailed point is addressed to the Minister and concerns funding. It is all very well for the Government to give a fair wind to a Bill like this and to say that they support the principle of extending the scope of training under the Agricultural Training Board. The Government will be able to say, "Look, aren't we marvellous? We are doing something about rural diversification." I put it to the Minister that, under the Bill, the Government will be doing precious little about rural diversification. All they are doing is altering the terms of the legislation; they are not putting any resources into it.

I recognise the inhibitions on private Members in the drafting of private Members' Bills. However, it would not be beyond the powers of the Minister and the Government to introduce a money resolution of some description which would make it possible to make additional funds available to the board actively to promote the things that all hon. Members are in favour of.

The Government have an appalling record in this area. They have made petty-minded cuts in ADAS, the Scottish agricultural colleges and the availability of advice especially to small farmers who can least afford to pay for advice from ADAS, at the very time when those small marginal enterprises most need advice on how to diversify and remain in business. Such cuts are in marked contrast to the runaway expenditure on intervention buying and bring little credit on the Government. The Minister owes it to the House and the industry to say a little more about funding.

After those few brief remarks, I should like to assure the hon. Member for Cornwall, North that we support the principles of the Bill. I congratulate him again on his good fortune in the ballot and his good judgment in selecting this subject. I hope that the Bill will be on the statute book before long, and that there will be a money resolution to provide sufficient funds so that it will lead to some action in the countryside.

It gives me great pleasure to support the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Neale), which will make further provision with respect to the functions of the Agricultural Training Board.

My association with the training board goes back to its inception 20 years ago, and, as a result, I believe that I should declare an interest. The Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson), recalled how we both received our agricultural training at the same college. I cannot imagine what went wrong with the training after I left.

Before I speak on the Bill, I should like to comment on the remarks made by the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mrs. Shields) about the devastating effects of high interest rates on farmers' incomes. The hon. Lady should be aware of the statistics that are available to everybody and which show that more farmers lend money than borrow it. The gross indebtedness to agriculture is carried by the 2,000-acre farmers, about whom she talked, who are supposed to be earning a fortune. The hon. Lady should look at the statistics and make sure that she gets it right for the policy document next week.

During the earlier part of the Agricultural Training Board's life I was an examiner specialising in livestock courses; I still pay my group training membership. Who knows, if the additional provisions become law, I may be able to run a course on the advantages for farmers of political awareness. I am sorry to see that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has gone. I am sure that he believes that farmers are well and truly politically aware now.

In its early days, the ATB had few friends. However, once the advantages that would accrue to the industry and farmers were known, by making use of the board's training and retraining provisions, it has become an integral part of the industry. There would be great hostility if anyone ever suggested ending the Agricultural Training Board.

The highly successful Agricultural Training Board service in the county of Nottinghamshire provides for accurate local assessment of the training needs of farmers and horticulturists, and for a response to those needs, largely in the form of short courses. Those courses are essentially practical and are held for small groups of trainees so that the individuals gain genuine "hands-on" practice under the supervision of highly skilled instructors. In an average year, over 1,500 farmers and farm staff in the county participate in courses that cover a wide range of agricultural and horticultural production and deal with all occupational levels. Virtually all the training is now delivered through the network of nine training groups, to one of which all farmers have reasonably convenient access.

The productivity record of the industry is well known and second to none. That has been brought about by the industry accepting new production methods and technology. However, the importance of the ATB in that achievement was in transferring that knowledge and skills to those employed in the industry. The tremendous success is now evident in the unwanted food surpluses. For no other reason, change to both the industry and its training board must come, but under the present legislation the expertise and training materials that the ATB has developed over 20 years cannot encompass that change, despite requests for it to provide a training service in land maintenance skills and supervisory and management skills, to utilities such as water authorities, electricity boards and local councils. There is also training demand from garden centres, leisure parks and small rural industries.

In my historic and famous constituency of Sherwood, there is a great opportunity to take advantage of the increased tourist activity. The catalyst will be the new centre park holiday village being built in the heart of Sherwood Forest, and costing £32 million. Already one farmer has opened a rare breed section as a tourist attraction on his farm, reducing his output of unwanted cereals. However, the rural community in general will need courses on how to exploit the opportunity from tourism. There is no better organisation than the Agricultural Training Board to teach them how to achieve that goal.

I commend the Bill to the House and am delighted to be associated with it.

I rise to support the Bill wholeheartedly and should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Neale) on his initiative and also on the excellent way in which he has presented his Bill this morning.

The Bill seeks to widen the scope of present Agricultural Training Board and to meet the challenges now facing the industry. I note with pleasure that it will achieve that aim on a self-financing basis.

I was brought up on a farm on the Somerset-Wiltshire border, and I observed the technological revolution in the farming industry over some years. I have seen the British farmer adapt to tremendous change. When I was a small boy, many farm workers milked large herds by hand. Then the vacuum milk bucket was introduced, followed by the line parlour. Now we have the herringbone and rotary parlours. All that has happened in the space of 30 years. It is an incredible change, and has required guts on the part of farmers, in the investment that they have made. We have also seen the effect of that change on the number of people living in the countryside. For example, the difference between the number of people needed to milk a herd of 200 cows by hand compared with the number needed today is tremendous. Thus, there has been a large flow of farm workers from the countryside.

We have seen the British farmer accept tremendous risk in investment, not only in land but in equipment and machinery—and, indeed,. in seed fertiliser and stock. At the same time, there has been an enormous increase in productivity. If only British manufacturing industry could have matched even one quarter of farming's productivity increases, we would be in the same position as Japan today. The increase in productivity has also meant a flow of people from farming into other industries, and from the countryside into other activities in small towns.

The British farmer has been constantly urged to produce more and more. He has met that challenge by outstanding management and effort. Many farmers whom I know, particularly in the Winchester and Hampshire area, have achieved dramatic increases in productivity, particularly in cereal production. That was a barren area before the first world war, and land was going for £5 an acre. Increases in productivity have been fantastic. However, now there are massive food surpluses in both North America and Europe. Farmers are being urged to cut back at the same time as real farm incomes are turning downward and farm asset prices are falling.

As I said, people have been driven off the land by technology and increases in productivity. We have seen inflation-led land prices discourage new people from coming into farming, and we have also seen those same inflationary rises in land prices encourage some farmers to sell to major institutions—again resulting in a social denuding of the countryside.

Now there are restrictions on beef production, milk quotas and price restrictions on cereals. All that portends the risk of forcing more farmers off the land, denuding the life of the rural areas yet further. Therefore, we need a real rejuvenation of the rural areas. In order to do so, we have to find alternative uses for land and buildings. We must also find new ways of encouraging rural employment and keeping people in the villages and the country areas. In short, I believe that we must show creativity and flexibility in meeting the challenges that face agriculture. The Bill both allows for and encourages creativity and flexibility. In Hampshire, milk and cereals are in substantial surplus, so the Bill will be widely welcomed there.

Alternative or even additional activities in rural areas might include such things as tourism, with hotel accommodation and so on, and fish farming. In my constituency, we have two famous fish rivers—the Itchen and the Meon. Next door, in the part of my constituency that I lost in the boundary changes, is the river Test. That is of particular interest to the people in my constituency.

There are also opportunities for the direct marketing of farm products, particularly now that there is an accent upon health, natural foods and so on.

These opportunities, fit in very much with the Conservative philosophy on agriculture, of encouraging the British farmer to think beyond producing just for the farm gate, but of selling into the market. In the early 1980s we encountered problems with products such as apples and bacon, illustrating one fault in British agriculture, that our farmers had tended to grow for volume. The Milk Marketing Board and various other boards would buy the food in bulk. The farmer was not thinking of the end consumer; he was thinking of the wholesaler rather the retail consumer. There are still opportunities in that area for initiatives by farmers.

There are also opportunities in value-added products such as cream, cheese and meat products such as sausages and ham. Other opportunities were mentioned by the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson), who spoke of recreation. In addition to activities such as nature walks, he mentioned sport and questioned whether any Government money, even indirectly, should be used to finance what he terms controversial sports, such as fox hunting and hare coursing.

In Committee, there must be major concentration on what might be considered controversial—in other words, when people exercise their freedom of choice—and on things that are legal or illegal. If sports such as fox hunting and shooting are legal, there is no problem. I noticed with interest that the hon. Gentleman excluded from his list another blood sport, fishing, which often allows an animal—the fish—to suffocate over many hours. I wondered why until I considered the voting profile of many people who fish. Then I began to see. The hon. Gentleman may—I do not say that he is—be interested not so much in the life of those animals as in his own votes. We must focus on that matter in Committee, if the hon. Gentleman tries to say that, as a legal sport is controversial and he does not support it, the Bill should not cover it.

There are also commercial opportunities, such as garden centres. Farmers might also be encouraged to enter taxi and lorry businesses. With their families, they could carry out activities not instead of, but in addition to, farming. For example, if they ran a lorry business, it could be in support of agriculture.

There are also tremendous opportunities for crafts and light industry. On high technology, a farmer's son and daughter might have gone through different schooling from the one that he enjoyed. Their education might be orientated towards a high technology future. They do not have to leave the farm and live in the city; they could live on the same farm and bring high technology to it.

For the rural areas to remain viable, we must accept that there has to be change. We must protect the environment, and we must maintain a serious grip on the green belt. At the same time, we must show imagination in adapting to the necessary changes. We must not restrict the evolution of life on the farm as the farmers grapple with the challenges of the changed use of land. We must show imagination and flexibility at the same time as retaining the overall goals of protecting the environment. I shall now deal with planning permission, especially on the part of local authorities. I believe that local councillors on planning committees and their staff must be made aware of the need for adaptation on the farms and the implication of the changes that are about to happen. It is our job to make sure that they are made aware. We must remind them that Conservative policy, even at this date, is to encourage the changed use of farm buildings.

The great advantages of high technology are that it is largely clean and non-pollutant. It does not have to be concentrated around coal or a certain market, distribution centre or labour. It can be well diversified into the country. In fact, a farm provides a good site. It has access for the odd van or lorry delivery, it has utilities and buildings. Some of the At cost barns are easily adapted to all sorts of uses on the inside. Of course, the farms are in the country, often in a fold in the ground out of the wind. Therefore, the conversion of a farm into a high technology site would have very little impact on the environment.

However, mistakes can be made and one nearly happened in my constituency. In the village of Kingsworthy the intention was to concentrate all the high technology of the area into one place and to build a huge high technology park that completely engulfed and dwarfed the local village and created its own environmental problems. It was being slipped through under the guise of high technology, when it was light industry. High technology does not require a major concentration. I urge local authority planning committees to look seriously at farms as a wonderful option for areas in which high technology can grow in a non-pollutant way.

For 20 years the Agricultural Training Board has offered a training service in Hampshire, often in conjunction with the county agricultural college at Sparsholt. It now offers over 1,100 courses. The grass-roots organisation in Hampshire is in the hands of eight agriculture and two horticulture training groups with over 30 per cent. of all Hampshire farmers and growers active at any one time. Therefore, there is real participation in Hampshire and I know that there will be great interest in this Bill.

The Bill will allow farmers not only to take courses in farm management, as they do now, but to take courses that will help them adopt new forms of land and asset use to meet the challenges of the industry. It will also allow people from urban areas to become involved in activities in the country and it will encourage people back into the villages and restore vibrancy. It will provide opportunities for people in urban areas, especially deprived areas, to live in the country and play a full part in the country communities. It will encourage other bodies such as equestrian centres, local authorities and the National Trust to participate in the rejuvenation of rural areas more actively than at present.

As I have said, the Bill is self-financing and will contribute greatly to adapting and continuing country life. I offer it my full supprt and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North on his welcome initiative. I should like to wish him good luck in furthering the Bill through the processes of the House.

I should like to add my congratulations to those already expressed to my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Neale) on taking the opportunity to bring forward his Bill to widen the powers of the Agricultural Training Board. If one comes high or at the top of the private Members' ballot, it is tempting to take some apparently sensational step that will leave the Member concerned covered in glory, or something else, for ever and a day. Therefore, to take a measure which is of such enormous importance but without instant box office appeal, shows responsibility for which my hon. Friend should be commended.

The fact that the Bill does not have immediate box office appeal does not in any way detract from the vital significance it has for the countryside. Hon. Members from both sides of the House have already picked up the significance of the changes happening today.

Twelve months ago we were involved in the early proceedings of what is now the Agriculture Act 1986 and we spent much time talking about rural diversification. We spent hours in Committee dealing with the fine points of the desirability of rural diversification and at the end of the procedures, the Act included a clause that enabled Ministers to be able to encourage rural diversification on a broader basis than had been envisaged when the Bill was first drafted. I was particularly grateful for that. However, at the moment Ministers do not have the ability to bring forward funds directly to be able to encourage that. We are not talking about funding today because the fact that the Bill is private Member's legislation means that there cannot be an extension of public expenditure involved. However, we are talking about broadening the base of opportunity for rural diversification and that is a good thing.

When looking at rural diversification we must deal with the question of training so that people can take advantage of the opportunities that are being presented and sought every day. The training facilities in my part of the world are already fairly good under the Agricultural Training Board and I am told that in my county there are already 17 training groups dealing with the training needs of agriculture and horticulture. Hon. Members do not need to be reminded of the importance of agriculture and horticulture to the county.

It is significant that, in the year ending 31 March 1987, the training groups will have held almost 500 short practical courses in a wide range of skills from craft level to management to meet—this is the important point— the locally identified needs of the members' businesses. It is a good thing that most of the courses are held on farms with the facilities provided by group members. Trainees learn by doing, and "hands on" practice under the supervision of skilled instructors and tutors is a good and effective way of using funds.

In addition to subjects primarily concerned with husbandry and production, there has been a recent surge of interest in courses designed to improve the financial and business management of farmers and growers. I cannot underline the importance of that point too strongly. Far too often over the years, that dimension has gone by default.

The industry's increase in coherence at present makes it imperative that everyone involved in agriculture and horticulture is as fully aware of the financial dimensions in operation as every other engineering or professional enterprise. They cannot afford to have any aspect of their enterprise financially unquantified at the moment.

I gather that horticulture businesses, which are of great significance in my part of the world, have taken advantage of a new series of Agricultural Training Board courses designed to prepare newly appointed supervisors for their responsibilities in the management of people and processes. That is welcome, because the margins of horticulture become ever less as the industry becomes more competitive and expert. However, significantly, it has been reported to me that it has not been possible, because of the present limitations of the Agricultural Training Board's scope, to respond to growing requests for training in woodland management, tourist and recreational developments and the valuable production of milk and meat products. Those areas particularly relate to rural diversification of the first order, not the rural diversification referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne) but that first line of rural diversification in the countryside where it is clearly apparent to those involved with the countryside that they have an additional aspect of business which can be expanded.

I am told that there is also an unsatisfied demand for training in agricultural skills from individuals and organisations which manage land for purposes other than food production. The Bill will contribute enormously to the satisfaction of those demands that at present are unsatisfied. For that reason, it must be commended.

I want to take this opportunity to raise a particular point with the Minister which he may not necessarily be able to answer today. However, it is right that we should be aware of the difficulties that face tenants on agricultural holdings when they seek to diversify their businesses, That reflects very much on their willingness to take up training opportunities.

The hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) said that he hoped that no one would read the proceedings on this debate. I hope that they will be read by the Country Landowners Association and the National Farmers Union, because there is a problem at the heart of this matter. Written into the model tenancy agreement, which is so often the foundation of the landlord-tenant agreement, is the provision that a tenant may not diversify or undertake business outside the narrow scope of agriculture without the agreement of the landlord. On the face of it, that may be a sensible provision. However, at the moment it means that many tenants are in contravention of their tenancy agreements if they carry out bed and breakfasting.

It has been brought to my attention by a constituent who sought to diversify his operation by creating a model farm specialising in rare breeds that his landlord immediately said that he wanted an enhanced rent or a share of the take. We are concerned with the unfettering of the tenant so that he may utilise his holding within a far wider scope of definition of agricultural or countryside activity so as to be able to pay the rent that he has agreed to pay in the light of his lessening ability to indulge in the full production for which the tenancy agreement was drawn up in the first place.

This point may not strictly be within the terms of the Bill, but it very much affects the ability or willingness of those in the countryside to take the training opportunities created under the Bill. That condition in model tenancies is a positive disincentive to training opportunities proposed in the Bill. I plead with those who are in a position to change matters to recognise that the current provisions of the model tenancy inhibit the future of rural diversification in the countryside. All landowners who operate under model tenancy agreements should desire a full and healthy scope of activity in the countryside.

Once again, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North on having identified and laid on the table another piece in the jigsaw puzzle which is confronting agriculture and the countryside in shaping their future. That has been an invaluable contribution, for which he must be fully commended. I look forward to seeing the Bill progress through Committee and on to the statute book.

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Neale) on obtaining the Bill and on the first-class way in which he presented it. Normally, I would have noted what he said and skilfully woven his comments into my speech—

Speech?

Yes—and everybody would have been satisfied. I must thank hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. I know that some of them live in far corners of the United Kingdom, so I shall deal with my hon. Friend's comments first and then proceed to the more general aspects of the Bill and comments from Opposition Members.

As the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) lives furthest away and has important business in his constituency, I shall deal first with his comments. I thank him for welcoming the Bill and, indeed, for sponsoring it. I know that the Labour party is genuinely worried about diversification and I was surprised that he could not resist making a little dig at the Government. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman brought the support of agriculture workers, the Scottish farmers unions and Rural Forum, all of which will be of great benefit to my hon. Friend during the passage of the Bill.

I listened with interest to what the hon. Gentleman said about trees. We agree that trees will play a great part in the diversification programme to come, so any training given in the growing of trees will be for the better. I took his point about fox hunting and hare coursing. This Bill is no vehicle for any discord. Although some of my hon. Friends may disagree slightly, I do not want the Bill to include anything that could cause discord in future. We seem to have general agreement about that. The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to hear that, but not pleased to hear——

The Minister has no money.

I need not continue. The hon. Gentleman asked questions to which he knew the answer and that is not within the rules of the House. There is no money, at this time and we shall have no money resolution on the Bill at present. We shall see how it goes, as Ministers say from this Dispatch Box.

We must diversify. As the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch)—he sends apologies for his absence—and my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) said, we are in the middle of an agricultural revolution. It started before the common agricultural policy started. During the past 25 years the United Kingdom has doubled its cereal production from 7 million to 15 million tonnes, its sugar beet production has risen 30 per cent., milk production 50 per cent., beef and veal production 50 per cent., mutton and lamb production 40 per cent., pig meat 140 per cent. and, most dramatic, there has been a tenfold increase in poultry production. All that has been achieved on a declining area of agricultural land.

Back in 1967, when I was a county councillor, people were talking about how awful it was to continue building because we would run out of land and would end up starving outside our houses. That has not happened. [Interruption.] There is no sign of that with me. One would not expect the Minister for Food to look as though he had never had a good meal in his life, and I do not intend to.

With that background, we are happy to welcome the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North gave a good outline of the Bill, and I am sure that he will endeavour to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in a moment to wind up. He covered many of the matters that have since been covered. The Bill was well explained by him, and it was also explained that it will be self-funding.

The hon. Member for Ipswich sent me his apologies. He is another sponsor of the Bill. I agree with him that the Bill will lead to a ground change in agricultural training. Both he and my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North mentioned their local training schemes, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Shepherd) a moment ago. I am glad to add my congratulations to the training schemes going on in north Yorkshire, west Yorkshire and south Yorkshire. Those schemes seem to be successful.

My hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West had some hard things to say about planning. He made an important point about training people in the welfare of animals and how the Bill will extend people's awareness of the need properly to look after animals. The Government have set up the Farm Animals Welfare Council to guide them on the welfare of animals. We look forward to and often receive comments, upon which we often act, from organisations such as Compassion in World Farming, the RSPCA and other welfare groups. My hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West and I shall have no truck whatsoever with the lunatic fringe. We shall encourage farmers and the farming community to see that such lunatics are caught and imprisoned with the full severity of the law.

I was a little disappointed by the sour reception of the Bill by the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mrs. Shields). She comes from an area with almost no unemployment—3 per cent. or 4 per cent.—yet she, like many of her colleagues, would have us believe that the whole of the north of England is painted black. I am as lucky as she is to live in a most beautiful part of the country.

It cannot be that beautiful—it is not in Lancashire.

No, it is not in Lancashire, it is in Yorkshire. Conservative Members consider that small farmers—my constituency is made up of small farmers—are the backbone of the farming industry. The Bill will give a great deal of help to those small farmers who wish to take it.

It is not demeaning for a farmer's wife to put on bed and breakfast, as opposed to getting up early in the morning to feed the chickens or the calves. Perhaps the chickens and the calves have more interesting conversation, but it is a change of job. The farming community, and small farmers especially, will welcome the ability to move into training. I shall not deal with alliance farming policies, the Liberal farming policy for the north, the SDP farming policy for the south, or any of their multiplicity of policies.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) made a welcome wide-ranging contribution that has already been commented upon. My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr. Stewart) made an interesting point about the Sherwood forest leisure park. Leisure parks were looked upon with fear only a few years ago, but now people all over the country are competing. Leisure parks and theme parks give a great deal of employment to people living in the surrounding countryside. I was glad to hear that my hon. Friend welcomed the leisure park in his constituency.

It was nice to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne) talk so knowledgeably about farming. I have often been instructed by his speeches on finance in all its rarified aspects. Perhaps he is moving with the City into farming—a better bet, perhaps.

He is diversifying.

Yes.

I was pleased to hear what my hon. Friend said about anglers. Tomorrow night, I shall speak to anglers in Todmorden. Anglers are considered to be an integral important part of the sport and recreation community. My hon. Friend pointed out that there are more people involved in angling than in any other sport. Conservative Members have not forgotten the needs of anglers compared with the needs of those in many other sports.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford made an expert contribution and saw the point of the Bill exactly. He added to the pleas of others on the need for trainers and training. He was right to mention the value of value-added products. About 46 per cent of the butter manufactured this year in the United Kingdom was immediately put into intervention butter. If it could have been put into cheese, yogurt or other value-added products, the whole of British farming industry would have been much more prosperous.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford directed his last point specifically at me. It concerned diversification and the tenant and the landlord getting a fair crack of the whip. Harmonisation can only be achieved by those associations that deal with and look after tenants and landlords. I hope that they read Hansard carefully, as my hon. Friend requested.

I think that I have covered most of the points raised. Many hon. Members have referred to planning as important. It is often argued that the planning system prevents farmers from diversifying into other activities. The Government are sensitive to the needs of farmers seeking to diversify, and recent circular advice from the Department of the Environment to local planning authorities illustrates this. For example, circular 2/86 "Development by Small Businesses" draws together advice from previous circulars over the freeing of redundant farm buildings for other uses—for instance, small-scale commercial or industrial ventures to help diversify the rural economy, and also refers to the importance of leisure facilities in contributing to employment being underlined in a report "Pleasure, Leisure and Jobs, The Business of Tourism", which was published in July 1985. The point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West about the small business which tried to occupy the disused chapel on the edge of a village is covered by those references.

Green belt policy is often singled out as a particular constraint on farmers in those areas. The Government's policy on the development in green belts is set out in Department of the Environment circular 14/84, annex A, which says:

"Inside a Green Belt, approval should not be given, except in very special circumstances, for the construction of new buildings or for the change of use of existing buildings for purposes other than agriculture, sport, cemeteries, institutions standing in extensive grounds, or other uses appropriate to a rural area".

Where planning permission is sought for new uses of redundant agricultural buildings, it is for the local planning authority to consider the application by reference to this policy and any other material consideration. But it would be appropriate to take into account, where material, the need to diversify the rural economy by encouraging new types of employment and enterprise. Redundant agricultural buildings can provide suitable accommodation for small firms or tourist activities, or can be used for individual residences, without detriment to the green belt and to the benefit of the local community, especially where the buildings are of attractive appearance and can be expected with normal repair and maintenance to last for many years. In deciding planning applications for new uses of redundant agricultural buildings, I would expect local authorities to have regard to these considerations.

It is not just in remote country areas where planning authorities seem to lose their way in these measures. We should encourage planning authorities, wherever possible, to diversify in an environmentally sensitive way. There is nothing the matter with that phrase. It means exactly what it says. We should do so in a way that everyone who wants enterprises established can accept. If that is done carefully and gently, without banner waving and silliness on either side, far more jobs will be created and people can use the provisions in the Bill widely.

The Bill will involve all sorts of advisory services. The agencies include the Development Commission, the Council for Small Industries in Rural Areas, the Forestry Commission, the Countryside Commission, the Nature Conservancy Council, the English Tourist Board, and the sports councils. All those bodies can give grants and offer advice on various aspects of diversification at local level. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food works closely with them. Some enterprising farmers have successfully expanded beyond traditional activities without financial help from outside. It is the Government's policy to provide incentives in the form of grants where they can be of most help. That is one reason why we do not need a money resolution for this Bill, because the money to do the job is already available in many cases from other areas.

Does my hon. Friend, who will be coming up to my constituency in Stafford shortly and will be discussing these questions with local farmers and others involved in the rural economy, agree that enterprise agencies also have an important role here in dovetailing with all the important bodies that he has just mentioned?

I certainly agree that enterprise agencies do and should dovetail.

In commenting on the Bill, I have sketched over much that I have to say, as it has been said ably and wll by other Conservative Members today. This Bill will be welcomed not just by the Agricultural Training Board but by the agricultural industry and by many other interests that the Bill will enable the board to serve. On behalf of the Government, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North on bringing the Bill forward, and I commend it to the House.

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

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for his kind remarks. There is a wide measure of agreement on what he said about planning. That applies to those who are involved in farming as well as to others in rural areas. Matters of the sort that we have been discussing should be dealt with in a way that is environmentally sensitive. As my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) said, it is always a matter of balance. It is only when rigidity is applied by planning authorities that great upset can be caused.

An example arose recently in my constituency when a proposal was agreed by my parish council, the local people and the district council, but the county council found that a change of use on a farm which was well tucked away amounted to an infringement of the structure plan, and accordingly turned it down. That is an example of how a farmer's efforts to diversify were brought to naught.

I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House who have spoken so kindly about the Bill. It is clear that there is widespread agreement about the need to accept that there is difficulty in farming in rural areas. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) talked of the need for a farming and countryside policy. My hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West talked about a rural revival. The hon. Member for Ryedale (Mrs. Shields) spoke of the trauma of some small farmers. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne) spoke kindly of the Bill and talked about the social denuding that is taking place in rural areas because of changes in farming. These speeches are of common concern and will be confronted to some extent by the Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) introduced us to a considerable number of members of his own family: I confess that I rather lost count. He may have appeared to range slightly wide of the Bill, but one of the critical features which singles it out from many others of its kind is that it confronts the problem of farmers' family members and the wives of farm workers, who can participate so much in the diversification process. They too would be able to obtain some training under the Bill. That is most important.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr. Stewart) and the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson)—the hon. Gentleman was kind enough to tell me that he would be watching the clock carefully as he is due to attend a constituency engagement, and I suspect that many others are in that position—acknowledged the need to establish alternative skills and to encourage small farmers as well as those employed on small farms, and large farms, too, to take up the opportunities that would be open under the Bill. It was interesting to hear of the hon. Gentleman's participation in that process.

It is not the Bill's purpose to allow the board to duplicate other courses. The Bill is a sincere attempt to provide opportunities that will plug the gaps that now exist. In any event, it would be necessary for the board to seek approval for the various forces that it wishes to establish.

My hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West hit the nail on the head when he said that there is a need to accept change. As the hon. Member for Cornwall, North, I have a warm regard for my hon. Friend, who has helped me over the years on agriculture matters. That is a fundamental aspect that affects agriculture at present, its need to accept change and face realities.

The hon. Member for Ryedale was somewhat critical of the Government, although she did say that the Bill would have alliance support, for which I am grateful. In my research and preparation concerning the Bill, I have not found one example to suggest that the Government have in any way been unaware of what has happened and unaware of the changes that must be faced in agriculture. I did not seen any sign of a lack of enthusiasm in terms of solutions to advance those changes.

After my discussions with members of the farming community, I suggest that we should not under-estimate their real desire to face the changes and their wish to seize the opportunities for training and help. For many, the changes have been traumatic. There has been a great deal of anxiety and apprehension when it has become apparent that the customs and ways of business which have been followed for generations are no longer relevant.

Although I have no illusions that the Bill will transform all British agriculture, I pick up the remarks kindly made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Shepherd) and I hope that the Bill will contribute in some way to help the entire farming industry to cope with the changes, diversify and improve itself on the foundation of the great successes which have already taken place since the war.

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

Parliament can be in no doubt about the threat of AIDS to our society. According to the December figures 610 AIDS cases had been registered in the United Kingdom, and about half those people had already died. When the Secretary of State for Social Services opened the AIDS debate on 21 November he estimated that there were about 30,000 HIV—human immune deficiency virus—carriers in the country. We know that the median time between becoming infected and developing AIDS is around five years, and according to latest estimates it is likely that about 40 per cent. of those infected with the virus will acquire AIDS within five years.

There is no cure for AIDS. Everyone who has the disease dies of it. It was first described only in 1981, and although a great deal has been learnt about it since then there is no good ground for believing that a cure will be discovered in the next few years.

Edinburgh is especially concerned about the disease. Although two thirds of the AIDS cases to which I referred occurred in the London area, hon. Members will be aware that in Edinburgh well over 50 per cent. of injecting drug misusers are HIV carriers. It is feared—I do not think there can be any doubt about it—that in a few years the percentage of the population who will develop AIDS in Edinburgh will be higher than in any other city in the United Kingdom.

We had a useful debate on 21 December, when the Government announced their public education campaign, which I support. I believe that the campaign, and the work of many broadcasters and journalists throughout the country, has helped to raise public awareness of this issue. It is vital that people should learn about the facts.

We have learnt a great deal about the disease. We know how it is transmitted. We know also that people understand the facts about the disease. If they respond to the guidance that they receive, they can reduce to a negligible level their chances of becoming infected. However, it has to be assumed that there will not be a cure for some considerable time. Even on the best assumptions about the efficacy of the Government's campaign and the response to it by society as a whole, this crisis will be with us until the end of the century. It is the biggest public health crisis for over half a century.

I strongly support the Bill and congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) on introducing it. However, in view of the speed of events, does he think that an annual report is sufficient?

I shall deal with that point when I turn to the provisions of the Bill.

If enacted, the Bill will make an important contribution to our fight against the disease. Other steps will have to be taken, and I have no doubt that they will be taken. In some respects the Bill will complement the work that the Government have already set in hand.

In response to the intervention of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James), it might be helpful if I take hon. Members through the Bill. Clause 1 is the substantive clause, and subsection (1) spells out the central purpose of the Bill. It lays a statutory duty on every district health authority in England and Wales, and on every health board in Scotland, to produce an annual report on AIDS. The first report will become available to Parliament on 1 February 1988. The statistical data will refer to the position at 30 November of the previous year. Therefore, the data included in the first published report will relate to what has happened up to 30 November 1987.

The Government will be obtaining data continuously and they may choose to ask for monthly or quarterly statistics. There is a very real case to be made for laying a statutory requirement on district health authorities to produce reports. However, it would be unwise to ask for more than one report each year. An annual report is the right approach for Parliament and the wider public, but the Government may choose to ask for more frequent reports from the district health authorities and health boards.

Subsection (2) sets out the prescribed form for each report. If the data from the reports can be collated, it will then be easy to compare the reports. Therefore, it is necessary to lay down a format that can be developed subsequently.

Clause 1(2) lays down the areas which the report should cover. Paragraphs (a) to (e) refer to the statistics in relation to 30 November of the previous year; that is, the number of sufferers, the percentage of the population, and the number of carriers. Those data are of great importance. There may be some scope for making adjustments to the precise nature of the data required, but it is vital that the figures should be available to Parliament for each district health authority and health board.

Paragraphs (a) to (e) relate to the past, and paragraph (f) asks the boards and authorities to estimate the number of persons who are likely either to become infected by the virus or to develop AIDS in the next 12 months. Paragraph (g) is important, because it is crucial that we recognise that this is a report not on what the authority has done, but on everything being done within the area of the authority in relation to AIDS. It will help to promote better co-ordination between the different agencies—the local authorities as well as the health authorities and voluntary bodies. It is vital that we have a report on treatment and counselling—counselling is important to the high-risk groups—those who become carriers and are known to be carriers, and, those who sadly, develop AIDS.

Paragraph (h) relates to the action taken not only by the authority or board, but by public agencies and voluntary organisations to control the spread of the virus. Paragraph (i) relates to education. This is important. I do not intend to criticise the Government's campaign—I am sure that the Minister will acknowledge this—but a media campaign can only be part of the process of education. It is important that we have an annual report on what is being done in the schools and elsewhere to educate people and give them the facts about the disease, thus enabling them to alter their lifestyles and reduce their chances of becoming infected. Paragraph (j) enables the Secretary of State to bring forward additional requirements for information in the report. This is the substantive clause.

Clauses 2 and 4 relate to Northern Ireland because the Bill will apply to England, Scotland and Wales.

Clause 3 contains a provision which may not be necessary. We may reach a judgment which accepts that there is not any significant net increase in public expenditure for the purposes of the Bill.

The Bill has broad professional support, including that of the British Medical Association. In practice, the work will be done by the AIDS co-ordinator and his staff, but I believe that the statutory requirement on the authorities and the boards to produce the first report by February 1988 will have the effect of galvanising them into action where this is needed. There is no question but that a range of organisations must become involved. The Government have an overriding responsibility, and local authorities have a major responsibility, but society as a whole has a responsibility and I hope that one effect of the Bill will be to help to galvanise the areas into action.

Secondly, there is no doubt that the Bill will provide a viable data base. I stress that it is essential that that data should be publicly available. In a sense, the nub of the Bill is that information will be published and made available to Members of Parliament, the local media and everyone else and it will be easy to collate. Indeed, one assumes that that will be done on a regional and national basis.

Thirdly—this comes up at conferences on the issue—different professionals would like to learn about what is happening in other areas. I shall not name the English authorities, but some are well up front and must be applauded for that. At least one is represented on the Conservative Benches today. But Edinburgh is well down the road in taking action, while other authorities have not yet started. The social work department is planning a hospice and all the work is well in hand. We shall, sadly, be hit within a year or so with perhaps up to 100 AIDS cases. There is a strong wish among professionals to learn more about what is happening in the different areas, and the reports will enable that to happen.

Fourthly, the Bill will achieve better co-ordination within the areas. The very fact that the report has to cover not just the authority but all the public agencies and voluntary organisations will enable that to happen. There will have to be good co-ordination. There is a great challenge to society in caring for the sufferers.

I was at a religious conference yesterday organised by Scottish Television, attended by people of all denominations, not just Christians, and there was a real recognition on the part of the Church leaders that the churches and everyone else could make a contribution to the work in the voluntary sector if they so wished. Parliament and the public will be better able to understand the scale of the problem as a result of the reports.

Sixthly, the Bill will be important for resource planning. In London, but also in Edinburgh and other parts of the country, decisions already have to be taken in relation to provisions for the sufferers of AIDS, and, of course, counselling.

Seventhly, and finally, as I have said, we shall be dealing with this problem for the rest of the century. The reports will help us to evaluate the success of society's efforts to combat the disease.

The Bill will make an important contribution to meeting the challenge of AIDS. This means that it will help us to reduce the rate of spread and to support the sufferers and their families.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) on having brought the Bill before the House and I am proud to have been associated with him as one of its sponsors. I understand that at this early stage in our coming to terms with this major epidemic, it is much better to advance steadily from a base of agreed knowledge than to panic and rush into extreme activity.

However, while I welcome the Bill, it is proper to say that in the comparatively short term it does not go far enough. I say that advisedly because the largest experience of the disease and unfortunately—or, in one sense, fortunately—its most dramatic incidence is overseas. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East said that the hallmark of almost all the professionals operating in this area is that they are desperate to get as much information as they can from one another, whether they are within the boundaries of the United Kingdom or outside them.

Yesterday I went to my first meeting as a newly elected member of the council of the Save The Children Fund and was impressed to learn of the considerable co-operation between the international voluntary organisations dealing with AIDS, and of the sophistication of much of the thinking that they are putting in to their handling of the matter. Very real lessons can be learned for the collection of information for which the Bill is pressing. It is, for example, true to say that the Edinburgh office of the Save The Children Fund is co-ordinating the Save The Children Fund effort. One of the hallmarks of the large voluntary organisations is that all of them have seen the vital importance of informing their staff about the disease and how to handle it in their work. Many of those organisations are, of course, screening their volunteers and workers before they take up their posts abroad and have already developed an encouraging level of communication with their staff about the dangers of the disease.

I ask the Minister to assure the House that the Government are pressing upon firms that send people overseas the need to exercise the same amount of responsible communication with their staff that the international voluntary organisations seem to be able to do.

The scale of the disease has already been discussed in the House on several occasions and I shall not go into it in great detail. However, it is worth remembering that in Kinshasa alone about 45,000 cases have been confirmed out of a population of 3 million. That is a sizeable and terrifying figure. The World Health Organisation has pointed out that about 86,000 cases have already been notified from the Americas, the bulk of which come from the USA. Therefore, as we know, this is not a small matter.

Like the hon. Gentleman, I am a supporter of the Bill and I have followed very closely and with great interest what he is saying. He said that he wished that the Bill went a bit further. A doctor of my acquaintance used those very words to me two or three days ago. I asked the doctor what he would like the Bill to contain that it does not contain already, and the chap could not answer the question. Therefore, I put it to the hon. Gentleman: what would he like to see in the Bill that is not there?

I should like to see two things. First, I should like to see a statement about the extent to which health authorities are co-operating with and learning from international agencies, because that is something that they could usefully do. Secondly, I am not wholly satisfied that the Bill, as it stands, demands enough information about the progress of educational and counselling procedures. We could consider those two points with advantage later on.

It is interesting that people in the countries where there is much greater experience of the disease have learnt two things. First, in most of the countries where it is most obvious, it is transmitted principally by heterosexual rather than homosexual activity. That is a matter of enormous importance for the public in this country to understand. Secondly, those people have already learnt the lesson, which our medical people have not been slow to learn, that it is possible to sterilise equipment in ways that kill the disease, and it is possible for simple sterilisation and anti viral procedures to be operated. The virus cannot survive in temperatures much above 60 deg C. It is killed by household bleach. It cannot survive an attack by chlorine. Those are important matters, when people think of the disease as a monster about which one can do nothing of substance.

Already, in many parts of the world it is clear that if one could make absolutely certain that the blood used for transfusions and the blood products used in operations and for other purposes were properly sterile, one could give the spread of the disease a considerable check. Those are matters upon which we need to make as much progress as possible.

I should like to refer to the reaction at home to AIDS sufferers. Even if it is difficult to measure it in the information that will be required of health authorities, we should not lose sight of it. In the current issue of the community Caremagazine there is a horrifying story. A young man was arrested during an affray and cried out that he had AIDS. He was instantly treated as some sort of pariah and leper. It was a sorry saga of how the social work staff, the police and every one else reacted to him. I should hate to see that repeated on a wide scale.

We already know that some workers in the public health system, in the social service departments of some local authorities, and so on will not go into the house of someone who has been shown to have positive signs of AIDS in his blood—not even an AIDS case. That information should be treated with extreme confidentiality anyway. That shows the desperate need for much better information and education for those who are naturally anxious not to catch the disease while serving the public in the way in which they have been recruited to do.

That raises the matter of who make the most appropriate counsellors for those who are known to have the disease or to be at risk. There is a strong case for saying that some counsellors, particularly people disseminating information and education to young people, should themselves be young people. I have dealings with a voluntary organisation that is anxious to be allowed to put its long experience of using young people to educate young people to work, in producing a breed of AIDS counsellors who will be able to go round schools and youth clubs and talk, as contemporaries, to people at risk about the ways in which to avoid the disease. In some cases they might go further than that and offer counselling to those who have contracted it. Any reports produced by the health authorities could give some suggestion of the scale of that sort of work.

I believe that we are going seriously wrong in Britain in our debate about sexuality and people's personal sexual lives. Those local authorities—I am not as trenchant in my criticism of them as some of my colleagues—which advertise for lesbians to work in particular areas have got the wrong end of the stick. People's sexual lives are a private matter and it becomes a matter of public interest or of concern to a wider group than the individual and their immediate family only if, in some way or another, they are wrongfully involving other people in it. It is of no importance whether a school teacher is homosexually inclined as long as the children in his care have no reason to know that and no reason to feel threatened by it.

The same is true of heterosexual activity. It does not matter how people express themselves heterosexually in the privacy of their own homes with consenting partners. It matters only if it seems to interfere with the way in which they do their work and the relationships they have with people in their care. If we could get back to an understanding of that I believe that we would considerably diminish the very real danger that I perceive, which is that people who are known, by whatever mechanism, to have AIDS will be victimised.

I am prepared to bet that many people who are diagnosed as having positive indications in the blood will, in the initial horror of the revelation, be far too free in telling people about it. It is a human reaction to share it with everyone and news will get around. Those people will be shunned, ignored and ill treated by our society unless we have a much more balanced view of the causes of AIDS. After all, there will be many more people in a few years who could not conceivably have contracted the disease through immoral or improper practices. They may contract it by being married to someone who did not even know they had it when they got married. Therefore, it will be improper to discriminate against them or to stigmatise them.

It is important that there should be good education about how the disease is contracted. There should be good counselling for everybody about how to handle people who have the disease and, above all, there should be a much clearer understanding that people's private sexual lives are their own concern, unless and until they interfere with or threaten someone outside. For those reasons, I believe that the more information we can have on this epidemic the better it will be. I welcome the Bill.

I welcome the constructive and useful Bill that has been introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang). It seems to initiate some sort of long-term strategy for combating AIDS. Clearly, it is a modest Bill, but it is a measure that will be of long-term practical use to Parliament and hopefully, and more importantly in many ways, to the people who have to tackle AIDS at local level—such as those who are in daily contact with the disease.

When I first read the Bill my immediate reaction was, "What does it do?" It is very modest in its language. When I read it, I thought, "Where are the references to screening, needles and—dare I say it—to condoms?" My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East was right to leave out those complex problems and to tackle this specific part of the question.

I have very positive views about what action the Government should be taking to tackle the wider question. The Select Committee on Social Services is currently considering these issues and I am sure that all hon. Members look forward to an early and clear response from that Committee.

The Bill recognises the clear splits that exist between the Government and the "experts". It recognises the division and the impossibility of a private Member introducing legislation that would take into account all the various aspects of this terrible problem which presents moral dilemmas for the Government and society. The Bill introduces measures to which certainly no one could possibly object. These measures should have been in practice for a number of years, if only we had woken up to the problem earlier.

I note that the Bill provides that the report which each district health authority will have to produce will be in a "prescribed form". That means that the figures that will be produced will be based on standard criteria throughout Britain. That will provide more accurate statistics than any that exist now. However, there is no point in producing statistics for the sake of it. The figures of cases of AIDS and HIV carriers will allow a targeting of funds to cope with the disease which is not possible at the moment. I am aware that the Secretary of State has now received proposals from district health authorities in that area. The Bill will make that process much easier and more accurate for all concerned.

The very fact that district health authorities will have to produce a report will galvanise those more reluctant authorities into action over AIDS. I am sure that hon. Members will recognise that in some areas the reaction is still, "It can't happen here," or, "Even if it does happen here, it cannot affect us." We have a duty in Parliament to explain to people that this is not a problem which unfortunately affects a small number of people or one group of people. It can affect everyone.

Obviously, some areas have already had more experience than others in dealing with AIDS. The cumulative figures for the total number of AIDS cases until the end of December 1986, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East said, show that, of the 610 cases in the United Kingdom, the North West Thames regional health authority has 302 and altogether, London has 473 cases. However, there are just two cases in Northern Ireland.

The Bill will facilitate the process whereby authorities in Northern Ireland would be able to gain easy access to the experience of, for example, the North West Thames regional health authority or any other area and learn from its success or failure. The report would also show those areas without a large number of AIDS cases at present, but which are expecting what might almost be called an explosion of cases in the next 12 months. In that respect, I can mention Edinburgh. I do not recall that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East referred to this point, but there was an explosion in Edinburgh in the 1970s of hepatitis B, which caused many problems. There are parallels with AIDS, but only in the sense that it came about through drug injection. We must look at the experience and knowledge that Edinburgh gained from that, which I am sure it will be only too willing to pass on to district health authorities.

Clause 1(2) (j) allows the Secretary of State to add to the Bill any extra provision which he feels is necessary and I hope that he will bear in mind how the disease affects women. The history of AIDS in England and Wales is closely identified with gay men. Indeed, the less informed, and perhaps more reactionary, among us liked to refer to it as the "gay plague".

Some still do.

Indeed, some still do.

However, that is not the case in Scotland or other parts of the world. AIDS is not a gay disease, never has been and never will be. It spread among the gay community in London mainly because it was introduced there. In the United States of America it spread from San Francisco, where there is a greater concentration of gay men, to the rest of the country.

The repression and, often, discrimination of gay people sometimes brings pressures which result in their having a high number of sexual partners. The experience in Scotland is that the AIDS virus, HIV, is transmitted mainly among those who inject drugs. In other words, AIDS is transmitted completely differently. Those people account for over 60 per cent. of all those who are HIV-positive in Scotland. However, in England and Wales, 97 per cent. of HIV carriers are men who have contracted the disease from sexual contact. In Africa, most HIV infection is transmitted heterosexually and almost as many women as men are sufferers.

Unfortunately, women will account for an increasing proportion of the total number of AIDS and HIV cases in Britain. I must add that it is also unfortunate for men. Already one third of the HIV-positive drug injecters in Scotland are women. In that context I was worried to read the Office of Health Economics' booklet which forecast the AIDS virus. It showed rising intravenous drug abuse among young women. Their number increased by more than a third between 1982 and 1984. The problem is further compounded by the necessity of many drug addicts to turn to prostitution to finance the habit. In heterosexual intercourse, women are more likely to get AIDS from a man than to give it to a man.

Pregnancy throws up a twofold problem for mother and baby. At present we are not sure why some people with HIV develop AIDS and others do not. It has something to do with the state of a person's health and especially with the state of the immune system. The immense suppression of the immune system during pregnancy almost certainly increases the chances of an HIV mother developing AIDS.

The other side of the coin is the danger to the foetus. The virus can be transmitted to the foetus through the mother's blood or to the baby through her milk. Statistics show that there is a 50:50 chance of an HIV mother giving birth to an HIV child. Clearly, that raises all sorts of issues, ranging from the need for better advice, contraception and abortion facilities to much more freely available screening for those wishing to have a baby and the use of condoms to prevent cervical cancer.

The hon. Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) touched on the question of confidentiality. Bisexual and heterosexual men and women who have more than one partner will clearly be at risk from the disease. We must think with the greatest care how, without breaking confidentiality, we can try to counsel people that they must tell each other, and that they do not have to risk passing on the virus simply because they have more than one partner. They are placed in a dilemma. It will need careful thought to determine how that counselling may be done without breaking confidentiality, or, indeed, breaking a relationship between a man and a woman.

Does the hon. Lady also not agree—she made this extremely important point—that the ease with which it will be possible to counsel people to share this information will depend substantially on the progress that we manage to make in preventing the community from stigmatising people who are known to carry the virus?

Absolutely. We have made a small amount of progress in that respect, but it is only small. There is beginning to be a slight change of attitude in the public mind. There will be phases. In the first phase, they do not wish to know; in the second phase they do not wish to have anything to do with anybody who has had anything to do with it; in the third phase they do not come to terms with it. It will be difficult for anybody to come to terms with the problem in that sense. We must develop our attitudes and work out carefully and closely how we do it. Certainly, we must not allow people who are unfortunate enough to contract the disease to be stigmatised in any way.

Having made those few remarks and having pointed to some of the problems that are not tackled by the Bill, I welcome my hon. Friend's attempt to make some progress. I do not suggest that the problems that I have outlined are suitable to be included in a private Member's Bill. My hon. Friend's Bill will pave the way for proper statistical information to be collected on an even basis throughout the country to give us, the Government and society a much clearer idea of what is happening and of what can perhaps be done in the future to help in this dreadful situation.

When we last debated the AIDS problem, I commented on the high level of the debate, the seriousness with which it was treated and the universal acceptance of the problem, with no party differences expressed. Already, we have had the same experience today. This is not a party matter; it is a serious national problem. After considering the Bill, I decided that it was necessary. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) on having brought it before the House as a private Member's Bill.

It is rather odd that a problem as serious as AIDS—a new disease spreading in this country and in the rest of the world—should be tackled by a private Member's Bill. I hasten to say to my hon. Friend the Minister that this is no criticism of the Government. It represents many hon. Member's awareness of the seriousness of the matter. We all wish to do something about it.

In health debates, it is proper that I declare that I have an interest. I am a member of the Medical Research Council and a director of a pharmaceutical company. I do not seek to draw on any of that expertise, as I did when I spoke in the last AIDS debate. I wish to speak to the Bill. The Bill is not so much about whether sufficient research has been carried out to find a cure or a vaccine for HIV —for AIDS—as about work in health authorities, social services, in voluntary bodies, in the home and in society. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the fact that he has brought forward the important point that we need to tackle the problem and obtain information about it.

Why is the Bill necessary? We are facing the beginning of an epidemic. We need more information so that we can properly assess the scale of the problem and find out where it is concentrated, where it is developing and where the danger spots are. Hon Members have said that the disease is developing in some areas—for example, among drug users in Edinburgh—but is spreading more rapidly among the gay community in London. We need to determine where the growth points are and the cause of the growth. We need to find out where the disease might spread.

We do not have as much experience of this disease as we do of others. We do not need to have a special debate if there is an outbreak of diseases known to the World Health Organisation, the Department of Health and Social Security and the Government. There are set plans for coping with those diseases and they are immediately put into action. With this disease, we are at the beginning of an epidemic and we do not know enough. The Bill will help us to find out much more.

I am very interested in what the hon. Gentleman is saying about the value of obtaining information about what is happening with AIDS. Perhaps it would be worth considering in Committee whether the statistics that are requested under paragraphs (a), (b), (c), (d) and (e)should be subdivided according to sex, age, drug use and—although I am a little more doubtful about this—marital status.

If we were considering an illness and we knew its varieties and degrees, there might have been a series of schedules to the Bill prescribing the categories to which the hon. Gentleman referred, so that they were all considered in detail. Bills with nothing to do with health contain schedule after schedule which dot every i and cross every t. I am sure that that point can be picked up in Committee.

This is a time for planning, not for panic. We can only plan and mobilise our resources—money, medical resources and social and voluntary work—if we know what we are up against. Those plans must be approved by Parliament, so we have a Bill. It is right that we should have legislation.

We must ensure that the right actions and the right amount of action are taken to prevent the spread of the disease—for example, by education and by advertising, which in a way resulted from our previous debate, not only in its present form on television and radio and in the press but by seminars for those in danger, such as drug users and young people. We must talk in the right areas in the right language. We must go out into the field with the right people to communicate, not preach—in other words, to educate.

We must take the right action in not only medical but caring treatment. Are we sure yet that we know enough about how to care for AIDS sufferers? My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) properly referred to the need not to stigmatise people who suffer from that disease. Why should we stigmatise anyone for any disease, no matter how they have caught it? To suffer from that disease is to suffer from a physical ailment and to suffer shame, remorse and regret. Those people need care and concern from those who look after them. They need not only medical care but care in the sense that I am trying to describe.

In terms of the resources we are considering, we shall need to find not only hospital beds but hospice beds, facilities for treatment at home, out-patient care, training of social workers and encouragement of the voluntary bodies, some of which already exist. I pay tribute to the Terrence Higgins Trust, which has achieved miracles in its work so far on a minimum budget. It is helped, of course, by the Government and I congratulate the Government on that. The trust has achieved a great deal but we need more of such knowledgeable, voluntary and helpful work.

I have followed the hon. Gentleman's arguments carefully. I agree with the tribute he paid—to which I add my own voice—to the voluntary bodies, but we must balance their contributions with care in the community into which money is put by local authorities, or the district health authorities. I would hate to think—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is not implying—that the voluntary agencies could become in caring terms the substitute for the resources that should be put in by the Government or local authorities.

I did not mean to imply that. I did not wish to neglect to refer to the great work already done in the first few years of this epidemic by the voluntary bodies.

I shall continue to develop my point that the data we seek to collect by this Bill to produce action must result in a combination of Government action through the health authorities and the social service departments and embrace the voluntary work in the hospice and counselling movements.

Or just in the families.

And in the family. I was going to mention that that was another important area where we want to ensure that we have enough resources for counselling as well as just for caring for sufferers and providing medical help to those who are in the final stages of the illness. Counselling is needed much earlier. Counselling is necessary when someone asks to be screened and then learns that he carries the HIV virus. Such a person urgently needs well trained counselling.

That is a serious dilemma. Such people have volunteered to come forward and find to their dismay that they are carrying the virus. At that stage, they will need to be counselled and trained people will be needed to do it. We need to be sure from Government and from the Department that an understanding of how that counselling should be done is passed on regionally and in districts so that it becomes a specialisation and a professional approach is adopted to a serious matter. We must ensure that we do not neglect that.

In the Bill we call for support for the health authorities. They are always under pressure for money, as we have heard endlessly during health debates, but now they are under pressure for yet more money to be spent on providing adequate medical provision in hospitals—out-patient treatment and other hospital departments. The general practitioners may need much more training on AIDS. Hospital authorities must consider whether they can provide the beds, the trained persons and all the other facilities that are necessary. They will have to train their staff in the special preventive measures that are necessary in treating AIDS patients so that the staff can treat them with confidence and not feel fearful of doing so. All this requires a great deal of attention from the centre, and it is so proper that we are reminding the Government today of that need.

We should be calling on all social service departments to consider their approach to the problem. As the House knows, I served for 15 years on the South East Thames health authority, and in October 1986 I received a copy of "The Fight against AIDS". Action has been taken by that health authority. The document is extremely good and I cannot fault it. It is a complete study of the problem that we are considering. The only omission is a recommendation that there should be an annual report, but there is a requirement that all the districts under the authority should consider the problems. All the issues that have to be considered are listed, but there is no call for an anual report. That is a minor omission, because such a report would come forward in the normal course of events: all districts have to report to their regions and the regions report to the Secretary of State.

I am glad to report that one region with which I am familiar—it covers my constituency—has already taken action. I imagine that similar reports have come forward already from all the regions. I should like an assurance from my hon. Friend the Minister for Health when he intervenes that there has been a similarly good response from health authorities generally in facing the problem.

I have mentioned the important work of the social services and have said that they should study the problem that is presented by AIDS. I have mentioned also the voluntary bodies. It is clear that co-ordination is important. We shall receive information and we shall have a measure of the danger of a spreading epidemic. We shall have a measure also of our resources, and information will be provided by the various statutory bodies on the danger that is coming forward, but we shall need to co-ordinate. There must be co-ordination between health and social services, voluntary bodies and the Departments. There is a case for the Government to set up a war cabinet or a crisis centre.

I remind my hon. Friend the Minister of a proposal that was made in a paper that was sent to him recently by a friend of mine, the former director of social services in Kent, Mr. Nicholas Stacey. The paper is not confidential and it contains the proposal that there should be a national AIDS council. I have read the paper and have studied it carefully, and I believe there is much to commend the idea of establishing such a council. The council should be a blend of health workers, health officials, social service officials, voluntary officials and others. I do not have in mind a council of Cabinet Ministers. The council should have the authority to call on the resources that are required and ensure that they are deployed on a district and regional basis to meet the task of fighting a spreading disease.

There is a tendency already to preach about AIDS, and it is one which I condemn. That is not the way to face the danger of a health war. Our problem is to beat the danger. There is a tendency also to think, "I'm all right, Jack." That is something to which the hon. Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson) referred. Another tendency is to think, "It's not for me, so I do not need to bother." Finally, there is a tendency to think that AIDS will go away, that people will change their habits or even, after the current advertising campaign, stick to one partner and use a condom. It is thought by some that drug users will use only clean needles and not share them. It is argued that that will take care of the problem, and that if they do not follow those practices it is their lookout. That is not the way to consider this problem. however, if they do not, AIDS sufferers will be like so many other people who do not take advice—those who continue to smoke cigarettes when the Government have advised them not to, those who do not use their seat belts against Government law. One cannot stop the rugged individualism of the British or indeed any people.

We must approach the problem and deal with this epidemic by taking note of what is in the Bill. We must get the facts and the figures and marshal our resources in a proper way. In this country we are in danger of whistling in the dark. The Government have taken action through advertising—that I commend—but we must not think that that is enough.

I wonder what the Secretary of State thinks after his recent and I am sure revealing visit to San Francisco. I would like to know his feelings about the importance of care in the community—I am sure that that was revealed to him in San Francisco where such community care, as opposed to hospital treatment, is important. How many days does an AIDS victim stay in hospital in San Francisco? I understand that many AIDS sufferers stay in hospital in San Francisco for only 11 days but that in New York they stay for 65 days. Why is there such a difference? Is there no co-ordination of treatment patterns in the United States? The average length of stay in St Thomas's or in the Middlesex hospital is between 17 and 18 days. That does not mean that that is the end of the treatment for the AIDS sufferer; it means that hospitalisation is not the only answer. Clearly, community care has an important part to play and we need to know Government views on developing that care.

To control this epidemic, we must remove the danger, assemble the facts and he aware of the size of the problem. In New York, for example, 30 per cent. of new AIDS cases are intravenous drug users and there are not so many from the gay community, but again the situation is different in San Francisco.

The proper strategy to prevent the spread of AIDS should be based on education and advertising. However, it is important that Government advertising must appear to be an important message and not, as it was delivered to me, wrapped up with a lot of junk mail on double glazing. That was the Post Office's fault and I have written to the Minister to draw his attention to that problem. A number of my constituents were delivered this important pamphlet wrapped up in an elastic band with double glazing advertisements, direct mail advertisements and so on. That was done by the Post Office and it was a great pity. The AIDS message is important and we must try to avoid mixing it up with the wrong sort of advertising.

We want, by correct personal and medical practices, to prevent the spread of AIDS. Here I come to a contentious issue. We must not neglect the question of blood transfusions. Recently there has been an argument between the British Medical Association and the Department about this matter. It is understandable that there should be an argument, because once two or three medical men are gathered together there will be two or three different views. In the end, the problem was sorted out and the Department and the BMA issued a joint statement.

I hesitate to interrupt but I wish to make it absolutely clear that it was not simply an argument between the BMA and the Government—there was a good deal of disagreement within the BMA and it is important that that should be understood.

I entirely agree. I have read the report of that BMA meeting and Sir Christopher Booth, president of the BMA, utterly condemned the scare caused by the statement issued by one speaker.

I raise the question of blood transfusions only because I think that we ought to consider what is called autologous blood transfusion. In the British Medical Journal there is a leading article on the need for autologous blood transfusion.

rose——

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not allow him to intervene at this stage. Before he does so, I should like to read what is said in this article, which appeared in the British Medical Journal on Saturday 17 January 1987.

Referring to the discussion on blood transfusion the article says:

"It will also encourage further consideration of collecting the patient's own blood before an elective operation and then transfusing it into him during the operation if necessary".

Then there is a quotation from a report by the Public Health Laboratory Service communicable disease surveillance centre. It says:

"Although all blood donations in developed countries are now tested for antibodies to HIV, concern remains that some donations may transmit the virus.

Having acquired the virus, a person may take three to six months to develop the marker antibody, and the virus's remarkable capacity for antigenic change may make the antibodies evoked undetectable by conventional testing."

The article then says:

"As the virus spreads into the general hetrosexual community, asking male homosexuals, drug addicts, prostitutes, and their partners to refrain from donation becomes less helpful, as even the traditionally safe volunteer donor may be affected. So far, 65 positive donations have been detected in Britain."

It is no good ducking facts. The article then says:

"Autologous transfusion eliminates these risks of serious infection and also avoids sensitisation to red cell, white cell, and platelet antigens in donor blood".

Autologous blood transfusions are not accepted in many parts of the medical profession. The article also says:

"Autologous transfusion programmes have been used successfully in orthopaedic surgery, including paediatric cases, cardiothoracic and general surgery, and urological and head and neck surgery. It has also been used for women undergoing caesarian section. As many as 55 per cent. of elective surgical operations could be performed using autologous blood—that is, about a quarter of all surgical operations."

I read that article with interest. It should prompt further consideration of the use of a persons's own blood in transfusions where that is thought medically possible and is agreed by the patient.

We must care for AIDS patients in hospitals, in hospices, at home and in society. If we can marshal our resources and ensure that they are used correctly, and if we do not neglect the enormous importance of social care, we shall go a long way towards overcoming this problem. The epidemic must be conquered by these means. We must pull out every stop in international medical research to find the vaccine to bring that about.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) for choosing this subject for his private Member's Bill. The contributions to the debate so far show how welcome is his initiative. We are all aware that the city of Edinburgh needs particular attention and help to deal with what the hon. Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson) described as an aspect of the AIDS problem that is peculiar to Edinburgh because of its size and expansiveness. It is a commonly known fact that Edinburgh, probably more than any other United Kingdom city, suffers from drug-related AIDS.

I was not in the House on 21 November, nine weeks ago today, when the House spent the whole of a Friday debating AIDS. It was clear from the reports and from Hansard that that was a highly responsible and well respected and reported debate which demonstrated the general concern for urgent action.

In the nine weeks between the debate on 21 November and today, statistics—which appear to be accepted—show that over 3,000 additional people will have been infected with the virus. It is that sort of statistic that should reach home to people up and down the land. It is the sort of statistic that was rightly quoted and publicised by the Secretary of State at the beginning of the month when he introduced his publicity campaign, warning people, as he is bound to do, that about 4,000 people in Britain will die of AIDS in the next three years. The Institute of Medical Laboratory Sciences says that the number of cases of those infected with the virus is likely to double every 10 months.

Every opportunity must be taken to warn, advise, inform and assist people. Therefore, it is entirely appropriate that soon after that general debate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East has introduced his Bill, which, I expect, will receive its Second Reading today, go into Committee and soon be law. The hon. Gentleman intends that the first report of each district health authoity and board will be forthcoming in a year's time from now, with exactly the sort of information that each health authority should be seeking and providing.

Today's debate is also appropriate because of all the parallel events connected with AIDS that have been striking the public consciousness this week. The advertising campaign is well under way on the hoardings, and in the past few days the public have received—mine arrived a couple of days ago—the leaflet from the Department of Health that was published for each household. I say to the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) that my leaflet arrived separately from the rest of the post, and I agree that it is important that the leaflet is brought to the attention of people.

It may be that another leaflet will be required quite soon particularly for places such as London, where there are many people in multiple occupancy dwellings and other housing, who are difficult to reach with any literature. We have seen the advertising posters and leaflets, the launch of the Government's publicity campaign and the welcome visit of the Secretary of State to the United States, which has been well reported in Britain. The initiatives there will help considerably to show the Minister and his Department what they should be doing, and television coverage of the visit will make even more people aware of the issue.

We have seen the opening of the first AIDS wards in London, with the welcome blessing and endorsement by the royal family and others. The Middlesex hospital has added to the clear lead which it, with St. Mary's and St. Stephen's hospitals, has given. They are determined to break through the prejudices and show that they have a duty to treat, support and help people who are victims of this illness. At 11.30 this morning BBC Radio 4's "International Assignment" programme was dedicated to reporting the comparative figures on AIDS as it affects the different continents, not just ourselves.

In spite of all these opportunities, as other Members have made clear, the message does not necessarily reach home, and I say that with an admission. Ten days ago, or thereabouts, I was appointed to the job of spokesman on health for the alliance parties. In all honesty, I had not until then addressed myself in detail to the issue of AIDS in the way that I now have to do. I am sure that there are many like myself, who are not entirely unintelligent and who are fairly aware of what is going on, but who do not think that they need to be particularly informed about AIDS. They see the advertisements, register the problem, are aware of the clichéd responses and then say, "But it is not affecting me."

Most people in Britain, like me, will not yet know of anybody who is carrying the virus or dying from the disease. I am not aware of anybody whom I know within either of those categories, and most people would be in the same position. Therefore, one feels protected. Much more work needs to be done.

The clear horror of the disease is that it strikes down the healthiest people in the prime of life. It is most likely to affect not the elderly but the relatively young or the young middle-aged. Therefore, we must think about how we can do much more.

One person in a thousand in Britain is now estimated to be a carrier of the virus. That is at least one or two Members of the two Houses of Parliament, let alone the staff and all who visit. Such statistics need to register with people so that they begin to think that the disease does affect them and they must respond.

As the Secretary of State rightly said, public information is the only vaccine that we have. We must think of ways in which to make that the most effective vaccine. I congratulate the Government on what they have done. Once they got off the mark they responded, and quickly. I am prepared to accept that they may now be accelerating in the outside lane compared with other countries and their Governments. I applaud that and I encourage them to do more—to allow health authorities to spend the money necessary and to support the voluntary agencies which are doing, and are willing to do, the work.

The Department's initiatives are welcome and are complemented by the proposals in the Bill that the health authorities should do the same, which is equally welcome. I am in the same regional health authority area as the hon. Member for Canterbury and the consultative and later final document produced by the South-East Thames regional health authority is excellent. I think that it was produced in advance of that of any other region, but I stand to be corrected on that. That is exactly the sort of work that needs to be done urgently. There should be a set of recommendations that can then be implemented and monitored. I congratulate my regional health authority, as I have done in writing long before today's debate.

Clearly, the Bill is welcome, not only because it will enable and require that that be done, but because, as the hon. Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) rightly said, it will look at the other side of the coin, which is the need to be informed about what we are doing to care for the victims. There are horrendous phsychological problems for someone confronted with the diagnosis that he or she is a carrier. The hospice movement is not yet geared to cater for AIDS victims, but it could be, and is willing to be. People in the medical profession are willing to do a lot of work and to adapt their own professional careers to respond because their duty is one of service.

The double responsibility for information and medical knowledge—facts and figures—and to ensure that we have a network of care, is contained in the Bill. It is supported by both sides of the House and by my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood), who has been much involved in this issue over recent months.

I should like at this point briefly to pay tribute to my hon. Friend. When someone is reshuffled and disappears to take a different parliamentary responsibility overnight, he has to take up his new responsibilities and not continue with what he was doing. Up to 21 November 1986 my hon. Friend had asked more than 50 parliamentary questions on AIDS. That is five times more—I do not say this in criticism, but just to enhance my hon. Friend's reputation—than the Labour Front Bench asked over the same period. He clearly led the campaign for information in the House, quite properly and responsibly. I pay tribute to his foresight and keenness, which perhaps has something to do with his constituency being near to Edinburgh on the one hand and being a pharmacist on the other. He also had two very good and committed research assistants, who made sure that he was always up to the mark.

One of the things that the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) did not do was to try to score petty party points about who had asked the most parliamentary questions. He tried to approach the topic in a multi-partisan spirit. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that a solution to the problem is to ask more questions than any other hon. Member, he is sadly mistaken and is setting the limits far too low.

I shall come back to that in a moment. I am more concerned about some of the answers that the Minister has not given us than about the questions. I shall not let him off the hook, and hope that he will be able to enlighten us shortly.

Those of us in political parties also have a responsibility to make sure that our parties address the AIDS issue and commit, through our membership, the political emphasis to make sure that necessary work is done in community health councils, district health authorities and so on. I am glad to say that at my party's council meeting in Bristol in November last year we did just that. I think I am right in saying that we became the first party to adopt a widespread and far-reaching policy on this subject.

Finally, I should like to ask the Minister some questions about what is being done. As I have suggested, there may need to be additional money for certain of the voluntary organisations. Will it be found?

I understand that the needle exchange scheme which operates in 12 cities is still a pilot scheme. I do not know what will be required to take it from being a pilot scheme to being a scheme available wherever it is wanted locally. However, I hope that if there is any local pressure for the scheme to be available in any other town, city or health authority area, the Department will permit that. I am entirely persuaded that it is right to have a one-for-one needle exchange scheme, and we should not moralise about that. It is better that we deal first with getting rid of the infected needle and separately start trying to deal with the drugs problem that faces those people.

I have seen the television advertisement only once, but I must advise the Minister that I am not certain that it is as effective as the literature, for those who read the literature. When I saw the television advert my reaction was that it generates fear and does not convey much information. That is a mistake. I understand the desire to make sure that people register that the advert is there. However, what people desperately need is information.

At the end of the last year I went to speak to a London sixth form. After lunch some of the sixth form students came back to the House to watch a debate from the Gallery. Four or five of them drove back with me and between them AIDS came up as a topic of conversation—sexual topics are often likely to be topics of conversation among teenagers——

And among older people.

Indeed. It was a very clichéd conversation—AIDS, reaction, condoms. The conversation was not developed intelligently.

It led me to fear that the advertising campaign is doing two things. First, it is over-simplifying the message, which may be necessary in the first stage, but we should go beyond that. Secondly, it is likely to generate fear rather than information. The Family Planning Association has written to me and, I imagine, to other hon. Members. If one is to discuss how condoms can be helpful, it is important to stress how to use them effectively. The FPA has given me to understand that a badly used condom will be inadequate and that not all condoms are up to the task. That information is important, especially to youngsters, many of whom will have sexual relationships at an early stage.

It is also important to tell people, and to reassure them about how they will not contract AIDS, otherwise the minority groups, which are likely to be the most frequent victims, are likely to suffer from greater isolation and being spurned by others, and alienation will result.

The other day the Secretary of State went to visit and meet AIDS victims in the States. He did what my predecessor, as Liberal party health spokesman my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire did here in London in the autumn, when he went to visit someone at St. Mary's hospital. The AIDS patient whom my hon. Friend met was resigned to his position. He was not bitter. He knew that he would die in a year's time. He was full of praise for his medical treatment and had been able to have a reconciliation with his brother. However —and the hon. Member for Mid-Kent made this exact point—the one thing that he was frightened of was the reaction of the community when he went home. He had a great fear of being taken home and regarded as a leper in the community. The myth that the handshake, the contact, the hug or even nearness to someone is sufficient for a person to contract AIDS has to be one of the main targets of the Government's information activities. It appears still to be a mythology, but it is the most dangerous and hurtful mythology for the victim——

Fostered by some newspapers.

And indeed it is fostered by many newspapers on a regular basis. I do not know whether the Department has done so, but it could call in the newspaper editors and tell them to get their facts right. That would be helpful. We should see whether they responded.

My hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire and the hon. Members for Gower (Mr. Wardell) and for Islington, South and Finsbury, (Mr. Smith) tabled questions in October, before the end of the previous Session, seeking information on, for example, whether regional health authorities had forwarded circulars and plans, the number of victims so far, and what funds had been allocated. I understand that the Minister has not replied to those questions. I am not blaming him personally, but no letter has been received. The only answer received was:

"I shall write to the hon. Members."—[Official Report, 6 November 1986; Vol. 103, c. 578.]

No letter has been received—and I checked this morning. That is just the sort of information that is required and it is why the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East has introduced his Bill and asked for important information. Even now we need the information that is in the Government's hands. We need to know which health authorities have taken initiatives and made progress.

I fully support the Bill. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East for introducing it. I am sure that it will receive its Second Reading today, but it is only the second step in a campaign that still entails much hard work if most people are to understand the severity of the message and of the need for their personal response before it is too late.

It is good to hear the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) congratulating the Government on their response to this new disease and public concern about it. Those congratulations are well merited because, after all, the Government have committed substantial resources to dealing with the problem.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned briefing newspapers. My impression is that a good deal of that has been done with some success. Not all the newspaper articles have been as helpful and accurate as others, but there has been a good deal of press publicity. The Government have reconstituted the Health Education Council as a special health authority and have embarked on a massive publicity campaign. The leaflet is very good in that it was intended for general distribution. It trod carefully the difficult line between giving explicit information and not causing offence. I hope that in due course other leaflets will be available, perhaps in different styles and directed to particular audiences.

I have my reservations about the television advertisement. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey may have misunderstood its intention, which I believe was simply to draw attention to the leaflet, and not to give information, but I am not sure that it was successful in doing that. It drew attention to volcanoes, but it was seeking to draw attention to the leaflet itself, not the envelope in which it arrived. For the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch), the most important thing would have been to do that.

Issuing the leaflet was certainly a good first step. Because there is no known cure for AIDS, the first priority must be education and the second must be the identification and care of the victims. On both those matters there is obviously a limit to what the Government can do and responsibility moves to the district health authorities. That is why I welcome the Bill and congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) on his intiative in drawing it up and presenting it to the House. As the hon. Gentleman said, it will give the health authorities that extra incentive to do what many are doing already and to provide the Department with vital information.

If I have any reservations about the Bill it is that I would put a question mark over clause 1(2)(f). I wonder whether it is practical for a health authority to give estimates of the number of people

"who are likely to fall within each of the paragraphs…above"—

in other words, those likely to contract AIDS. The figures can be only estimates and, as we know, in Britain and in America the estimates vary wildly and can only be the result of guesswork because there are so many imponderables and because we know so little about the way in which the disease develops. I wonder whether it is reasonable to expect district health authorities to put into an official report figures that could not be supported. Some may be able to draw conclusions from current figures, but I am not sure that district health authorities should put estimates of that sort into what would be a statutory document.

We had a full debate on AIDS in November, to which I made a brief contribution. I do not intend to go into detail now about this serious and complex subject. I must stress, however, that although there is currently no known cure for AIDS it is not true, as has been said in some quarters, that little is being done to find one. The Government have made an additional £1 million available for research, over and above the 21 projects already under way at a cost of some £2·4 million. Several drug companies—I have a local interest in Burroughs Wellcome—are devoting substantial resources to research into AIDS, often at the expense of work on possible cures for diseases that are currently causing more deaths and suffering than AIDS. Any drug company that could prodice a cure would be doing not only an enormous service to the community but would benefit financially. There is no doubt that the drug companies are working hard to try to find a vaccine or a cure. However, I fear that it will be a long time before we can be sure that we have found such a cure. Even if the companies appear to be having successes it is important that the drugs are properly tested because, in recent memory, there have been cases of drugs coming on to the market that have been found to have unfortunate side effects.

One is not being part of any campaign against homosexuals by pointing out that at present in the United Kingdom AIDS is primarily a homosexual disease. Of the 610 patients up to the end of 1986, 538 were male homosexuals or bisexuals. Of the 293 deaths, 244 were in that category. Therefore, I suggest that there is a special responsibility on homosexuals as to how they behave among themselves and the extent to which they seek to interest and involve others, especially the young, in homosexual activity.

Discussion often centres on whether this is a moral issue and whether Ministers and others should be moralising. I am sure that Ministers should not he moralising and I am not sure whether chief constables should, but sometimes I should like to see more members of the clergy moralising, especially on issues such as this. However, when one hears of clergymen calling themselves "gay Christians' it is a little difficult to know in which direction they are going.

I suggest that this is a moral issue because when we talk of morals we are referring to a code of personal conduct and the way in which we conduct our personal relationships with other people, whether that is based on a religious ethic or not. That is surely what morals are all about. Therefore, AIDS should be taken into account in our personal moral codes, particularly with regard to the homosexual community. It is very important that all of us, and especially the homosexual community, realise the implicatons of AIDS, how it can be caught and what can follow from it.

I return to the point, therefore, that we must have as much information as possible and that that information should be conveyed to as many people as possible. Although the Government and the DHSS have a great responsibility, a great deal of responsibility rests with the district health authorities in this matter. In that connection, I return to the Bill which, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East said in his opening remarks, should serve to galvanise district health authorities into action. I hope that it will do just that. I warmly support the Bill and wish it well.

We know that a system of voluntary reporting of cases on a confidential basis to the communicable disease surveillance centre has been established. However, last October the Minister stated that no decision had been made to go beyond that.

The Bill goes beyond that and will put our knowledge about the spread of AIDS on a quantifiable basis. Some of the information is already being obtained and there should be no insuperable difficulty about health authorities and health boards instituting the administrative procedures necessary to gather and collate information.

To increase the accuracy of the statistics, but I realise primarily to help stop the spread of the disease, voluntary screening should also be made available on a totally confidential basis. Information can no doubt be gathered from VD clinics, counselling centres and other sources within the districts or region of any health board. I emphasise that it is important to obtain that information confidentially and it is important to demonstrate to those at risk that confidentiality will be observed.

In due course, the Bill will enable us to verify the scope of the problem and whether it is being appreciated properly. It will also help us to decide whether estimates made some years ago were accurate. If they are not, they will be shown to be inaccurate much earlier than if the Bill had not been enacted. If our predictions or the Government's predictions are seen as not being fulfilled, early reappraisal will be possible.

The Opposition also believe that the Bill is important because it will provide some check on whether the Government's advertising is having an effect. Many comments are being passed throughout the country and even in the Tea Rooms of the House of Commons about the efficacy or otherwise of the advertising campaign. However, we will be able to decide whether the Government are spending their money wisely in their advertising campaign only if the information is available.

There are many ways to solve a problem. One is to chuck money at it. However, resources are too precious to be frittered away, and the Bill will enable us to check that resources are not being wasted. I am not arguing that resources should not be deployed. I am merely asking for wise and sensible deployment. Unfortunately, this Government too often use that argument for not spending any money at all. If they were to adopt that policy with regard to the containment of AIDS, it would be disastrous.

The effects of the Bill will also help to counter ignorance, the spread of alarm and scaremongering. There is no substitute for accurate information as a means of making the public aware of the scale of the problem. We should be seeking the public's help and generating a responsible attitude throughout society.

Would my hon. Friend care to comment on the fact that the Government are spending about £20 million on an advertising campaign yet it appears from the figures that they are spending only about £3·5 million on research into a cure for AIDS? Is that not a rather strange scale of priorities?

My hon. Friend is right and I shall make some comments on research later. If the Government do not want a bipartisan approach to the problem, the Opposition are willing to co-operate, but they must take the comments of Opposition Members and concerned people seriously and ensure that resources are not taken away from AIDS research, advertising and education simply because they do not want to spend money and this is a case in which they need not spend it.

The Bill will ensure that much better information on carriers becomes available. Officially, there are 30,000 carriers, but some put the figure at 100,000. That may be alarmist, and if the Bill is passed, we shall have a better appreciation of how many carriers there are. More information will become available as to how the disease is transmitted. We are continually learning about it, but the Bill will help that process. Our knowledge is growing, but a whole population study will be invaluable as a means of control and observation of the incidence of the disease and its eventual eradication. The title of the Bill is "AIDS (Control) Etc. Bill." I wish that we could interpret "Control" as eradication, but, unfortunately, it must rather be interpreted as observation and monitoring. Sadly, at present there is no cure.

If the Bill is given a Second Reading today, and I hope that it will, perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East will go further and ask the Government what provision they are making. Would it be possible for the Government to prepare an annual report from these district and health board reports? If they were to produce an annual report, they could say what funds were being applied where, what research projects were being undertaken, what we were learning from other countries and what we were doing to develop counselling and education.

We must face the problem of confidentiality versus availability of information. In some areas the number of people registered as carrying the AIDS virus could be as low as one, two or three. If there were a problem of identification caused by the statistics, clearly confidentiality must take priority. However, that is not an excuse for the Government to say, "We cannot release any information." The Government are obliged to provide as detailed information as possible, subject only to the overriding criterion of maintaining confidentiality.

If the Government prepare a report, they could give the basis for the distribution of resources and we could check that the resources were being properly targeted. The Bill is not an excuse for the Government to do nothing until information from the reports starts to come in.

This is an example of where additional income is required by the National Health Service. AIDS was unknown less than a decade ago; it has come upon us in the past four years. The Government are fond of saying that the growth in the NHS budget has been 24 per cent. above the rate of inflation, but that does not take account of the medical retail price index, medical advances and operations that we can do now but could not do five years ago. The figure does not take into account the effects of greatly increased unemployment and the increased resources that must be employed as a result. Nor does it take into account the fact that we have an increasingly aging population. AIDS is yet another reason why that 24 per cent. is not all that it seems to be. AIDS requires additional expenditure.

The Opposition, together with the Government, consider that this is an important issue. We should like a bipartisan approach. It is only as a united country that we can tackle this dreadful disease. For a bipartisan approach we need to be convinced that the Government not only are taking the issues seriously—I believe they are—but are putting the resources into the right places to back up their concern. In particular, it is not acceptable for the Secretary of State for the Environment, in reply to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) on 12 January this year, to say that it was for local authorities to assess their own priorities for expenditure. My hon. Friend had asked the Secretary of State what advice he gave local councils on the priority to be attached to spending money on local campaigns to warn people of the dangers of AIDS.

Of course, we all know that in many ways local authorities are strapped for cash and cannot have the freedom to take the measures that they consider they should take to educate people about the dangers of AIDS.

My hon. Friend had made a good point. The London borough of Newham is trying to run an imaginative series of schemes to educate people—its staff and members of the public generally—about the problem of AIDS. The borough is faced with a 10 per cent. cut in the resources that it is to get from the Government. How can a borough such as Newham manage to equate the two positions?

My hon. Friend has made a good point. I know that he will try to make a contribution to the debate later. I hope that he will forgive me—I agree with him completely—if I do not comment any further.

The money being spent on research is not sufficient. Again, in a written reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell) on 16 January the Minister said that the amounts of money being listed were not by any means large enough.

As was pointed out earlier, the Opposition wish to see the Government earnestly address themselves to research and to committing resources to it. If the Minister—I think he said this a few months ago—still maintains that all worthwhile projects are being funded, I should like him to say so again now. I should like that fact to be known publicly. It would be valuable to know of any research projects in this country, or perhaps in other countries so that we can tackle this disease, and the money should be available. It should be available as an extra. NHS patients who have a broken leg, who require a by-pass operation, or who have cancer, do not want to be told, "Sorry, you cannot come in for your operation because the money is required for AIDS. We do not know when we can have you in, but you may come in at a later time." Money for AIDS research must be provided over and above any other provision for the National Health Service.

This is an important subject. I do not wish to conclude my remarks—many more important points still must be made—but other hon. Members and the Minister wish to speak. The Bill is supported by informed and responsible opinion. It is supported by the British Medical Association and, to my knowledge, all the bodies that are concerned with AIDS and its treatment. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East on bring forward this Bill. I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.

I shall rattle away, because the time available is rather short. I wish to make some points about the Bill as well as answer those that have been asked of me during the debate. If my opening words are brief, I hope that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) will not misunderstand it as failing to wish to congratulate him on his luck in the ballot and on bringing forward this measure. I am aware of the importance he attaches to the AIDS problem, and for good reasons, given the nature and scale of the problem in the city of which he represents part.

I say gently to the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) that if the Government were looking for excuses to do nothing, as he suggested towards the end of his speech, I doubt whether I should be standing here in the friendly way in which I am at the moment. We could perfectly easily have thought of endless reasons for not having the Bill and for seeking to prevent it being passed. I am bound to tell the House, if only as a matter of propriety, that, strictly speaking, we do not consider that the Bill is needed. Quite apart from the existing accounting arrangements for reporting within the Health Service, the National Health Service Act 1977 already contains provisions that enable the Secretary of State to direct local authorities to provide him with certain information. Having made those points, I certainly do not intend to use them as reasons for advising the House not to proceed with the Bill.

However, I have some anxieties about the details of the provisions of the Bill as it stands—anxieties which have been echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims), the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) and, to a responsible degree, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East. There is no doubt that, in our judgment, a number of problems would be created if the Bill were to be enacted in exactly its present form. The most serious of those difficulties is the one on which hon. Members have touched—the threat to the confidentiality of AIDS patients which it could pose in some circumstances.

Although the number of AIDS cases is increasing, the number of patients being treated is relatively small, as several hon. Members have said—only a few hundred—and will remain so for some years. The number will grow but will remain small relative to the instances of many other diseases. That means that in many health authority areas there will be only a handful of AIDS patients. The hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Mr. Mikardo)—who has not made a speech but has made some helpful, or otherwise interventions—wished to have a breakdown of AIDS patients by sex and sexual proclivity and the route by which it was thought that transmission had occurred. Such an analysis would probably be easy in a district that had only one AIDS patient, but it would certainly raise questions as to how far the confidentiality of that patient was being safeguarded.

Leaving aside the Thames regions, no region—let alone district—has more than 13 live AIDS patients. In other words, if the number of cases in each health district is published, there is a risk to the confidentiality of an individual patient. It is vital, as I think everyone accepts, that we should preserve such confidentiality. If we cannot guarantee it, many people will be unwilling to come forward for testing and treatment, and AIDS will be driven underground. This is quite apart from the moral issues which would be raised by breaking confidentiality about a matter of this kind.

Another consequence is that some doctors, to protect their patients, would cease to report cases of AIDS, and the effective national reporting system operated by the communicable disease surveillance centre, to which the hon. Member for Wrexham referred, would be undermined.

The problem of district analysis of antibody-positive patients, which is called for in one subsection, is considerable. At present, we have no central record of in which district such patients reside. The present system of testing and reporting, which I think we all have agreed works well, is not district-based. Some districts do not have laboratories that undertake antibody testing.

Some patients—this is an important point because this probably happens with other sexually transmitted diseases as well—travel on purpose outside their districts for testing and-or diagnosis. Even to collect data on the district from which positive blood samples originated would impose a considerable burden on the people collecting those reports at the CDSC and is likely to produce misleading data. In any case, the number of known antibody-positives in each district is not in itself helpful, in that only a small proportion of those that have been infected have been identified. Projections of how many extra might be identified in the following 12 months would not have a great deal of value for planning purposes, other than to help estimate the additional counselling load.

I must make it clear to the House that we do not believe that it is sensible at present to attempt any local analysis in that degree of detail of cases and of reporting antibody-positives other than at regional level. Interpretation of the data obtained from blood testing requires skills that may not be available in each district. The communicable disease surveillance centre would not have the resources to assist each and every district in attempting its projections. Even at regional level, there are problems in making projections even as far ahead as 12 months. When the numbers are small, the errors involved can be large.

To sum up, although we would not oppose analysis of data at regional level and would see some advantages in doing that, we think it important not to run the risks that I have just sought to describe of jeopardising the present excellent national system at the communicable disease surveillance centre.

In reply to the point made earlier, we have already undertaken to make regular national figures available on the number of AIDS cases on monthly and quaterly bases and to provide a broad analysis including an assessment of the trend, insofar as it can be identified, in the number of HIV positives. That picks up a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James). There is no suggestion that we should make information available about AIDS only once a year. It is appropriate to impose that obligation annually on health authorities.

I shall not attempt to cover all the technical problems in the Bill, some of which are minor but cannot be dismissed. However, I should touch on one of them which is that the Bill imposes some obligations on health authorities with which in practice they probably could not comply. Whatever they sought to do, they could not easily establish exactly what "treatment and counselling" was being provided by "other public or voluntary bodies" as stated in the Bill.

Such bodies cannot be made to supply the relevant information to health authorities which may not even be aware—although we hope that they would be—of all the organisations operating in their area. It would be difficult for a health authority to obtain every detail of the work being carried out by a private clinic. That is not a major problem, but we must keep an eye on it when considering the drafting and the amending which will no doubt need to be considered as the Bill goes into Committee, should the House give it a Second Reading.

Leaving aside pure nit-picking points, something in the Bill is rather ironic and in the circumstances I see it as a defect. Manifestly, the assumption and the wish on both sides of the House has been that that data should be made available by the district health authorities and the regional health authorities to the Secretary of State so that it can be communicated to the public at large. But there is, as I read the Bill, no requirement for the information to be published. The House may wish to consider that, too. The Government are ready to accept the basic purpose of the Bill but has serious reservations about the detail of some of the drafting. I know that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East will understand that.

I must apologise for the fact that I shall have little time to reply to all the points made. However, It would be right to devote a moment or two to them, especially in view of the reference by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) to the information that the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) sought earlier about district facts. I must apologise that there has not yet apparently been a reply to that letter.

I shall give the House a quick rundown on how that matter stands at present. In January 1986, a health circular was issued to regional and district health authorities giving them resource assumptions as the basis for their planning. It requested all districts to develop a plan of action concentrating on high-risk groups, complementing the national publicity campaign and including provision for testing and counselling services and for treating clinical AIDS cases. Those plans were to be submitted by the end of June 1986, and subsequently included in regional short-term programmes.

That advice has been amplified in various ways in the intervening period and on 23 December 1986, the secretary of State wrote to all district health chairmen stressing that he expected the plans to reflect the needs of those parts of the Health Service which would be under additional pressures because of AIDS, especially clinics for sexually transmitted diseases. They were also asked to provide details of their proposals for future years in their short-term plans. That material is now being analysed and I am happy to tell the House that we have received reports from all district health authorities with one possible exception, which tells us that its report is in the post.

Like a cheque.

I hesitated to make the old joke, with which many hon. Members will be familiar.

The Government's intention—this ties in with the purpose of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East—is that a national picture should be obtained from the reports, from which, among other things, examples of good practice will be identified. Details of the national strategy which emerge, together with a commentary on it and examples of good practice, will be fed back to regional and district authorities and to other bodies with an interest in health care planning.

To my regret, it is hardly possible for me to say much about the many issues that have been raised during the debate. I shall try to respond to one or two of them in the short time that remains. My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) and the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) spoke about the television advertising. The advertisement was intended merely to draw attention to the leaflet in a way which would be dramatic. It has had to compete with all the other things that appear during a television commercial break, and I believe that it has been effective. I think that even the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey will agree with me that a television commercial that attempted to tell people what the risks were, to communicate what are not risks and to tell young people how to use condoms, which was one of his suggestions, would be a television programme and not a commercial.

There is a great deal going on, and the broadcasting authorities have been extremely co-operative. The Government will be seeking to build on the public education campaign and to move on from merely drawing attention to the leaflet to conveying particular messages. I hope that it is clearly understood that the purpose of that which we have done so far is to draw attention to the source of the information, which is the leaflet.

In courtesy to the House, and to ensure that I do not inadvertently talk out the Bill, I leave the matter there. I am prepared to advise the House to let the Bill have a Second Reading on the basis that we shall need to do a good deal of work in Committee.

With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall reply briefly to the debate in the short time that remains.

I am grateful to all those who have participated in the debate. Everyone who has done so has supported the Bill in principle. I am grateful to hon. Members for the manner in which the debate has been conducted. Like the debate which took place on 21 November, it has been an instructive and sensible contribution to the wiser debate that will continue in the country on this issue.

I am sure that it will be understood if I do not refer to individual contributions save to thank the occupants of both Front Benches and the spokesperson of the Liberal party, the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes). I say a special "thank you" to the Minister for Health for the help that he has given. It is fair to acknowledge that we had a constructive exchange during the parliamentary recess. Had it not been for that meeting, I doubt whether I would have reached the stage of being able to introduce a Bill that would have the support of hon. Members on both sides of the House.

The Minister has raised a number of important issues. I acknowledge that confidentiality is important and I respect that point of view. I doubt whether there will be any difficulty about that. The Minister referred to a number of practical matters, including the requirement of statistics. It is important that we cover that area of the Bill in a more pragmatic way. I am sure that there will be no difficulty in doing that should the House give the Bill a Second Reading and enable it to be considered in Committee.

The comments made and issues raised in debating the Bill have been basically supportive. The Bill, however, should not be regarded as being primarily about statistics. It is not.

indicated assent.

The Minister recognises that.

The Bill is directed to an area of activity and I believe that it will make a valuable contribution to resource planning. I accept what the Minister has said about district and regional statistics, and resources will have to be targeted into different areas of the country. I am grateful for the support which has been given to the Bill and I hope that the House will give it a Second Reading.

I hope that the House will not consent to give a Second Reading to a Bill on the basis of a debate that will last about 35 seconds. The Bill deals with a subject which, as we know from what has happened in past sessions, is highly controversial and there are many strongly held opinions——

Object.

Object.

Second Reading what day?

If that was a Government objection, no fixed day; if it was a Back-Bench objection, Friday next.

This is the third time lucky for me in respect of this subject, because I first attempted to raise the matter of the Arts Council budget on 11 December but abstruse parliamentary procedure at that time conspired against me. There was a point when I thought that I might end up raising Arts Council budget for 1988–89, but I realise that by then we shall have a Labour Government and a Labour Arts Minister with far greater resources at his or her disposal. There will be infinitely more imagination and excitement in our arts policy.

This is the first occasion upon which the matter of the Arts Council budget for 1987–88 has been raised on the Floor of the House other than through parliamentary questions. The Government's original announcement was made on 17 November by the somewhat sneaky method of a planted written answer. There was no statement from the Dispatch Box, when the Minister would have been forced to answer questions from both sides, and no debate has been arranged in Government time since the announcement. I believe this to be cowardly behaviour on the part of the Arts Minister. Perhaps he is afraid to come to the House to justify himself in relation to the Arts Council budget for 1987–88. Thousands of organisations and millions of people in this country are very interested in this annual round of government announcement, Arts Council consideration and decisions and then, of course, the subsequent reactions from the clients who receive the money.

I believe that there are three main reasons why the Minister should be far more forthright in initiating and encouraging broader parliamentary debate on the arts. It is up to him to do this. First, one has to consider the sheer number of people in the country who are genuinely interested in the subject. One can witness to that fact the amount of press interest shown in anything connected with the arts.

Secondly, there is the significance of the arts in our society generally. Socially and economically, the arts are a major factor and it is ridiculous that they should be given such a low priority in the deliberations of this House.

Thirdly, and most importantly from the Minister's point of view, if the Minister is genuinely interested in promoting the arts and the share of public expenditure going to the Office of Arts and Libraries, he must be heard far more shouting the odds for the arts and seen far more fighting his corner, and this is the place where he could most effectively do that. There is not much evidence of it here today, but we know from arts Questions that there is a very big arts lobby in both this House and the other place. Yet the arts are not given sufficient parliamentary time, perhaps because the Minister has shared responsibilities and is more interested in his Cabinet Office duties, or perhaps because he believes that the arts already receive a sufficient share of Government resources. In either case, he should tell the House.

If the Minister is really interested in gaining more resources for the arts, he is going about it in the wrong way. He should be making the case for the arts in this House and in the country generally. There are countless opportunities for an arts Minister to do that. Every respectable and semi-respectable newspaper has one or more arts correspondents—one excludes The Sun, of course, though if the Minister considered going topless he might even persuade that publication to devote some attention to the arts. Many radio and television stations are also prepared to give the Minister a platform for the arts. He could be in the news every day of his life—a wonderful opportunity that is denied to a large number of Ministers and politicians generally. I do not understand why the Minister does not seize the opportunity with both hands. If he went on the stomp for the arts around the country, he could whip up a great deal more public opinion and in the end force his ministerial colleagues, both inside and outside the Cabinet, to give him more resources for the arts. They would respond to the amount of public pressure that the Minister had helped to whip up.

In this imperfect world, made that much worse by the divisive policies of the Government, the good guys are usually ignored. I do not wish to be offensive to the Minister—I recognise that he is a pleasant and decent soul—but given the hatchet-faced men and women who are Ministers in the present Government the very fact that he is a pleasant and decent soul probably makes him singularly unfitted to be Minister for the Arts. I am not suggesting that the arts are more important than education, social services, transport or defence. I am simply arguing that they are equally important and relevant to every other area of social concern and expenditure. All too often in this society the arts are regarded as some sort of luxury, as a bit of flimsy, a bit of social decoration. They are not regarded as politically significant. That error is made by both sides of the House. The Minister for the Arts is usually regarded as occupying a rather lowly position in the political pecking order. That has been true, and at the moment it remains true, in both the Conservative party and the Labour party. As in local government, responsibility for the arts is traditionally given to politicians who have reached the end of the political road and have their political futures behind them, but there are encouraging signs that that attitude is changing among the Opposition parties.

I put it to the Minister that by his low profile, either out of choice or by personal disposition, he has done a bad job for the arts in respect of the 1987–88 budget. There are many arguments about how much or how little the present Government have invested in the arts. I use the word "invested" deliberately. Like Oscar Wilde, I have no great love of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing, but the Minister must not be allowed to continue to make his extravagant and at times very misleading statistical claims. According to the Government, the grant to the Arts Council has risen by 8 per cent. in real terms since 1979–80, but no one in the art world believes that.

I will give some of the facts. The basic Arts Council grant was £63·125 million in 1979–80. In 1987–88 it will £113·8 million. That is the basic grant. I am excluding abolition money because it is not new money for the arts. If one measures those figures against the retail price index, they represent a real decrease of 3 per cent. against the RPI between 1979–80 and 1987–88. There is a difference between the figures that are being bandied about. The Minister uses the gross domestic product deflator rather than the RPI for calculating the changes in the grant. The most relevant index for the arts is the average earnings index. If that index had been applied to the Arts Council between 1979–80 and 1987–88, it would be seen to have suffered a 22 per cent. cut in its grant in real terms.

The Minister may ask, "Why use the average earnings index?" The answer is obvious as 60 per cent. of arts expenditure is in direct labour costs. One can be even fairer, however, and use the arts index employed by the Cork theatre inquiry—60 per cent. average earnings index and 40 per cent. retail price index. If one uses the Cork index, which seems the most appropriate for the arts, the decrease in the Arts Council grant, between 1979–80 and 1987–88, is 15 per cent. To make the calculation, assumptions are made of a 6 per cent. increase in average earnings for 1987–88 and a 3·5 per cent. increase in the retail price index, which I think is a conservative estimate as the general feeling is that for 1987–88 inflation will be running at about 5 per cent.

If we compare the period 1984–85, when there was a strong downward pressure on earnings and prices, with 1987–88, which is the most helpful comparison for the Government, the arts index shows an 8·5 per cent decrease in the Arts Council's grant. If we use the Cork arts index to compare the periods 1986–87 to 1987–88, the decrease in real terms for the Arts Council is 1·5 per cent. All the time we are talking about real decreases in the money that the Minister has made available to the Arts Council.

What has been the impact for the arts? The Arts Council can pass on to its clients only that which the Government give it in central funds. That means that for 1987–88 the great majority of Arts Council clients will receive real cuts in their budgets. As both Priestley and Rayner discovered, the major arts organisations are efficiently run; they are not profligate, as some members on both sides of the House would maintain. One of the advantages of my speaking on the matter now is that the Arts Council has made its decisions, and we know that the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Opera House and the South Bank board have been given stand-still grants. In effect, that means that they will face real cuts of the order of 6 to 7 per cent. Even English National Opera, which has been given a 2·6 per cent. increase in its grant, will be facing a cut after allowing for inflation. I could go through each of the clients of the Arts Council to prove the point, but I do not think that there is any need to take it further.

The arts now face a double failure—first a failure by the Arts Council to act as an aggressive campaigning lobby for the Arts. The reappointment of Sir William Rees-Mogg shows how highly the Government regard him, which, I imagine, shows how little he must have troubled them on behalf of the arts. The other failure is the failure of the Minister to win more Government resources for the arts, if he ever attempted to do so. I would be obliged if the Minister would reply to that point. That double failure of the Arts Council and the Government means that the arts in Britain are desperately in need of friends.

In the end, all the arguments about Government financial support for the arts are about insignificant crumbs when one considers the extent of the Government's public expenditure each year. For 1987–88, total Government spending will amount to £148 billion. The total arts budget—all the money in addition to the Arts Council grant which goes to museums, art galleries, libraries; the lot—amounts to £339 million. That is less than one quarter of 1 per cent. of the Government's total spending. That is crazy. The £339 million for total arts spending amounts to less than one year's expenditure on fortress Falklands, which is now running at £1 million a day. The Government wrote off £1 billion of taxpayers' money in respect of Nimrod, and that represents 10 years of total arts spending on the Arts Council grant.

That is the scale of the difference in the spending patterns of the Government. Their priorities are all wrong in this respect. What, in future years, will be the most treasured legacy that we shall be passing on to succeeding generations? Will it be the scrap metal of once expensive military hardware or the timeless cultural heritage of music, plays, literature and works of art? By virtue of the miserable 1987–88 arts provision, the Government have yet again revealed their perverted social priorities, lack of vision and philistine mentality. The arts world in its entirety is now praying for the return of a Labour Government.

I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) on achieving this Adjournment debate, even though he says, "third time lucky". I can assure him that it was no intention of mine, and I have no powers, to seek to delay an Adjournment debate. Whether it could have been achieved before Christmas was entirely in the hands of the House. For my part, I am glad that he has this debate because it gives me yet another chance to talk about the arts.

My congratulations must end there. Some of the things that the hon. Gentleman says are extraordinary. Not long ago he asked me what my activities in the arts world had been in the previous year and a half or so. I gave him a full answer which showed that I travel round all parts of the country and have visited over 150 arts organisations. Each time I go out I talk to the media in the regions, who take an intense interest in the arts. Since arts should be available for all people in Britain, it is important to get out and about and see what is happening. That is the key to this debate. Therefore, I shall seek to answer some of the hon. Gentleman's points.

The hon. Gentleman sometimes reminds me of that great character from English literature, A. A. Milne's Eeyore, who, whenever confronted with news of any kind, would contrive to turn it into forebodings of doom.

Last year, for instance, the hon. Gentleman forecast for the South Bank:

"dark nights in all the theatres and concert halls".—[Official Report, 14 November 1985; Vol. 86, c. 702.]

He forecast enormous suffering from the great centres of art to

"the smallest of the touring companies." [Official Report, 27 March 1986; Vol. 94, c. 1102.]

and estimated a shortfall in arts funding in London which would run to about £10 million in that year. Of course, none of that proved to be true, as we all know.

What are the facts? Let me get to the heart of them. The central arts and libraries expenditure for 1987–88 will rise by 5·4 per cent., which is broadly in line with the increase for public expenditure as a whole that year. The hon. Gentleman made play with the criteria for those statistics and said that he would rather have the earnings or the retail prices index. The plain fact is that the GDP deflator is the understood measurement for that type of public expenditure, and it was used by the Labour Government in the 1970s. That is the standard understanding of the basis upon which we calculate those prices and increases. There has been a 5·4 per cent. increase in the overall expenditure, in line with the general increase of public expenditure that year.

The arts have not lost out. The new British Library project is, of course, part of that programme. It was a 1979 manifesto commitment and we have upheld it. We are reaching the peak years of expenditure on that major new institution, which will be for the benefit of learning in this country. I hope that the hon. Gentleman supports that. Some people say that that project has nothing to do with the arts, but arts and libraries should go together because each has a mission of civilising and enriching that complements the other. I am not suggesting that the hon. Gentleman is attacking the Library. However, we must take the British Library into account when we consider the global arts expenditure figures.

That is why the percentage that the Minister has given is being pushed up.

We must take every component part of the arts budget into account. We should consider our national galleries and museums, the British Library and also the performing arts.

I shall now turn to specific aspects concerning the Arts Council. Next year's budget gives it an increase of 3·5 per cent. in its basic funding from central Government. That is broadly in line with predicted inflation. Over and above that—the hon. Gentleman did not recognise this fact—I have managed to provide an extra £3 million for the Arts Council, which it did not expect, to lessen the incidence of the taper on abolition funding. I know that the hon. Gentleman feels strongly about that.

To put it mildly, there seems to be considerable confusion as to what the hon. Gentleman's party's policy on the arts is. The Government have upheld their policy commitment to keep up central Government funding support for the arts. Indeed, we have surpassed our commitment. The Arts Council grant is up by over 7 per cent. in real terms since 1979–80. If one includes abolition money—the hon. Gentleman chooses not to do so, but I accept that there has been a shift from local to central Government—the Arts Council's grant has risen by 32 per cent. in real terms. It is receiving more in real terms than it ever did under any previous Government. I should have thought that that was an occasion for praise rather than for criticism by the hon. Gentleman.

I recognise that there are continuing problems and pressures in certain areas, many of which arise from the increasingly competing demands in the arts world. It is for the Arts Council to seek ways to overcome them, often in conjunction with regional arts associations, local authorities and the private sector.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for the purveyors of pessimism to forecast Armageddon and "cataclysmic collapses" when they are faced, as they are, by the evidence all around us of a remarkable growth of interest and participation in the arts. Even The Guardian recognised that in a recent reference to the "positive flowering" of the arts. There has been a resurgence in cinema attendances, a virtual doubling of the number of arts centres since 1979, a doubling of the number of museums over the past 15 years, with a new museum reportedly opening every fortnight now, more people attending the theatre than going to football matches, and in autumn 1986 Greater London Arts claimed, in its quarterly journal, to fund

"more arts activities by more artists, in more areas than ever before".

The evidence is there on nearly every front, but the hon. Gentleman simply chooses to ignore it. I see those developments for myself as I travel round the country. As he will know from my answer to his recent question, I have visited over 150 arts organisations. Only two evenings ago, on Wednesday, I visited the Temba theatre to see "Woza Albert!" I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there was no lack of enthusiasm or vigour in the performance. The Temba theatre is financially supported by the Arts Council, among others.

There are many other examples of success stories, rather than failures, upon which the hon. Gentleman could focus. There is, for example the Beck theatre in the borough of Hillingdon where Charles Vance Ltd. has been brought in to help run the centre and is saving the Hillingdon authority considerable sums of money over the next five years by its very efficient running of the theatre.

There is also the interesting example of the Empire theatre in Liverpool, where Apollo Leisure is playing a leading part in helping to make it a success and to save the taxpayer and the ratepayer money. That is an example of how partnerships between the private and public sectors can play a positive role.

The Institute of Contemporary Arts is now celebrating its 40th anniversary, and I am sure that both sides of the House congratulate it on that. It is increasingly dependent upon resources from a variety of areas, especially the private sector, even though the Arts Council has managed to increase its support.

The hon. Gentleman continues to be one of many on the Opposition Benches who were profoundly pessimistic about the effect on the arts of the abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan counties, but the fact is that I was able to increase the Arts Council funding for abolition purposes in the current financial year from the £16 million originally allocated to £25 million.

The Arts Council had calculated the total requirement for arts bodies that served a wider area than a single borough at £35 million, and I was confident that the successor authorities—the London boroughs, the districts and the metropolitan county areas—would come forward with the remaining £10 million. In the event, they did much better than that. I congratulate them. After some intricate bargaining, the Arts Council contribution was matched by £14 million from the local authorities. No major arts body went to the wall, and many have expanded since then. The crisis did not happen. Of course, I look to the local authorities to play an increasingly important role in the financing of arts organisations.

In the past, the hon. Gentleman has referred repeatedly to the South Bank. The Arts Council has allocated £8·76 million for 1987–88, and I am confident that it will continue following the constructive policy of keeping the best from the previous GLC regime while introducing sensible innovations of its own. This is an appropriate occasion to congratulate Mr. Ronnie Grierson and his board on the South Bank. Their ambitious programme for the future includes the material refurbishment of the whole area. They are doing a splendid job.

The record of this Government on the arts is one of which we may be proud. We promised to uphold central Government support for the arts and we have done so. We said that we would ease the transition in the abolition areas and we have done so. But the hon. Gentleman, like his colleagues, has far too narrow a vision of the arts. It is a profound mistake to think that the climate in the arts is determined solely by the level of central Government funding. Important though that funding is, the whole thrust of our strategy has been to encourage the funding of arts from a plurality of sources. Central Government, local government, businesses, private patrons, and above all the consumer at the box office all have an essential contribution to make.

In addition, it has been part of our strategy of creating a framework of opportunity for the arts to encourage and promote business and private support. The business sponsorship incentive scheme began two years ago. That scheme, ably administered by the Association for Business Sponsorship of the Arts has dramatically accelerated the rate of growth of business sponsorship until it is now running at the rate of some £25 million a year. I know that the hon. Gentleman welcomes that scheme and I trust that he will share my optimism that business sponsorship will continue to flourish to the benefit of the arts throughout the country.

While I am on this subject, I am sure that the House will join me in welcoming the announcement this week that Sainsbury's arts sponsorship committee is to give over £100,000 to the National Youth theatre. That is a marvellous memorial to the late Michael Croft, who built up the theatre over a period of 30 years. In the same way, the measures announced in the 1986 Budget to encourage charitable giving will enable both corporations and individuals, through single donations and the payroll scheme, to increase their contributions to the arts.

The hon. Gentleman is also using too narrow a focus when he neglects to look at the consumer side of the equation. In fact, the dominant factor in arts expenditure is the consumer. It is for that reason that the Arts Council has recently established a marketing department that is designed to help arts institutions to target their customers and provide the services that the customers would like to see. To help foster this new climate of opportunity, I have recently announced a new arts marketing scheme with a budget of £0·25 million of public money, to encourage arts bodies to market themselves more actively and effectively. The scheme will take the form of matching grants to enable arts organisations to put into practice a selected number of new and original marketing ideas—the results will be available for the benefit of others.

The hon. Gentleman has argued the case for greater funding of the Arts Council. I confess that I—and I think many in the country—are highly confused as to what his party's policy on the Arts Council is. He wants to expand its funding, but a recent policy document by his party appeared to envisage emasculating it entirely. I do not know what the position is, now that disaster has befallen the hon. Member for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan). However that may be, the Government's support for the principle of "arms length", and for the excellent work of the Arts Council, is very clear. I gladly pay tribute to the way in which its secretary-general Mr. Luke Rittner and his staff carry out their duties. I add my appreciation for the outstanding contribution of Sir William Rees-Mogg, who has recently agreed to continue as chairman of the Arts Council for a further two years. I have noticed during my time in office that neither of those two gentlemen hesitate to make their views known, in public and in private, about what they think is required in funding for the Arts Council. I have every confidence that the Arts Council will continue to do an excellent job.