I wish to present a petition on behalf of Mr. Christopher Vernon and Mrs. Anne Vernon of 49 Veredale avenue, Leicester and Mr. Don Finlay and Mrs. Diana Finlay of 51 Veredale avenue, Leicester, Mr. Freddy Miles and Wendy Clayton of 19 Warren View, Leicester, and Miss Betty Beck of 57 Veredale avenue, Leicester, and 700 other local residents who are utterly opposed to the proposed development by Barratt East Midlands Ltd., of a piece of land in the Barkby Thorpe road area.

It has come to the notice of residents that the land had been used for dumping and now comprises one of the largest areas of landfill gas in the country. It is the view of the residents expressed at the public meetings and in letters to me, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Leicester city council and Leicestershire county council, any works on the site would be dangerous and cause intolerable inconvenience.

The residents therefore ask for proper consultation with the local authorities to enable a strategy to be adopted which will result in a solution that is acceptable to the residents as they live there. I support them absolutely. I commend the work of the West Humberstone (Humberstone Lane Area) residents committee. The petition states:

"To the Honourable, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of Leicester residents sheweth that the people of Leicester object to the proposed residential development in the Barkby Thorpe area by Barratt East Midlands Ltd. Wherefore your petitioners pray that your honourable House encourage the Secretary of State for the Environment to take action to persuade the Leicester city council and Leicestershire county council to prevent the development from taking place."

I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity for this morning's debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Minister of State for being here to reply. It may be helpful if I quickly paint in some of the background to my request for this debate this morning.

In October 1988, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission published its report and recommendations about the future pricing of contract gas. That followed a long and sustained campaign by Sheffield forgemasters and others about the cost of gas for those with very big loads. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry accepted the report and asked the Director General of Gas Supply to seek agreement with British Gas to modify its authorisation to give effect to the recommendations. The proposed and agreed draft modifications were published at the end of January. There then followed a 28-day period for representations on the proposals. Early in that period, British Gas published an explanatory memorandum showing the likely form of the pricing schedules that would be introduced as a result of the proposed modification. That memorandum was sent to the 20,000 contract customers of British Gas.

It is fair to say that the National Farmers Union and the regional gas boards were taken by surprise by the MMC proposals and their effect. They had believed, and I believe had encouraged their customers likewise, that the MMC report was likely to affect large industrial users only. With hindsight they realise that they had not, as a result of their initial belief, made as strenuous representations as they might have done had they foreseen the effect on the glasshouse growers.

At this stage it is worth putting down a marker—I find it extraordinary that the MMC and the Office of Fair Trading seem to conspire against small business men in all their recent reports. We have seen that happen with publican tenants or responsible brewers building up their clientele, or—here I must declare an interest—local funeral directors trying to compete with the mighty Co-op.

In this case glasshouse growers are trying to compete with their Dutch competitors. Even before the proposed price increases resulting from the MMC report, our glasshouse growers faced a price differential disadvantage in comparison with the Dutch who are still buying gas in volumes as low as 25,000 therms per annum at the price of 15·5p per therm, compared with 16·1p per therm for 500,000 to 1 million therms charged by British Gas. So that there can be no doubt that alternative fuels are not an option, heavy fuel oil was, at the time of the published proposals, 15·91p per therm. It carries none of the CO, advantages of gas, which I shall describe later.

Those facts make the conclusions of the MMC report, that British Gas prices for interruptible gas supplies were broadly in line with the rest of the Common Market and that prices were also comparable for small-firm gas customers, all the more extraordinary and breathtaking. They demonstrate a lack of comprehension of the effect that the clumsy intervention and interference of the MMC with the established market will have on the small business man. The MMC's proposals, taken together with its obsession and that of the OFT for transparent pricing, demonstrate that they are a recipe for disaster for the small business man, the little entrepreneur and the fledgling capitalist that the Government have done so much to nurture and encourage.

After all, every French restaurant must, by law, exhibit its prices ouside the premises, but any self-respecting Englishman will tell you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that no one has ever succeeded in paying a bill that bears any relation to that published menu. Similarly, in the energy market, every liquid petroleum gas and fuel oil salesman in the country is rubbing his hands in glee at the prospect of pitching his undisclosed price just below the British Gas published price.

I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who is new to the post, will get to grips with the enclaves of theoreticians and academic gombeen men at the MMC, who have consistently failed to champion the cause of the small business man in practically every commercial sphere on which they have published reports. In this case, their philosophy to the market gardener seems to have been "tough tomato".

I have not come to this debate today as a Back-Bench banshee seeking to grab the headlines by screeching my complaints at my right hon. Friend. It is much more my style to seek the route of practical politics by endeavouring to find a solution without bothering the apparatus of Whitehall. In this case I have carefully examined the possibility of glasshouse growers connecting up their gas mains to one another so that they become a single customer of British Gas. That would mean that the total load would be eligible for the lower tariff prices; that would remove, or at least alleviate, the economic disadvantage faced by those growers. That proposition, however, is not financially viable and it would require capital investment beyond the reach of the growers. In any event, it would require such a long buy-back period as to be a financial disaster.

Under the new schedule, interruptible supply will be available only to single premises taking in excess of 250,000 therms per year. In the past, British Gas has allowed several independent nurseries to form a gas group so that the price could be based on their total consumption.

Being nothing if not resourceful, my second line of attack in practical political terms was to seek to use the MMC's directive that British Gas should make available its pipeline for other suppliers to contract gas supplies to commercial users. As the Wytch Farm gas and oil site is not far from my constituency, and as the chairman of the Isle of Wight development board is the recently retired chairman and chief executive of Mobil Oil, I asked whether he would investigate that proposal for our island growers.

The possibility of providing low-price gas to other island commercial customers appeared extremely attractive. Such gas could be used by other glasshouse growers in adjoining constituencies. The thought of establishing the island as a centre of low-cost energy appealed to my commercial instincts and would probably accelerate our economy quicker than any application for assisted-area status, which has been the longest running campaign that the island has ever mounted.

We were told, however, by Mr. Legatt, British Petroleum's section manager, that gas supplies from Wytch Farm are fully committed until more fields come on stream in 1991–92. I hope that my right hon. Friend will therefore appreciate that I have examined all the possibilities before bringing this matter to the House.

One other dimension that must be considered is the environmental effect of the MMC proposals. Glasshouse growers have invested heavily in CO₂extraction plants that take the CO₂ out of the flue gases from the gas-fired boilers and circulate it in the greenhouse, which is an essential ingredient to any plant's growth. Before the introduction of gas-fired boilers, growers had to purchase bulk CO₂ and introduce it into the glasshouses from bottled gas. It is extraordinary that the Government are, quite rightly, pursuing environmentally sensitive policies on the atmosphere, but the MMC report, if effected, will require growers to switch back to fossil fuels. That will therefore increase the amount of "nox and sox" put into the atmosphere.

By purchasing gas for their heating and recovering CO₂ from the flue gases, growers are pursuing as environmentally sensitive a policy as one could possibly get. That is especially true when one appreciates that it is coupled with an extraordinarily efficient energy-saving arrangement, whereby the heat of the flue gas is also used to heat water storage heat reservoirs, which are then used to supplement the heating requirements during the night-time drop in temperature.

Currently, the glasshouse industry of the United Kingdom has an output value of £271·4 million per annum for vegetable crops and £156 million for ornamental crops at 1987 prices. Those figures show that the industry is making a substantial saving in imports and therefore making a contribution to our balance of payments. Much as we love the Dutch, every British housewife would prefer to buy her pound of tomatoes from an English grower, providing that the price is right.

The glasshouse growers were encouraged to invest in the provision of new gas pipelines for their glasshouses in the expectation that the contracts into which they had entered with their local gas boards would be held in terms of the price for interruptible supplies for a few years hence. Indeed, in one case, taken together with the provision of the CO₂ extraction plant, the total capital expended on a gas main and new energy-efficient gas boilers has been £100,000

One can therefore imagine the considerable anger and frustration that the glasshouse growers feel in finding that, because of the MMC's requirements for British Gas to publish a price tariff, the price of interruptible gas will rise from 16.1p per therm—already less competitive than the Dutch prices that I have mentioned—to 26.5p per therm, assuming that the grower continues to opt for the same maximum period of interruption. That is a rise of 64 per cent., with no rights of negotiation and no discussions between customer and supplier.

As a result of the representations made to me by the glasshouse growers, I contacted the Director General of Gas Supply, Mr. James McKinnon, who kindly agreed to visit the Isle of Wight and see at first hand the enterprising way in which the glasshouse growers were conducting their business and the effect that this massive increase in their prices will have on their business. As a result of that arrangement and representations that he has received from parliamentary colleagues on the Conservative Back-Bench horticultural committee, he has published a seven-point set of proposals, which he has asked British Gas to look at. These state:

"The number of bands in the price schedule should be expanded in firm and interrupted contract categories to cater for higher levels of volume. Aggregation should be available in both categories. The number of proposals for which firm supplies can be aggregated should be increased to cover all customers' circumstances.

All legitimate trading affinity groups and energy management companies or other agents offering centralised contracts should be permitted to aggregate for the purpose of price qualification in both the firm and interrupted sectors.

Load factors to be introduced without delay as further determinant of the prices charged to customers.

Arrangements should be made to 'buffer' the impact of changing from one band to another.

The existing matrix of choice should be expanded to provide a further range of options. An understanding should be given that interruptions under contract should, if possible, be pre-arranged with customers.

A review should be carried out as to the choices which are presently offered in terms of an inflator or indices.

Some customers have experienced very heavy increases in prices. For such customers the transition period should be extended to three years."

On Friday 14 July, I met the regional deputy chairman of Southern Gas in Southampton and put to him the points about the effect that those increases would have on the glasshouse grower, the point being that in most businesses the energy cost of heating the premises is a small proportion of the total overheads, but in the glasshouse industry it amounts to some 30 per cent. of total production costs. It would be fair to say that Mr. Webb, the regional deputy chairman, and I had a robust conversation, but I believe that, having spoken to Mr. Young, the regional chairman, having corresponded with Sir Denis Rooke, the chairman of British Gas, and having met on no fewer than three occasions the Director General of Gas Supply, it is time for a champion in the Department of Energy to blow the whistle on behalf of the glasshouse growing industry and say that enough is enough.

The simple solution to this problem would be to allow glasshouse growers who are members of a similar buying and selling co-operative group to aggregate their supplies, even if this meant that the regional gas board was committed to invoicing a single trading entity, leaving the members to divide the costs and recover the payments among themselves.

The information that British Gas has given me—that it believes that the MMC's report prevents it from doing this—is falsely based. That is certainly the view of Ofgas. It criticises my solution also on the ground that other organisations will be able to aggregate their supplies and obtain a lower tariff. On one occasion, it was suggested that every betting shop would wish to aggregate its demand. We in the House are well used to attempts to rubbish logical solutions by extreme argument. The fact is that, whether multinational conglomerates or high street retailing chains, they are none of them part of the same purchasing and selling consortium. Each is a trading entity or a cost centre in its own right. Even if these organisations are centrally supplied, they are not also a consortium for sales in the daily marketplace, and it is that that distinguishes the growers from other gas consumers. After all, the MMC accepted the exception for customers who used gas as a feedstock for ammonia production.

I believe that allowing aggregation is not such a problem, nor is it so likely outside horticulture, where, as in all things, growers, like farmers, are well used to pooling their resources to obtain a stable price for their produce and to buy as cheaply as possible their fertilisers, packing requirements and so on. Also, these nurseries provide British Gas with summer demand, thereby balancing its total demand throughout the year.

I look to my right hon. Friend the Minister to champion this cause. I feel like a dog that has a flea in its tail; I have gone round and round in circles trying to end this small irritation. Like that flea, I believe that there is common ground between myself, the regional gas board and the chairman of British Gas on the view that the amounts involved for horticulture and the pricing of an aggregated gas supply for horticulturists are a fleabite in the total contracted interruptable gas supplies in the United Kingdom. British Gas has promised a response by September to the seven proposals from Ofgas. As my right hon. Friend the Minister lists gardening as one of his pleasures, I hope that he will ensure that, before we return to the House, everything in the greenhouse will be lovely once again.

I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field) has had the opportunity to raise this important matter in the House on the last day before we rise for the summer recess. I listened to him carefully and, without wishing to sound patronising, I was extremely impressed by the tremendous work that he put into not only his speech but the whole issue, talking to many people to find a solution. He did not in any sense give me the impression that he was a dog with a flea in its tail; rather that he was a lion who had stalked through the jungle.

I agree with much of what my hon. Friend said. He noted that I count gardening among my hobbies, so I take a particular interest in the glasshouse growers. They are a shining example of what the Government have been doing over the past 10 years, and especially of the lead that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has given. I can therefore assure my hon. Friend that I share his concern about the problems experienced by horticulturists and other customers because of the introduction of British Gas's first price schedule. I assure my hon. Friend that Ofgas, which is so ably led by Mr. James McKinnon, and, to be fair, British Gas, are alive to the difficulties and that British Gas has committed itself to considering a number of proposals for improvements and to reaching conclusions, as my hon. Friend pointed out in the latter part of his speech, by the end of September.

I shall return to the present position in more detail, but it is important first to put gas prices in context.

The House will recall that, when British Gas was privatised, the market for gas to customers using more than 25,000 therms—non-tariff customers—was made subject to normal competition law. Gas was already facing competition from other fuels, and, in order to promote competition in gas supply, the Gas Act 1986 included further provisions to enable others to acquire rights to use British Gas pipelines. In particular, Ofgas was given the power to make directions on charges and other terms.

In November 1987, following major anxieties about British Gas's pricing policy, the Director General of Fair Trading referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission the issue of the supply of gas through pipes to non-tariff customers. In making the reference, the director general set out four matters of concern to him: the arbitrariness of individual prices and price changes; wider differences in prices paid by customers with similar requirements and levels of consumption; contracts only fixing prices for a very short period—three months or less; and British Gas's total control over whether to provide interruptible supplies.

The MMC's report was published in October last year. In it, the MMC said that it found extensive discrimination by British Gas in the pricing and supply of gas to contract customers, and went on:

"We believe that this is attributable to the monopoly situation and operates or may be expected to operate against the public interest in a number of respects. First, British Gas's policy of price discrimination imposes higher costs on customers less well placed to use alternative fuels or to obtain such fuels on favourable terms, which in turn puts an arbitrary cost disadvantage on these consumers, and distorts competition in the markets in which they operate. Secondly, British Gas's policy of relating prices to those of the alternatives available to each customer places it in a position selectively to undercut potential gas suppliers. This may be expected to deter new entrants and to inhibit the development of competition in the market. Thirdly, the lack of transparency in pricing creates uncertainty in the minds of customers about future gas prices and renders more risky the business environment in which they operate. Furthermore, British Gas's refusal to supply interruptible gas to some customers imposes additional costs on those users; its prices for gas used in Combined Heat and Power schemes have inhibited the implementation of some such schemes; and its insistence on particular contract terms has imposed additional costs on users. We have also concluded that British Gas's failure to provide adequate information on the costs of common carriage, its ability to use information obtained when negotiating common carriage terms to identify potential customers of potential suppliers and the potential source of gas, and its position as a dominant purchaser of gas, may all be expected to operate against the public interest by deterring new entry to the market."

I accept that this is all rather a mouthful, but it led to a number of important recommendations which the MMC believed would encourage competition in the supply of gas and restrain British Gas's discriminatory policy on pricing and supply of gas until such competition was effective. The MMC's main recommendations were that British Gas should be required to publish a schedule of prices at which it is prepared to supply gas to contract customers, and not to discriminate in pricing or supply. Secondly, the MMC recommended that British Gas should not refuse to supply interruptible gas on the basis of the use made of the gas or the alternative fuel available. Thirdly, British Gas should publish further information on common carriage terms in sufficient detail to put a potential customer in a position to make a reasonable estimate of the charge that would be sought by British Gas. Fourthly and finally, British Gas should be required to contract initially for no more than 90 per cent. of any new gas field.

The MMC recognised—this was inevitable—that among British Gas's customers some would lose and some would gain from the recommendations. That is something which common sense dictates and which we had to accept in endorsing the commission's findings and recommended solutions. Like the MMC, we believe that price increases will be considerably outweighed by price decreases, that the MMC's proposals will contribute to the emergence of effective competition in gas supply, and that only such competition can produce a long-term solution to the adverse effects that it has identified.

Essentially, the MMC endorsed the basic approach of the Gas Act in making this section of the gas market subject to the normal requirements of competition, rather than going for a regulated system. Its regulations build on that, in order to make competitive pressures more effective.

On 19 October, Lord Young, then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, welcomed the report and set out the steps being taken. The Director General of Gas Supply, Mr. James McKinnon, was asked to seek agreement with British Gas on modifications to its authorisation to implement the recommendations on pricing and contract policies in the supply of gas to large users, and on the provision of information on its common carriage terms for transmission of gas. The Director General of Fair Trading was asked to consult interested parties with a view to proposing a scheme which would make it easier for companies other than British Gas to buy gas from developers of gas fields.

These measures have now been put into effect. Ofgas went out to consultation on the modification to British Gas's authorisation on 31 January. British Gas's first price schedule was published on 20 March and came into effect on 1 May. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Corporate Affairs announced on 27 April a Government target for 10 per cent. of all new gas contracted from producers to be supplied to final consumers by suppliers other than British Gas. British Gas published common carriage information on 15 June.

Since British Gas's first price schedule was published there have been a number of reactions from these customers, including—and this is why we are here today—horticulturists, who felt that they would be adversely and unfairly affected. Some of these have been about obvious flaws in the schedule, such as the incentive to waste gas at the boundaries of the volume bands. Some have related to the level of price increases, which in some cases appear to have been higher even than British Gas's expectations; others have related to changes in terms such as the introduction of minimum periods of interruption into interruptible contracts. All these concerns have gone to Mr. McKinnon for him to pursue, and he has kept me informed of the situation. Only yesterday, he and I had a further full and detailed discussion of these issues. We are keeping them in the front of our minds.

British Gas's price schedule is subject to competitive pressures in the ability of some customers to switch to alternative fuels. Therefore, British Gas recognises the need to reconsider in the light of its customers' reactions.

Representations from horticulturalists have covered many of the points raised by my hon. Friend, who I suspect has already covered many of the following points. They say that some increases in gas prices are very large, with claimed instances of up to 100 per cent. Energy costs account for a quarter to a third of the total cost inputs to the business. Interruptible supplies are no longer available to growers with consumption below 250,000 therms a year. Buying groups are no longer recognised. Growers have made major investments based on gas, and because of their requirement to use flue gas—CO₂—for injection to glasshouses, they are particularly tied to gas. Their competitors in the Netherlands obtain firm gas at very low prices. They are believed to pay lower prices than customers in other sectors with similar consumption.

My hon. and noble Friend, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has given me a clear picture of the effects of the price schedule. My hon. Friends the Members for Broxbourne (Mrs. Roe) and for Cambridgshire, South-East (Mr. Paice) have been in frequent contact with me on the matter, and other hon. Friends have written to me about the impact on horticulture in their constituencies.

I certainly recognise that this is a progressive industry. Glasshouse growers have invested heavily to incorporate the latest in heating equipment and environmental control technology. They achieve high energy efficiencies of up to 93 per cent. with modern systems, in addition to using the waste CO₂. They have been quick to take up and develop new R and D. They operate in competitive markets, not dependent on European Community support systems. With this background, it is clear that the problems the industry has raised are not just whingeing, but serious issues deserving attention.

On 17 July, Ofgas announced that British Gas had agreed to consider a number of proposals designed to improve the recently introduced system of pricing, and that British Gas expected to reach conclusions on them by September. The proposals were that the number of bands in the price schedule should be expanded in firm and interrupted contract categories to cater for the higher levels of volume; aggregation should be available in both categories; the number of premises for which firm supplies can be aggregated should be increased to cover all customers' circumstances.

The proposals also stated that all legitimate trading affinity groups and energy management companies or other agents offering centralised contracts should be permitted to aggregate for the purpose of price qualification in both the firm and interrupted sectors; that load factors should be introduced without delay as further determinants of the prices charged to customers; that arrangements should be made to "buffer" the impact of changing from one volume band to another; and that the existing matrix of choice should be expanded to provide a further range of options. An understanding should be given that interruptions under contract should, if possible, be pre-arranged with customers.

The proposals continued: a review should be carried out as to the choices which are presently offered in terms of an inflator or indices; some customers have experienced very heavy increases in price and for such customers the transition period should be extended to three years. In a separate press release, British Gas has confirmed that those are the areas that it is now studying.

Those proposals are not aimed specifically at horticulturists. To do so would be to engage in the sort of discrimination that the MMC wished to eliminate, and which has indeed been eliminated by the requirement on British Gas to operate to a published price schedule. However, from the representations made by growers, it seems that, to the extent that they are taken up by British Gas, a number of these proposals could assist the glasshouse sector.

The regulatory arrangements for gas are proving responsive and effective. The original problems were taken to the MMC and the MMC produced a set of interrelated recommendations designed to remove discrimination and encourage competition. Those recommendations have been implemented. British Gas's first price schedule has admittedly resulted in difficulties for some customers and a number of complaints.

These have now been taken up by Ofgas and have resulted in constructive discussion between it and British Gas, and proposals which British Gas has agreed to consider. The system is working as it should and the matters are properly ones for Mr. McKinnon to follow through; it is now up to British Gas to be responsive to its customers' needs.

There is also a European dimension. We in the United Kingdom have gone further towards non-discriminatory pricing and the encouragement to competition than other EC countries. We shall be trying to persuade our partners in Europe to move in the same direction so that there can be no question of assistance to particular sectors in those countries from discriminatory fuel pricing.

I hope that British Gas is changing its attitude, from one which began as perhaps a little negative to becoming more positive.

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important subject on the Floor of the House and I am grateful to the Minister for his attendance this morning. The crisis in the occupational therapy service affects thousands of my constituents and tens of thousands of people throughout the country. I believe that hon. Members share my enormous sense of frustration at the policy towards occupational therapy services. I have received complaints from the disabled and elderly whose lives are limited and restricted because of the grave difficulties in the service. Many are in agony and are prisoners in their own homes.

I begin by commending the work of occupational therapists. The overwhelming number—as many as 95 per cent.—are women and they work under enormous pressure. I also commend the following for bringing to my attention, and therefore allowing me to bring to the attention of the House, information of great relevance: the College of Occupational Therapists; the editor and staff of Therapy Weekly; Mr. Mick Welles, the deputy director of the social services for Leicestershire county council; Councillor Valerie Vaz of the London borough of Ealing and Mr. Ian Buchanan who is one of her officials. I thank them all for their efforts.

Social services departments the length and breadth of the country are only too aware of the severe delays experienced by disabled people in receiving a service from occupational therapists. Many of the departments have considered detailed reports on the problems in their areas. The problems have been compounded by the fact that many more people are becoming aware of what might be available to them and are going directly to the social services departments or going through their doctors. The service has expanded in many areas, but the real problem lies in the recruitment and retention of qualified staff.

The current vacancy level for occupational therapists in Leicestershire is running at 37 per cent. The national average is just below that. A survey by the Association of Directors of Social Services from January to April 1988 revealed a 35 per cent. vacancy rate and that 18 per cent. of posts were vacant for more than six months. The shortage has become critical. The association estimated that nationally it was short of 250 occupational therapists.

The Minister must acknowledge the fact that the Government's policies of reducing the number of patients in hospital have contributed to the problem. Those difficulties have been exacerbated by the provisions of the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986 in relation to the assessment and provision of services to disabled people. That Act will create even greater demands for the services and skills of occupational therapists.

About a year ago, on 26 July 1988, the Association of County Councils social services committee met to discuss this subject and endorsed its members' grave concern at the increasing demand for and limited supply of occupational therapists. In a meeting with the Department of Health and Social Security on 27 June 1988 and in previous meetings with the College of Occupational Therapists and the National Association of Health Authorities in England and Wales, it identified the loss of staff, the need to increase training places and the increased need for sponsorship for training as key elements in the strategy to overcome problems. Because of demand, local authorities such as mine in Leicestershire have had to prioritise work.

Local authorities have agreed that the resources of the occupational therapy service should be concentrated as much as possible on two categories of need as defined by the Department. Category A includes the very severely handicapped—persons who consistently need night care such as help with toileting or turning in bed and who, in addition to night care, need help with basic feeding, washing, dressing and daytime toileting. They are all situations in which handicapped people are unable to care for themselves, as many are bed or wheelchair-bound. Category B includes severely or appreciably handicapped persons who do not need consistent night time care but who may need considerable help from another person in order to cope with at least one essential activity of daily living—dressing or undressing, feeding, bathing or toileting.

Leicestershire and other authorities decided that the resources of the occupational therapy service would be best deployed in accordance with a scale of priorities. Priority 1 was to be acute cases, or referrals showing that, without immediate action by the occupational therapy service, the client's health could be seriously impaired. Included in this priority are those who are chronically ill—referrals showing that action by the occupational therapy service is required immediately to prevent the client's circumstances from rapidly deteriorating, with the possibility of hospital admission.

Priority 2 included urgent cases, or referrals which showed that the client was unable to sustain independence without further support or that informal carers could no longer cope without assistance.

Priority 3 included referrals that showed that the client was unable to sustain independence without further assistance but where support systems were available via informal carers and/or other support services that could at least help in the short term.

As the first call on the resources available to the occupational therapy service was to be for acute cases in priority 1, or the urgent cases in priority 2, the waiting list has built up for the other priority categories.

The waiting lists have become a damning indictment of the present system. According to the latest figures for Leicestershire, from March to April 1989, in the first category 245 cases were dealt with and 315 cases were being progressed. There were no waiting times for those in the acute or chronic category. The priority 2 category was for urgent cases. I remind the House of the terms of reference: referrals which show that the client is unable to sustain independence without further support or if informal carers can no longer cope without assistance. The current waiting time in the Leicester city east division is 36 weeks, or nine months. From March to April 1989, 249 cases were dealt with, 332 cases were ongoing, 450 new cases arrived on the desk of the director of social services, and a staggering 1,680 cases were awaiting allocation or assessment.

Priority 3 cases were clients to be visited as soon as possible. Again I remind the House of the terms of reference: referrals which show that the client is unable to sustain independence without further assistance but where support systems are available via informal carers and other support services, but only in the short term.

The waiting time is more than 35 weeks. From March to April 1989, 111 cases were closed, 115 cases were progressed, 219 new cases arrived, and 727 cases were awaiting allocation or assessment.

Those are the statistics. They do not tell us about the human misery behind them. For example, I refer to the case of Mrs. Jean Wilson of 3 Frisby road, Leicester, who wrote:

"I am writing to you in regards to my situation. I am severely disabled…with a serious heart condition winch means I can hardly walk and I cannot climb stairs…I have now been in the position of not being able to have a bath or sleep in a proper bed or be able to move around in my house for almost six years now. And I am virtually condemned to one room."

There is also the case of Mrs. Patel of 18 Coles close, Leicester. Her son wrote:

"I have a mother, 60 years old, virtually disabled due to severe Rheumatoid Arthritis and can hardly walk without help. She has had three sets of complete knee replacement operations; two on one knee and one on the other. All her joints are gradually degenerating and deforming…The very first day she moved into this new house, she fell down on the staircase after having been to the toilet. She was hurt on the forehead and legs and taken to the Casualty department…Few days before my mother moved in this new house … I spoke to the Social Services regarding the Staircase Lift." They said that there was 'a long waiting list' for this facility."

They could not visit within a short period of time.

There is also the case of Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham, of 50 Croyland Green, Leicester whose granddaughter wrote:

"My grandmother cannot work any longer due to health problems, she has recently suffered a very stressful colostomy operation. My grandfather is 63 years of age and is on the sick at the moment and is expected to be for some time. He suffers from asthma and he is due to go into hospital for an operation on his left leg. Their problems are made much worse because they are in desperate need of a new bath. I briefly explained when we last met, but things have not improved. My grandmother needs to keep herself clean because she is not immune to catch infection with a colostomy and my grandfather has not got the strength to lift her in and out of the bath due to his health deterioration and vast loss of weight."

The same applies to Mrs. Jean George, who lives in Maplin road in Humberstone. She has been waiting for a chairlift. On behalf of Mr. and Mrs. Spring who live on Bath street in Leicester, I wrote on 10 July to the director of social services, stating that I had been consulted by Mr. Spring

"who has told me of the terrible delays that are recurring with regards to the assessment of his home for, in particular, a lift and a shower. As you know, Mr. Spring's wife has a serious disability, and he is having to carry her upstairs. Visits have been made, and promises have been given concerning putting this matter right, but I am sorry to see that there has been very little progress. Mr. Spring himself is in difficulties, because of course this constant activity is putting his own health at risk. This is a very serious matter, and I have written to you about these delays in the past. Indeed, I am minded to raise this matter in Parliament."

I have taken up all those cases and have written to the director of social services, Mr. Brian Waller, who seems as angry and frustrated about the delays as I am. He tells me that there is simply nothing that he can do to ensure that the delays are removed.

It is not all gloom, because I have figures showing that up to the end of the last financial year Leicestershire was ensuring that more home adaptation cases were being processed than almost every other county. It wants to ensure that it can provide a better service.

Within the past month, we have had the findings of the Blom-Cooper independent commission, which was established by the College of Occupational Therapists at the end of 1987. The commission recommended a movement into the community and an expansion of the College of Occupational Therapists. It revealed that in 1988, 549 National Health Service occupational therapists left the profession.

Some initiatives can be taken in the short term. There is a need to increase the number of occupational therapists being trained. The number of training places must be increased, with the ever-increasing number of elderly people. It is imperative that urgent action is taken on training.

We must consider how occupational therapists are being recruited, even if it is on a part-time or sessional basis. For example, because many occupational therapists are women we must consider job shares, the establishment of creche facilities, better pay, refresher courses, and overall changes in the structure of their gradings. Sponsorship for training is another option.

The Government must realise that only quick, firm and effective action can resolve the problem. Every minute of every day someone is suffering because of the delays and the backlog. It is impossible for able-bodied persons to imagine the social and physical pain of those who wait month after month for assessment. In some cases, they are unable to move beyond a bed, a chair or a room.

Twenty years later, we are celebrating the technology of placing a man on the moon. Surely something can be done for those ordinary, helpless citizens. The answer, and the active lives of many people, rest inevitably in the Minister's hands.

I very much welcome the opportunity to debate the occupational therapy profession and the challenges facing it. It is a most important subject and the House is indebted to the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) for raising it this morning.

The House has been sitting all night, and we are grateful for the fact that the Chamber is air-conditioned. Hon. Members present will wish to place on record our thanks for and recognition of not only the Chair but the Clerks and all those who work in the House. Their hard work often goes unrecognised and taken for granted, but I am sure that the hon. Member for Leicester, East and my hon. Friends the Members for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) and for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart) will join me in wishing all the House's staff a restful recess.

I join the hon. Member for Leicester, East in thanking the profession for its hard work, which the hon. Gentleman rightly acknowledged in his speech. I unreservedly congratulate the profession on dealing with ever-increasing demand, for reasons that were accurately cited, in a professional way.

The occupational therapy profession has experienced a tremendous increase in demand for its services. As the hon. Member for Leicester, East said, that is because of the Health Service policy of discharging patients who no longer need medical attention but who may need sustenance and support in their homes, the ageing population, greater rights for disabled people and their increased determination, quite properly, to seek assistance from occupational therapists employed by the Health Service or local authorities.

In the face of that increased demand, the supply of occupational therapists has undoubtedly increased. The problem is that that increase has not been sufficient. There are substantial shortages, and I shall explain some of the ways in which the Health Service is dealing with vacancies.

Although I am the Under-Secretary of State for Health, I am not responsible for Leicestershire county council. I am ultimately responsible for the quality of service delivered, which is monitored and inspected by the social services inspectorate. In the final analysis, local authority occupational therapy services are a matter for the local authority. We are aware of the increased demand for those local authority services. Each year, we discuss their resource implications with local authorities. We have made more resources available through the rate support grant, but no one denies that demand is increasing.

I shall concentrate my remarks on the national picture and mention some of the issues that the hon. Member for Leicester, East raised about vacancies and the supply of more occupational therapists in the future. I understand the problems in Leicester, particularly in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. Leicester is an extreme microcosm of the national position. There is a much higher proportion of vacancies in the hon. Gentleman's constituency for occupational therapists, who work not only for the Health Service but for the local authority.

The subject of the debate is the occupational therapy service nationally. There is more than one service, as occupational therapists, uniquely among professional staff groups, are employed by the National Health Service and local authorities. A common and widely accepted definition of occupational therapy, made by the College of Occupational Therapists, is that it is

"the treatment of physical and psychiatric conditions through specific activities in order to help people reach their maximum level of function and independence in all aspects of daily life."

In practice in the National Health Service, occupational therapists work with people of all ages who may have physical disabilities, including the elderly, the elderly confused, those with learning difficulties and mental health problems, substance abusers or other forms of disability.

Occupational therapy developed in social service departments largely as a response to the statutory obligations placed on local authorities by the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 to provide certain services for people registered as chronically sick or disabled, such as the prescription and provision of disability equipment—mobility aids, bathing aids and hoists—and the assessment and recommendation of adaptions to the person's home. This role is developing to become more of an enabler, aimed at helping the disabled person to maximise his independence and quality of life.

I know that the hon. Member for Leicester, East is active in looking after the interests of all his constituents. In my constituency in Northamptonshire—not a million miles away—I have visited many residential homes for the elderly and many of my elderly and disabled constituents in their own homes. I have seen for myself what can and should be done. There is no doubt that the services of occupational therapists, particularly those working in the community visiting elderly people, can make a tremendous difference to the quality of their lives.

The focus of occupational therapy on the practical resettlement and integration of a whole range of people is closely linked to the Government's care in the community policy. The emphasis on resettlement and integration has seen a substantial increase in demand for occupational therapy services. This is due to a number of factors, including the reduction of the long-stay hospital populations, reduced length of stay in acute hospitals and improved survival rates for people with often very severe disabilities. Demographic changes, such as the increasing number of elderly people in our population, many of whom have physical or mental difficulties, have also generated increased demand for occupational therapy.

Occupational therapists are often the key to the continued independence of the many people who are now rightly living in the community rather than in the various forms of institutional care.

The hon. Member for Leicester, East has implicitly endorsed the Government's policy of seeking to care for as many people as possible in their own homes and the community if they do not require medical attention in hospital. That is a fair statement of a commonly agreed policy and aim.

NHS expenditure on occupational therapy services in England increased from £23 million in 1978–79 to £135 million in 1987–88, which represents a real-terms increase of 102 per cent. Expenditure on community occupational therapy services provided by the NHS, although still a small proportion of the total, has grown at an even greater rate than expenditure on the service as a whole. The real-terms increase in that sector since 1978–79 is 543 per cent.

The increased expenditure has led to more occupational therapists being employed. The number has doubled in 10 years—I am now giving NHS figures—from 2,500 whole-time equivalents in 1979 to about 5,000 whole-time equivalents at present. Of course, some are employed on a part-time or temporary basis. There has also been a rapid growth in the number of helpers and technical instructors employed in the NHS. The total number is about 3,500 whole-time equivalents.

Although the local authority occupational therapy service is much smaller than the NHS service, it has grown significantly since 1979. The number of qualified occupational therapists employed by social services departments in England has about doubled from 550 whole-time equivalents in 1979 to more than 1,100 whole-time equivalents now. The hon. Member for Leicester, East might be interested in the figures for Leicestershire social services department. I am informed that in June 1988 there were 57 whole-time qualified occupational therapists in post and in April 1989—I am sorry that I do not have a more up-to-date figure—there were 71 whole-time equivalent qualified occupational therapists. The comparative figures for non-professional qualified staff were 18 in June 1988 and 59 in April 1989. That is a welcome increase in about a year.

Unfortunately, the NHS and local authorities are affected by shortages of qualified occupational therapists. The hon. Gentleman was right to underline the basic problem, which is that we cannot fill the posts available. The NHS has about a 17 per cent. vacancy factor, and the hon. Gentleman mentioned the much higher figure for local authorities. I assure him that we are not complacent about that because we know that it affects the service to patients and results in some people waiting far too long to see an occupational therapist. We know that that causes particular problems in the local authority service when people are unable to receive the equipment that they need because they are waiting for an assessment by the occupational therapist.

The Department has taken several initiatives to resolve the problem. First, the hon. Member for Leicester, East may be aware that the fees and bursaries for occupational therapy students in England and Wales are currently centrally funded through the Department of Health at a cost of some £8 million. Training to become an occupational therapist can be undertaken in a number of ways. Most of the 17 schools in England and Wales offer the three-year, full-time diploma course, and four-year, day release in-service courses for helpers and technical instructors. In the forthcoming academic year, 1989–90, 60 additional places have been funded. We are therefore on target for a total of at least 160 extra places, funded by us centrally, by 1990–91. We are currently supporting 740 entrants into training each year.

Secondly, in addition to funding bursaries and fees, the Department has provided a great deal of capital—more than £2 million over the past three years—to a number of the schools of occupational therapy which has enabled them not only to increase their intake of students, but to improve their learning environment. That money has enabled two new schools to be opened, in Canterbury and Sheffield. Officials are also exploring possibilities of additional training schools to increase the number of available training places.

Thirdly, the Department has held discussions with local authority representatives about their contribution to the training of occupational therapists. They make a negligible contribution to the three-year diploma courses, although they take 20 per cent. of the available supply of qualified people. I understand that Leicestershire social services department is planning to sponsor two occupational therapy assistants on the proposed in-service course to be held in Derby plus one on the three-year diploma at Northampton. I welcome that and wish that more local authorities would take a positive attitude towards helping to meet the widespread national need for more students to be in training.

Does not the Minister think it a little unfair to expect local authorities to make a larger contribution in view of the expenditure restrictions that have been placed on them by the Secretary of State for the Environment?

I do not accept that argument. As the hon. Gentleman knows, each year there are discussions about centrally provided funds between the Department of the Environment and the local authority associations. The Department of Health is represented at those discussions and an assessment is made of revenue needs, including the cost of providing a local authority occupational therapy service and the cost of training. Training is part and parcel of the supply of services. The Government reach a determination of the central grant available, and it is then for the local authorities—in this case the county council—to decide specifically what the priorities are.

The fourth measure addressing the need to increase supply and reduce shortages is that the Department also recognises that imaginative ways are needed to enable suitable recruits to undertake training. While the profession should be congratulated on the work that it has done so far in this direction, it is felt that there are additional ways in which an increase in student numbers could be achieved. To assist innovative developments in this direction, the Department has provided a total of £135,000 in the current financial year, divided between five of the schools of occupational therapy as pump-priming money. They are to report back in the autumn with options on a variety of topics agreed with us. They include the progression through national vocational qualifications to state registration level, as well as refresher training for those returning to work after a career break.

It is important that we attract back into the NHS—I am now speaking in a slightly wider context—nurses and midwives, particularly women, who have taken a break for family reasons and who, perhaps in middle age, still have a good deal to offer. Refresher courses are clearly needed, particularly in occupational therapy, but there is no reason why those who leave the NHS in their twenties or early thirties to have a family should not plan to return. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would join me in encouraging the breakdown of any prejudices that may remain, not only in the Health Service but in local authorities.

No doubt the hon. Gentleman expects me to mention rates of pay. He may be aware that NHS pay is determined each year following the recommendations of an independent review body for nursing staff, midwives, health visitors and professions allied to medicine. That includes occupational therapists. In making its recommendations, the review body takes full account of the duties and responsibilities of occupational therapists, reflected in evidence submitted by the health departments, trade unions and professional bodies representing the staff concerned. The Government are committed to implementing the recommendations of the review unless there are clear and compelling reasons not to do so.

I should mention that since the inception of the review body in 1983, the pay of occupational therapists in the NHS has been increased by 24 per cent. in real terms. The hon. Gentleman will know that my Department has no direct influence over the pay of occupational therapists in local authorities.

We recognise that it is very important for health and local authorities to retain qualified staff. That is clearly a more effective use of resources than undue reliance on recruiting new people into the profession. Equally important is the attraction of non-practising occupational therapists back into employment. We know that there are many of them, and some health authorities have been successful in identifying this hitherto largely untapped labour pool, providing refresher opportunities and then offering flexible working hours.

As part of the NHS manpower planning advisory group's national professional manpower initiative, we are currently collecting information about retention and returner patterns and the strategies adopted by authorities to attract people back to work in the NHS and local authority sectors. We intend to disseminate that information to employing authorities, and to use it as a basis for considering what further action can be taken by the Department, the NHS and local authorities to effect an improvement in retention and returner rates of qualified occupational therapists.

It must be recognised, however, that good retention reflects good management. Some authorities have paid notable attention to such issues, and have provided good management support with appropriate training and development opportunities for their staff. That has reaped benefits, and I am sure that some authorities with particularly acute staffing problems could learn from the practice of the best authorities. I am not passing judgment on Leicestershire county council, or on the specific problems of Leicester city; I am making a general point.

The hon. Gentlemen concentrated on the difficulties in the local authority services particularly those that he has experienced in his constituency. As I think can be understood from my description of the profession's work, the operation of the local authority service cannot be seen in isolation from that of its NHS counterpart.

Has my hon. Friend the Minister any more to tell us about his six-point plan? Assuming that he has not, may I question him on a point that he has raised?

Some of what he said will be welcome to those working in this profession; my concern, however, is with the backlog and delays in Leicestershire and other authorities. I realise that Leicestershire may be worse off than other areas. Although we have heard that the Minister is pledged to increase the number of training places, it will be three years before we have qualified occupational therapists. Can the Government do anything for local authorities such as Leicestershire in the short term?

It may be convenient for the House and helpful to the hon. Gentleman if I now refer to my information concerning Leicestershire specifically. As I understand it, the hon. Gentleman's constituency covers the city east division of Leicestershire social services. That division has 1·5 occupational therapists in post, with 4·5 vacancies. Most are of more than six months' duration. Four occupational therapy assistants are in post, one of whom is to be sponsored for the three-year diploma course that I mentioned earlier.

Most waiting clients fall into what is described as priority category 2. Category 1 clients are seen within two to three weeks, while category 3 clients are invited to attend a clinic rather than receive a home visit: they are less disabled, and therefore able to travel. Category 2 clients wait for a long time. Most are awaiting assessment for home adaptation.

Leicestershire social services department is discussing with Leicester city council the idea of jointly funding a post just to assess for adaptations to homes. That innovative idea should help to clear much of the backlog. Leicestershire social services is also considering ways of introducing a self-assessment form for clients, so that it can determine who needs an occupational therapist to visit and who could be seen by an assistant. That is not a satisfactory or comprehensive solution; it is a means of satisfying as much demand as possible from the available resources.

Leicestershire social services' salary scales do not encourage occupational therapists to stay in post. If they wish to be promoted, they go back to the NHS. I understand that the division in the hon. Gentleman's constituency has lost two members of staff in that way recently. Recruitment to the NHS occupational therapy services has been good of late. Pay is clearly a factor in the problem in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. As a health Minister, I cannot either take direct action or directly advise the local authority concerned—the county council—on the action that it should take. At least the hon. Gentleman and I seem to agree on the diagnosis of the problem.

Clearly, initiatives can be taken jointly by the county and city councils: I have already referred to one. Management is all-important. I do not know the specific circumstances of Leicester, East or, indeed, the city of Leicester, but good management and good direction can help to improve retention, and can encourage staff who have left to return.

The Minister is being very diplomatic. Perhaps I can tease an answer out of him. Does he consider that an authority—perhaps not Leicestershire county council, but a fictitious county council in exactly the same position—should pay its occupational therapists more than Leicestershire is currently paying?

The hon. Gentleman, with his rapidly acquired parliamentary skill, cannot draw me on that.

Let me emphasise that our policy for care in the community—that is, caring for more elderly people in their own homes if they do not need medical attention in hospital—is one with which I hope all hon. Members agree. The independent Blom-Cooper commission, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, has put valuable effort into looking at the future of the profession. Although its report is not expected until October, I understand that its central theme is likely to be the need for the profession to direct more of its energies, planning and resources towards care in the community, as opposed to care in hospitals or institutions. I fully support that.

I remind the hon. Gentleman and the House that our proposals for the reform of funding for care in the community will mean that local authorities—that includes the social services department of Leicestershire county council—will in future have resources transferred from central Government. The portion of income support which is the care element will go to the local authorities so that they can make the correct decisions about how to provide support for the elderly in their own homes. That includes occupational therapy services and the provision of a wide range of domiciliary services to enable elderly people to stay in their own homes. The local authority will have continued responsibility and enhanced resources to achieve the laudable aim of providing for disabled people who wish to remain in the community.

I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the difficult problems of London traffic. Virtually all commuters and travellers in London agree that our transport system is in danger of seizing up. On Wednesday evening, parts of London ground to a halt. On that evening, the problems were accentuated by various public sector strkes, but many of us felt fear as well as frustration. We were fearful that what happened on Wednesday evening could become normal if nothing is done and the inexorable growth of traffic in central London continues.

It would be difficult to put a price tag on the irritation that I felt on Wednesday after missing an appointment with the American ambassador. It is also difficult to estimate the cost of the irritation that my commuter constituents feel as their journeys are delayed. However, we can estimate with some precision the amount that traffic congestion adds to the bills of some of the larger companies operating in London. For example, British Telecom has estimated that an improvment in traffic speed of just 1·4 mph inside the M25 circle would save the company £7·25 million. Its fuel savings would come close to £900,000 and the saving on drivers' time would account for more than £6 million.

It is ironic that British Telecom would benefit so greatly from a traffic speed-up because on many occasions its roadworks have slowed my journeys through the capital. Yesterday morning, I went to the AA's new road watch centre at Stanmore, where it can monitor delays and traffic hold-ups throughout a large part of the country. That centre will provide an increasingly valuable service to motorists. I noted at the centre that British Telecom was responsible for 11 of the almost 60 major roadworks in London yesterday.

On the desks of Transport Ministers are many plans for improving the transport infrastructure of London. I should like to pay tribute to the work of the former Secretary of State for Transport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon), especially for the paper, "Transport in London", which he prepared and produced earlier this year. But building new railway lines, underground tunnels, light railways and roads takes time as well as hundreds of millions of pounds. While we wait for improvements in the infrastructure, it is vital to make the best use of the roads that we have.

There is general agreement that the basis of any plan to get London moving must be the unclogging of its traffic arteries. Some south London Members—I am one—including my hon. Friends the Members for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley), for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman), for Dulwich (Mr. Bowden), for Lewisham, West (Mr. Maples), for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook), for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) and my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis), who is in his place and who thought up the title, have put forward the "Red Route Plan". It proposes that heavier fines and more traffic warden enforcement should be concentrated on the 300 miles of roads that make up our main arterial system in London. We propose that heavier fines of at least £75 for illegal parking should be levied on those red routes arid that there should be five times the normal level of enforcement.

London's traffic warden force is about 500 under strength. There should be 2,000 traffic wardens and there are fewer than 1,500. The extra 500 wardens should be concentrated on those 300 miles of red routes. The red route concept of concentrated enforcement has powerful allies. It is backed by the AA, the CBI and the Institution of Civil Engineers. I cannot speak for the police, but I know that their thinking and our thinking is on the same lines. I hope that the red route proposals will soon be backed by the Government.

One of the roads that would obviously be earmarked as a red route is the south circular road, which has been heavily congested for as long as I can remember. Some years ago, the Department of Transport commissioned a comprehensive study of ways to relieve congestion on the south circular. Among the many proposals put forward were two plans for building alternative roads which would have cut through my constituency. Other south London constituencies are affected by similar proposals. If either of those new roads were built, it would cost hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money.

The drawing of broad brush strokes by the consultants on their planning maps has inadvertently blighted hundreds if not thousands of homes in Beckenham. I do not think that either of those routes will ever be built, and there is no need for them. Once again, I beg the Department of Transport to make an early announcement about that. When I recently drove six miles along the south circular on a Friday afternoon I saw 143 vehicles illegally parked and there was not one traffic warden to be seen. It would be absurd to spend hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money to duplicate a road that is so often used as an illegal parking lot.

Apart from greater control of illegal parking, we propose the establishment of a more powerful London traffic management unit within the Department of Transport. We certainly do not want to create a new "son of GLC". We think that the proper place for this unit is within the Department of Transport. Once again, the proposal is backed by the AA and the CBI, although the Institution of Civil Engineers has rather more grandiose plans.

Part of the job of the London traffic management unit would be to ensure that artificial obstructions are not created on our roads. I am in favour of reducing the speed of traffic in residential areas and I am glad that the Department of Transport has made it easier to install road humps. However, I note that a number of councils, notably Hammersmith and Fulham, are going further and closing off side roads so that more and more traffic is forced to use the main trunk roads. I regret to say that Kensington and Chelsea council has recently gone even further and deliberately reduced the width of Kensington high street to one lane at one point, thus creating additional traffic jams on a road which already carries 10 major bus routes, quite apart from the admirable new hoppa buses, the Green Line coach services and the Heathrow buses. That act of traffic vandalism has, absurdly, been approved by the existing London traffic management unit of the Department of Transport, which surely could not have understood what it was doing. We need a traffic management unit with a remit to keep London's traffic moving, rather than creating artificial traffic jams.

One vital role to be played by the traffic management unit would be overseeing the roadworks in central London. The Horn report on roadworks control highlighted the lack of planning of roadworks not only in London but throughout the country. No part of the red route system should be dug up until the work plan has been approved by the traffic management unit. On the new red route, continuous working should be the goal, with a great deal of work being done at night. Spending £10 million per year for 10 years on subsidising quicker roadworks in central London would do more to help London's buses, lorries, taxis and cars than spending £100 million on a new road in Bromley or Barnes.

I hope that a London traffic management unit will also be given a key role in setting a parking policy in central London. In the immediate future, that will provide the best means to control the use of private cars in the central area. I admit that I usually drive to the Palace of Westminster rather than using public transport, because I can be sure of finding a place in our admirable underground car park. It was once said that the House of Commons was the best club in Europe. I doubt whether that is still so, but it certainly provides the best car park in London.

If we are to limit the number of cars in central London, firm central control must be kept on parking policy. At the moment, the responsibility for parking is untidily split between the London boroughs, the police and the Department of Transport. Once an effective London traffic management unit has been established, the lead role in establishing a sensible parking policy for central London must pass to the Department of Transport. I also hope that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and my right hon. Friend the new Secretary of State for Transport—whom we wish well—will combine their forces to persuade my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer that money raised by parking fines should be used to recruit and maintain an effective warden force.

I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said, but should not enforcement of the regulations be transferred to the boroughs, so that it is carried out sensitively and with local knowledge?

There is a strong case for transferring such responsibility to the boroughs in outer London, but inner London parking policy is so important that it should be the responsibility of the Department of Transport.

London's roads are dangerous. I pay tribute to the former Minister for Roads and Traffic, my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley)—who has now gone to Northern Ireland, the part of the United Kingdom with the worst road safety record of all. Even in the early 1970s, when terrorism was at its worst, the road toll in Northern Ireland far exceeded the toll from terrorism, so there will be much for my hon. Friend to do. In the past three years, he has done a great deal to publicise the cause of road safety.

I am sure that all of us have been moved by the story of Don Kell, the pensioner who was shot while having a go at bank robbers. Mrs. Kell, who saw part of the incident from a distance, thought that she was watching the result of a traffic accident. That is understandable, because last year 488 Londoners were killed in traffic accidents, while 146 died as a result of criminal violence. In other words, motorists are responsible for three times as many deaths in London as criminals. However, the situation is improving. Thirty years ago, 765 people were killed on London's roads—277 more than died last year.

In part, this improvement may be caused by the congestion that we deplore. A car that can travel at only 2 mph will do less damage than a car travelling at 40 mph, if it hits someone. The main causes of the dramatic fall in the number of deaths on London roads, however, have been the drink-driving legislation and the seat belt legislation passed in recent years. The best opportunity that we have to reduce the appalling toll on London's roads would come from passing a new Road Traffic Bill based on the many and sensible recommendations in the North report. Those recommendations will make it much easier for the police to enforce speed limits, and speed is a major killer on our roads.

What is needed from the Government? We need higher parking penalties on our red roads and another 500 traffic wardens, to be concentrated on the red routes. They should be left to the control of the Metropolitan police in inner London, however, and on the main routes, so that there is central direction on parking policy. We need the establishment of a high-powered London traffic management unit with powers to override obstacles placed by some London boroughs and to exercise proper management of roadworks. We need legislation on the Horn report on roadworks and on the North report on traffic law. These steps will not solve our traffic problems but they will provide a desperately needed measure of relief for the travellers of London and people generally.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart) most warmly on initiating this Adjournment debate and giving us the opportunity to discuss many matters. He has given a great deal of thought to the subject matter of the debate and the shopping list with which he ended his speech was a clear sign of the way in which he has organised his thinking. He has set the agenda for us to think carefully about the issues to which he has referred, and I pay tribute to him for what he has done.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham was fulsome in his tributes, and I thank him for that. He referred especially to my right hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon), with whom it was a great privilege to work for a year. My right hon. Friend was extremely concerned about all the matters that my hon. Friend has raised, and perhaps especially about the London assessment studies. He understood that, necessary though these studies are, they create tensions and problems in the consituencies of hon. Members on both sides of the House. My right hon. Friend wished to bring the studies to a conclusion as rapidly as possible so as to end some of the uncertainty and the blight. We expect to receive the consultants' reports in the late summer. There will then be a period for public comment before we decide which, if any, of the consultants' ideas should be taken forward. We have said already that we shall not support schemes which do more harm than good.

The assessment studies have the potential for making a major contribution to improving the quality of life in London. I should emphasise that they are not aimed at providing short cuts for motorists through London. Instead, their purpose is to relieve environmental problems and to reduce congestion and casualty rates. I can assure my hon. Friend that there will be no unnecessary road building. Our aim is to ensure that motor vehicles serve the needs of London and do not rule its infrastructure. My right hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West was keen to try to rule out options which could not be carried forward as soon as possible, and I have every reason to believe that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Parkinson), the new Secretary of State, will see things in much the same terms.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham was also fulsome in his tributes to my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley), who was for many years the Under-Secretary of State for Transport with responsibilities for roads, and I agree that he did tremendous work, especially on road safety.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham was keen to hear that we were to bring forward legislation to implement the North report recommendations. He will understand the problems in committing myself on that. We welcomed the recommendations, and legislation will be brought forward as soon as parliamentary time can be found.

My hon. Friend referred to the events of Wednesday evening, in which I was caught up. I do not know whether that statement provides limited consolation for my hon. Friend. It gives me the opportunity to say that the efforts made by the public to get to work in London during the recent difficulties have been magnificent and are to be applauded. I think that my hon. Friend was witnessing the symptoms of those great efforts. I do not think that there is any distance between the two of us in recognising that time wasted in traffic has a value and that time spent in that way reduces the quality of life for people in London. For both those reasons, we need to do what we can to improve traffic speeds through London.

The thrust of my hon. Friend's remarks was that we can look to build new roads and new railways, but that we must also make good use of what we have already. I could not agree with him more. Perhaps he will be patient with me for a few moments while I sketch the background in terms of some of the big projects that we have in mind. I shall put my remarks in the context of our general approach. My hon. Friend will know from the document on transport in London to which he referred that there are five main elements to our approach. These are, first, to provide through-road traffic with good alternative routes around London and, wherever possible, to avoid the central area. Secondly, we seek to make the best possible use of existing roads throughout London, especially those on the strategic London road network. Thirdly, we wish to ensure that London is linked properly to national and international transport networks. Fourthly, we wish to tackle the worst places and causes of congestion and improve conditions in areas where transport problems a re especially severe. That is where the London assessment studies come in. Fifthly, we wish to promote safe, efficient and effective public transport services, including those which will meet the demand for rail services to, from and within central London.

We recognise that different transport modes are particularly suited to different purposes. We recognise, for example, that rail and underground transport are the main means of radial movement into central London, and that the underground system, buses, taxis and walking are the main means of travel in the inner and central areas. We are aware that cars dominate in the outer areas. Our approach is being implemented urgently and large sums are being invested. Our approach is further described in the document on strategic planning guidance for London, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environmemt will he publishing this afternoon.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham knows that public transport is my particular concern. British Rail and the London Underground are undertaking major investment programmes to improve the quality of their services and to increase capacity. British Rail is planning to invest more than £1 billion on Network SouthEast in the next five years, the bulk of it on higher capacity and more comfortable and efficient rolling stock. I know that my hon. Friend has a constituency interest in that. London Regional Transport will be investing more than £400 million. Its investment programme includes a wide range of measures to ease congestion at stations and on trains. The Docklands light railway is being enormously upgraded in an attempt to keep pace with development and to provide higher capacity.

We are improving London's trunk roads to take traffic around central London. There are 38 major schemes planned or under construction, with works costing more than £1 billion. Priority is being given to improving orbital movement around the North Circular road and improved access to Docklands and east London. We are aiming also to realise the potential capacity of the present network by removing the worst pinch points and providing environmental relief in inner London and improved links to the M25, the Channel tunnel and Heathrow. My hon. Friend will know of the study on the M25 that was produced yesterday. We shall have to consider the consultants' recommendations extremely carefully.

In 1973, for good or ill, the Greater London council abandoned the South Circular road. By the time that it was taken on by the Government in 1974, no attempt had been made to provide for the additional traffic that would clearly need to use the M25. The M25 was originally designed to cater for the estimated amount of traffic on the assumption that a proper South Circular road had been constructed. In the absence of such a road, were not the then Labour Government extremely irresponsible in not providing a much better and larger M25 to take account of the fact that the South Circular road had not been provided?

My hon. Friend has a much better understanding of these matters than I have. If he is suggesting that the Labour Government were irresponsible, I would find that easy to believe. I am happy to agree with my hon. Friend.

One of the problems with the M25 was convincing inspectors at public inquiries that a road of that capacity was needed. There were instances when inspectors were most reluctant to grant planning permission for a six-lane motorway. They thought that a four-lane motorway would do. I mention that because our perceptions have changed enormously. It is difficult to remember now that there was not then the expectation of continued economic growth of the kind that we have seen throughout the 1980s. There was no shortage of people assuring the Government that economic growth was impossible. Yet they now claim to be the people who saw so clearly that more roads were needed. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne) leads me to digress.

The majority of roads in London are borough roads, and we are supporting an increasing number of borough road schemes with transport supplementary grant from the Department of Transport. Schemes receiving our support include town centre improvement and bypass schemes which help the movement of traffic and create a safer, more pleasant environment for pedestrians, and schemes which provide better industrial access.

We believe that safer and smoother traffic flows will result from effective parking controls, the extension of advanced and responsive traffic light control systems and the development of in-car route guidance and driver information systems. All those are receiving high priority. My hon. Friend will know of the Road Traffic (Driver Licensing Information Systems) Act 1989, which makes it possible to introduce an Autoguide. That is an example of using the latest developments in technology to help ease traffic congestion. The United Kingdom Transport and Road Research Laboratory has estimated that in London, Autoguide could cut average journey times by about 10 per cent. and mileage by about 6 per cent. The Department is about to enter into negotiations with GEC on a licence for a large scale Autoguide pilot scheme in the London area. We expect the private sector to finance the development and operation of the system. The pilot scheme could be in operation by the early 1990s and the Department of Transport will monitor the results. If the pilot scheme is successful, a full commercial scheme could be available to the public by the early to mid-1990s. The development of the Radio data system by the BBC could also be important as it has the potential to relay specific traffic messages to people through their car radios, giving information on traffic conditions. The information will be fast, reliable and local rather than nationwide. That could be of considerable significance in combating unpredictable congestion caused by accidents or by burst water mains.

We are constantly looking for new ideas for practical and more radical solutions to London's traffic problems. In that context, I should like to thank my hon. Friends for their constructive proposals for improving the management of traffic in London by means of a "red routes" system for London roads. The proposals for a network of priority routes have received considerable support and certainly merit the most careful consideration. I confirm to my hon. Friend that we are giving them urgent and serious attention. I should perhaps explain that a network of priority routes already exists in London, although not in the form that my hon. Friend envisages. This is the strategic London road network, which consists of 550 miles of trunk and borough roads forming the most important routes in London. Although it comprises only 7 per cent. of London's roads, it carries 35 per cent. of London's traffic, including more than half its bus traffic and 45 per cent. of its freight traffic. Its importance is emphasised in the traffic management guidance that my right hon. Friend has issued to the London boroughs. This guidance seeks a coherent approach to the management of traffic on the network and encourages improved safety and smoother traffic flows through improved junction controls and strict control of waiting and parking.

It will not surprise my hon. Friend to hear that there are bound to be some potential difficulties with parts of what he and other hon. Friends have suggested. The idea of a London traffic management unit is interesting, but we would not wish to create more bureaucracy where that could be avoided. We believe that the concept of strategic priority routes is a good one, however, so we are giving careful thought to how to overcome the potential bureaucratic pitfalls.

I can give my hon. Friend more immediate encouragement on his call for the greater co-ordination of street works. This matter will be addressed in the legislative changes that we are proposing for the reform of the Public Utilities Street Works Act 1950. Under our proposals, highway authorities will be given a power to designate as "traffic sensitive" streets where works are likely to cause severe disruption and to prescribe hours of working. In addition, the authorities will be under a duty to co-ordinate excavations with a view to minimising disruption and undesirable combinations of excavations. That duty will apply to utility services' excavations, the highway authorities' own works and works carried out under licence by others, such as builders. The proposed computerised street works register should also be a valuable aid to co-ordinating works. It is envisaged that all utilities and highway authorities will be linked to the register, which will provide a cheaper and faster system for notification of works than the present system of paper notices. I am sure that all that will be welcome.

I have acquired considerable experience in Docklands of seeking to co-ordinate the activities of all the various undertakings and public bodies which have the power to dig up our roads and the potential to cause disruption. I am mindful of the importance of co-ordination, because I understand that there is nothing more frustrating to the motorist than to be held up because of the poor co-ordination and management of these activities.

I hope that my hon. Friend will be reassured that the Government welcome his work on how to deal with traffic in London. The Government's mind is certainly not closed to considering constructive proposals such as those that my hon. Friend has put forward. We need to place substantial emphasis on the ways in which the existing road network can be fully utilised. To a large extent, that may be the product of new technology through radio data systems, better signing and better information, but the proposals that my hon. Friend has put forward deserve the fullest consideration.

My hon. Friend's proposals have broad implications for the respective roles of the Secretary of State, the London boroughs and the Metropolitan police. The proposals therefore need very careful study and I am in no position to announce any conclusions today. Nevertheless, my hon. Friends have given us much food for thought, and, typically, have shown their deep concern to improve the quality of life in London. I take this opportunity to thank my hon. Friend for raising the subject, to wish him a very happy summer break and safe motoring. May his way be ever free of jams throughout the summer period.

Let me take the House away from the dusty highways and byways of the traffic problems in central London to a wonderland north of the border—to my constituency, where we nevertheless have problems of our own. I would not wish London's congestion problems on anywhere, but we have different problems, and I am grateful for the opportunity to raise them in the House. I hope that I have not detained the Minister too late and kept him from his holidays. In any case, if he were flying from Gatwick he would have transport problems, which I hope to avoid when I go on holiday later next week.

I seek to raise the matter of rural development in my constituency. I should like to make one or two general points, but the main thrust of my speech today is that there is a need to develop an overall coherent strategy for rural planning in south-east and south-west Scotland. Over the past 10 years, rural areas have been neglected. They have not been in the forefront of the minds of Government policymakers. The needs of rural areas are different, but they are nonetheless just as great and deserve just as much attention as the needs of places in inner London suffering from traffic congestion.

I accept that, in the past, the neglect of rural policy making has been defensible to some extent. In the past 20 years, a large amount of agricultural support was guaranteed from the Exchequer and, subsequently, from European Community funds. I know that the Minister has a deep interest in matters relating to the countryside and I pay credit to him for that. All of us with experience of rural areas recognise that agriculture has been an effective mechanism to allow resources devoted from the Exchequer or the EC to trickle down through the many support and ancillary industries. Although agriculture has never provided any local luxury as far as I have been able to discover, it has been the floor of local economies in rural areas.

In the past, therefore, the needs of those rural areas have not been as great. By and large, the Ministry of Agriculture, supported by the Scottish Development Agency and the local authorities, has managed to support a tolerable standard of living in our landward areas. I do not believe that that is necessarily so now, and it will not be the case automatically in the future. The Minister will appreciate that there have been substantial changes in the type of EC farm support and on the quantity of money that we can expect from support mechanisms aimed at maintaining agricultural life in the future. The Government must recognise that.

We know that, now, the Commission has plans that are much more concerned to support income via diversification and other schemes than to subsidise primary farm produce as in the past. That significant change will have a substantial impact on the countryside. The Minister will also appreciate that, increasingly, our countryside is being fought over by competing conservation and development interests. The casualties tend to be local people. Young local people, for example, trying to enter the local housing market for the first time are unable to compete with incoming commuters. The shift inwards to the towns from villages and peripheral valleys is accelerating at an alarming rate in my area. Such problems are not unique to the Borders, but there are special circumstances in south-east and south-west Scotland. In the Borders, in particular, we have a very narrow range of employment opportunities provided by the existing economic base. That narrow range, taken together with the changes to agricultural funding, means that the future could be bleak for the Borders.

A great deal of effort has gone into supporting and stimulating social and economic activity to provide jobs and housing for people in the inner cities. I do not criticise that, as it is necessary and such Government work as has been undertaken is welcome. A great deal of work has gone into stimulating economic and social activity to provide jobs and other facilities for those who live in the Highlands and Islands Development Board area. I do not want to criticise the excellent development work undertaken by that board, but nothing has been done in south-east or south-west Scotland and that situation cannot be allowed to continue any longer. Those areas, that are outside the remit of the HIDB and outside the central industrial belt, are areas whose time has come for some attention.

In the Borders, textiles, together with farming, forestry, fishing and tourism will continue to be the main elements in the local economic mix. If Lord Plumb's recent statements are to be believed—he should know, as a former President of the European Parliament—the EC expects to save some £2·8 billion on agriculture in the next four years. My constituents want to know how much of that saving will be devoted to other developments outside agriculture in the rural areas.

In the next two or three years, the multi-fibre arrangement will be renegotiated in Europe. That will largely determine the continued future viability of a large section of the local textile industry—45 per cent. of employment in Hawick in my constituency is directly or indirectly derived from that industry. Those workers believe that they are under a potential threat from a renegotiated or an abandoned multi-fibre arrangement.

My hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) is present. He would agree with me that the fishing industry provides a substantial proportion of jobs in our constituencies, in towns such as Eyemouth in Berwickshire. Quota restrictions, the lack of any sensible long-term policy for restructuring the fleet, and high interest rates are putting the catching sector under severe short-term and middle-term financial strain. Worse than that, the onshore processing industry in my area is suffering great financial difficulties and possible closure because of the lack of raw material being landed by the fleets as a result of restrictions on total allowable catches and the quotas.

Forestry is also passing through a troubled period. Of my constituency, 15 per cent. is already dedicated to afforestation and, increasingly, contractors are being used who do not follow the old-style practices of the Forestry Commission. That change is causing problems and distress, because such forests are replacing viable farming, particularly sheep units, in some of the remote valleys of my constituency.

Tourism is underdeveloped because of the lack of resources available to local authorities and to private contractors to renovate and to keep in good repair the buildings and environment of some of the local border towns. In the Borders, the inescapable signs of potential financial distress are there for all to see. The emergent feeling is that the economic base is extremely fragile, and that is a cause of concern. I have reached the inescapable conclusion that the Government must now develop a coherent policy to enable some of the deep-seated structural problems to be tackled. There is no shortage of ideas or methods for tackling them. The precondition of everything is for the Government to recognise the need for a coherent strategy to approach some of those problems.

I believe that the Borders should be designated a rural development area—I have put that argument at great length in the past. Since 1983, when I was elected, I have been arguing that case on the basis that the funding need not be enormous sums from the Exchequer. I believe that modest amounts of central Government finance could unlock and seed-fund development in the Borders. Such investment would repay handsome dividends at every level.

During the past few years, we in the Borders have been discriminated against by a series of Government decisions that have excluded the region from any access to external funding sources. That is now causing us increasing problems, and our region is at a consistent disadvantage in comparison with others, such as Tayside, west Scotland and the central industrial belt. This is also prejudicial to us compared with some rural areas south of the border, which have been earmarked for rural development assistance status.

The Government withdrew assisted area status from the region in August 1982, so that the Border area was no longer eligible for EEC regional development funds. That was a considerable blow, and we still feel its force. In April 1985, the Borders lost priority status for European social fund assistance, thereby limiting the finance available for, for example, vocational training. Recently, the Commission has reviewed the structural funds provided under the European regional development fund, the social fund and FEOGA—the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund—and brought them together under five objectives.

In May 1987, the Borders regional council made an urgent plea to the Scottish Office to set up a rural development fund in the region. The request was considered, but no action was taken, so we lost by default. The area gets no help through urban aid. Lynwood in Hawick has been designated for urban aid, which it certainly needs. However, I believe that the Government could make a case for urban aid to be a substantial contributor in more than just one street.

Our battle with the Scottish Office has recently focused on the question whether the Borders should be included in, or excluded from, the list of areas that are to receive help under the Commission's five new objectives. I am aware that there is an opportunity under objective 3 to get money for the region for vocational training for the long-term unemployed, although it is a restricted category. The potential exists also to help people between 18 and 25 under objective 4. The Government must understand that it is essential that we have access to objective 5b funds. I understand that the areas eligible for those funds are regularly reviewed and that the Government argued the case for the inclusion of the Borders. Although we were refused last time, I hope that the Government will give a fair wind to everything that the regional authority and others are doing in the Borders to sustain their case so that we are eligible next time for objective 5b funds.

There are a number of different ways in which a rural development agency or rural development fund could underpin the economy of the Borders. A number of obvious things could be done on the economic development front. On the rural housing front, there is a crying need for housing associations agencies and local authorities to stimulate much more activity. On the transport and community project fronts, there are many proposed methods of making progress that could be adopted if they were co-ordinated by a local planning authority that had access to rural development fund money. A rural development agency could select from a shopping list of issues that need attention.

I should like to consider some specific matters of urgent concern in the Borders. I hope that the Minister will comment on the status of the Borders in terms of the crucial matter of objective 5b eligibility. I hope also that he will say something about the progress made on the application by the Eyemouth harbour trustees for the expansion of Eyemouth harbour. The fishing industry is in a state of flux. I have referred to the short-term difficulties which are causing some distress in the area. Unemployment in the Eyemouth area is marginally higher than the Scottish national average. The fishing industry is important in providing jobs. If the industry is not underpinned in the long-term, the employment prospects will be bleak.

Much work has gone into putting together the expansion plan for Eyemouth harbour. This work has brought together, uniquely, the regional authority, the Scottish Development Agency and the trustees, and the proposal has the support of everyone with any part to play in the economic life of the Borders. We are 100 per cent. behind it. A substantial sum is involved, but the trustees will make a major contribution. However, the local feeling is that the Government are going slightly cold on the application. What is the Government's view on the proposed expansion of Eyemouth harbour?

Although this matter does not come within the departmental responsibilities of the Minister, I hope that Scottish Office Ministers will take a keen and continuing interest in the multi-fibre arrangement negotiations, because the textile industry is important to the employment base in Roxburghshire. I understand that, in the current Uruguay round of talks on the general agreement on tariffs and trade, the Government are prepared to accept some linkage between expanded access by developing countries to our markets if we can get liberalisation of our export trade in some other parts of the world.

My local textile industry is prepared to contemplate that kind of protection, as opposed to continuation of the MFA, only if it gets cast-iron guarantees that, if it yields its markets to the textile industries in developing countries, in return other countries must yield when we try to sell our goods in the developing markets of the middle east and far east. The Scottish Office must play a role in the negotiations.

I am worried about the stance taken by the European Commission in terms of its mandate for Ministers in the GATT talks. This gives away too much too soon. The guarantees in the recently published document on this matter are not sufficient to satisfy my local textile industry that its interests will be protected. It is important to the textile industry and to my constituency that the Government should put up a strenuous fight to get either cast-iron guarantees under GATT or a renegotiated MFA that protects the local industry. It is not that I favour protectionism, but we want to establish a system of fair trade whereby we have the same opportunities to make inroads into export markets in developing countries as they have into ours.

Another major anxiety facing the Borders is the maintenance of our road network. I know that the Minister is about to give birth to a policy review of trunk roads south of Edinburgh; it is expected at the end of this month or early next. He will recognise the importance of that study to the Borders region. I should like an assurance from him that the regional authority will be fully consulted and be given every opportunity to make its views known before administrative or ministerial decisions are taken.

As for subsidiary and minor roads, the Minister will know that, in the process of extracting timber from the forests, an inordinate amount of damage can be done to rural side roads. Formerly, the local authority had access to European assistance to make good the damage, but that is no longer so, and the result is a high cost. I know that the Department has made some concessions in terms of environmental improvement schemes and has managed to channel extra capital allocations in the direction of the regional council. Will that level of funding continue and increase?

We in the Borders are prepared to give the new Government initiative on Scottish Enterprise a fair wind—I understand that an agency is due to be set up in the Borders. Local people are prepared to give it their best shot and try to make it a vehicle of development, both under the amalgamated SDA and under the new powers that Scottish Homes has. It presents an opportunity to use the new framework of Scottish Enterprise to help to develop the Borders in future.

I hope that the Government will look carefully at the DRAW initiative which ended in 1987—a system which developed rural area workshops. The initiative was a great success, but unfortunately funding was withdrawn in 1987, so it produced no continuing benefits. The PRIDE scheme unfortunately had a poor response, but both short-lived projects contained the germ of an idea which could in future provide great benefits for the region—if it is given a little finance to speed it on its way.

I know that the local authority is worried about the provision of green field industrial sites on which to put up factories for incoming industry. Much puzzlement followed the Secretary of State's recent decision on the planning application for the Appletree Hall site in Hawilck. Against the background of the problems that I have explained—the narrow base of manufacturing industry in the Borders—the local authority thought that it had identified a place that was ripe for development as a major green field site for incoming industry.

After a local inquiry, the Secretary of State saw fit to refuse a compulsory purchase provision for the local authority, which left it with an area earmarked for development under its local plan but with no major greenfield site within the precincts of Hawick or other major Borders towns. That has stymied many of the authority's best efforts to provide locations for incoming industry and, on the face of it, it looks like the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. I hope that if the local authority identifies sites which it perceives as right for development in future, the Government will look more sympathetically on its applications.

There is also scope for town centre regeneration. Many outstanding buildings in the Border towns—in Kelso, Jedburgh, Chirnside and Hawick—are not being used to the full. Redevelopment is expensive and difficult and it is hard for the local authority to persuade private owners of these buildings to undertake large-scale redevelopment when it has no inducements or incentives to offer them. A small amount of money through a rural development fund or agency could give the local authority something with which to go to private owners or commercial businesses in key areas such as Kelso square and Jedburgh market square so that some of these buildings can be tastefully redeveloped. The local authority would like to do that, but the planning authority is restrained by the financial limits placed on it by central Government.

A rural development fund or agency could also co-ordinate trade and industrial promotions. The Minister knows that "Fashion 88", a project mounted in conjunction with the local authority and the chamber of commerce in the Borders last year, was a considerable success. It had a triumphant impact, and many internationally known designers attended. Its consequences are only now beginning to flow through the system, and many valuable economic and commercial contacts were made during the time that it lasted. I congratulate everyone involved in it and I hope that it will be repeated in the future. With good will and the right people doing the right things at the right time, local authorities have a great deal of scope to engage in industrial and trade promotions such as "Fashion 88".

Environmental improvements organised by the SDA in the recent past have been a conspicuous success in many Borders towns and have brought in their train economic development which would not have taken place under other circumstances. There is much scope for rural development agencies in the hands of local authorities or similar bodies to make considerable improvements to the Borders. The list of possibilities is inexhaustible, and the potential is great.

A quarter of the population of the borders live outwith settlements of more than 500 people. Even since I was elected in 1983, and certainly in the past last few decades, I have noticed a difference as I travel up the Craik and the Borthwick valleys, or up to Westruther or Longformacus. Rural areas have been suffering from the fragmentation of Government policy and from the competing interests of pressure groups. The local authority has a role to play in this too. I congratulate Borders regional council, which is a progressive and forward-looking body, doing the best it can subject to central Government restraints.

Other areas, such as the Highlands and Islands, which has its development board, and England and Wales, which have a rural development commission, are in a better position than we are to look after their interests. I know that COSLA is working through the rural affairs committee, and I know that a rural development programme is in place in Berwickshire, and that the local rural area development opportunities study will provide valuable ideas. But we have been here before: we have done pilot projects and examined ideas, and we know what needs to be done, but we enjoy no coherent assistance from central Government. In the past we have been able to live with that, relying on the continued prosperity of agriculture to support our rural area. I do not believe that we can do that with any confidence indefinitely into the future. I warn the Government that, if they do not take steps in that direction, I shall return year after year to the House to argue the case until Ministers see some sense and develop a rational, coherent and over-arching strategy for rural development, not just in the Borders, but throughout the United Kingdom.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) on his comprehensive and good speech. I will provide a slightly more optimistic note than he revealed in his speech. I have good news for the hon. Member, and for the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace). The House of Commons Library has revealed that the unemployment rates in their constituencies are among the lowest in Scotland. Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale has the lowest level of unemployment, followed by Orkney and Shetland, which is followed by Roxburgh and Berwickshire. The two Borders constituencies are in the top three and that is a very encouraging sign for the future.

I want to elaborate on the point made by the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire about the comprehensive strategy. I am very sympathetic to his theme of revitalising the villages. I should stress that building on local government initiatives is something which the Scottish Office will be pursuing in consultation with the development agencies and other interested bodies in the months to come. The hon. Member is aware that there is evidence of activity on that front within his constituency.

The Scottish Development Agency is working with local authorities and the local communities in the villages of Creetown and Newcastleton to implement projects to improve the environment and regenerate the local economies. In Newcastleton, the agency has undertaken a scheme in partnership with a local traders' group to renovate the frontages of retail premises and to improve external display signs. The agency has also supported the promotional activities of the traders' group and similar initiatives are progressing in Creetown. The agency is also currently involved in a study of the Berwickshire area which aims to identify ways of stimulating the development of the rural economy.

I visited Roxburgh and Berwickshire district council last year and last Friday I visited Tweeddale and Ettrick and Lauderdale with the right hon. Member who represents that constituency. I should stress that Scottish Homes will complete a rural housing strategy by mid-1990 and it has special teams set up to look specifically at the needs of housing in rural areas. After visiting Ettrick and Lauderdale, representations were passed to Scottish Homes that there should be more Housing Association activity there. I take the point raised by the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire about town centre regeneration, and improvement grants have an important part to play in that.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire on covering this subject, which he pursues with commendable vigour on behalf of his constituents. In a period when there are many changes under way and in prospect for Scotland as a whole, it is entirely appropriate that we should take this opportunity of considering how these affect developments in the Borders.

The hon. Gentleman was right to call attention to some of the problems of rural communities. I do not wish to underestimate those for a moment, but I would suggest that they should be kept in proper perspective. Rural areas of Scotland, including the Borders, have performed relatively better in terms of population growth and employment than other parts of Scotland in recent years. Over the period 1971 to 1987, when the overall population of Scotland fell by 2·4 per cent., the population of the Borders rose by 4·3 per cent. I know that the increase in the Borders reflects in part a rise in the numbers in the retirement age groups, but that in itself is surely a tribute to the fact that many people find the Borders an attractive place to live and are no doubt making their own contribution to the life of the local communities in which they have settled.

The Borders, too, have been relatively insulated from the radical changes which have affected the rest of the Scottish economy in recent years. This is largely due to the fact that the region's manufacturing base is founded on distinctive local industries—particularly wool, textiles and knitwear—rather than on the traditional heavy manufacturing industries which are now in decline. That is not, of course, to say that the local manufacturing sector has not had to work equally hard to keep up with the process of change. Indeed, it is a tribute to the effort and initiative of the local industrial community that these industries on which the Borders have depended for generations are still continuing to show their strength and resilience in an increasingly competitive world. This is, of course, largely due to the readiness with which Borders industries have adapted to technological change, and have sought to harness the new technologies to the task of remaining competitive. In that respect they have set an example which Scottish industry as a whole would do well to follow.

The strength of the Borders economy is well reflected in the latest economic indicators. Next to Grampian, unemployment in the Borders is the lowest in mainland Scotland. Since January 1987, the numbers unemployed have fallen by almost 2,000—or 46 per cent.—and the current regional rate of unemployment is 3·6 per cent. below the Scottish average, which itself is at its lowest for over eight years. Clearly, therefore, the region's economic base is sound, despite the problems which may persist in particular communities. At the same time, it is very much in the region's interest to broaden its industrial base so far as possible, and I welcome the efforts which are being made to diversify into new industries such as electronics. Important as the traditional industries continue to be, I believe it is through such diversification that the region's economy—like that of Scotland as a whole—can look forward to an increasingly assured future.

Any debate on rural development must take into account the impact of agriculture. It underpins the economic and social well-being of all our rural areas, not only through direct employment but in related industries. In Scottish terms, agriculture contributes around £1·3 billion a year to Scotland's national output.

At a general level, agriculture, which is of the considerable importance to the Borders, is having to face up to change as we continue to reform the common agricultural policy. Change is never easy, but farmers themselves recognise that the process must continue if the long-term future of our agriculture is to be secured. The days are gone when commodities could be produced without regard to what the markets could absorb or the cost of production. Such inefficiencies did not benefit the farmer, the consumer, or the taxpayer. We have paid a high price for over-production encouraged by the common agricultural policy—£11·5 billion is spent every year on storage and disposal. Action was, and continues to be, necessary to tackle these problems.

In this context, we welcome the recent agreement on the reform of the sheepmeat regime because it removes uncertainty and will create, by 1993, a level playing field for our producers so that they can compete in Europe on equal terms. I am confident that the sheep industry in the Borders, with its natural advantages and long tradition of experience and efficiency, will be able to capitalise on the emerging opportunities in these European markets and that it can prosper under the new sheepmeat regime of the 1990s.

In recognition of the need to seek out opportunities beyond traditional agriculture, the Government have pursued a number of measures designed to pro vide farmers with the opportunity to develop alternative sources of income. The range of possibility for diversification is wide indeed—for example, adding value to conventional farm produce, developing leisure, craft or tourism-related initiatives. It has to be recognised that diversification will not suit everyone, and each farmer has to consider carefully his own circumstances and make his commercial judgments accordingly.

There are other possibilities. The set-aside scheme, which provides for payments to farmers who take land out of production, will help to curb surplus production, reduce dependence on cereal and oilseed production, and provide land for alternative uses such as farm woodland or non-farming enterprise.

We also have the environmentally sensitive areas scheme, which encourages environment-friendly farming. Farmers who enter this scheme in the Whitlaw and Eildon ESA can receive payments based on the amount and type of land on the farm. The scheme thus provides an additional source of income for farmers and also has the potential to generate demand for traditional skills such as dyking or hedge work.

Those changes will not undermine the continuing importance of traditional agricultural production in the Borders. The mixed nature of agriculture in the Borders means that there is no particular reliance on any one crop or agricultural sector, and this year promises to be a better one for Borders' farmers. The mild open winter, excellent lambing conditions and buoyant sheep and cattle prices have all contributed to a promising outlook. The good early summer weather resulted in good quality cuts and yields of hay and silage and although the lack of rain has affected summer grazing, crops are standing well and harvesting conditions look good. With the dairy sector also benefiting, the position of farmers in the Borders this year looks sound. However, the extent to which farmers can bolster their income and security through alternative forms of self-financing activities has to be encouraged. The Government continue to make available significant support to agriculture in itself, but are also providing additional opportunities to promote new developments.

I should answer a few of the hon. Gentleman's questions. I share his disappointment that the European Commission has not included the Borders region in its initial list of rural areas eligible for objective 5b of the structural funds. The Government felt that the Borders had a good case in terms of the criteria for objective 5b, and put the case to the Commission as forcefully as it could. But funds for objective 5b are at present limited, and in Scotland only the Highlands and Islands and Western Dumfries and Galloway were selected at this stage. We shall continue to press for the inclusion of the Borders region in any subsequent list, although it is not possible at present to predict when the Commission will consider further areas. I should, however, like to make it clear to the hon. Gentleman that the case remains on the table in Brussels.

The hon. Gentleman has referred to Eyemouth harbour. I am well aware of the importance of Eyemouth harbour not only to the local fishing industry but to the wider community which suffers from higher than average unemployment. The scale and cost of the proposed development has, however, acted as a deterrent and the proposals have had to be examined carefully. We are certainly not cold on the application.

It has been suggested to the Eyemouth harbour trust and to Borders regional council that they should consider whether a less ambitious scheme would be possible and then discuss any proposals they may have with the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland.

No formal approach has been made to the Scottish Development Agency for assistance towards the costs of any redevelopment of Eyemouth harbour. The agency will, of course, give all due consideration to any proposal which may be forthcoming.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned trunk roads. As he recognised, an additional allocation was given to the Borders and Dumfries regions. In regard to routes south of Edinburgh, a consultation paper will be published on the study report's findings fairly soon, and we will be particularly interested to hear the views of the hon. Gentleman and the Borders regional council on the best way forward in the light of the representations that he made today.

We also recognise the importance of tourism in the Borders. Tourists obviously purchase a wide range of goods and services from the local community, and, in doing so, help to support the rural community in the broadest sense possible. This year we gave the Scottish tourist board £1 million extra. That should be of considerable benefit in helping to expand tourism. I realise that the Scottish tourist board does an excellent job for tourism in the area and recognises that there remains considerable potential for improving the area as a visitor destination, and development activity in the area has been at a fairly low level recently.

There are undoubtedly gaps in what is on offer. I understand that several exciting proposals are emerging, including major golf complexes, and that is encouraging news. Government agencies exist to help local authorities and the private sector, and the STB is well aware of the area's needs. The board's current development strategy is to assist the creation and improvement of visitor attractions. Accommodation projects are of considerably less importance, but the STB will consider applications where there are local shortages, and that strategy fits in well with the particular requirements of the Borders.

The hon. Gentleman has argued in the past for a range of powers for the Borders comparable to those available to the HIDB. I appreciate his wish to see the maximum stimulus being available to Borders development, but we must bear in mind the fact that the HIDB was created by a set of unique circumstances in the United Kingdom. The HIDB's area presents problems of remoteness and economic difficulty which call for very special solutions. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman would argue that the economic problems of the Borders match those of the Highlands and Islands, or that they justify the same distinctive approach. As I have said, the SDA has an extremely wide range of powers which it is already using to good effect, and its economic development projects bring benefits across the whole range of community life. On the social development side, there is much that can be done both by local authorities, central Government and the voluntary organisations.

I understand what the Minister says—I have been at pains to endorse and recognise what work has been done—but the burden of my remarks is that there is no overall coherence to the plans. There is no overall strategy. If there were a rural development agency that could work with the local authority it would be much easier to co-ordinate all the various approaches, but they could be much more effective if there were some coherence and an overall strategy.

It is important that that should take place in the housing sector. That is why the rural housing strategy of Scottish Homes will be important. Scottish Homes will work closely with the SDA, but I stress that the entire range of the agency's services is available in rural areas. The agency can provide factory buildings for sale or let; it can offer a range of advice on such matters as marketing and finance; and it can provide finance in the form of loans or equity to help new businesses and to enable existing companies to develop and expand.

I note what the hon. Gentleman said about the programme for rural initiatives and developments. It is designed to stimulate private sector involvement in projects suited to the rural economy. PRIDE has already proved its worth in stimulating a range of developments in rural areas, and last year alone an agency commitment of just over £150,000 succeeded in attracting private sector investment of over £1 million.

The Government remain firmly committed to the work of the agency. The advent of Scottish Enterprise will enhance the value of that work and give it a whole new dimension. I believe that the agency's work in the Borders and other rural areas will provide Scottish Enterprise and its local enterprise companies with a firm base on which to build for the future.

The hon. Gentleman wanted me to say a word about the textile industry. The Borders textile industry continues to play an important role in the economy of the region and provides an important source of quality employment. Certain sections of the industry are experiencing difficulties because of factors such as external economic conditions and changing fashion trends. The industry as a whole is in a healthy state. I have every confidence in those in the industry to react positively to the market changes that lie ahead.

The multi-fibre arrangement is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. The Government are committed in the current round of the GATT multilateral trade negotiations to look for a way of reintegrating the textile industry into GATT, but the Government are equally clear that that needs to be done on the basis of strengthened GATT rules to ensure that there is fairer international trade, and are pressing developing countries, particularly the more advanced, to open their markets to United Kingdom exports. That would create new opportunities for the textile industry in Scotland. I do not underestimate the employment provided by the textile industry.

We have taken two steps on the natural environment that will interest the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire. First, Lord Sanderson has assumed a special responsibility for co-ordinating Scottish Office rural policies. I attribute much significance to his new responsibility, and I have no doubt that he will carry out his duties extremely successfully.

The second initiative is the Government's announcement of proposals for reorganising the agencies responsible for nature conservation and countryside matters in Great Britain. That will provide an opportunity to achieve the right organisational structure for conservation and the countryside in Scotland.

I assure the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire that the Government are firmly committed to the welfare of rural communities. We have already given firm proof of our commitment to the various measures of assistance that I have outlined. The aim of all the measures must he to stimulate rural communities to work out their future for themselves. The spirit of enterprise is no less active in rural communities than throughout the rest of society. Given the necessary encouragement, those communities will rise to the challenge and seize the opportunities that are available.

Many of our rural communities in the Borders and throughout Scotland are as vigorous as they have been for many years. It will be the Government's aim to promote the welfare of those communities, so that rural Scotland can continue to play its part in a strong and vibrant Scottish economy.

I thank the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire for giving us an opportunity to discuss these matters today.

I am grateful for the opportunity to have this Adjournment debate on Lebanon. The public view is of a country filled with warring factions all as bad as one another, but I believe that that is not so and that, although no one faction or side is wholly blameless, we can make some sense of Lebanon, and it is in the West's interest, as well as being its duty, to do so.

I applaud the comments made by the then Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) in the last Adjournment debate on 16 May, when he said:

"In the last analysis, it must be our aim to enable the Lebanese people themselves to find ways of restoring peace to their country without foreign interference."—[Official Report, 16 May 1989; Vol. 153, c. 297.]

I understand that that view was endorsed by the EEC Twelve in their last statement on the subject.

One of the wisest foreign policy decisions taken by the Government since they took office was to sever diplomatic relations with Syria. Terrorism was the main reason, especially the Syrian attempt to blow up an El Al airliner from Heathrow airport. Few regimes in the world are so obnoxious that we are unable to have diplomatic relations with them. Syria is one of them and it is Syria which now occupies three quarters of Lebanon. Against that bald fact, we must evaluate the options facing, and the decisions taken by, General Aoun.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, Lebanon was peaceful. prosperous and, above all, tolerant—conditions which, sadly, are rather rare in the middle east. Its constitution was based on conventional groups—a system despised in the West with its ordinary democratic system. One must ask, however, how many other Arab countries have an independent judiciary, the rule of law and the protection of minority groups. Until the early 1970s, all these things prevailed in Lebanon. Indeed, it was a haven for persecuted groups. It is my thesis that Lebanon has been the victim of multiple external aggression.

When the Jordanians expelled the Palestinians to Syria, the Syrians rapidly sent them on to Lebanon, having given them some extra weapons. The Lebanese generously, but I am afraid unwisely, took them in. They were given land for their camps, much of it from Lebanese religious orders. The camps became centres for lawlessness, and armed bands roamed the countryside causing trouble, murdering, raping and looting. Inevitably, there was retribution by the local population against those lawless groups, and a number of unpleasant attacks were made on the Palestinian camps. Those attacks were far more widely publicised in the western press, however, than the horrific incidents that provoked them.

A further factor was internal, but it was generated from the outside. The Shi'ites, who had always been a minority among the Moslems in Lebanon, and who are among the poorest people in the country, tended to live around those camps. They bore the brunt of the Palestinian onslaught. Expelled from their villages and greatly impoverished they fell prey to the agents of the Ayatollah. Out of the increasingly unhappy morass the feared Hezbollah—the so-called party of God—emerged. That turned on the local Christian community and, to a lesser extent, on the Sunnis, driving many of them from their villages. Eye witness reports, mainly from the French and British visitors, talk of murder, torture, public executions carried out by chainsaw and other methods, and desecration of churches, not least by sacrificing animals on the altar.

Inevitably, the villagers fled to the cities, principally the Christian end of Beirut, where they armed themselves and have since been identified by much of the western media as Christian Fascist militia. I have no doubt that they, too, have committed atrocities.

Another aggressor is Israel. Its counter attacks against the Palestinian camps were, like every other outside interference in Lebanon, unhelpful to the Lebanese people, many of whom were killed in crossfire. Israel has now withdrawn to a small strip at the bottom of the country. In fairness to Israel, it must be said that conditions in that southern strip are much better than in the three quarters of the country controlled by Syria.

The final outside factor, and by far the most important, has been Syria. That country is so obnoxious that we cannot have diplomatic relations with it. It controls three quarters of the unhappy state of Lebanon. The Syrians were invited in in 1976 by the disgraced Christian president, Sulaiman Franjiya, and elements of his Government. They were sponsored by the Arab League, I believe in good faith. However, the units—that is almost too grand a word because they were little more than military delegations—from other Arab League countries rapidly came under attack from guerilla groups, some of which even at that stage were sponsored by Syria, and withdrew leaving the Syrians in sole charge.

Since then, Syria has carried out a reign of terror in the three quarters of Lebanon that it controls. Its artillery bombards the country, not just the remaining so-called Christian enclave where the city of Dorä, its commercial centre, was flattened earlier this year, but, reports say, areas within the Syrian-controlled territory where artillery provides a useful adjunct to the secret police in imposing Syrian rule.

I do not intend to adopt a position on Yasser Arafat or the Palestine Liberation Organisation. However, he was independent of Syria. Since the Syrians expelled him by armed force, all the Palestinian groups, to a greater or lesser extent, are under Syrian control and rely upon the Syrians for the safety of their leaders and for their supply of weapons. Equally, the Hezbollah, originally set up by the Ayatollah, enjoys its supply of weapons principally from the Syrians. The same applies to the Druze and to the two major renegade Christian groupings which operate in the Syrian area.

It is worth observing that in the unhappy Syrian-controlled zone, the drugs trade, which was always an important part of Assad's foreign policy and his principal supplier of foreign exchange, is flourishing based in the Beka'a valley.

North of Beirut is the so-called Christian enclave—25 per cent. of the country controlled by General Aoun. I say "so-called"—I have said it several times—because General Aoun was appointed by the outgoing president. The constitution says that if the deputies cannot meet and agree on a president, the outgoing president should appoint a Christian figure—all the offices are allocated to different conventional groups—who should act as leader. At that point the Christian and Sunni deputies had said that they were unwilling to meet in the puppet process set up by the Syrians under their armed control. Therefore, the outgoing president rightfully appointed General Aoun as an interim successor.

General Aoun has found increasing numbers of people from other faiths in his enclave, in particular many Sunnis and a significant proportion of Druze who do not accept the leadership of Walid Jumblatt and are sheltering from the Syrian rule of terror. The West is reproaching General Aoun because he believes that the only way in which to prevent the Syrians from taking the last remaining part of his country is by meeting their force with force. The West has counselled him several times that that will lead to the extinction by armed force of the remainder of his enclave. The West may well be right, but it is difficult to see any alternative for Aoun—there is no evidence from any analysis of Syrian foreign policy that I have seen to suggest that the Syrians will negotiate with anyone except at the end of a gun.

I want to ask my hon. Friend the Minister a number of questions. As I gave him very short notice, I shall understand if he wishes to reply to some of them in writing. Can he confirm that we severed diplomatic relations with Syria because of its active involvement in worldwide terrorism, not merely as a result of one terrorist incident? Are the Syrians continuing to sponsor international terrorism and to neglect even the most basic niceties of international law? In particular, is it true, as has been widely claimed, that the Syrians are believed to have been behind the Lockerbie bombing?

Is it true that the Syrian move into Lebanon was sponsored—in good faith—by the Arab League, but that the Arab League proved unable to retain its grip on the Syrians and had to pull out the non-Syrian troops in the face of aggression from various groups? Is it true that the various terrorist groups and militias outside the so-called Christian enclave and the Israeli-dominated southern strip all now depend to a greater or lesser extent on the Syrians for their weapon supplies—including the group who seized Terry Waite, wherever that unfortunate man may be now?

Is it true that those who have spoken out against Syria have been executed or assassinated? Is it true that the recent tragic death of the Sunnite Mufti Sheikh Hassan Khalid—to whom my hon. Friend referred in a speech in May—had commented through a spokesman only days before that the recent shelling of Moslem west Beirut had been carried out by Syrian regular forces and not by guerrillas? Furthermore, is it true that that murder took place only hours after Sheikh Khalid had refused an invitation to Damascus to explain his spokesman's comments? Is it true that 247 mm mortar shells were fired in that incident in west Beirut? Those are enormous shells, and there is no conceivable chance that any group other than the Syrian regular army could have fired weaponry of that kind.

Is it true that the reign of terror has extended to foreigners—for example, French journalist and academic Michael Seurat, tortured to death by the Syrians for putting out an anti-Syrian line? Is it true that in Syrian-occupied territory people are held for years without trial, torture is rife and the drug trade continues from the Beka'a valley, and has been steadily expanded? Is it true that 100,000 Moslems have fled into the so-called Christian enclave and recognise General Aoun as it leader, and that 30 per cent. of his troops are now Sunmis? In particular, is it true that two Moslem brigades of the Lebanese army have moved over into his area in the past few weeks and are now fighting on his side, despite the terrible threat that that poses to their families, many of whom are still in the Syrian area? Is it true that the Syrian navy is illegally blockading the two Christian ports of Beirut and Byblos, and that people are starving as a result?

Finally, is it true that it is believed to have been the Syrian regular army that reduced Döra to rubble earlier in the year, and that last night 5,000 shells were fired at the Christian stretch of the coastline, with casualties still being assessed?

That is a lot of questions. Let me end by making four quick points. First, I firmly believe that the Government are right not to recognise Syria—it cannot be trusted and negotiations are possible only from a position of strength.

Secondly, the key to Lebanon's problems lies in the withdrawal of external forces, both Syrian and Israeli. I understand that there was another Israeli incursion last night in which a Hezbollah leader was seized. Thirdly, the Arab League means well, but there is not the slightest evidence from anything that one can look at in the past in Lebanon to show that the league could deliver anything that it tried to set up. It has acted in good faith in the past and that is how it is acting now, but it cannot bring pressure to bear on Syria because Syria does not recognise diplomatic pressure. Fourthly, the West must ensure that the remaining free enclave in Lebanon is not snuffed out.

I support my hon. Friend and echo his questions to the Minister. He has rightly said that we are talking about a country which in the past was a noble example of how communities could live together in a significant form of democracy. Perhaps when the Minister is responding to the debate and outlining British policy on this part of the world he will bear in mind that although we would like to see Britain act even handedly towards the Lebanon and its communities, that even-handedness cannot override the need for humanitarian aid. As my hon. Friend has said, even-handedness cannot apply to Syria. We must not fail to take into account General Aoun's attempts to stop the drug trade which is so polluting the international scene and, not least, affecting people in Britain. We should not discourage France from taking the lead in an area where, traditionally, it had a role and influence.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention.

My fourth conclusion was that we must not allow Lebanon's remaining free enclave to be snuffed out. I agree with my hon. Friend that the French are the appropriate people to take the lead in this matter. The Lebanon is a Francophone country. I am no great sycophant towards France and I share the Prime Minister's views on the French revolution, but France has great ties of blood and culture with Lebanon and understands it much better than we do. We should support France in any initiative, which should include lifting the illegal Syrian blockade of the Christian ports and ensuring that General Aoun has the weapons that he needs. Those are the only ways in which the Syrians will be brought to meaningful negotiations.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Brazier) for once again giving the House an opportunity to consider the tragic situation in Lebanon. He made certain underlying assumptions with which we can all associate ourselves. In the old days, which now seem far off although they ocurred not many years ago, Lebanon was one of the most attractive countries in the middle east and its different communities had a unique system of mutual toleration. My officials do not need to be reminded of that because the majority of them learned their Arabic in the now sadly defunct Middle East College for Arabic Studies. Because of that many of them know the old Lebanon extremely well and remember what it was like. Since that time the country has descended steadily into anarchy and horror. I suppose that, apart from the huge scale of events in Cambodia, some of the most frightful atrocites since the second world war have taken place in the territory of the Lebanon.

The situation is bleak. I am happy to have been given this opportunity by my hon. Friend to try to answer some of his questions and to place on record the Government's position. We do not think that the situation can now be easily resolved because of what I might call the polarisation between the West and the East on one side or the other. My hon. Friend showed that he is well acquainted with Lebanon's complex history and he will understand that we must reserve our position about who among the many players have contributed to the disaster. As a Government in western Europe and as a permanent member of the Security Council, we must try to take such steps as we can to return events to a process that might lead to peace and a practical solution.

Although I know very well from those to whom I have talked about these matters, both inside and outside Government, that it is almost impossible to speak about the Lebanon, if one knows it well, without passion and a passionate partianship, it is the Government's duty to try to put that aside and to take such steps as we can that we objectively believe will lead to progress. To take two names at random, if one put into the same room Patrick Seale and my good friend Professor Roger Scruton, one would find on each side a passionate partisanship and a great deal of knowledge, but a passing of ships in the night in their analysis of who should be blamed for what.

My less emotional task—although it is still emotional to have to stand back—is to analyse and advise on what we should now be doing to ensure progress. It is clear that in the Christian enclave some of the traditions of the old Lebanon are still alive. It is clear that all Lebanese, except those who directly profit from the anarchy, want peace. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury spoke of drug dealers, and others who thrive on the anarchy that has been created. Those who are involved in terrorism sometimes dress up as a political cause things that are closely related to the making of money. Some have profited by attachment, one way or another, to one or other of the external forces which have arrived in Lebanon—the Syrians, the Israelis and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah. Therefore, there are those who, sadly, have a vested interest in the maintenance of the horror. Apart from those, I agree with my hon. Friend that ordinary Lebanese from any community—Shi'ites, Sunnis, Christians—long for the departure of the external forces.

My hon. Friend is right to speak as he did about General Aoun, for his most bitter opponent would not doubt his patriotism or his honesty of purpose, and he is supported in his enclave by both Moslems and Christians. We have to weigh our words when we talk because they have some reverberation. My hon. Friend said that the words of a French minister might have more reverberation than ours, but we are permament members of the Security Council and we have long experience of, and influence in, the area. Therefore, when we are speaking as Ministers, it behoves us to judge what we say. I make no criticism of my hon. Friend because it is legitimate for him to see what he has seen and say what he has said on the basis of his own experience and research.

I have a slightly different responsibility. My anxiety is this. If the British Government were to commit themselves to a line of policy that made it look as though we were ready to intervene, whether militarily or in any other way, which we are not and cannot be, to rescue a Christian enclave under invasion, we might ourselves have caused those in the Christian enclave, and General Aoun, to misjudge the extent to which the conflict would be internationalised, and the interventions that would result. Above all, we must recognise the history of external interventions in the Lebanon recently. It is not now 1958, when American marines landed. In that near post-colonial time, order could be re-established relatively easily. That world has passed. No American aircraft carrier or battleship can restore order in the Lebanon. No arriving French or British soldiers with bases in the region and with friends and Governments willing to act with them throughout the middle east, as was still the case in 1958, could impose a solution from outside.

I suggested that we should restore the rule of international law in international waters by clearing the blockade. That is something that we have done recently. The West has done it collectively in part of the Gulf where a much larger scale conflict was taking place until last year.

It is true that our own ships and those which carried our flag, along with American ships and those which sought the protection of the American flag, did enable the complement of British and, ultimately more important in the scale of events, American naval forces to continue their passage to and fro in the Gulf. There is a long history of blockades in the Levant. In recent years, too, the Israelis have intervened on many occasions to stop ships. They have searched ships widely if they believed that that was necessary for their security. We deplore blockades, and my hon. Friend is right to say that on many occasions international law is being flouted. I must not give any signal to those who might then take action which might end in even worse tragedy that there is any immediate prospect of the Royal Navy or, as far as I know, the American navy, coming to the aid of those who are seeking to bring supplies or weapons into the Lebanon. I must make it clear that we do not think that it is possible for sheer straightforward military action to drive the Syrians out. We want the Syrians to go. We believe that the Lebanese should be allowed—they have the right—to seek their own future without intervention. We want the Israelis to go. We deeply regret the intervention of Iranian proxies, which only complicates the situation further. We do not think that anything will be gained by Iraqi intervention, which often follows the mirror image of Syrian intervention. If the Lebanon becomes the playground or the battleground, by proxy, of all these external forces, there is no hope.

We must analyse what is the best way forward. We believe that those Arab countries which have great power, both financial and otherwise, over many of the key players, must take the responsibility in this new world in which we can no longer look to the disposition of events by external super-power agreement or ex-colonial power agreement. It must be for the regional powers to take responsibility themselves. We are doing what we can to back the Arab League interventions, and they are extremely important. Nothing that we would want to do should be seen as undermining the action that the Committee of Three is trying to take to achieve, first, and above all, a ceasefire. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury was quite right when he said that the shelling in the past few days has been intense and some of the worst in the whole period from both sides, and there have been many casualties on both sides.

Secondly, there is a need to find a forum somewhere, perhaps outside the Lebanon, where people can talk and begin to put together what is bound to be necessary—a new constitutional settlement. Many on the Christian side recognise that. My hon. Friend is aware of the demographic changes that have taken place since the original settlement. There will be a need, I am sure, in future for constitutional change. As that change is discussed, in parallel with it must come pressures above all from the Arab world, and from those who have direct influence on Syria, such as the Soviet Union. We have talked about these matters to the Soviet Union. Pressure must come for the Syrians to withdraw, but not by using the excuse of the Israelis. We on our part should bring pressure on the Israelis to withdraw. That is not certain of success, but it is the only hope of a way forward.

My hon. Friend urges us to analyse our policy again. We do not overestimate our influence, but I shall respond to his request by making sure that we do not for a moment take our eyes off the Lebanon. If we can make any practical intervention to carry forward the process towards peace, we shall make it, with the one proviso that we must be careful not to encourage a belief that only a military solution is possible.

The two cases involving my constituents that I shall present in the debate justify my extremely serious concern or anger and illustrate remarkable or serious official inadequacy. I regret that the Government seem willing to he entirely disdainful of the constituency responsibilities and involvements of hon. Members. That cause for regret is clearly demonstrated by these cases, which persuaded me that I should delay my return home. I was drawn to Yorkshire before the weather broke, so the Minister will understand I did not enter this debate lightly, but the cases are sufficiently serious to justify my detention here today.

My attention was drawn to the outrageous experience of Mrs. Janette Caglar more than a year ago. The Minister will be aware of the enormous volume of correspondence which has flowed between my desk and his office. Mrs. Caglar lives in Wath upon Dearn in my constituency. She met her husband, Mr. Ondir Caglar of Izmir, some time ago. They married on 18 February last year, and Mr. and Mrs. Caglar sought to live together in Britain. That determined young lady had made sure that there were jobs and accommodation for them. Mr. Caglar's entry was refused, and their marriage was dismissed as one of convenience. That view has been maintained since they married in February 1988. It was still maintained when Mrs. Caglar became pregnant several months after the marriage and when their baby daughter was born on 20 July. The Home Office appear to disregard such biological demonstrations quite happily.

The baby girl was born in Yorkshire, while Mr. Caglar remains in Turkey. They are separated by more than 1,000 miles and Mr. Caglar, had to learn the news of the birth of his daughter by telephone from his mother-in-law in Wath upon Dearn. My constituent has been saddened and enormously distressed by her experience. She has also been caused indescribable frustration and anguish. At one time, she spent hour after hour trying to speak to the relevant office of the Home Office without being able to get through. While the official view may be that that does not happen, many Members of Parliament must be aware that British citizens and taxpayers frequently find it difficult to get through to public offices. It becomes particularly distressing when a constituent feels that Government Departments are insulated from human contact, especially when individuals feel anxious or despairing.

Mrs. Caglar decided to return to Britain to have her baby and to be with her mother in Wath upon Dearn. She hoped that the visit would be possible and that she could be accompanied by her husband; after all, she was to have her first baby. I felt that it was reasonable for Mrs. Caglar to want her husband to be with her in those circumstances. I contacted a Home Office official, who appeared to be extremely helpful. He thought that such a visit was possible and asked me if I could help by telling the Home Office on what date and at which airport Mr. Caglar would be arriving as a visitor. I immediately obtained that information from Mrs. Caglar's family, passed it on, only then to receive a message from the Home Office that a mistake had been made and that Mr. Caglar could not come in. The Home Office then knew, however, on what date he proposed to come and at what airport he would arrive. That was a distasteful and irritating experience. Perhaps a genuine mistake had been made, but it justified further consideration, but none was forthcoming.

On behalf of her husband, Mrs. Caglar then launched an appeal. The time passed and the hearing was set for May. Mrs. Caglar went to the hearing full of hope, but she was distressed and her hopes were dashed when, as soon as the hearing began, the Home Office representative asked for an adjournment to have more time for the investigation. More time—when months and months had elapsed since the case started, and months and months had elapsed since I first made representations to the Minister. That was a cruel blow to my constituent, and I shared her anger and frustration.

That young couple continue to live apart and they maintain contact by letter and telephone as they did during their courtship, when Mr. Caglar learned English in order to maintain communication with his future wife. Perhaps the Home Office feels entitled to be awkward as I believe that the Home Office suspects that one of Mr. Caglar's brothers may have acted a little improperly in the past. I know little about that, but I do not see how Mr. Caglar can be held responsible for the actions of a brother who is a good deal older than him and with whom he has little or no contact. It is not consistent with my regard for justice that a man should be punished for the offences of his brother. The Home Office should not pursue such an attitude.

The second case concerns Miss Tannanum Nawaz—I hope that my pronunciation is reasonably accurate. Miss Tannanum Nawaz is the neice of Mr. Tareen Farouk, a respected resident of Swinton in my constituency. He is a successful, well regarded, intelligent and responsible business man. His wife, a local lady, is employed in a position of considerable trust, and both are of excellent character.

Mr. Tareen has lived in England for a long time, but he had a sister in Pakistan with whom he enjoyed an extremely close relationship. Mr. Tareen was particularly attached to his sister and to her daughter, his niece, Miss Nawaz. Mr. and Mrs. Tareen regularly visited his sister and their niece in Pakistan.

Sadly, Mr. Tareen's sister died, and he immediately visited Pakistan once again. The purpose of that visit was, partly, to spend some time with his niece, but also to help her to arrange to come to Britain for a holiday. Miss. Nawaz is due to be married in a few months' time and the Minister will understand that in that situation, the planned holiday must have taken place before the marriage.

Miss Nawaz has a job and has arranged to take leave for the holiday and to return to her job once that holiday is over. Mr. Tareen is an intelligent, honourable and successful man. He went with his niece to the appropriate office in Pakistan to seek to arrange her entry to Britain. He had to pay a fee. The interview was not completed, so Mr. Tareen had to return the next day and pay a second fee. The Minister knows that I find that surprising. Miss Nawaz sought to provide the information that was requested at the two interviews and was asked how much money she had and would be bringing with her for her holiday. She said that she had $3,000. Mr. Tareen, who as I said is an experienced and honourable man, tells me that he believes that that is the reason for the application being rejected.

I suppose that they were in a catch-22 situation: if she had nothing, clearly she could not be accepted; as she was bringing a reasonably substantial sum, the officials suspected that it was her intention to stay. As I pointed out, the family is not impoverished. It is not the poorest in the land. Miss Nawaz was coming for a holiday before her marriage. She would have intended going shopping with her uncle and aunt. I believe that no regard was given to the circumstances of that case.

Miss Nawaz inherited her mother's property. No doubt, she would have enjoyed being with her uncle and aunt in my constituency. I know that the uncle and aunt were greatly looking forward to having their beloved niece visit before she entered matrimony which, as the Minister knows, is a relatively binding and substantial arrangement for Pakistani ladies.

Mr. and Mrs. Tareen fear that their beloved niece will never be able to visit them. I think that they have cause for bitterness at their treatment. They see the approaching solemnisation of Miss Nawaz's marriage as obviously cause for rejoicing but also cause for permanent regret, in that it could mean a disruption of the close relationship which they have enjoyed and which has always been strengthened by the frequent holidays that Mr. and Mrs. Tareen have been able to spend.

I find the whole experience of my constituents utterly unacceptable, partly because it seems to assume that responsible people like Mr. and Mrs. Tareen should have their record and character brought under little better than nasty suspicion. The Home Office disregarded the realities. If the Minister searches the record, he will know that I gave my assurance in the case of Miss Nawaz. I have given my confirmation as to the character of Mrs. Caglar, who lives in the same small town in which I live.

The Minister might also recall that, some years ago, I gave an assurance to the Home Office in a case where one constituent asked me to assist when a friend of his family was coming on holiday and had been detained at Heathrow. He gave me a clear assurance that the purpose of the visit was a holiday. The Home Office accepted my assurance and let that young man go to my area. A few days later, my constituent contacted me and said, "We have got over the first hurdle, Mr. Hardy. Now we want to arrange for him to stay." I said, "Your word may be worthless, but mine is not." I informed the Home Office that my assurance was then qualified and that I had no objection to the law taking its course. That is the view that most hon. Members would take, yet there seems to be no appreciation in the Home Office that hon. Members value their word. That word seems to be regarded as worthless or scarcely worth recognising. That case is on the record, although I have not taken the trouble to look up the necessary reference and date.

Mr. Tareen knows that I took that action. He knows that if Miss Nawaz should break her word to her employers who have given her leave of absence, disregard the marriage contract into which she has entered and seek to stay permanently in my constituency, I could not possibly accept that such a change of arrangement was possible. I would be the first to inform the Home Office that the assurances which I had given had been broken. I have no doubt that Mr. Tareen would want to keep his word, as I would want to keep mine. I regret that this ridiculous affair has taken place.

I know that the Minister says that the rules are important and that he can intervene only in the most exceptional circumstances. The two cases that I have presented are exceptional. If the Minister thinks that they justify inaction, we do not need a Minister—all we need is a computer terminal regurgitating interpretations of the regulations, with the Minister passing on to Members of Parliament whatever it suggests. The Minister has his job to exercise a degree of discretion and to insist that Home Office officials—they are paid handsomely by the taxpayer—answer the telephone. His job is to ensure that, when someone appeals against a decision, and a lot of time has elapsed since the case was presented, Home Office officials do not go to the tribunal to ask for an adjournment for more time.

I have written to the Home Office time and time again about these two cases, and they should have received rather more consideration. We have no racial tension in my constituency. The younger members of a political party with which the Minister is familiar attempted to bring in a racist headmaster from Bradford to stir things up, but fortunately that went off like a damp squib. In the Rotherham area, partly because of the good will and common sense of the people, and partly because of the work of the community relations structure, the local authority and the police, we have avoided racial tension. I do not want it to develop, but the official suspicions and niggardliness evidenced in this case were scarcely helpful.

I shall not say much more; I look forward to hearing the Minister's views. It would be nice if, when I get home this afternoon—or evening, if the traffic is as bad as I fear it may be—I could call on Mr. and Mrs. Tareen, and on Mrs. Caglar and her new baby, and tell them that common sense and compassion have not entirely disappeared from the establishment in Britain.

I have listened carefully to the points raised by the hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) and I fully understand that, with the parliamentary recess an hour or two away, he would rather spend today enjoying the sunshine in his home or constituency than coming to the House to make these points. I take his point that the reason why he applied for an Adjournment debate was the seriousness that he attaches to these two cases.

As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, the issues that he has raised involve matters which are also the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, because he and his Department are responsible for the operation of the entry clearance system in overseas posts. These matters are also the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor, as it is he, as well as the Home Office, who has administrative responsibility for the immigration appellate authorities.

I realise that the large increase in the number of appeals lodged with the immigration appeal system has led to an increased backlog of cases in the appellate system. In our office, that has placed extra demands on available resources and has led, to my regret, to an increase in the preparation time for appeals explanatory statements. We are now considering urgently with the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office what steps need to be taken to arrest the increasing backlog of appeals and subsequently to maintain that backlog at an acceptable level. Some resources have already been provided for additional appeal hearing rooms and for listing more heavily in the present rooms. I hope in the months ahead that that will have some success in reducing the backlog.

I say that against a background which I am sure the hon. Member for Wentworth understands. The two cases that he raises involve decisions to refuse entry clearance, against which Parliament has provided a right of appeal to an independent adjudicator. The system of independent adjudicators—and above them an independent appellate tribunal—has been in place for a number of years. Adjudicators are now appointed by the Lord Chancellor, which ensures that they are wholly independent of the Home Office. They are present to act as an independent check on the decisions reached by the immigration service, entry clearance officers or the Home Office.

Against that background, I ask the hon. Gentleman to accept the independence of the appellate system. It has an important role to play, which has often been ratified by Parliament. I must direct to that system both the cases that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned today.

Mr. Caglar has appealed against a decision taken by the entry clearance officer in Istanbul to refuse him entry clearance for settlement in the United Kingdom. I understand that the appeal is now listed for hearing in Leeds on 3 October. Despite the hon. Gentleman's strong plea to me in his closing remarks, it would be wrong in principle for me to make any comment today on the substance of a case, or to go into the immigration history or details of Mr. Caglar's appeal, when the case has yet to be considered by the adjudicator. If I did that, it might prejudice the fair hearing of the appeal.

My constituent, Mrs. Caglar, attended the hearing in May when she was eight months pregnant after being separated from her husband for a long time. The officials immediately asked for an adjournment to provide time for an investigation. That was not a reasonable experience for my constituent. Why was she not told that she would face an official request for an adjournment as soon as she arrived at the hearing? Would the Minister care to imagine a lady in his family who was eight months pregnant being forced to go through such an ordeal?

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised that point with me again. I have been told clearly—and I have checked this with my officials while the hon. Gentleman was speaking—that the adjournment was granted at the hearing on 12 May at the request of both parties, not just at the request of the Home Office. Documentary evidence of certain points in the entry clearance officer's statement had not been produced and the adjournment was requested by both parties. The documents required were produced as quickly as possible and the appeal was listed for 11 July, but had to be adjourned again because Mrs. Caglar was then expecting her baby. As I have just said, it is now listed for hearing in Leeds on 3 October.

With regard to the complaints about the difficulties experienced by Mrs. Caglar in contacting the immigration department by telephone, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, I fully recognise that, in the early part of 1988, the level of service provided by the telephone inquiry bureau at the headquarters in Lunar house in Croydon was not acceptable. However, I assure the hon. Gentleman that many measures have since been taken to improve the efficiency of the telephone inquiry bureau. I will visit Lunar house next Thursday and will visit the telephone inquiry bureau to check on the progress. A fully satisfactory quality of service is now provided. If the hon. Gentleman would like to visit Lunar house after the holidays, I would welcome him there and he can reassure himself about the better quality of service provided for his constituents and others.

Referring to the case of Miss Nawaz, she applied for entry clearance as a visitor in Karachi on 9 April 1989. That application was refused after interview because the entry clearance officer was not satisfied as to her intention to leave the United Kingdom at the end of her visit. I stress to the hon. Gentleman that the first interview on 9 April was complete in itself. The decision to make a second application the following day was, I am sure, entirely her own. It was not required by the entry clearance officer. The second application was also refused after a further interview. Miss Nawaz was then notified of her right of appeal against both decisions. The proper way for persons who are dissatified with decisions of the entry clearance officer to seek to have their cases resolved is through the appeals system estabished for that purpose, as I have said. Although I have listened to the points made by the hon. Gentleman on behalf of Miss Nawaz, I have to say that, in my judgment, these matters should be raised on appeal.

Despite the hon. Gentleman's eloquence and passion, I have heard nothing today which persuades me that the most exceptional circumstances exist which would justify my intervening in either case.

In the remaining few minutes, I shall outline the background of hon. Members' representations and the new guidelines against which I have made my remarks.

The guidelines for representations by right hon. and hon. Members in immigration cases make it clear that Ministers will not normally intervene to take the initial decision on an application, to pre-empt consideration of a disputed decision by the independent appellate authorities, or to reverse a decision where the appeal process has been exhausted and no new and compelling evidence has become available. The revised guidelines came into effect on 3 January. Following circulation in draft form, they were debated in the House. The final version reflects points that were made by hon. Members during that debate. Experience of the operation of the revised guidelines over the past six months has proved beyond doubt that they are fair and reasonable and, despite Labour Members' original doubts, are working well in practice.

The hon. Gentleman said that they remove the necessity for a Minister and that all that a Minister is doing is getting reactions from a computer. However, I make the contrary point: that they have put hon. Members in direct touch with immigration officers and chief immigration officers at ports and airports for the discussion of special circumstances. There is great advantage to both sides in that—certainly there is to the immigration service and to hon. Members in being able to go directly over the special circumstances of cases with those members of the immigration service who are charged with taking a decision. If it is felt that there are special circumstances that the immigration service has not properly taken into account, there is always discretion to go back to the Minister. I have not yet been turned wholly into a computer, even though, at times, I might like to be.

On the Minister's last point, my contact with the authorities led them to find out on what date and at what airport Mr. Caglar planned to accompany his pregnant wife.

The Minister will appreciate that, if Miss Nawaz is to visit her uncle and aunt in my constituency before her marriage, there is some urgency. Would he, in his ministerial role, have the capacity or the inclination to ask for the timetable of delay to be reduced so that, if Miss Nawaz is to be able to come into this country, permission can be given before the date of her planned and impending marriage?

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will certainly pass on that comment directly to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The decision about who is interviewed and in what order of priority lies with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which is responsible for entry clearance officers.

I am informed that three months have passed since Miss Nawaz made her second application. Since then, she has made no application at all. We tried to check that point before the debate—I do not think that we have received final information, but that is my impression. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will persuade her to take the necessary steps as soon as possible in Karachi.

I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman today. I stress to him that the various steps that we have taken over the past two years have speeded up the treatment of the many thousands of immigration cases that come before us every year, but the Labour party has always voted against them. I hope that the hon. Member for Wentworth, given his seniority in the Labour party, will persuade it in the next Session to vote for future changes that will further speed up the process.

The hon. Gentleman should suggest to his constituents that the right course for them is to pursue their case through the appeals system as endorsed by Parliament.

I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to refer to what is currently happening in Bulgaria and to report to the House on my recent visit there.

As I speak, hundreds of cars and trucks are lining up at the Bulgarian frontier with Turkey at Kapitan-Andreevo, containing members of entire families with about as much as can be transported, including, as I saw for myself last week, the kitchen sink. They leave behind their homes, jobs, livestock, other property and the country of their birth. They are all Bulgarian citizens. Their parents and grandparents, and their relations before them, were all born in Bulgaria, which is their home.

Currently, they are leaving Bulgaria and are unlikely to return. The reason, quite simply, is that they have had enough. They consider that their rights have been denied, and, for the first time, they have been given passports and can obtain exit visas. Most of them are leaving for good.

Those people are the so-called Bulgarian ethnic Turks. The authorities prefer to call them Bulgarian Moslems, which they are, but so are the Pomaks, who are not of Turkish origin but are Slavonic. These Bulgarians regard their identity as Turkish, which is what they are; one has only to meet them to see that. They are the remnants of those Turkish families who settled in the Balkans over the centuries of the Turkish occupation. I was to hear the phrase "Five centuries of Turkish yoke" repeatedly and with so much venom—understandably so, in view of the history. One has only to recall the Bulgarian atrocities of the last century, the Bashi Bazooks, and Gladstone's campaign to raise British public opinion on behalf of persecuted Bulgarian Christians, in which he called for the Turks to depart "bag and baggage".

The tragedy today is that, contrary to the spirit of Helsinki, the Balkan wars are still being fought by propaganda and repression. As a consequence, we are witnessing the largest movement of people since the second world war.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) said on the "Today" programme from Turkey, 185,000 Bulgarian Turks have crossed the border to date, 3,000 are crossing every day and over 250,000 applications for exit visas have been made to date. It is obvious that that is only the beginning.

From what I saw and heard during my visit, the majority of the Bulgarian Turkish population, which numbers about 1 million—10 per cent. of the total population—want to leave and are planning to do so.

Apart from the human tragedy that that represents and the humanitarian issues involved—such as the division of families, the parting with friends, neighbours and colleagues at work, many of whom are Bulgarian Christians, and the emptying of communities, it is also resulting in growing problems for the Bugarian economy because of the unexpected loss of manpower.

It is resulting in major problems for Turkey, which is accepting the burden of providing for those people on their arrival there—in effect, as refugees rather than as tourists, as the Bulgarians would have it, although many of them have relatives somewhere in the country.

Surely few of those people can want to leave their country, homes and friends in that way. Does Bulgaria want to lose so many of its citizens? It says not. Surely Turkey can do without more refugees at a time when it is facing considerable economic problems of its own and is trying to provide for tens of thousands of Kurdish refugees from Iraq.

I believe that this tragedy was avoidable. Despite all the rhetoric and propaganda from both sides, it stems principally from the Bulgarian Government's policy to assimilate. I appreciate that they describe that as a process of national consolidation. However, they want to assimilate, integrate and regulate the ethnic Turkish population at the expense of its identity, culture and way of life. To the Turks, that represents their self-respect, indeed their very soul.

I first became alerted to the problem when it was brought to the attention of the Council of Europe committee for relations with non-member countries in March 1985, three months after the Bulgarian Government embarked on their assimilation policy. Every Bulgarian without a Slavonic name was required to sign a legal document to change it. Bulgaria maintains that that was a voluntary requirement, but from what was reported then and what I heard last week, I am convinced that it was carried out with threats and force. Henceforth, Mehmet, Ahmet, Ali and Hussein were to be called Mikhail, Ivan, Angel, Stojan and so on. That applied not only to the living Moslem population but to the dead. Names on tombstones have been erased and, as I saw, from 1985 only the initials of a Moslem name were allowed to appear.

Without a Bulgarian name, opportunities for employment, travel and a normal way of life would be impossible. Turks were not allowed to speak to each other in their own language in public. To do so would risk police beatings, fines, arrest and internal exile for those who persisted.

All Bulgarian radio broadcasts in Turkish ceased in January 1985, as did the publication of Turkish language newspapers in Bulgaria and the printing of Turkish books. Turkish community schools had long since been merged with Slavonic schools and the Turkish language was dropped as an optional subject in 1974. The wearing of traditional Turkish clothes such as the shalvar—baggy trousers—was penalised. Automatic telephone calls to Turkey could not be made and letters addressed to Turkish names were not delivered.

Perhaps the most insulting of all to many Moslems were the obstacles placed in the way of professing their religion. They effectively prevented them from performing marriages, funerals and circumcision in accordance with their Islamic rights and traditions. There are reports of mosques being closed, cemeteries being bulldozed and Moslem intellectuals and teachers of religion being imprisoned or even killed.

All that was contrary to the international commitments, treaties and protocols into which Bulgaria has entered concerning the rights of minorities. These include the original treaty of Berlin of 1878, which re-established the independent Bulgarian state, the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, the Helsinki Final Act, the numerous bilateral treaties with Turkey and, not least, its own constitution. Article 35 of that constitution forbids such discrimination on the grounds of religion and ethnicity, and article 45 entitles ethnic minorities to be educated in their own language.

It is not surprising that the implementation of such a policy met with opposition and resulted in violence. Reuters reported that 40 people were killed in the first month—December 1984—including 10 Bulgarian soldiers. Although the international press was not allowed to visit the areas concerned, foreign embassies reported eyewitness accounts of villages being surrounded by tanks while people were rounded up to exchange their personal documents for those bearing their new Slavonic name. Those who resisted and tried to escape were shot. Prominent Turkish community leaders who objected were held at the Belene island prison camp.

In response to all that, I was appointed the Council of Europe's rapporteur and in my report, which was unanimously adopted by the parliamentary assembly in September 1985, I called for an end to such a repressive policy and the violation of minority rights. We also called for a fact-finding visit, but the Bulgarian authorities did not respond. Instead, they continued their policy and there was no way out. No Bulgarian ethnic Turk was allowed an exit visa and none was allowed to emigrate. However, by now, the rest of the world was waking up to what was happening.

The events were raised by the United Kingdom in 1985 at the Ottawa meeting of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe. In March 1986, Amnesty International reported over 100 names of ethnic Turks killed in Bulgaria. Then, in December 1986, a Bulgarian weightlifter Naum Shalamanov, sought political asylum in Ankara. Better to be a garbage collector in Turkey than a national hero in Bulgaria, he said. At the Seoul Olympics last year, he won a gold medal under his previous Turkish name, Naim Sulemanoglu.

The Norwegian Helsinki committee reported on the position in 1987. The United Nations special rapporteur, Dr. Ribbiero, reported to the United Nations human rights commission in February 1988, and we raised the issue again at the Vienna review conference. Last year, the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs heard Mr. Georg Schepfass submit:

"the West has some responsibility to look very carefully at what Bulgaria has been doing to its Turkish minority."

Last October, the Council of Europe repeated its call for an end to the persecution of ethnic Turks and the elimination of Moslem identity in Bulgaria, and embarked on a new report, with a further request to be allowed to send a fact-finding team. Only when it was realised that the report would be debated by the parliamentary assembly in May did the Bulgarian authorities at last agree to such a visit, which postponed the debate and which took place earlier this month.

Our visit could not have been more timely. In advance of the CSCE human rights conference in Paris in May and June, Bulgaria announced that, in accordance with its Vienna obligations, it would allow passports to be available to its citizens and exit visas to be provided for all those who wished to leave, with the freedom to return. That, of course, was what the Bulgarian Turks had been waiting for, and the exodus began. It also gave Bulgaria the opportunity to expel those whom it did not want anyway, and the first 1,000 or so passports went to them, with a 48-hour notice to get out of the country. They were the first to arrive in Austria, Sweden, Yugoslavia and Turkey.

Our fact-finding team consisted of an Austrian liberal, a Spanish Socialist and myself, with our committee's secretary and our own interpreter. We had insisted that we should be allowed to go wherever we wished, and to meet and talk to whomever we wanted. During our week in Bulgaria we had meetings with Ministers, parliamentarians, human rights campaigners, university professors and students, representatives of all the religions, and national, provincial and local government officials. We found all that very useful, and it helped us to understand the position better, particularly from the Bulgarian point of view.

Our task, however, was to establish to our own satisfaction whether basic human rights were being denied to the Bulgarian's ethnic Turkish population, and, if so, whether that was the principal reason for the current exodus. I believe that we achieved that aim, and that is what I believe we shall conclude, without any shadow of doubt.

In the two areas where the majority of these people live, the Loudogorce and Kirdzhali regions, we were able to establish genuine and spontaneous dialogue with ethnic Turks who were keen to share their views and experiences with us—although, as several said, they would be observed, reported, questioned, arrested, beaten and given 14 days' hard labour for doing so. There is no doubt that they consider themselves Bulgarian citizens who are Turks; nor is there any doubt that the denial of their religious and ethnic rights is the principal reason for their discontent and their departure. Asked if they would return, few expected to do so; asked whether they would leave if their old names were allowed to be restored, most said that they would stay. They confirmed that many had been forced to change their names at gunpoint, that fathers had been gaoled for circumcising their sons and that they would be fined for speaking Turkish in public.

It is also clear that renewed unrest, hunger strikes, demonstrations and violence broke out in many places on 20 and 21 May—perhaps to coincide with the forthcoming Paris CSCE conference—and that there were several deaths and many injuries at the hands of the militia. I shall never forget our arrival at one of the places—Dzebel, in the south—where there had been much violence. Everyone stood around in silence and apprehension, waiting for something. They were waiting for our arrival, of which they had been informed by the media. It was like "High Noon" in a Western town. The atmosphere was electric. At first no one wanted to talk to us, then everyone did, until the police moved them on.

In our discussions with Bulgarian officials, we found a total failure—or perhaps it was a refusal—to appreciate this situation. They blamed Turkish propaganda for inciting hysteria and provoking the exodus. They cited pan-Turkism as the motive, and warned of Islamic fundamentalism.

They are quite certain that these people will return, as they are entitled to do, because they will not find that the grass is greener in Turkey where, it was suggested. they will not be allowed to restore their original names.

I do not know the truth of that. It may be that the Voice of Turkey has gone over the top in encouraging resistance to exploitation and in offering a haven to all. Perhaps many will return to Bulgaria as some have, we were told, already done. We were not satisfied with the meetings which had been officially arranged for us with local muftis who run the mosques. Their denials of the restrictions did not always match the evidence or satisfy our questioning.

In conclusion, while I cannot anticipate the recommendations which our Committee will wish to make to the Council of Europe in September, it must be right to appeal once again to the Bulgarian Government to alter their policy of enforced name changing and to end all those petty restrictions against the expression of Turkish identity and Moslem religious practice. That is an essential step, which at a stroke could reduce, perhaps even reverse, the present exodus, and which could perhaps form the basis of a new attitude to Bulgaria's ethnic Turks that truly recognises their cultural identity and respects rights that are equal, civil, and human. It would also do much to restore Bulgaria's dreadful image abroad, which is rivalled only by that of its neighbour Romania and which is the principal obstacle to establishing better relations with the rest of Europe, including many of its own allies.

Today, it is totally out of the question for the Council of Europe to contemplate offering Bulgaria the special guest status that Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union have accepted and about which my hon. Friends the Members for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill), for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg) and other hon. Members spoke in yesterday's debate on the Consolidated Fund.

At the end of the day, these problems will only finally be resolved bilaterally between the Bulgarian Government and the Turkish Government, both of whom have their own explanations as to why their 1988 protocol has failed to establish the process of dialogue that is essential. Common sense must prevail sooner or later, and as a good will gesture the Turkish Government should end the propaganda element of its Voice of Turkey radio broadcasts, to which Bulgaria takes understandable exception.

Finally, we in Europe should make available our good offices, backed up by aid to both Governments, to ensure the peaceful resettlement of the refugees in Turkey or their return to their Bulgarian homes, depending on which they want to do. The Council of Europe has immense experience in human rights and in the problems of refugees. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister will ensure that the Government will give their support to what we shall recommend to bring this latest Balkan tragedy to an end.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) draws attention to a great series of tragedies. He is right to say that the movements of population now taking place are perhaps the greatest such movements in Europe since the second world war. The scale of events is great. His speech was sensible and generous. It was sensible in urging the Turks to take such steps as they can that will not exacerbate the situation, and to make some gestures. I applaud my hon. Friend for that suggestion.

As in all such situations, it is easy to become as wholly partisan that problems are exaggerated. My hon. Friend has not done so and I pay tribute to him for that. He was generous in recording correctly the series of strong protests that the Government have made on these issues, and he gave an account of some of them. I think that it would be fair to say that we took the lead in the Paris conference on the human dimension of the CSCE in the matter. Earlier this week, during her visit to Turkey, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker) went to see what was happening.

My hon. Friend, with a proper sense of history, reminded us of the irony that this of all Houses of Parliament should be raising this matter, when we responded with such passion and generosity under the leadership of the then Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, to similar atrocities being carried out at that time to the Bulgarians. It is fair to remind the Bulgarians that our concern for human rights is not new, and is pursued impartially. There is no question of a vendetta against Bulgaria or anything like that. We are concerned about the events and the people.

The last time that I made a protest was to the Bulgarian ambassador on 1 June. As my hon. Friend knows, on 14 June, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey issued a statement calling on the Bulgarian Government to allow the Turkish minority to live where they wish, free of harassment. My hon. Friend gives a full account of his long-standing involvement in this. It is no exaggeration to say that, among western European politicians, he has been one of the leaders in drawing attention to this issue.

The scale of the movement of people makes it clear that the fears and pressures on the Turkish minority population in Bulgaria are not the result of events over a few weeks or months. The name-changing programme began in 1984–85, and when the full-scale assimilation programme described by my hon. Friend was put into full swing, that made matters much worse. We have emphasised again and again to the Bulgarian Government that they should reverse that policy. It has no chance of success and will produce nothing but conflict and unfairness. The pressures probably go even further back, and the right, now given under the CSCE process, to a passport has merely given a hope of escape to many who have suffered pressure for many years.

However, as my hon. Friend said, if this policy were reversed, many people might chose to stay in the areas in which they have had their livelihoods and families and in which their fathers have lived. My hon. Friend was right to draw attention to the name-changing point and to emphasise that even a symbolic gesture against that might do a great deal by itself to change the flow.

Bulgaria recognises the immense damage that what is happening has caused to her economy. She is in dire economic straits, particularly in agriculture, because she has lost so many of her best farming people. Others are being desperately drafted in to try to deal with the harvest. Because she is suffering from an exodus, it is in her own interests to try to resolve the matter fairly.

On 21 June, we invoked the first stage of the human dimension mechanism, the new mechanism established by the Vienna conference under the Helsinki process. This is a formal request for information, and the Bulgarian Government have provided some information. However, I am sorry to say that that does not seem to have had any effect on the practices about which we are complaining. The situation can be resolved only by negotiation. We have been calling constantly on the Bulgarian authorities to negotiate agreements, where they are needed, with their Turkish counterparts. These agreements should lead to an orderly and proper departure for those who want to leave—that is their right—with their property and the right of return, should they wish to, should be safeguarded.

What is most important is that we should secure guarantees that the human rights of those who wish to stay are properly observed in Bulgaria. Therefore, we look to an early conclusion of negotiations between the Turks and the Bulgarians. Recent steps that looked at one time as if they were leading to high-level talks have broken down again. There are rumours that the Soviet Union has been seeking to act as a mediator, and we should not exclude anybody who seeks, with good will, to try to mediate in this situation.

I told my hon. Friend that I would give him some account of my right hon. Friend's visit, which confirms much of what he said. When speaking in public after visiting the crossing point at Kapi Kule, she said that what she saw was heartbreaking. She saw families split as they were crossing. She saw families divorced from their possessions before they crossed. In the chaos and disorder afterwards, she saw desperate families seeking to be reunited with other family members and property. She said that it reminded her of the pictures in her generation—the generation of my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) and my generation, let alone the generation of my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell)—of the massed forced migrations of the second world war. Those were tragic pictures. She said that leaving families had been forced to give up their house keys and car keys, with rather obvious implications. She returned from her visit reinforced in her belief that what is happening is a human tragedy on a great scale.

Bearing in mind what my right hon. Friend had seen, she asked me to pay a tribute to the Turkish Red Crescent organisation. My right hon. Friend has travelled widely as a representative of the Government in Africa and elsewhere. She has seen similar situations in other parts of the world but she added that she had never seen better organised refugee camps and reception arrangements than those which the Turkish Red Crescent were arranging. The British Government were able to give some small financial help to this work, with a donation of £300,000 to the Turkish Red Crescent.

I would add a footnote. I urge the Turkish Government once again to give the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, access to the Kurdish refugees, which they have not done so far. We would be happy to contribute financially to that problem, too. There are certain ironies, but perhaps this is not the appropriate time to draw attention to them. Something of the same policies of assimilation, pressure and use of langauge, for example, impinge on the Kurds at the other end of Turkey.

We are dealing with the Turkish tragedy, however, and that must not be disguised. There is no excuse for it. Perhaps we have the right also to remind the Turkish Government not to fall into the same traps themselves in their treatment of the Kurdish minority. Above all, we ask them to let the UNHCR have access to the camps so that the funds which are available in the western world—£8·5 million is on offer from western European countries—can flow to deal with another desperate situation.

I appreciate that the debate is about the Bulgarian situation, and I do not wish to detract from the deep concern of the British Government and of Parliament. I believe that the British people who have studied the events and accounts that have appeared in the British press feel a deep concern for what is happening. Surely it is not too late for Bulgaria to see that its economy will be damaged and that its reputation among its friends and in the wider world is being severely damaged.

It is not too late for a foolish and wrong policy to be reversed. In many instances, people will seek to return, and will probably be willing to respond to gestures of the sort that my hon. Friend has described. In the end, that is surely the best way forward. We know from wider afield—the Soviet Union is perhaps the greatest example of all—that the most thorough-going persecutions and suppressions of people's ethnic identity do not work.

Although Stalin moved millions of people, suppressed religions and killed thousands or millions of people, as the Russians now admit, yet when a more liberal regime appeared in the welcome form of Mr. Gorbachev, it became clear that those ethnic feelings were still alive throughout the great Soviet empire. It is quite beyond the capacity of the Bulgarian Government to suppress the culture and the traditions of their Turkish minority. This doomed and futile enterprise, which has caused so much harm to Bulgaria and to the people involved in it, should be abandoned and a more sensitive policy of proper treatment of a minority population should at once be undertaken.

Low pay is not inevitable, it is not necessary and it is in no way a vital component for a successful economy. If it were, Bangladesh would be way ahead of West Germany in the league of economically successful nations. The Government's persistent view that wages at the lower end of the labour market are being held above their true market level, thereby pricing workers out of jobs, is simply not true. The Government's obsession with deregulating the labour market to bring wages down has incurred clear costs in economic and human terms. For workers it has caused low morale, poor living standards, insecurity, poor health and inadequate housing. According to the Low Pay Unit, which uses Government statistics, the Government are achieving some success in depressing wages, as the relative earnings of the low paid were 4 per cent. lower in 1988 than in 1986 when figures were first collected.

Firms caught up in the downward spiral of relying solely on low wages to increase profit have proved it to be a disastrous policy. Those firms often have a very high turnover in staff and their contribution to training and research is virtually nil. Low-wage competition produces uncertainty for individual firms, destabilises the business environment and destroys economic prospects for the future. It has a knock-on effect in the local economy as low-paid workers cannot buy goods produced by other workers and tend to rely more heavily on local authority services. Although low-paid workers pay a disproportionately high share of their wages in taxes, if they pay taxes at all, their taxes represent very small sums, so there is also a loss to the Exchequer.

In 1982 the Government rescinded the fair wages resolution, which instructed Departments to require contractors engaged on Government contracts to pay wages and observe hours and conditions no less favourable than those established for the trade or industry in the district. In 1985 the Government wanted to abolish the wages councils altogether, but because an election was on the horizon they settled for seriously weakening the wages councils by amending their powers and taking away protection for young people under 21. Wages councils were also no longer allowed to set minimum holiday entitlements for the workers in the industries they covered.

The Government engage in doublespeak when they talk about the market finding its own level and claim to be a non-interventionist Government, when in fact they intervene on a massive scale with family credit, which clearly subsidises inefficient and mean employers. The other side of the coin, which is even more negative, is that it is the least popular benefit. Low take-up is endemic, mainly because of the stigma attached to claiming it. People on low pay do not want to be seen to rely on Government handouts and would much prefer to earn a decent living wage.

The Government, in their push to abolish wages councils, have consistently refused to produce any real evidence. The only evidence that they have cited in maintaining the link between low earnings and employment growth was the Treasury model, in its paper, "The Relationship between Employment and Wages". That was referred to in the 1985 consultative document on wages councils. In that document Treasury officials admitted in relation to the fixed model that

"the simulation results depend critically on a system of adjustments which is entirely arbitrary and has no empirical basis"

Even the Financial Times, which is usually reasonably sympathetic to the Government, said in its edition of 13 May 1985:

"The Government have frequently given real wage increases as one of the causes of high unemployment and argued that lower pay was needed to price people back into jobs. However, the figures show that real take-home pay of the poorest single workers fell by nearly 6 per cent. in the three years to April 1982. A period during which unemployment was rising most rapidly."

Paradoxically, despite pinpointing real wage rises as a significant barrier to employment, the Government recognised in the consultative document accompanying the White Paper, "Employment for the 1990s", that since 1986

"the rates of youth unemployment has declined dramatically"—

at the same time as young people's earnings have—

"continued to rise".

It seems that the Government cannot make up their mind.

During the 1980s the Government have also set out to render the wages inspectorate impotent by cutting the numbers of inspectors from 120 in 1985 to just 71 today. That means that there are 106 fewer inspectors in post than in 1979.

In June another excellent report was produced by the Low Pay Unit entitled, "Undervalued, Underpaid and Undercut", and saying that

"The numbers of firms found to be committing the criminal offence of minimum wage underpayment has leapt by 26 per cent. in the past year."

The chances of prosecuting for that criminal act are small as only 51 of the 89,000 firms caught between 1979 and 1988 were prosecuted. More than 88,000 were never taken to court. That shows that the Government are ambivalent about their commitment to law and order.

The Government's commitment to fining firms which underpay is a joke because they do not have enough inspectors at the Department of Employment. The Government now send out a postal questionnaire to smaller firms. The 1988 consultative document on the abolition of the wages councils was the last to be published by the Government and it is a slim and inaccurate document. On page 7 the Government say:

"If the reply indicates that there may be an underpayment, or if no reply is received, an inspection visit is carried out. Where the reply shows that no workers are underpaid, no visit is made, except for a 5 per cent. sample selected for a visit to monitor the validity of the postal inquiry method."

That is not good enough given that the law-breaking firms owe their combined work force a total of £1·3 billion. How many small firms have filled in the postal questionnaire in each year since its introduction?

In 1985 the Confederation of British Industry voted by three to one in favour of retaining the wages councils. Then, as now, almost every response ranging from trade unions to churches was hostile to the abolition of the councils. As I have already said, a general election was on the horizon and the Government ran away.

The 1988 consultative document on the abolition of the wages councils uses many of the same arguments about workers pricing themselves out of jobs with one or two new ones thrown in for good measure. A firm in Calderdale, FKI Babcock, employs many low-paid workers. Recently, one of FKI Babcock's home workers visited me at my surgery. Home workers who work for that company are given kits of electronic components to assemble. They were arbitrarily told that the price of assembling those kits was to be halved, in the interests of efficiency. The woman who visited showed me written evidence. She had previously been paid £71 for assembling a kit—low pay, but that is the norm for home working—but in future she is to be paid £38. Meanwhile, Tony Gartland, the managing director of FKI Babcock, is to earn £773,000 this year, because he has just given himself a 250 per cent. increase in salary and bonuses. The company's pre-tax profits have risen by 122 per cent. to £108 million.

I ask the Minister to look at the massive increase in profits in the hotel and catering sector during the 1980s. The consultative document implies that wages councils were keeping wages higher than the market could afford. Greedy directors are a far bigger problem than low-paid workers. Those captains of industry—the good and the worthy—who are giving themselves huge pay increases and who have failed to invest in training and research, are being put in charge of training enterprise councils. Tony Gartland is one of the good and the worthy. He will be in charge of one of the TECs in my constituency—that is an absolute scandal.

On page 5 of the consultative document, the Government argue that 55 per cent. of workers covered by wages councils work for organisations that have established collective bargaining. It is sheer brass neck for the Government to try to treat unions sympathetically to win an argument when for years they have tried to smash the unions and any form of collective bargaining. The Government's arguments are fatally flawed. They have difficulty in following to a logical conclusion their thought processes in the document.

Because of high unemployment, the Government's union-smashing policies and some undemocratic laws, the number of workers covered by principal national agreements has fallen by 30 per cent., from 8·5 million workers in 1979 to only 5·9 million now. The Government admit in their document that two thirds of the 2·5 million workers who are still covered by wages councils work part time. The majority are women and those who work in the hotel and catering sector account for 39 per cent. Those groups have the smallest trade union membership in any industry. Women and part-time workers tend not to join unions and are discouraged from doing so. Hotels arid catering services are notorious for not having unionised workplaces. Small firms often employ on a casual basis. It is a fiction that national agreements and trade unions can protect those vulnerable groups of workers.

I hope that the Minister will give evidence to support the statement on page 5 of the consultative document that

"since young people ceased to be covered by wages councils in 1986 their earnings have not plummeted but have continued to rise. At the same time the rate of youth unemployment has declined."

I come from a low-paid area in Halifax, a town which has the dubious honour of being the low pay capital of west Yorkshire, which is the lowest paid area in the country. The West Yorkshire Low Pay Unit has asked the Minister to carry out some research. It has sent me examples of what has been happening to young people since the abolition of the protection provided for them. The Low Pay Unit referred to the following job:

"A receptionist offered £2 per hour to work shifts—morning, afternoons and evenings—in a busy town centre hotel. Duties involve checking guests in and out, cash handling, using a busy switchboard and a computer; reception experience required; age 17 to 20."

If the wages council had still covered young workers, a 17-year-old could have expected the princely sum of £1·60 in a licensed hotel. However, a worker aged 18 or over would have been entitled to a minimum rate of £2·12 an hour. They are not paid shift allowances and their conditions have got much worse because this vital protection has been removed.

The report also highlighted the case of a 19-year-old working in a fruit and vegetable shop. On 26 April 1988 he was earning £1.85 an hour. If still covered by the retail food wages council, his hourly rate would have been £2.33. A 16-year-old working all day Saturday in a supermarket was being paid 50p an hour on 29 April 1988. If still covered by the retail food wages council his hourly rate would have been £1.47. Those are disgraceful rates of pay by any standards—even compared with pay under the wages councils, which never set high rates of pay. Such salaries now are virtually criminal.

The Government omit to mention that the number of school leavers has fallen. There will be more than a million fewer 16 to 19-year-olds in 1993 than there were in 1983. And we have got used to the Government not mentioning changes in the way in which unemployment is calculated, particularly by excluding those on schemes.

If, as seems likely, the Government go ahead with their proposals to abolish the wages councils—the only minimum protection for 2.5 million of the lowest paid workers in the country—despite widespread opposition from employers, unions and other organisations, we shall be the only EC state with no legally enforceable wage protection and we shall be in breach of the universal declaration of human rights, the European charter and the treaty of Rome, which called for member states to

"promote improved working conditions and an improved standard of living for workers".

United Kingdom wage rates are already relatively low compared with high-pay, high-productivity countries such as Germany and France. It is unlikely that other member states will stand by and allow the United Kingdom to engineer competitive advantage by wage cutting. They do not want the Third world society that would emerge from such a battle. I imagine that there will be great pressure on the Government to acquiesce in the European social charter.

I am sure that the Minister will say that most employers favour abolition of wages councils, but a large number of important employers—some of them the Government's paymasters—are not convinced about abolition.

I still have another 10 minutes and I could easily go on for that long, but I shall conclude by quoting from the Low Pay Unit's recent press release which contained a report on the responses to the Government's paper. The Government say that they have received almost 400 responses to their proposal to scrap the wages councils. The Low Pay Unit survey comments that

"none of the responses from the churches, charities voluntary organisations and trade unions favoured abolition. Amongst the 24 employers' organisations who sent their responses to the Unit, those in favour of retaining the minimum wage system outnumbered those in favour of scrapping it by two-to-one. Those opposing Government plans included the CBI, the Institute of Personnel Management and the British Institute of Management … Employers are concerned that people should not be subject to exploitation and that the social security system should not be used to subsidise low wages."

There is also a belief that wages councils improve industrial relations and a scepticism about the Government's claim that the abolition of the wages councils will lead to the creation of more jobs. It is worth quoting one or two of the various employers' organisations. The British Independent Grocers Federation disagreed fundamentally with the Government's assertion that wages councils were a barrier to employment growth, saying that

"there is no evidence in the Consultation-Document, or elsewhere for that matter, to support that contention."

The National Federation of Fish Friers made a statement worthy of any trade union:

"It is our view that if a business has to rely on cheap labour to be successful and profitable there is something wrong with the management."

I have already quoted the British Institute of Management, which also said that

"to suggest that the social security system should be the support structure for low-earners, at a time when the so-called poverty trap remains unresolved is unhelpful to managers seeking to encourage people into legitimate employment at realistic wages".

In a debate the other evening on social security regulations, the Minister refused to give an undertaking that those who are now forced under the new regulations to take work for which they believe that they are not suitable or trained, would not be forced to go to an employer who paid illegal wages. That is disgraceful.

The Government will get away with whatever they can. Their real purpose in abolishing the wages councils is to allow even lower wages than at present. I carried out a little research among employers. I had asked the Minister a question about employers, but it was like extracting teeth; it proved very difficult to get straight answers from the Department.

Among the responses from 68 employers' organisations, almost half were opposed to abolition of the wages councils. Some of those who supported the abolition of the wages councils felt that the weakening of the wages councils in 1986, which they opposed, was the main reason for them to support abolition now. Clearly some employers favour abolition because that would allow them to exploit their workers even further.

I had some wonderful quotes from employers. To its shame, the National Federation of Self Employed and Small Businesses said:

"The removal of Wages Councils would mean that the most deserving groups of employees would be able to start pricing themselves into jobs and that new and more flexible contractual arrangements could be introduced into the service industries."

The British Retailers Association referred to "inflationary minimum rates". As we are talking about £2 an hour, that is a clear sign that in an area with high unemployment some employers intend to get away with poverty wages and highly exploitive conditions of employment.

Wages council rates leave a great deal to be desired. However, in the absence of any legislation giving people the right to a minimum income, they must be maintained to prevent wholesale exploitation. The vast majority of those responding to the Government's consultative document took that view. I hope that the Minister will convey to the Government the fact that there is real opposition to the plans to abolish the wages councils. I ask the Government to drop their proposals and instead to strengthen the wages councils so as to provide real protection for the lowest paid, who deserve nothing less.

The hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) graced our deliberations today with a speech showing her usual and characteristic charm and generosity of spirit. In the very few moments that she has been kind enough to leave to me I shall do my best to answer at least some of the points that she has raised. I will deal with the wages councils, but, due to lack of time, I shall not be able to deal, as I had intended, with the general argument about low pay.

A point that is consistently ignored in these debates is that the economic and social situation today is vastly different from that in 1909 when the wages councils system was introduced. Average pay is far higher and hours worked per week some 10 to 15 fewer. The country also benefits from a comprehensive system of social security protection for those both in and out of work.

It is significant also that two thirds of wages councils workers are paid above the minimum and that the majority of wages councils workers work part-time, many of them contributing a second income to the family.

Councils now cover about 10 per cent. of the work force. The system is extensive only in retailing, hotel and catering and clothing manufacture and some other very small industries. It is not comprehensive in coverage. It is riddled throughout with anomalies—laundries are covered, but not laundrettes; and the sale of cooked meats is covered, but raw meat is not.

As the House will recall, the wages council system was reformed and simplified by the Wages Act 1986. The Government were acting in accordance with the wishes of the majority of employer bodies. In addition to reducing councils' powers and removing under-21s from regulation, the legislation attempted to clarify the councils' role as setting minimum rates, not going rates, by requiring them to consider the employment effects of their decisions in areas where workers are generally paid below the national average for their trade or occupation.

In the first year of operation, the average increase imposed by the councils on the previous lowest rate was 8·6 per cent. In the second year, the outcome was an average increase of 6·3 per cent. and settlements in the third year have averaged 6·5 per cent. Earlier this month, at the start of the fourth year, the council for licensed hotels and restaurants has proposed increasing its minimum rate by almost 10 per cent.

Settlements of that order of magnitude hardly suggest that the councils have operated with regard to their clarified remit. Moreover, a substantial proportion of workers covered by councils—probably as many as a third—continue to be paid on the minimum rate. Such clustering of pay levels around a particular figure is evidence that council minimums continue to be above the levels required to fill jobs.

The hon. Lady asked for evidence to be produced that the effect of wages councils was adverse employment implications. She said that she was unaware of evidence to that effect. I am bound to say that the evidence that the hon. Lady sought was in my written reply to a parliamentary question from her earlier this week. That answer stated:

"A large body of evidence exists on the implications for pay and jobs of the abolition of wages councils. This includes studies undertaken or commissioned by the Department".

I went on to say that the studies had been listed in various parliamentary answers, and I even set them out to help the hon. Lady in her deliberations. I went on to say:

"Virtually all of the research work on this subject conducted in the 1980s and known to the Department supports the view that removing statutory minimum wage provisions can be expected to have beneficial effects on employment."—[Official Report, 21 July 1989; Vol. 157, c. 390.]

That is the evidence that the hon. Lady said did not exist.

Much of what the hon. Lady said was consistent, bat, as often happens with the hon. Lady's contributions in the House and in Committee, it was consistently wrong. I will try to deal with two of the grosser fallacies. She tried to make some spurious capital out of referring to the prosecutions that had been mounted by the wages inspectorate over the years, and she referred to questionnaires. On prosecutions, the hon. Lady's attitude is that all things under Conservative Governments are wicked and all things under Labour Governments are good. That is a view of history that probably would not disgrace Noddy in Toyland. If the hon. Lady wants to conduct the debate in that way, and experience shows that she does, there is a slightly better ratio of prosecutions to underpaying employers under this Government than under the Labour Government. The hon. Lady referred to questionnaires—again, more evidence of her Ladybird economics—as a dreadful thing, apparently drawn up by the wicked Tory Government. I have to tell the hon. Lady—she can giggle her way through this if she will-that those questionnaires were introduced by a Labour Government.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I will not give way. The hon. Lady has had more than her fair share of the time available.

She should look at the response to the questionnaires. Ninety-five per cent. of them were completed accurately, and if they were not, there was a follow-up and a full inspection.

What about inspector numbers?

The hon. Lady chirrups from a sedentary position, "What about inspector numbers?" From her extensive research into the matter, she must surely be aware that the operation of the wages councils was substantially clarified in 1986. It was made a great deal easier, and the regulations were made a great deal simpler. I do not expect the hon. Lady to approve that—that would be asking too much. It meant that the work of the wages inspectors could actually be concentrated on carrying out a much narrower remit. To suggest that there was any loss of enforcement, where it was still necessary under the law, was quite wrong. The hon. Lady cannot grasp, no matter how many times Ministers try to get it across to her, that she is concerned only about low pay. In the real world, the issue for many of our constituents is not low pay but no job. The hon. Lady cannot understand or countenance that for many people the first step back into the labour market is a low-paid job which leads on to something better. A low-paid job for a person who has been out of work means a better passport in the labour market. That is the reality, but the hon. Lady is a complete stranger to reality.

In relating the tragic events surrounding the last four months of the life of the Rev. Terry Barr, who was vicar of Avonmouth, I must stress that I am not seeking to use parliamentary time to attempt to prove the innocence of a close friend. Nor am I seeking to show that the actions locally of the police, social services or local hospitals are to be questioned. My purpose in raising the debate is that I believe that many of the events that led, almost inevitably, to his death carry implications for national policy. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will consider that national policy to prevent the recurrence of such events.

Terry Barr had been the vicar of two parishes successively in my constituency for as long as I have been its Member of Parliament. In addition to his family of five children, his concern and care for children had been a feature of his life. For up to 20 years he had successfully fostered children, who were placed largely by the county of Avon for short or long periods. At no time during those 20 years had there been anything but praise from the county council for the love and care that he gave to his extended family. I visited the family on numerous occasions and always left with an impression of happy chaos.

Just before Easter this year, a third foster child, aged 15, joined the family, which included two foster children aged nine and seven. Like so many foster children, the boy had had a chequered past. He had been suspected of involvement in the making of pornographic videos and of procuring young children for that purpose. The boy was placed by the county with the Barr family, in what may have been regarded as a last attempt to provide him with some form of stable family background.

Within a week, on the Thursday before Easter, he had run away and had made what appeared to all the authorities concerned to be perfectly believable accusations of sexual abuse by Terry Barr of the children in his care. What followed had all the inevitability of a Greek tragedy.

The remaining children were questioned extensively by the police and, in view of the urgency inevitably involved, under what in retrospect must be seen as inadequate conditions. Terry was charged and bailed on condition that he never slept at home. At least in the early stages of the case he was not permitted to remain in a room with his children without another adult being present. His children were made wards of court and the two foster children were removed.

The case dragged on and was eventually sent to the Crown court, during which time Terry was being forced to live in a seamen's hostel opposite the vicarage where his family lived, without the moral support on which he was increasingly coming to rely from them.

Early in July, he penned three copies of a note to his bishop, to his solicitor and to myself. He said:

"If I could have come home to the love and care of my family, I might have been able to continue. I cannot spend another night on my own."

After writing that note, he attempted suicide. He spent two or three nights in the district general hospital, was transferred to the specialist supervised unit for potential suicides run by the district health authority and succeeded in committing suicide within a couple of days of his arrival. The case was still months away from any resolution of his guilt or innocence.

Inevitably, the fury of local reaction in the community he served has turned on the actions of the local organisations which played a direct part in the events I have described. The police were first on the scene and asked to interview the two younger foster children and one of the Barr's sons. In the confusion of being informed that her husband was suspected of being a child molester and never having been in a police station before, Mrs. Barr declined to sit in on the interview. As a result, the police, quite properly under existing practice, asked a member of the social services department to do so. In the absence of any friend of the family at the first interview it is perhaps inevitable that the boy who was interviewed and his two brothers, who were interviewed later in the presence of Mrs. Barr, all formed the impression that the interview had consisted of their being bullied and accused of lying. I repeat that because no outside friend of the family was present and there is no evidence of any impropriety on the part of the police or the social worker. The police have made it clear in a letter to me that

"one of their primary objectives is to safeguard and protect the interests of any children who may be involved".

I have no doubt that they did that. The question to which I shall return is the fact that the police apparently have no duty to give equal consideration to the interests of the family.

As social services departments are inevitably at the forefront of cases involving suspected child sexual abuse, the Government have rightly issued—and I believe re-issued—guidelines to local authorities. The latest guidelines that were issued only last week have laid down detailed rules on the manner in which all agencies working within the area of child protection should undertake an investigation when an allegation of child sexual abuse has been made. I have no doubt that the regulations were followed in scrupulous detail by officers of the social services department. However, the fact that they were so followed meant, in the words of the director of social services, that

"they were left with no alternative but to ensure that the Reverend Barr was separated from children."

The duty of social services is seen as relating solely to the children and not to either parent. It could be argued that because no allegation of sexual impropriety towards his own children had been made, the existing regulations forced social services even to be selective as to the children they had to protect. The result was that Terry Barr spent the last few weeks of his life believing that if he had put a foot wrong with the social services department, not only the children he had been fostering but his own children could be taken from him. After all, seen from his point of view, there had already been an attempt by the police and social services in the interviews to which I have referred to persuade his children to provide evidence against him.

In general, handling of the case by the local media has been responsible and there have been few—I regret that there have been any—of the predictable lurid headlines. Nevertheless, some concern remains that no protection is given to the defendant on being named in such cases. I have already raised this matter with the appropriate Minister at the Department of Health who has correctly pointed out that it is in the public interest to know whether a person has been accused of a serious crime. My concern in this case is that, whereas the anonymity of the defendant would have been available to the court under section 39 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 in order to protect any child involved in the proceedings—that was not necessary here since the children involved had already been removed from the Barr home—no such anonymity is available to protect the Barr children. Fortunately, in both the schools the children attend they were offered the strongest possible support. However, that might not have been the case.

My final area of concern relates to the period that Terry spent in hospital after his first suicide attempt. It is accepted that no level of care, however constant or stringent, can prevent suicide on the part of any human being who is determined enough.

What I think should concern the House is that there appears to be no intervening legal step between the full rigours of sectioning under the Mental Health Act 1988—which would have made Terry Barr a compulsory in-patient, and which would almost certainly not have been granted by the courts in this case—and the status of voluntary patient, in which he was free to come and go and to evade supervision as much as he wished. It was through a gap in the law that he was able to commit suicide, and I ask my hon. Friend and his colleagues to consider whether that gap is too wide.

I believe that there are two strands to the story. The first concerns whether, in our efforts as a society to protect the innocent victim of child abuse, we have gone so far down the road of considering only the interests of the abused child that we have entirely forgotten the potential interests of others involved in the case—not just the victim's family but the family of the defendant, and even the defendant himself. There was no official help, advice or care for Terry; help came only from his family, his bishop and his friends.

The second strand is this. It is a principle of our from of justice that any defendant is treated as innocent until proven guilty. While that principle applies in the case of an accusation of child sexual abuse, the way in which it is applied under current law and practice makes it indistinguishable from an assumption of guilt. If Terry Barr was innocent of the charges laid against him, the way in which we as a society handle such charges makes our legal system responsible for the destruction of his family, and for leading him to a point at which death seemed the best course.

If we as a society have given such untrammelled power to the child accuser, how do we now protect ourselves against the misuse of that power? Is not our purpose in Parliament to prevent rules from operating in such a way as to pick up a potentially innocent man and destroy him?

We must all be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern) for bringing to our attention these sad issues concerning the existing law arid practice on child abuse. I need not rehearse the facts of this tragic case, as my hon. Friend has already given them eloquently and movingly; let me simply say how sorry I was to hear of the sad events surrounding Mr. Barr's death, which was obviously the unhappiest possible outcome for all concerned.

I should like to make some general observations, particularly from the point of view of the Home Office. An allegation of child abuse is a grave matter; its consequences for the accused, even if he is acquitted, can be appalling. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree, however, that in the interests of the children the authorities cannot baulk at investigating and bringing proceedings when evidence warrants it.

In this case the police investigated carefully, involving the social services department as they did so. They decided that charges should be brought, and the Crown prosecution service agreed that the evidence and the public interest justified prosecution. The magistrates court imposed and sustained bail conditions, removing Mr. Barr from the family home. Those decisions were made and scrutinised carefully by responsible bodies.

Government's role is clearly to ensure that the general arrangements for investigating child abuse are as adequate and as fair as we can possibly make them. The investigation of allegations of child abuse is inevitably a difficult and sensitive process: important decisions must be reached which will have a profound effect on all concerned, whether it is decided to prosecute the suspect, to remove the child from its home or to give the family special help and support. The whole process of investigation and decision-making can be traumatic for the child and for its family, as the events in Cleveland clearly show, and as many of us know from constituency experience.

In some areas the police, social and medical services and voluntary agencies such as the NSPCC, have worked hard together for some years to try to ensure that they respond quickly and sensitively to allegations of child abuse. We have built on their experience in drawing up a guidance circular for chief officers of police about the investigation of child sexual abuse and we issued that in July last year. The circular, which also takes account of the recommendations of the Cleveland inquiry report, was prepared in consultation with the Department of Health and members of the social services, medical and legal professions and the forensic science service.

The essence of the guidance—my hon. Friend touched on this in his speech—is that police forces and social services should work together in investigating cases of suggested child sexual abuse and should use specially trained joint investigating teams. The aim of this approach is to combine investigation of the facts with therapy. We think that professionals can benefit from each other's expertise. It is most important that the child is given the opportunity to tell his or her story to sympathetic listeners who have gained the child's trust. In turn, the child is spared the ordeal of having to repeat that story again and again in front of others because we recommend that interviews should be recorded on video tape. There is no undue pressure to provide evidence that can be used in court. The interests of the child rather than the aims of a particular professional organisation come first.

My hon. Friend spoke about respecting the rights of parents. None the less it is right that we should always put the child's interests first. Working together in joint investigations is a new and difficult skill which requires special training. Many hon. Members will agree with that. We have agreed with the police and representatives of social services guidance on the organisation and content of general training, and hope to issue that guidance next month.

Obviously, close liaison with the local medical services is also essential. Our circular urges chief officers of police to work with them. It is important that there should be sufficient doctors who are skilled both in examining children for sexual abuse and in the presentation of forensic evidence. To that end we have asked the forensic science service to help the police organise joint training for police surgeons and other doctors and interested professionals. I am glad to tell my hon. Friend that the response to our circular has been positive and we believe there is now a genuine recognition of the need to work together.

What about cases which come to court, and the question of anonymity of defendants? The fundamental principle of our criminal justice system is that justice is done openly and in public. As my hon. Friend knows, only in exceptional circumstances will a trial take place in private or the court order that an accused or witness should not be identified in the press. Justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done. That is a truism that remains true. Publicity helps to safeguard the integrity of the justice that is dispensed, and it is in the public interest to know whether a person has been accused of a serious crime, just as it is in the public interest to know whether there is subsequently an acquittal.

I certainly understand the distress that can follow from being accused of a crime, even if the accused person is subsequently acquitted. This is particularly so for sexual offences. However, I do not think that it would he right in principle to provide anonymity for all persons accused of crime, nor do I think that it would be acceptable to Parliament or to the public. It is true that defendants in rape cases for a period enjoyed anonymity. The argument that because the woman should have anonymity—in order not to deter her from reporting a rape—so should the man, was always misconceived, and at our instigation Parliament removed the anonymity of defendants by last year's Criminal Justice Act. A rape defendant can be named, like any other defendant.

My hon. Friend suggested, and I fully understand his feelings in suggesting this, particularly in relation to this case, that the duty of social services is seen as relating solely to the children and not to either parent. Guidance issued to directors of social services in response to the Cleveland inquiry report stressed that although social services departments must give first and highest priority to protecting the child, they also have responsibilities in relation to the child's parents and other family members. They also have a particular responsibility to consider whether it is in the child's best interests to keep the family together. I understand that in this case the social services department tried to achieve that but that the Reverend Barr, on his solicitor's advice, declined to co-operate with the social services department, and when he was charged by the police the social services department decided that it must act to protect the child, and initiated wardship proceedings.

As to my hon. Friend's point about the need to protect the Barr children, I fully understand that there is no general provision to protect the anonymity of the defendant's children if they are not involved in the proceedings, which is at the heart of the point that he was making. The general rule is that defendants can be named, and this may inevitably lead to the identification of their children. Children of a person accused of rape, murder or armed robbery may suffer when the accused is publicly identified. However, there would not appear to be any justification for singling out for special attention the children of those accused of the sexual abuse of other children.

My hon. Friend said that the press coverage in this case had been moderate or reasonably well balanced and I am delighted to hear that. It is important that we should strike a balance between the freedom of the press to report matters of legitimate public interest and the need to protect justice from interference. I think that the law already strikes this balance through the Contempt of Court Act 1981. It provides that any publication that creates a substantial risk of seriously impeding or prejudicing the course of justice in active proceedings is in contempt of court, regardless of whether there was an intent to interfere with the course of justice. The 1981 Act serves to deter the media from irresponsible reporting of cases and, if such reporting occurs, provides suitable penalties.

We would all agree that, far from being easy, these are difficult matters. We have to consider the interests of those accused but not convicted of crime, but we must also consider the need to protect children against those who abuse them. We must have regard to the traditional openness of British justice, which we all greatly and rightly value. I am sure that my ministerial colleagues in the Department of Health will take note of the points affecting them that my hon. Friend has raised, and in particular his point about the possible gap in the Mental Health Acts between the rigours of the compulsory inpatient and the voluntary outpatient.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing these matters to the attention of the House and I am only sorry that it was against the background of such a tragic case.