Commons Chamber

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House Of Commons

Tuesday 12 May 1992

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

Prayers

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Members Sworn

The following Members took and subscribed the Oath, or made and subscribed the Affirmation required by law:

Robert Parry, esquire, Liverpool, Riverside.
Julian Michael Gordon Critchley, esquire, Aldershot.

Private Business

Crossrail Bill

King's Cross Railways (No 2) Bill

Orders for Second Reading read.

To he read a Second time on Thursday.

Business Of The House

Return ordered,

For Session 1991–92 of—
(1) the total number of Questions to Ministers or other Members which stood on the Order Paper, distinguishing those set down for oral, written priority and written answer respectively, the number of days upon which replies to Questions for oral answer were given in the House; and the total number of Questions for oral answer to which such answers were given in the House;
(2) the total number of Notices of Motions given for an early day;
(3) the number of Members ordered to withdraw from the House under Standing Order No. 42 (Disorderly conduct), showing separately the orders given in the House and those given in Committee; and the Members suspended from the service of the House under Standing Order No. 43 (Order in debate) or otherwise, distinguishing whether the offence was committed in the House or in Committee, the period of such suspension, the number of occasions on which more than one Member was so suspended having jointly disregarded the authority of the Chair, and the number of occasions on which the attention of the House was called to the need for recourse to force to compel obedience to the Speaker's direction; and
(4) the number of public petitions presented to the House, distinguishing separately those brought to the Table at the times specified by Standing Order No. 133 (Time and manner of presenting petitions)—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Closure Of Debate And Allocation Of Time

Return ordered,

Respecting—
(a) applications of Standing Order No. 35 (Closure of debate) during Session 1991–92:

(1) in the House and in Committee of the whole House, under the following heads:
1	2	3	4	5	6
Date when Closure claimed, and by whom	Question before House or Committee when claimed	Whether in House or Committee	Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by the Chair	Assent withheld because, in the opinion of the Chair, a decision would shortly be arrived at without that Motion	Result of Motion and, if a Division, Numbers for and against

and

(2) in the Standing Committees under the following heads:
1	2	3	4	5
Date when Closure claimed, and by whom	Question before House or Committee when claimed	Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by the Chair	Assent withheld because, in the opinion of the Chair, a decision would shortly be arrived at without that Motion	Result of Motion and, if a Division, Numbers for and against

and

(b) applications of Standing Order No. 28 (Powers of Chair to propose question) during Session 1991–92:
(1) in the House and in Committee of the whole House, under the following heads:
1	2	3	4	5
Date when Closure claimed, and by whom	Whether in House or Committee	Whether claimed in respect of Motion or Amendment	Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by the Chair	Result of Motion and, if a Division, Numbers for and against

and

(2) in the Standing Committees under the following heads:
1	2	3	4
Date when Closure claimed, and by whom	Whether claimed in respect of Motion or Amendment	Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by the Chair	Result of Motion and, if a Division, Numbers for and against

and

(c) the number of Bills in respect of which allocation of time orders distinguishing where appropriate orders supplementary to a previous order) were made under Standing Order No. 81 (Allocation of time to Bills), showing in respect of each Bill—

(i) the number of sittings allotted to the consideration of the Bill in Standing Committee by any report of a Business Sub-Committee under Standing Order No. 103 (Business sub-committees) agreed to by the Standing Committee, and the number of sittings of the Standing Committee pursuant thereto; and

(ii) the number of days or portions of days allotted by the allocation of time order and any supplementary order to the consideration of the Bill at any stage in the House or in committee, together with the number of days upon which proceedings were so taken in the House or in committee.—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Delegated Legislation

Return ordered,

for Session 1991–92 of—
(A) the numbers of Instruments subject to the different forms of parliamentary procedure and those for which no parliamentary procedure is prescribed by statute (1) laid before the House; and (2) considered by the Joint Committee and Select Committee on Statutory Instruments respectively pursuant to their orders of reference, setting out the grounds on which Instruments may be drawn to the special attention of the House under Standing Order No. 124 (Statutory Instruments (Joint Committee)) and specifying the number of Instruments so reported under each of these grounds; and
(B) the numbers of Instruments considered by a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c., and by the House respectively, showing the number where the Question on the proceedings relating thereto was put forthwith under paragraph (5) of the Standing Order No. 101 (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.).—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Private Bills And Private Business

Return ordered,

for Session 1991–92 of—
(1) the number of Private Bills, Bills for the confirmation of Orders under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders introduced into this House, and brought from the House of Lords, and of Acts passed, specifying also the dates of the House's consideration of the several stages of such Bills;
(2) all Private Bills, Hybrid Bills and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which were reported on by Committees on Opposed Bills or by Committees nominated by the House or partly by the House and partly by the Committee of Selection, together with the names of the selected Members who served on each Committee; the first and also the last day of the sitting of each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee sat; the number of days on which each selected Member served; the number of days occupied by each Bill in Committee; the Bills of which the Preambles were reported to have been proved; the Bills of which the Preambles were reported to have been not proved; and in the case of Bills for confirming Provisional Orders, whether the Provisional Order ought or ought not to be confirmed;
(3) all Private Bills and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which were referred by the Committee of Selection to the Committee on Unopposed Bills, together with the names of the Members who served on the Committee; the number of days on which the Committee sat; and the number of days on which each Member attended;
(4) the number of Bills to confirm Orders under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, distinguishing those proceeded with under section 7 and under section 9 respectively; specifying, in the case of Bills proceeded with under section 9 against which petitions were deposited, whether a motion was made to refer the Bill to a Joint Committee, and if so, whether such motion was agreed to, withdrawn, negatived or otherwise disposed of; and stating for each Joint Committee to which a Bill was referred the names of the Members of this House nominated thereto, the first and last day of the Committee's sitting, the number of days on which each Joint Committee sat for the consideration of the Bill referred to it, the number of days on which each Member of the Committee served, and whether the Committee reported that the Order ought or ought not be confirmed;
(5) the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, Bills for the confirmation of Orders under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders withdrawn or not proceeded with by the parties, those Bills being specified which were referred to Committees and dropped during the sittings of the Committee; and
(6) the membership, work costs and staff of the Court of Referees and the Standing Orders Committee.—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Public Bills

Return ordered,

for Session 1991–92 of the number of Public Bills (other than Bills to confirm Provisional Orders and Bills to confirm Orders under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936) distinguishing Government from other Bills, introduced into this House, or brought from the House of Lords, showing—
(1) the number which received the Royal Assent; and
(2) the number which did not receive the Royal Assent, indicating those which were introduced into but not passed by this House, those passed by this House but not by the House of Lords, those passed by the House of Lords but not by this House, those passed by both Houses but Amendments not agreed to; and distinguishing the stages at which such Bills were dropped, postponed or rejected in either House of Parliament, or the stages which such Bills had reached by the time of Prorogation.[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Sittings Of The House

Return ordered,

for Session 1991–92 of the days on which the House sat; stating for each day the day of the month and day of the week, the hour of the meeting, and the hour of the adjournment; the total numbers of hours occupied in the sittings of the House; and the average time; showing the number of hours on which the House sat each day and the number of hours after the time appointed for the interruption of business; and specifying, for each principal type of business before the House, how much time was spent thereon, distinguishing from the total the time spent after the hour appointed for the interruption of business.—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Special Procedure Orders

Return ordered,

for Session 1991–92 of—
(1) the number of Special Procedure Orders presented, the number withdrawn; the number annulled; the number against which Petitions or copies of Petitions were desposited; the number of Petitions of General Objection and for Amendment respectively considered by the Chairmen; the number of such petitions certified by the Chairmen as proper to be received and the number certified by them as being Petitions of General Objection and for Amendment respectively; the number referred to a Joint Committee of both Houses; the number reported with Amendments by a Joint Committee, and the number in relation to which a Joint Committee reported that the Order be not approved and be amended respectively; and the number of Bills introduced for the confirmation of Special Procedure Orders; and
(2) Special Procedure Orders which were referred to a Joint Committee, together with the names of the Commons Members who served on each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee sat; and the number of days on which each such Member attended.—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Standing Committees

Return ordered,

for Session 1991–92 of—
(1) the total number and the names of all Members (including and distinguishing Chairmen) who have been appointed to serve on one or more Standing Committees showing with regard to each of such Members, the number of sittings to which he was summoned and at which he was present;
(2) the number of Bills, Estimates, Matters and other items referred to Standing Committees pursuant to Standing Order No. 101 (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.), or Standing Order No. 102 (European Standing Committees), considered by all and by each of the Standing Committees, the number of sitttings of each Committee and the titles of all Bills, Estimates, Matters and other items as above considered by a Committee, distinguishing where a Bill was a Government Bill or was brought from the House of Lords, and showing in the case of each Bill, Estimate, Matter and other item, the particular Committee by which it was considered, the number of sittings at which it was considered (including, in the case of the Scottish Grand Committee, the number of Meetings held in Edinburgh pursuant to a motion made under paragraph 3 of Standing Order No. 94 (Scottish Grand Committee)) and the number of Members present at each of those sittings; and
(3) the membership, work, costs and staff of the Chairmen's Panel.—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Select Committees

Return ordered,

for Session 1991–92 of statistics relating to the membership, work, costs and staff of Select Committees (other than the Standing Orders Committee).—[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Oral Answers To Questions

Health

Accident And Casualty Department, Haringey

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she has any plans to set up an accident and emergency casualty department in the borough of Haringey.

No. As the hon. Lady will be aware, the residents of Haringey receive accident and emergency services from excellent local hospitals.

Is the Minister aware that the two local hospitals, Whittington and North Middlesex, are extremely overstretched and in a financial crisis and that a consultant at North Middlesex hospital estimates that if it were to keep to its contracts for paediatric care it would have to turn away 600 sick children seeking admission from accident and emergency treatment? Does that not make a sham of the pledge in the Gracious Speech to improve the quality of the national health service?

No. There is no question of any patients being turned away from either hospital. I suggest to the hon. Lady that she might like to take a step back from her party's usual policy of denigration from a distance, visit the accident and emergency units and let me know of her impressions.

Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Government are determined to improve health services for the whole of Greater London and to ensure that the needs of London are matched by the resources to improve health care for everyone in the capital?

I thank my hon. Friend for those observations. No residents of Haringey are more than 3 miles from one of the accident and emergency units. There is no reason why they should not have an excellent service.

North Middlesex hospital might be three miles from south Tottenham where my constituents live, but on a Saturday afternoon, especially when Spurs are playing, the High road becomes virtually a war zone, which means that my constituents are not able to get to the hospital. What will the Minister do about that?

I am aware of various complaints that the hon. Gentleman has made about North Middlesex hospital. As far as I know, none of the complaints that the Department has received has involved football matches. There is at least one complaint, however, on which I intend to receive a report.

Women Doctors

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many family doctors (a) in 1979 and (b) currently are women.

At 1 October 1979, there were 3,261 women general medical practitioners; the number had risen to 6,430 at 1 October 1991. This represents an increase of 97·2 per cent.

Does my right hon. Friend believe that those figures suggest an answer to those general practitioners who were concerned that changes to their funding arrangements would inevitably lead to a reduction in the number of female general practitioners?

It certainly is a clear answer. The general practitioner contract made it clear for the first time that there could be part-time general practitioners, which was a help for women. We improved the locum arrangements for those wanting to go on maternity leave. There has been a substantial increase in the number of women GPs and we want to see the same increase in the number of women consultants. In our targets for the Opportunity 2000 programme we make it clear that we are determined to see progress for nurses, women doctors and members of health authorities and trusts. We want to see the development of women's careers throughout the service.

Perioperative Deaths

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement on her response to the conclusions of the national confidential inquiry into perioperative deaths.

We welcome this report. It shows that standards of surgical and anaesthetic care are generally high and have improved since earlier reports.

Is the Minister aware that Professor Donald Campbell, who chaired the review, expressed concern about the inadequate location of emergency facilities, emergency operating theatres, intensive care units and high dependency units? Is he aware also that concern was expressed about the lack of adequate staffing in some of those units? I know that the Government's policy for Scottish health is dealt with by the Scottish Office, but the Government's general policy obviously impinges on my constituency. For example, is the Minister aware that nurses at Falkirk royal infirmary are expressing concern that the high dependency unit is not staffed adequately to be an intensive care unit? Does the Minister plan to do anything about the report in the near future?

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be encouraged to know that the inquiry found that the standards of surgical and anaesthetic care were high and that the overall trends demonstrated considerable improvements since earlier reports. As for the hon. Gentleman's constituency, he will know that that is a matter for my noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State.

I congratulate my hon. Friend and the rest of the health team on their new appointments.

I point out to my hon. Friend that the report of the confidential inquiry into perioperative deaths shows that there are far too many intensive care units in small hospitals across the country and calls for their concentration into bigger trauma and stress units in centres of population. Does not that throw up some interesting conclusions for the large number of hon. Members on both sides of the House who frequently argue for the continuation of their own small cottage hospitals?

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks. He will be encouraged to know that there are nearly 2,500 available beds in intensive care units in England and more than 300 about to open.

We want to improve the provision of intensive care if possible, and proposals from the College of Anaesthetists are being considered.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his appointment as Minister. Will he, however, demonstrate a little more concern and a little less complacency about a report which states that there are needless deaths after surgery because of the shortage of consultants and the lack of intensive care units? Perhaps, instead of telling us that everything is perfectly all right and running smoothly, the hon. Gentleman will act on the findings of the report and deal with the shortage of consultants and the lack of intensive care units.

I am grateful for the hon. Lady's kind remarks, soured ever so slightly by the rest of her question. Ministers are not complacent. I have already told the hon. Lady of the number of intensive care beds and the fact that more are to be opened. She also asked about the number of consultants. She might more properly have mentioned the extra 100 consultants in acute specialties whose posts were created following publication of the White Paper "Working for Patients". I did not hear her mention, either, the 350 new consultants' posts that have been agreed as part of the new deal for junior doctors.

Health (Funding)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans she has for providing extra money for underfunded health districts in overfunded health regions.

Regional health authorities are responsible for revenue allocations to health districts. Every regional health authority was given a real increase of at least 3·5 per cent. for 1992–93, allowing a margin for all regions to bring underfunded districts closer to their weighted capitation share.

Is my hon. Friend aware that for many years Southend has been in this position, that there has been some modest extra help, which is welcome and which has provided extra benefits for residents of Southend, but that the process must go on? Will he make it his policy while he holds his portfolio to ensure that money follows the patient, so that those who treat most patients are given adequate money to do so?

Yes. I know of my right hon. Friend's continuing concern about this matter. I am grateful that he recognises that North East Thames region went out of its way to be helpful to Southend, which started the year at about 10 per cent. below average and, as a result of the extra money provided to it in this financial year, is now less than 5 per cent. below average. I am glad that my right hon. Friend welcomes that, and I can assure him that the process will continue. I hope that it will even reach a conclusion in the next financial year.

Will the Minister comment on underfunding in intensive care units over the past five years, and on the report by Paddy Ross, the eminent surgeon who resigned from the Tory party because of undefrfunding and the Government's reforms? I will pass his letter on to the Minister. He states that a woman died in the Royal Hampshire hospital, possibly because of underfunding in the intensive care unit. Will the Minister make up that funding and stop tragedies like that happening again?

I will be happy to receive the letter if the hon. Lady cares to send it to me. Her question must be viewed in the context of record spending in the health service this year, including in the Halifax area. Against that background I find her comments rather hard to understand.

Health Green Paper

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many organisations have responded to the Green Paper "The Health of the Nation".

Almost 1,200 responses were received from organisations and associations; a further 900 replies were received from individuals. That demonstrates the very great interest in the initiative to improve health, which is high on the Government's agenda and to which I attach the highest importance.

I welcome the excellent Green Paper, particularly as it points out the need to reduce smoking in all age groups. Bearing in mind that some 60 per cent. of patients in hospitals are there because of some smoking or smoking-related disease, does my right hon. Friend agree that we should ban smoking in public places or at least cordon off an area so that smokers can enjoy smoking without infecting all those who do not enjoy it?

I thank my hon. Friend for his generous remark about the Green Paper, the credit for which is entirely due to my predecessor, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. For the first time, we have a strategy to prevent ill-health as well as to treat it, and that is a significant achievement. My hon. Friend has long been a champion of the anti-smoking cause. Great progress is being made in banning smoking from many public places. As my hon. Friend will know, we prefer the voluntary approach, but there are times when legislation is required. We are now seeing the removal of smoking from various forms of public transport, from many public places and from Government offices, and we shall continue to maintain the momentum.

May I impress upon the Secretary of State the need to give greater thought to dental care, especially for young children? Would not it be a good idea to include the sugar content on soft drink labels on such as Coca Cola, which I understand contains about seven spoonfuls of sugar and is detrimental to children's teeth? Will the right hon. Lady do something about that?

I am able to report that our record on children's dental health is impressive, but I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's thinking, which is exactly the thinking behind the health strategy. We want to think widely about labelling and how we can improve health and prevent disease. In addition to thinking in terms of health services, the effective provision of information is exactly the way forward.

Does my right hon. Friend recognise that back pain causes massive absenteeism, distress and waste and that the problem is increasing by 13 per cent. a year? Does she agree that the National Back Pain Association deserves positive support and encouragement?

Having just welcomed my constituent, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley), to the House, I am well aware of the difficulties caused by back pain. My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) is right. Back pain is a significant cause of disability and disease, not least among health service staff, and it is one of the matters that we are considering. The Health and Safety Executive is bringing forward guidelines through the Health Service Advisory Committee. The organisation to which my hon. Friend referred clearly has an important part to play in promoting awareness and understanding.

I add my congratulations to the Secretary of State on her promotion. I also congratulate her on presiding over a team which contains the largest number of Ministers in the history of the NHS, which may seem odd since they administer the fewest hospitals in the history of the NHS. Can the Secretary of State confirm that since the Green Paper was published she has received a report from her own officials that an advertising ban would cut tobacco consumption and, therefore, cancer? Why, then, does she not drop Britain's objection to a European advertising ban? It surely is not because Imperial Tobacco provided the Conservative party with 2,000 poster sites during the election and on this issue the health of the Conservative party comes before the health of the nation.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his welcome, but he never seems to change. He always has a cynical reaction. He always concentrates on means, not ends. In the same way as he comments on the number of hospitals and not on the quality of patient care, he is always addressing the wrong issue. We are determined to achieve a further fall in tobacco smoking in Britain. We have one of the most powerful records of any country in the EC. It is interesting that many of those countries which support a ban on tobacco advertising have their own nationalised tobacco industries and all of them except one have cheap cigarettes. We believe in fighting smoking by means of price and advertising and we do not support the subsidy on tobacco growing through the common agricultural policy. We will achieve the ends. I am fed up with the hon. Gentleman constantly looking at the means and not the ends.

Family Doctors

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much funding was provided for family doctors in 1989–90; and what is the current level of provision.

The sum of £1.5 billion was provided for general medical services in 198–0. The figure for the current year is £2.4 billion.

I thank my hon. Friend for that encouraging answer. Recent opinion polls show that nine out of 10 patients think that they receive a good service from their general practitioners. Does my hon. Friend think that there has been a great change in the past few years?

It is not surprising that there is general satisfaction with primary care. The number of practice staff has nearly doubled over the past 10 years, as has the number of services that practices offer.

Aids

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps she is taking to ensure that health authorities are spending appropriately money allocated for HIV and AIDS; and if she will make a statement.

Health authority use of earmarked funds for AIDS-related services is monitored through the reports required under the AIDS (Control) Act 1987. From this year, we have also introduced a requirement for regions to submit to the Department forward spending plans, which will be checked against quarterly monitoring reports.

Does the Minister agree that it is more important than ever that health authorities allocate adequate resources to help to prevent the spread of AIDS and to provide care and treatment to those who are HIV positive or who have AIDS? The House welcomes the Minister's confirmation that quarterly monitoring is now supplementing the annual reports made under the AIDS (Control) Act 1987. May we take it that the Government are determined to ensure effective ring fencing of the money required for those purposes?

I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman's close interest in that subject over the years and confirm that the Government are determined to ensure, through the quarterly monitoring reports, which are operating for the first time in the current year, that the substantial resources allocated to AIDS-related services are used for the intended purposes. Those resources amount to more than £180 million in the current year, which is a rise of more than one third over last year, and contribute to expenditure of more than £650 million since 1987.

Regional Health Authorities

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement on the future of regional health authorities.

We have no current plans to change the role of regional health authorities, although we will be examining their role as we continue to implement our reforms to improve the health service.

It is odd that the Secretary of State makes no mention of the newly created regional outposts of the NHS management executive, which are assuming powers in relation to opted-out hospitals that were previously the province of regional health authorities. Unlike those authorities, regional outposts do not meet in public or have members who are accountable to the public, and they were not established by statute. Will the Secretary of State describe the role of the new regional outposts, explain what will be left for regional health authorities to do, and state whether there will be a statutory basis for the outposts-or will they be part of a secret, centralised, east European-style command economy for the national health service?

The six regional outposts will essentially monitor the financial effectiveness of NHS trusts and report back to the management executive. The role of the regions will remain as it is—that of central authorities seeing through the priorities established by Ministers and the management executive. This year, regions are charged with ensuring further progress with the patients charter, which is a central element in our health programme, seeing through the further implementation of community care and enhancing the health of the nation. They work by monitoring and, with the family health services and district health authorities, strengthen the purchasing power which, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware, is the key to securing the quality improvements that are so important to the nation's health.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that regional health authorities are too vast, bureaucratic and remote, and that the sooner we move to a system of direct funding for the capital works of district health authorities, the better the service will be run?

My hon. Friend will be reassured to learn that the number of staff working in regional health authorities has fallen in recent years. The authorities have a function—to form a link between the management executive and Ministers, and the district health authorities—and it is important for the task that they are undertaking to benefit the districts and to be properly understood. I shall bear my hon. Friend's comments in mind.

Is the Secretary of State aware that many regional health authorities are not releasing sufficient funds to get community care up and running? How does she intend to ensure that local authorities have enough resources from the regions to be able to put community care into operation?

The hon. Lady will know that the success of community care depends on an effective relationship between social service departments and regional health authorities. At present, we ask them to report to us every six months—and more often—to make certain that the work is under way.

District health authorities have been involved for 20 or 30 years in community care for people with learning disabilities, the mentally ill and elderly patients. The question of resources for social service departments arises regularly in the yearly local authority spending round, and we have made it clear that community care will be fairly funded.

Health Promotion

To ask the Secretary of State for Health to what extent family doctors are improving health promotion.

Significant progress has been made since the introduction of the GPs' new contract. In particular, there are now more GPs holding health promotion clinics, immunisation uptake is rising and more women are being screened for cervical cancer.

Do not the new targets in the GPs' contract relating to child immunisation, regular health checks, cervical cytology, mammography and other diagnostic procedures represent a revolutionary advance in the practice of preventive health care?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is a new, innovative and very important development in the preventive work of general practitioners. In the context of prevention and health promotion, I am sure that my hon. Friend and the rest of the House will be pleased to know that in 1990, for the first time in the United Kingdom, no child died from acute measles.

Has the Minister any proposals to involve GPs in trying preventive measures to stop the spread of anorexia nervosa—which is very worrying, especially in view of its effect on young women? The problem needs to be tackled and it seems to me that GPs are the obvious starting point.

I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about the disease, which is indeed very worrying and, as he knows, can sometimes be fatal. I am sure that he is right to point out that the initial contact between patient and general practitioner is significant—it may even be crucial in some cases—and I will bear his comments in mind.

Immunisation

10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of children are now immunised against (a) whooping cough and (b) measles; and what was the proportion in 1978.

By February 1992, 89 per cent. of children aged two had been immunised against whooping cough and 91 per cent. against measles. This is a big improvement since 1978, when only 31 per cent. were immunised against whooping cough and 48 per cent. against measles.

Does my hon. Friend agree that those welcome figures have been caused partly by the new GP contract, which has had a very good effect on the level of immunisation in the past couple of years? As the Minister for Health has just pointed out, we have managed to achieve a year with no deaths from measles. Is not that yet another sign that the new contract is bearing fruit?

My hon. Friend is quite right. The GPs, like everyone else involved in the programme, are owed a great debt of gratitude. The figures show how successful the contract was; they also show how utterly wrong the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) was in 1989, when he described the target set for general practices as

"heroic…far beyond the present figure for most practices".—[Official Report, 25 July 1989; Vol. 157, c. 910.]

As usual, the hon. Gentleman underestimated what the national health service can achieve with Conservative policies, under Conservative leadership and with the backing that the present Government give the health service.

Charitable Fund Raising

11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health if she will make a statement about charitable fund raising for national health service services.

We value the charitable contributions that people make to the health service through their voluntary efforts.

Is the Minister aware that a considerable number of hospital managers have declared that they are dependent on charity for their services? It must be true—it was in The Daily Telegraph. Is the Minister also aware that the Charity Commissioners have consistently stated—and I quote—

Reading.

Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is not reading from any speech. [Interruption.] Hear me out, please. If the hon. Gentleman is quoting, that is not permissible. Will he please paraphrase?

Is the Minister further aware that the Charity Commissioners have consistently stated that moneys raised through charity cannot be used for statutory purposes in the health service? How does he square that circle?

There is no circle to square. The health service is better funded now than ever before. As the hon. Gentleman quoted to me, I will paraphrase to him. A pressure group suggested recently that total charitable funding amounted to £370 million. I do not know whether that is right, but if it is, it represents £1 for every £92 of taxpayers' money going towards the health of the nation. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman should adopt such a mean attitude to the voluntary activities of the many people who want to put something back into a health service that they value.

While warmly welcoming the large sum of money raised from charitable sources for the national health service, can my hon. Friend assure the House that any such moneys that are raised either in districts or in regions will not be offset by reductions in money and resources from the Department of Health that would otherwise be made available for services or equipment to improve health care in this country?

My hon. Friend has a good point and I am happy to give that categorical assurance. In fact, I would go further. Whatever money is raised by charitable activities is neither known nor taken into account by the Department when it comes to deciding how much taxpayers' money should be invested in the health service.

Is the Minister aware of the tragic case of four-year-old Laura Davies, who is desperately in need of a bowel and kidney transplant which is not available in this country? The Manchester Evening News has mounted a campaign which we all welcome, but can the Minister say whether national health service money will be made available for that life-saving operation in the United States?

I am aware of the case and I understand that discussions are proceeding to try to find a way to address that issue.

Does my hon. Friend agree that for very many years people have enjoyed raising charitable funds for the health service because it gives them a sense of being involved in their own health care? Is not that wholly to be applauded, particularly as it frequently leads to the provision of capital equipment, the revenue consequences of which the NHS is then happy to take on?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. People wish to make contributions to the health service for a variety of reasons—some out of gratitude for the service that they or their families have received, others out of humanitarian concern, others out of Christian compassion, and for many other reasons. Only the most mean-spirited Opposition Members find that objectionable.

Is the Minister aware that the charities report to which he referred concluded that the growth in NHS charities under the Government has been five fold? Does not that trouble him in the slightest? Has he no worries when the collecting can goes round for intensive care cots? Has he no concern that services for mental health and geriatrics, which are not charitable money spinners, might be left further behind? In his first month as Minister for Health will he remember the warning of the first Minister for Health that warm gushes of self-indulgence are not a reliable source of funding for a public health service?

I will tell the hon. Gentleman what I shall remember. I shall remember a 56 per cent. real increase in spending on the NHS under this Government as against a 17 per cent. decrease under the last Labour Government. I shall remember a capital increase of 76 per cent. under this Government against a 29 per cent. decrease under the last Labour Government. I hope very much that the hon. Gentleman will come out of character and not be one of those mean-spirited people who want to stop those who wish to make a contribution over and above that of the taxpayer from doing so.

Hospital Waiting Lists

12.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what has been the change in the last year in the number of patients waiting over two years for hospital treatment.

I am today publishing provisional waiting time figures for the year to 31 March 1992. They are available in the Library. I have arranged

Provisional ¹ waiting time figures year ending 31 March 1992
In–Patients and day cases combined
	March 1992—and percentage change since March 1991
Region	Under 1 year:		1 to 2 years:		Over 2 years:		Total
	Number	Per cent. Change	Number	Per cent. Change	Number	Per cent. Change	Number	Per cent. Change
Northern	53,292	12·5	3,992	-15·2	1	-99·9	57,285	7·0
Yorkshire	63,196	5·1	6,422	-23·9	16	-99·5	69,634	-2·9
Trent	76,229	9·8	9,281	0·4	4	-99·7	85,514	6·9
East Anglian	36,326	-0·7	4,688	-29·8	41	-98·8	41,055	-12·2
North West Thames	46,565	-2·7	9,160	-11·6	2	-100·0	55,727	- 12·1
North East Thames	68,723	6·1	8,687	-29·0	748	-88·7	78,158	-6·6
South East Thames	68,005	8·7	8,170	-23·5	96	-98·5	76,271	-4·4
South West Thames	44,038	6·6	2,323	-66·5	0	-100·0	46,361	- 7·8
Wessex	52,299	6·4	4,076	-39·3	0	-100·0	56,375	- 4·5
Oxford	40,353	6·9	5,848	-15·1	0	-100·0	46,201	- 2·9
South Western	62,916	7·0	2,766	-72·7	10	-99·8	65,692	-10·4
West Midlands	84,392	5·4	5,452	-53·8	158	-97·2	90,002	- 7·8
Mersey	49,653	14·2	428	-85·0	0	N/A	50,081	8·1
North Western	77,020	10·9	6,772	-30·5	3	-99·9	83,795	0·3
All Regions	823,007	7·1	78,065	-33-5	1,079	-97,9	902,151	- 3·7

for the figures to be printed in the Official Report. In the past year the number of patients waiting over two years for hospital treatment fell 97 per cent. That is a remarkable achievement of which the NHS can rightly be proud.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the whole House will have been pleased to hear those figures? Will she tell the House what progress has been made in reducing the waiting lists in my district health authority of Hillingdon?

I can give my hon. Friend that information. In his health authority, remarkable progress has been made. There are no two-year waiters. The total list has come down by 27 per cent. per year. The list for one to two-year waiters has gone down by 18 per cent. and the list for under one-year waiters has gone down by 9 per cent. My hon. Friend has a district health authority in a region which has done similarly well. In the past year it has dealt with more than 5,200 of the over two-year waiters and reduced the one to two-year waiters and the under one-year waiters. That is a practical demonstration of our commitment to a better health service which meets patients' needs.

May I remind the Secretary of State that my constituent, Laura Davies—to whom the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms. Lynne) has already referred, without consultation with me—does not have two years or two months to wait for funding for her operation in America? I have written two letters to the right hon. Lady in the past two weeks asking what financial help is forthcoming in addition to the efforts being made in my constituency and around to raise money. Will the right hon. Lady tell me why she has not replied?

The hon. Lady will shortly receive a reply from me. I am having discussions with the regional health authority chairman and the chief medical officer. I regret the way in which individual cases become the subject of discussion in this place, because it is an intrusion on the personal difficulties and sadness of the families involved. I am well aware of the detail of the case, the complexity of the treatment that the patient needs and the treatment that she has already had in this country. I am having discussions to see what more can be done to assist her.

Following is the information:

	March 1992—and percentage change since March 1991
Region	Under 1 year:		1 to 2 years:		Over 2 years:		Total
	Number	Per cent. Change	Number	Per cent. Change	Number	Per cent. Change	Number	Per cent. Change
SHAs	11,504	15·7	1,431	0·0	521	-35·0	13,456	10·6
Total	834,511	72	79,496	-33·1	1,600	-;96·9	915,607	-3·5
¹ Based on provisional figures obtained from regions.

Nhs Reforms

13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what criteria her Department uses in assessing the success of the implementation of the national health service reforms.

We measure the success of our health policies by the benefits that they are delivering to patients in terms of the improvement to the quality of service, reduction in waiting times, patient satisfaction and the overall improvement in the health of the nation.

Does my right hon. Friend consider that the fall in waiting times and the increase in the number of patients treated should be warmly welcomed? Has she noticed the change in the attitude of doctors and nurses towards the reforms in view of their demonstrable success? Does she think that it is about time that the Labour party changed its attitude?

I heartily agree with the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend. We have had a great deal of change in the health service recently. The results of those changes are already clear for all to see. I hope that the nurses and medical professionals will all work with us to ensure that we can build on those services.

Since being made Labour's health spokesman, the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) has constantly made allegations about a hidden agenda, but he has been unable to prepare an agenda for himself. As the Health Service Journal commented only last week,

"Defeat has left the Opposition flat-footed and its health policies irrelevant."

It is time to build for the future and to build on the achievements in the service.

An important part of the health reforms is health promotion. Can the Minister explain why Imperial Tobacco gave 2,000 poster sites to the Conservative party in the election campaign? Does not that show why the Government are in the pockets of the tobacco industry? Or will the right hon. Lady disprove that by moving a motion to support the European ban on tobacco advertising?

We have seen another example of the way in which the Labour party constantly pursues vindictive vendettas. I have made the position quite clear. The fall in smoking in Britain has been greater than in any other country apart from the Netherlands. We have an effective system under the voluntary agreement. We do not support the subsidy for growing tobacco. We have maintained the price of tobacco and we do not have a nationalised tobacco industry. We should be judged on the result—a dramatic fall in smoking, which will continue—and not by the vindictive gimmicks of the Labour party.

Prime Minister

Earth Summit

Q1.

To ask the Prime Minister what are the specific objectives of Her Majesty's Government at the Earth summit.

The Government's specific objectives for the Earth summit are signature of global conventions on climate change and biodiversity; a statement of principles on forests; a short "Rio declaration" of environment and development principles; a comprehensive action plan; and reinforcement of international institutions dealing with environment and development.

As that was the Prime Minister's first parliamentary answer, will he make it his No. 1 priority this Session to tackle the global environmental crisis? Is he aware that the secret documents that we have seen contain proposals which amount to a watering down of the tough energy-saving commitment and replace specific targets with vague promises, and are to be put to the European Commission tomorrow? Will the Prime Minister ensure that, at the Earth summit and thereafter, tackling the global crisis will be his priority and that of his colleagues on the world stage?

This is an important conference—an important priority—and there is a great deal to be done. The political will is there, not just in this country but in countries around the world. It appears that the attendance at the Rio summit will be very high—and very high at Heads of Government level. I must emphasise that what is agreed at the conference is only the beginning of the work that needs to be done. Some people might set their expectations too high. There is bound to be a limited amount of success at Rio. There will be a good deal to be done subsequently in this country, in the European Community, and beyond.

If my right hon. Friend gets a chance to watch television, I am sure that in the past two or three days, and certainly this month, he has noticed the beginning of the one world '92 campaign, linking 66 nations' broadcasters throughout Europe as well as the general public in preliminary matters to the Rio conference. On 30 May, it will culminate in a day of action throughout Europe and the tree of life, for which I am sure he has signed his pledge. Will he support all the work that is being done to involve the public in this issue because, however much we feel that it is important, without general public support we shall never get anywhere?

I agree with my hon. Friend. It needs a commitment by Governments, by which I mean Governments across the world. Little will be gained if some contribute while many others do not. A great deal of commitment by individuals will also be necessary. This may be one of the areas of policy where it is often the individual driving the Government, rather than the reverse, in terms of commitment to the environment. I have little doubt that individuals in this country and beyond will commit themselves to these environmental and desirable aims.

Engagements

Q2.

To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12 May.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

Will the right hon. Gentleman please tell the House the extent to which, in his own opinion, the Parliament of the United Kingdom should surrender sovereignty in the interests of European unity and what role he considers that a British monarch should play in influencing policy and opinion within the European Community?

Influencing policy and opinion in the European Community at a political level is a matter for the politicians. That has been a long-established tradition and it remains the position. The position of the sovereignty of this House is a matter which we have discussed on many occasions. The sovereignty of this House is not a matter that is up for grabs—that is perfectly clear. What we have said is that there are areas where we can pool decision making in the general interests of the whole of Europe and in those circumstances it is right to pool decision making, but perhaps one of the most essential parts of the Maastricht agreement was the agreement on subsidiarity—that things must be done on a national level when they can best be done at a national level.

While recognising that miscarriages of justice are bound to take place from time to time and must be rectified, will my right hon. Friend confirm that there will be no weakening in the attitude of the Government, of the police or of the courts in the relentless battle against terrorism?

I am certainly happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance. Terrorism is one of the most wicked and evil problems faced by this Government and by Governments across the world. There will be no weakening in our determination to fight terrorism and no weakening in our determination to work with our European partners at a European level to fight terrorism.

As the Prime Minister rightly says that he wants to sweep away the cobwebs of secrecy, is that a principle that he will be applying to the financing of the Conservative party?

The financing of the Conservative party is not a matter for the right hon. Gentleman.

Q3.

To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12 May.

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that. I gave some moments ago.

What representations has the Prime Minister made to President Bush to get the pilots of the A10 tank busters to submit themselves to the inquiry into the deaths of the nine service men killed by the so-called—

Order. The matter with which the hon. Gentleman is dealing is sub judice. If he can rephrase his question, I will certainly hear him.

The Prime Minister will recall in principle terms that President Bush gave assurances to the parents of the service men who were killed that the pilots would come over here for examination. Will he tell us what representations he has made to ensure that President Bush carries out those assurances?

As I believe the House has been told on previous occasions, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence will be drawing the families' letters to the attention of Mr. Cheney, the United States Defence Secretary.

Now that my right hon. Friend has been returned to Downing street for a further five-year term, may I invite him—when he is planning his visits—to visit my constituency of Batley and Spen in Yorkshire where he will find much manufacturing prospering as it has been investing during the recession? He would be made most welcome on such a visit.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her invitation and it is certainly one which I shall hope to take up during the course of this Parliament. I share her view about the prospects for manufacturing industry and, in particular, for the new areas of manufacturing which have flourished so much in recent years and which are so often overlooked when people talk about manufacturing in the generality.

Q4.

To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12 May.

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

What pressure has the Prime Minister put on President Bush in relation to the British soldiers who were massacred in the friendly fire incident and to fulfil the promise to their relatives? Will he tell them why nothing has been done in that respect? What does he intend to do in the future to bring that sorry state of affairs to an end?

I responded to that point a few moments ago, as the hon. Gentleman and the House heard. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that United States officials have discussed the handling of the evidence with the coroner, who has made it clear that he accepted the United States decision not to provide witnesses. That matter has been raised at the highest level with the American Government and Defence Secretary.

Q5.

To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12 May.

I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

As the first Conservative Member whose name appears on the Order Paper for the first Prime Minister's Question Time of the new Parliament, may I convey the congratulations of all Conservative Members to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on leading our party to its unprecedented fourth election victory? Does my right hon. Friend not agree that his strongly anti-federalist stance was instrumental in securing that general election victory? In view of today's press reports, will he reassure the House that British sovereignty is not "insignificant"?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As I said a few moments ago, decisions need to be taken as close to the citizen as possible. That was the principle of subsidiarity that we fought for and obtained in the negotiations at Maastricht. Where the nature of a problem requires a European response, we believe that it should have a European response. That was the balance that we struck, and I believe that it was the right balance.

The Prime Minister has again emphasised the importance of the subsidiarity concept that decisions should be taken as close as possible to the people. How will that be applied to the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, or is it a principle which starts in Brussels and ends in London?

The hon. Gentleman knows that we are one United Kingdom and the Government are determined that we shall remain one United Kingdom.

Q6.

To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12 May.

I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Is my right hon. Friend aware of the enormous sense of pleasure, relief and hope in the future generated by our victory at the election under his leadership? [Interruption.] There are obviously some sour grapes on the Opposition side. Does my right hon. Friend agree that after another five years of Conservative Government, instead of this country's performance being measured by how fast we are catching up with Germany, for the first time in 100 years we shall be a model for others in respect of economic performance, enlightened administration of public services, and social peace and cohesion?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I agree with him. We very much want wealth and welfare to go hand in hand, and I believe that the fear of the election of a Labour Government had been holding that back. Since polling day we have seen a dramatic change in the confidence of the markets and individuals. Share values have risen by about a seventh, sterling is up, and interest rates have been cut by a further ½ per cent., bringing us almost level with German rates for the first time in a quarter of a century. That is good news for British industry, for British investment and, over time, very good news for British employment prospects.

As the Prime Minister is so complacent about British manufacturing industry and claims that there is much good news about, will he assure the House that he is not prepared in the GATT negotiations to sacrifice the textile industry to gain advantages on behalf of the farmers who have supported the Conservative party? Will he give an unqualified guarantee that he will fight to keep jobs in the British textile industry, as many thousands of jobs have been lost in the past years of Conservative rule? We want to keep that industry going in Bradford and elsewhere. Will he give that guarantee?

What I have never understood in the hon. Gentleman's remarks about manufacturing is why he and his colleagues are always so keen to assume that British manufacturing industry is failing, doing unwell and needs special assistance and special subsidies to survive. The reality is that the United Kingdom share of world trade in manufactures rose in 1991 for the third successive year. Right across the country we have seen growth in areas of manufacturing industry which did not show signs of growth in earlier years.

Q7.

To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 12 May.

I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the recent actions of Ofgas and Oftel to reduce prices still further show that the community charge has real teeth when it comes to protecting the interests of the consumer?

The work of Ofgas and Oftel goes right to the heart of the citizens charter. The principles of those two regulatory bodies are important and the citizens charter underlines our commitment to put the consumer first. The regulators have achieved significant price cuts. British Telecom's prices have been cut by 27 per cent. in real terms, British Gas has cut domestic prices and standing charges, and the regulator is demanding more cuts. The impact of the citizens charter will continue to put the citizen in the forefront of people's minds when state prices are determined.

Points Of Order

3.30 pm

On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Four years ago the House—or certain members of it—voted by a majority for the Single European Act, which surrendered certain powers to European institutions. At the time the House did not believe that it had surrendered powers over immigration policy or the working week. Those powers are being hijacked and the European Community is cheating over the way in which it is trying to use such powers.

There will shortly be a debate about the ratification of the Maastricht treaty and various papers have been deposited. You will have seen from a letter in The Times yesterday from Lord Bruce that the papers which have been deposited—

Order. I insist on points of order relating to me and all hon. Members must come directly to the point. We will have no letters to The Times. Hon. Members must refer to the Chair and to my responsibilities.

Indeed, Madam Speaker, and it is an important responsibility. The implication is that the document placed before the House is complex and full of annotations. The issues involved are massive, but it will be difficult for hon. Members to understand the gravity of those issues from reading that piece of paper. The paper could be attached to the European Communities (Amendment) Bill as one paper, so that hon. Members would know what was involved in the new treaty from one reading. Will you use your offices to ensure that anything that comes before the House, before legislation, is clear because I can assure you that at the moment it is not?

Of course that is a matter for the Government, but I shall certainly use my good offices if I am able to do so.

On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am sorry to have distressed you during Prime Minister's questions by causing you to intervene in what I was saying. Would you advise me and the House? The sub judice rule exists to ensure that nothing is said in the House which would prejudice someone's fair trial in court. I was not aware that an inquest was in the same category as a normal court of law hearing where someone was on trial. Will you clarify the position so that I do not make any further mistakes?

I would not want to mislead the hon. Gentleman and the House. I took a great deal of advice on the matter before coming to the Chair. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the matter was sub judice, otherwise I would not have interrupted.

On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Twice this afternoon the Prime Minister mentioned the concept of subsidiarity. Given the importance of that concept and the sovereignty of this place, will it be possible to allow the House to examine the concept of subsidiarity within the context of the United Kingdom Parliament in advance of the Maastricht debate?

That is a matter not for me but for business questions on Thursday, if the hon. Gentleman is lucky enough to catch my eye.

Further to the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), may I, as a Member of Parliament who knows a family who lost a young man during the friendly fire incident, ask whether it will be possible for there to be a full debate on the issue in the House after the inquest, because the families are desperately keen to know the exact truth?

I understand the hon. Lady's anxiety, but as a long-standing Member she knows that that is a matter to raise with the Leader of the House at business questions.

On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Will you confirm that, if you so determine it, hon. Members can ask questions on any subject, whether or not it is before a court or an inquest, and that the sub judice rule is used only as a guide and a convenience? Will you confirm that this House has the right at all times, if it so determines and if the matter is of importance, to comment although the issue may be before a court?

The Speaker has a degree of discretion. The question arising concerned which witnesses were to be called, and that is where the sub judice rule comes in.

On a point of order, Madam Speaker. As today a convicted killer escaped from Saughton prison in Edinburgh, and as yesterday a convicted killer escaped from Saughton prison, is it in order to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), to make a statement to the House?

That may well have been in order before noon, but it is certainly not in order at this time of day.

rose—

Is the hon. Gentleman sure that he has a point of order that I can deal with?

Yes. I do not want to take up the House's valuable time, Madam Speaker, but will you confirm for the guidance of all Members of the House that Ministers are responsible for the conduct of the Government but not for the conduct of extra-parliamentary bodies, whether they be political parties or other organisations with which they may be associated?

I cannot see why the hon. Gentleman wishes me to confirm that. I do not know what the point of order is for the Chair. Perhaps he will elucidate, and then I shall know what he is talking about.

During Question Time the Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister a question about the conduct of the Conservative party, for which my right hon. Friend is not answerable in this House. Will you confirm that, Madam Speaker?

In the cut and thrust of Question Time and debate there is often six of one and half a dozen of the other, and sometimes I have to turn a judicial deaf ear to what I hear coming from many quarters of the House.

rose—

We have had enough points of order to deal with today and we should now proceed with the business. Has the point of order just occurred to the hon. Gentleman or has he been rising?

It is further to the point of order of the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin).

No; I have dealt with that

Orders Of The Day

Debate On The Address

Fifth Day

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [6 May],

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:

Most Gracious Sovereign,

We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.—[Mr. Kenneth Baker.]

Question again proposed.

Environment, Local Government And Education

Before I call the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) I must tell the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and that, again, the Members wishing to speak are oversubscribed, so speeches between 7 pm and 9 pm will be time limited to 10 minutes.

3.37 pm

I beg to move, at the end of the Question, to add:

but humbly regret that the Gracious Speech contains no recognition of the proper role of local government and local democracy, no recognition of the scale of the housing crisis and no proposals to release local council capital receipts, no legislation to establish an Environmental Protection Agency and no measures to improve educational standards and opportunities, but instead represents a further series of measures to centralise power, weaken local democracy and extend privatisation which will undermine the quality and supply of local service provision and do nothing to fulfil the expectations raised by the Citizen's Charter.

Let me begin by offering my congratulations to you, Madam Speaker, on your richly deserved election to the Speakership of this House. You carry with you our highest hopes and confidence, and I should like to wish you every success in a long and successful Speakership.

Of all those with good reason to be dismayed by the outcome of the general election, local government has perhaps more reason than most to feel a sense of despair. The return of a Conservative Government means that more than a decade of unremitting hostility to local government from both Westminster and Whitehall is set to continue. Clearly, the Conservative party regards the public sector, not as a contributor to the national well-being, but as a constant drain on national resources, operating somewhere beyond the boundaries of the national economy, virtually a foreign, not to say an alien, territory.

There is no sense that the public sector has anything to contribute, no sense that its services are valued by those who depend on them or that it is a proper partner and support for the private sector. Instead, there has been nothing but antipathy not just to the public sector as a whole, but to local government in particular. That antipathy has meant a series of blows to local government's powers, resources and morale, blows which for some authorities which proved to be unduly recalcitrant meant that they were simply abolished altogether. The blows, to the whole of local government, culminated in the disaster of the poll tax and the straitjacket of capping. The poll tax was in one sense a terrible mistake, but in another it was a deliberate act of malevolence which threatened the very existence, independence and autonomy of local government.

Those who have suffered from that unprecedented onslaught go far beyond the officers, councillors and work force who have dedicated their lives to local government. The real victims have been all those who depend on the services delivered by local government—the homeless, those waiting on swollen housing lists, those looking in vain for home helps, meals on wheels, nursery provision, those expecting decent schools for their children and those looking to local government to perform its traditional functions of guaranteeing clean air and freedom from pollution.

However, the damage has gone still further. It is the very concept of local government itself that has been the true victim of Tory hostility, and the whole of our democracy is the worse as a result. The sustained effort to undermine the independence of local government and to ignore the aspirations of the people of Scotland and Wales has meant that we are now the most centralised country in western Europe. A pluralistic system of government, in which a wide range of opinion could be represented, has given way to an elective dictatorship exercised from Whitehall and Westminster in which the winner takes all.

Local government itself has shown quite remarkable resilience and it is a considerable tribute to all those dedicated men and women that it has survived as well as it has done. However, it can hardly be surprising, in the face of that sustained attack from the Tories during the past decade, that the sense of the value of local government is now at a low ebb.

Over the past year or two, the Department of the Environment has suffered from what might be called the curse of the two Michaels. The first Michael, the previous Secretary of State for the Environment, was the great Heseltinian centraliser. He was the instigator of rate penalties, he was the inventor of urban development corporations, and he was the destroyer of the local authority housing programme. He is still at it—he has set up the urban renewal agency, designed to bypass local government, and appointed an unelected crony to run it for him. His one redeeming feature—his declared hostility to universal—poll tax capping did not survive his second stint at Marsham street. He quickly joined all those of his colleagues who endorsed what he once memorably described less than two years ago as an act of

"centralised power outside our experience."

Even the right hon. Gentleman can turn tail, or so it seems.

The second Michael, the ironically titled Minister for Local Government, was the arch defender of the poll tax. He was the man who told the Tory party conference that it would be a "rip-roaring success". He so supported the poll tax that he ensured that it lived on in the council tax.

The first Michael has gone off to the Department of Trade and Industry, where, no doubt, he will try to do for British industry what he very nearly did for local government—and, perhaps, that is the right way of putting it: he very nearly did for local government. It is doubtful whether local government could have survived another Heseltinian term at Marsham street. No wonder that the leaders of British industry are now running for cover.

The second Michael has gone off to the Treasury as Chief Secretary, where he will no doubt demonstrate the same skills at managing the public finances which enabled him to preside over the £19 billion loss to the taxpayer as a consequence of the poll tax debacle. He is hardly the obvious person to carry credibility when he tries to crack the whip over wasteful public expenditure.

With what a heartfelt sigh of relief must local government and the Department of the Environment have seen the departure of the two Michaels; but with what despair must the realisation have dawned that a third Michael had been installed in their place. Indeed, it now seems inevitable that the very term "a Michael" is destined to serve the same pejorative purpose as "Wally" and "Herbert" do in other contexts.

This third Michael is in many respects even worse news than his predecessors and homonyms. This, after all, is a man with a record. This is the man whol guided the poll tax legislation through the House and who still apparently is able to recall that experience without visibly blushing. This is the inventor of the system of standard spending assessments which the whole of local government now regards as hopelessly complicated, unfair and unworkable, and which the chairman of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities has even today urged the new Secretary of State to modify—a system which had the great and unexpected merit of being able to discern that more snow was likely to fall in the borough of Brent than in the wastes of Cumbria.

This is the man who demonstrated the same tact and sympathy for local government when he was at Marsham street as he went on to show to the trade unions when he went to the Department of Employment—the man who, through his opposition to the minimum wage, demonstrated his touching faith in the proposition that our economic salvation lay in having the worst paid hairdressers in Europe.

This is the man who counted it a success at the Department of Employment to preside, month in and month out for all but three of the 27 months that he served, over an increase in the unemployment total and an increase in the economic failure and human misery which that figure represented.

This is the man who now returns to the scene of the poll tax crime and threatens to kill off local government for good. When local government desperately needs a builder and healer, it has been saddled with a Secretary of State who could not telephone the speaking clock without picking a quarrel with it.

We can expect more of the same, yet even the new Secretary of State might quail when he discovers what his predecessors have thoughtfully bequeathed to him by way of a replacement for the poll tax. The poll tax was unfair and unworkable, and there is unlikely to be one Conservative Member who would dispute that simple assertion. But the council tax threatens to outdo the poll tax on both counts. It retains all the worst features of the poll tax—the unfairness, the head count and the need to keep a register—but it throws in for good measure the doubts and difficulties of a totally untried property tax compounded by a botched valuation process.

I predict that the council tax will be to this Government what the poll tax was to the last. The anger of all those who must suffer it will be all the greater when they realise that the Conservatives have refused to learn the poll tax lessons.

Then there is the problem of reorganisation. Undaunted by past Tory failures, the new Secretary of State will apparently press on with the proposals he has inherited, proposals which will mean that local government will be plunged into chaos and unprecedented confusion as a local government commission trundles its way around the country in a leisurely and piecemeal fashion for perhaps 10 or 15 years. At any time, local government in some parts of the country will be expected to remain dual in structure, whereas in others it might become at some time in the future—or it might already have become in the recent past—unitary in structure.

The Opposition agree that a simpler and more accountable structure for local government is desirable. We support the idea of a commission which will consult widely and take into account the variety of local interests and needs. But we have the gravest misgivings about a process which is manifestly designed to allow a partisan Secretary of State to abolish Labour-controlled county authorities while preserving those under Tory control.

The new Secretary of State is hardly helped in his task of grappling with this nightmare by the fact that the lieutenant with whom he has been saddled is a Thatcherite ideologue. It is a matter for regret and surprise that that lieutenant is not beside the Secretary of State on the Treasury Bench this afternoon. The new Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities is an heir to that decade-long Thatcherite tradition of regarding local councils as outposts of rebellion that have to be subjugated rather than legitimate guardians of local democracy and pluralism. He is hardly likely to restrain a Secretary of State from pursuing that Government's vendetta against local government.

In case we are tempted too far into gloom, there is a little light relief at hand. There is always the Prime Minister and his citizens charter, which we are reliably informed is to be relaunched yet again. It has already had more relaunches and come-backs in one year than Frank Sinatra has had in a lifetime.

The problem with the citizens charter is that, having thought up the title, the Prime Minister's powers of invention deserted him. Perhaps that is why he has asked the right hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave), the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, to take responsibility for the matter. We are told that the right hon. Member for Bristol, West is not one who wears his learning lightly but is something of a philosopher. Just as Bishop Berkeley asserted that he could prove the existence of the tree in his garden even when he could not see it, so I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman will prove, at least to his own satisfaction, that the citizens charter really exists, even though no one else doubts that it remains stubbornly lodged in the Prime Minister's imagination.

Whether real or imagined, no citizens charter can possibly produce the better-quality services and the more effective remedies that are promised if, at the same time, the public sector is constantly reviled, starved of resources and told that its only future lies in it being privatised. The citizens charter will remain a diversion from the real task. The fact that it featured not at all in the recent election campaign shows just what the Prime Minister's colleagues really think of it. Until we have a Government who place a proper value on the public sector and on local government, the citizens charter will remain an ineffectual piece of paper.

I take the opportunity to affirm the Labour party's passionate belief that local government is essential to the efficient delivery of local services. It is essential to the accountability that local communities demand from Government. It is essential also as the properly pluralistic counterbalance to the overweening power of central Government. We shall do all in our power to sustain local government over the coming difficult years of continued Tory rule from Westminster.

It is not only local government that will suffer over the next four or five years. The Government's record on housing, education and the environment should alert us to what we should now expect in those areas. Housing is one of the most shameful failures on even this Government's blotchy record. Homelessness has soared, repossessions are at record levels, the housing market is in a slump, rents are being forced up by Government diktat, the number of houses built is the lowest in any peacetime decade this century, and the construction industry is in deep recession. Yet there is nothing in the Queen's Speech to suggest that the Government have the slightest intention of tackling any of these problems or have any inkling of their urgency.

There is not even a recognition of the absurdity of the restrictions imposed by Tory central Government on local authorities that have their own money by way of capital receipts, their own land, a clear housing need to meet and a clear political will to meet it. They are prevented by the Secretary of State, as they were by his predecessors, from building the houses that people so desperately need. This money does not have to be borrowed; it does not have to be raised by new taxation. It is money which already exists and which everyone in housing, in local government and in the construction industry agrees should be invested in meeting housing need. Only the Government remain outside that common-sense consensus.

There is nothing in the Queen's Speech to show that the Government recognise the pressing nature of the environmental problems that the country and the rest of the world face. The promise of a new environmental protection agency, the only constructive thing that the Prime Minister is ever known to have said on the subject of the environment, has been dashed by the publication of the Queen's Speech.

Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the question of capital receipts, he will recall, as we do, that when the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) made his proposal, which the hon. Gentleman is repeating today, he was slapped down by the shadow Chancellor. Is the hon. Gentleman taking a slap at his right hon. and learned Friend, or has there been a change in Labour party policy?

If the hon. Gentleman has risen to his feet to defend an arcane Treasury rule which stands between common sense and the nonsense that we have to endure now, I recommend that he re-examines that rule so as to ensure that money which exists, which local authorities want to spend on housing and for which there is a clear housing need is spent for that purpose under prudent conditions.

Would it not make much more sense to use the capital receipts to put roofs over the heads of the homeless than to bail out, as the Department of the Environment and the President of the Board of Trade are doing, a broken-backed Canadian company, run by the Reichmann brothers—Olympia and York? The Government intend to transfer large sums of taxpayers' money to that Maxwell-type company, which owes !12 billion to the banks. This tawdry Government would sooner bail out that corrupt organisation than allow Labour-controlled local authorities to build houses to put roofs over the heads of the homeless.

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. It is quite remarkable that the white knight who appears to be riding to the rescue to help with the cash flow problems of Olympia and York is not only the same person who initiated the London Docklands development corporation and who invested so much of his reputation in its success; he also happens to be the recently departed Secretary of State of one Government Department and the current Secretary of State of another which are both apparently contemplating paying large sums in rent to Olympia and York for otherwise unlettable office space. My hon. Friend has done the House a service by bringing this issue to light this afternoon.

As I was saying, the Prime Minister's promise that we should have an environmental protection agency was dashed as soon as we saw the text of the Queen's Speech. The Bill to set up such an agency is significantly missing from the legislative programme. We are left by way of an environmental agenda for the new Secretary of State only with the familiar spectacle of a Secretary of State protesting his virtue in public on issues such as global warming but working behind the scenes to support a reactionary United States Administration whose main purpose seems to be to frustrate any effective action. The new Secretary of State will have to make a strong break from the limitations imposed by his predecessors if he is to establish his green credentials and pursue real achievement on the environmental agenda.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the results being produced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as a result of satellite observations are casting serious doubt on the concept of global warming and that that is why the President of the United States is taking one step back from precipitous action and expenditure which could seriously damage the industries in his country?

I fear that the hon. Lady's outfit is the only green thing about her. The truth of the matter is that she and, perhaps, who knows, President Bush are members of a tiny minority which flies in the face of the overwhelming bulk of scientific evidence collected through the United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change which shows beyond all doubt that we would be stupid in the interests not only of future generations but of our own generations if we were to ignore the precautionary principle and failed to give the environment the benefit of the doubt. The doubt is being extinguished day by day as we learn the lessons of global warming, ozone depletion and acid rain. It is regrettable that the hon. Lady should use her position on the Back Benches to deny what is now, I think, universally accepted by reputable scientists.

This is the Queen's Speech of a Government who have nothing to offer by way of new ideas and who have, therefore, fallen back on old prejudices and bad habits. It is the Queen's Speech of a Government who are incapable of learning lessons from past failures, who are prepared to contemplate with a stony face and an equally stony heart the misery of the victims of their policies, who continue to give priority to their own ideological shackles rather than the human plight of the homeless and the disadvantaged.

Life will be very hard during the next four years under this Government for all those whose interests are habitually ignored by the Government. Life will be hard for those who look to good quality public services for the homes and schools on which they and their families depend. Life will be hard for those who want to see a vibrant local government and a truly effective democracy.

We pledge ourselves in opposition to fight the fight for all those people and to assure them that our aim is nothing less than a Labour Government who, unlike this Government, will defend the interests of those people and will serve the whole community.

4.2 pm

I add my welcome, Madam Speaker, to the many that you have already received on being elected to your great office. It is with some relief that I have discovered that as from 1 April responsibility for your accommodation passed from the Property Services Agency, and, therefore, my Department, to the House of Commons Commission. In the unlikely event of there being any complaints, I emphasise that it is to the commission that they should henceforth be addressed.

My delight at speaking from this Dispatch Box for the first time as Secretary of State for the Environment is enhanced by the presence on the Opposition Front Bench of the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould). It is a long time since we last crossed swords in the House, but I have never ceased to admire the subtlety with which the hon. Gentleman: has manoeuvred through the delicate shifts in position that he has been seeking to make during the past few weeks.

In the early hours of Friday morning, after the local election results were known, the hon. Gentleman excelled himself. Desperately looking for crumbs of comfort, he said of his party's performance, "At least it gives us a low base from which to recover in a few years' time." I make this offer to the hon. Gentleman: I am fully prepared to work with him over the years to help him and his party to achieve a lower and lower base from which they can seek to make ever more spectacular recoveries in the dim and distant never-never land.

We heard an interesting speech from the hon. Gentleman this afternoon. I am not sure quite how much good it will do his leadership bid. The most significant point in it came when he totally evaded the pertinent question on capital receipts put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis). We know of the sharp difference in view which emerged during the general election campaign between the hon. Gentleman's team and the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) who, fortuitously, has just left the Chamber.

I am prepared to give the hon. Member for Dagenham another opportunity to answer my hon. Friend's question, or to answer an even simpler question. Given that the Opposition amendment places such emphasis on capital receipts, why is it that it is not signed by the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East? Is that difference of view still continuing, or is it that the right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot bring himself to put pen to paper next to his rival for the Labour leadership—the hon. Member for Dagenham? I shall be happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman, to allow him to answer any of those questions.

The Gracious Speech emphasised the importance that the Government attach to the protection of our environment. No issue is more crucial to our future. It needs to be addressed at all levels—local, national, regional and global. Within the Government, the responsibility for addressing environmental issues, at all levels, rests with my Department. That is no accident of administration. The decision to bring those elements of the machinery of government together in one Department was taken in 1970, during the run-up to the Stockholm conference. That decision has stood the test of time.

In exercising those responsibilities, I shall be guided by three principles—opportunity, responsibility and partnership. When our debate was opened last week, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister spoke of the need to maintain a country in which everyone may realise his or her aspirations—everyone. There can be no forgotten few—nor can there be any exclusion zone in our inner cities or on any of our housing estates; no no-go areas where the writ of opportunity does not run.

This evening, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education will talk about the opportunity for people to choose where to send their children to school. We must also extend and enhance the opportunity for people to choose and own their homes; to gain access to effective public services, efficiently delivered; and to enjoy a local neighbourhood environment that is not blighted by a pall of neglect—neglect that has often been the hallmark of so many of the inner city areas controlled by councils run by the Labour party.

As we offer opportunity, we must encourage responsibility. Ultimately, those whose aspirations remain unrealized—and those who are not always able to formulate their aspirations—must accept some responsibility themselves. Government can provide the framework—the people themselves must make the most of the opportunities that arise.

That is one of the elements of the partnership that we seek to provide: partnership between public and private sectors, central and local government, and the business community and voluntary organisations—above all, partnership with the people who have felt left out of opportunity, and whom we must bring within its reach.

We cannot and we shall not accept as permanent features of our society the degradation that has disfigured the physical environment and the very lives of so many of our fellow citizens.

I am surprised that the Secretary of State does not choke on his own words. Perhaps he will explain how local communities are meant to exercise responsibility when 86 per cent. of their local services funding comes direct from the Department of the Environment and the remaining 14 per cent. is also determined by the Government, through the capping regime. How are those who were elected last Thursday expected to exercise their responsibilities and to provide opportunities when the Secretary of State determines their finance, legislation and virtually every action?

If the hon. Gentleman will show a little more patience, he will have an answer to his question. It is astonishing that Labour now seeks to criticise the Government for the proportion of local government spending that is provided from central funds. Year after year, when that proportion was diminishing, we were criticised for providing less money to local government from central funds. Now that we have made a substantial increase in the proportion provided by central Government, we are being criticised on precisely those grounds. The Opposition had better at least start to get their act together, and introduce some semblance of consistency into their criticisms.

There is nothing inevitable about the decline of the inner city. Just as we can all be sucked into a cycle of decline, so too it is possible to create a virtuous circle leading to opportunity and prosperity. Much has already been done. Through the establishment of urban development corporations, task forces, city action teams, housing action trusts and programmes such as estate action and city challenge, we have made a difference. More needs to be done, however: not by instructing the people who live in such areas what to do; not by taking decisions away from local people; but by involving, engaging and empowering them—by giving the people more power and responsibility over their own lives. That is at the heart of our approach.

The programme outlined in the Gracious Speech represents only the first stage in a series of measures that will extend throughout the current Parliament. The housing, land and urban development legislation represents another important step forward in the Government's strategy for revitalising the inner cities. Its centrepiece is the proposal for the creation of an urban regeneration agency. I am delighted that Peter Walker has agreed to become the agency's first chairman if Parliament approves the measure. The fact that a man of his stature has been chosen is a clear signal of the great importance that the Government attach to the work that the agency will carry out.

Does the Secretary of State agree that the 10 years of operation of the enterprise zone in my constituency should be subjected to an inquiry and evaluation? Nearly £3 billion of public funds has gone into the area in the form of direct and indirect subsidies, but fewer than 3,000 jobs have been created. My constituents have been subjected to the delights of the totally inefficient docklands light railway, and, now, to the tottering financial tower of Canary wharf. Should not an evaluation be carried out to see whether we have been given value for money?

I do not think that many people would recognise the figures provided by the hon. Lady. Many more jobs have been created than the number that she gave. If she wishes to make any assessment of the value that is attached to enterprise zones, she need only talk to people in all parts of the country—including those in Labour-controlled local authorities—who are only too enthusiastic about the establishment of enterprise zones in their areas. I do not think that the hon. Lady's view of enterprise zones would obtain universal or general support.

Can we get one or two things straight? Olympia and York—that busted flush of a company, now !12 billion in debt—is now looking for a lifeline. Through the Secretary of State and the President of the Board of Trade, the Government are going to hand out a lifeline to a company that is gasping for financial breath.

I want an assurance from the Secretary of State today that the Government will not hand out any taxpayers' money to Olympia and York by transferring offices to Canary wharf. If they do, they should be surcharged, just as any Labour authority would be surcharged for spending an excessive amount. It is high time that the Government came clean, because the affair stinks to high heaven.

I can give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that any decison made by my Department, or by any other Department, about the relocation of civil servants will be made on strict value-for-money grounds. We have been advised that the best value for money that is currently available can be found in docklands—not necessarily on Canary wharf, but in docklands—and we are looking for accommodation there; but, as I have said, our decision will be made on strict value-for-money grounds. If the hon. Gentleman's request for an assurance was at all serious, he would recognise that such an assurance has now been given.

The House will have listened with great attention and not a little unease to the Secretary of State's weasel words. Will he confirm what I imagine he meant to convey but did not have the courage to make explicit—that his Department is looking for office space in docklands and that it is negotiating with Olympia and York to rent office accommodation from that company? If the answer to that question is yes, or even if it is not quite a "yes", will he enlighten us as to which other Government Departments are contemplating a similar relocation?

There is absolutely no mystery about this matter. Everybody knows that the building which is occupied by my Department in Marsham street is to be demolished—a decision of my predecessor which I enthusiastically support and endorse. I do not know anybody who has the misfortune to work in that building who has any doubts about it. That means that we have to look for accommodation for a large number of people who at present work in Marsham street. We shall make our decision on the basis of the best value for money available, and no other consideration. We are at present considering a number of offers of accommodation that have been made to us, including offers of accommodation elsewhere than at Canary wharf and other than that owned by Olympia and York, but the properties on offer certainly include some owned by Olympia and York. We shall look at all those offers and make our decision on a strict value-for-money basis.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for at least carrying us to the point where we now know that one of the offers being considered is that made by Olympia and York for accommodation at Canary wharf. The Secretary of State has said several times that the real consideration will be value for money. However, he must surely also take into account the whole question of administrative efficiency and the location of a Government Department close to the other centres of power in Whitehall.

Is the Secretary of State saying that for the purposes of locating his Department at Canary wharf—one of the offers that he is contemplating—he is prepared to divide his Department so that a substantial number of people go off to docklands while, presumably, he and his ministerial colleagues and senior civil servants remain here in Westminster? If that is what is being contemplated, why does he not say now that the whole business is too inconvenient and cumbersome, that docklands is not an appropriate location for a Government Department and that he will be looking for accommodation here in Westminster? Why is he not prepared to take that view?

The hon. Gentleman ought to ponder for a moment before he makes so crass an intervention as that. It has been part of Government policy for years that civil servants should be relocated from Westminster. The hon. Gentleman has just intervened to make a point about the administrative inconvenience of split Departments. The Department in which I served until a month ago, the Department of Employment, has many civil servants in Sheffield. I thought that that approach was supported by the Labour party and that Labour Members of Parliament with Sheffield constituencies were keen for that to continue. Does the Labour party now propose that we can communicate with people in Sheffield from Westminster but that we could not communicate with people in docklands? What an absurd proposition. One minute the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms. Gordon) gets up and protests that there are not enough jobs in docklands and the next minute the hon. Member for Dagenham gets up and says that all of them should be kept in Westminster. What a shambles. What an utter disgrace. What utter rubbish and nonsense comes from the Opposition Front Bench.

Will the Secretary of State give way?

No, I do not intend to give way again.

I intend to refer now to the urban regeneration agency which we shall put in place. The case for the creation of the agency is crystal clear. There are about 150,000 acres of vacant land in English urban areas, about half in public ownership. Not all of this is usable, but about 65,000 acres have previously been developed—an area five times the annual change from agricultural to urban use in England.

Dereliction, fragmented ownership, lack of information to owners and poor site conditions and access often mean that that land is difficult to market. But it presents great opportunities, once the potential has been unlocked. The time has now come to unlock this potential and seize these opportunities. I have no doubt that the agency will have the capacity to improve enormously the environment of the people living in many parts of our inner cities. It will bring new housing, new jobs and new hope to the people who live there.

The agency will bring together existing programmes for the development of land and enable them to be much more effectively focused. It will work in partnership with local authorities and the private sector to provide them with a single contact point. It will be able to give grants to them to bridge the gap between development costs and resale value. It will also be able to develop land itself.

I want the agency to work closely with local authorities. I hope that they will regard it as a source of expertise and capacity to help them realise the potential of their inner cities. The people who live in our inner cities are their most important resource. I want those local people to feel that the agency is working to create new opportunities for them.

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

I have given way far too often and I must press on.

That is why the agency will work closely with the training and enterprise councils to ensure that as many local people as possible obtain jobs in the construction phase and during the later commercial use of the land.

rose—

I shall give way for the last time.

This is the first opportunity that the House has had to question the Secretary of State and his Ministers on the urban regeneration agency and it is the first opportunity that we have had to ask questions about things such as where the grants to which the Secretary of State referred will come from. From which existing heading are the grants to be diverted? Are the development corporations, the enterprise zones and the plethora of other measures to be subsumed under the urban regeneration agency?

The hon. Gentleman will have many opportunities, commencing tomorrow, to ask detailed questions about the agency. The existing urban development corporations will not be brought within the ambit of the agency. However, the agency will be able to focus much more precisely, effectively and in a targeted way many of the funds that we presently use in our efforts to regenerate the inner cities.

As my right hon. and learned Friend will know, I have been campaigning for about 15 years—[Interruption.]—or longer for the release of vacant public land and I welcome the agency. It is one of the best things that I have heard about for a long time. Will my right hon. and learned Friend explain to the House whether the agency will confiscate public land or market it? Will it be able to give value to the public authorities for the land that it takes? Will its operations apply to private land, because a great deal of private land is vacant, dormant and derelict?

The agency will have marketing powers, it will be able to give value for the value for the land that it acquires and it will have powers of compulsory acquisition. I hope that I have answered all the pertinent points put by my hon. Friend, whose long interest in this matter—I shall not become involved in the precise period over which it has extended—I recognise and have welcomed.

I have some derelict land in my constituency, but it is contaminated. Is there any plan to bring forward the contaminated land register, which is hanging like a sword of Damocles over a great deal of land?

Derelict land grant is and will continue to be available. I hope that it will assist my hon. Friend in dealing with the problem in his constituency.

The Bill will also provide new rights and opportunities to both council and private tenants. As the right to buy has so convincingly demonstrated, one important consequence of giving people more say over their own lives is an improvement in the most local environment of all—the property in which people live and its immediate surroundings. That in turn raises the morale of everyone living there.

We have been convinced for some time that a large number of council tenants would like to have the benefit of home ownership but cannot afford the financial commitment. That is why we set up pilot rent-to-mortgage schemes in Scotland, Wales, Basildon and Milton Keynes. The response has been encouraging. In our manifesto, we promised to extend this opportunity to the whole country. Council tenants will be given a new right to buy a stake in their homes for no more than they currently pay in rent. They will be able to increase their stake whenever they wish, moving gradually to full ownership.

I very much hope that the Labour party will not repeat the mistake that it made in 1980 in opposing the right to buy. It will be up to individual tenants to decide whether they wish to take up this new opportunity, and what possible objection can there be to giving them the chance to say yes or no, unless of course Labour Members still have a wish, rooted in political dogma, to see them remaining council tenants for ever.

We want to extend to long leaseholders the opportunity of full ownership and independence from landlords. I pay tribute to the powerful advocacy of my hon. Friends the Members for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) and for Kensington (Mr. Fishburn), who deserve much credit for championing the cause of so many of their constituents.

The Bill will give most long leaseholders of flats the collective right to buy the freehold of their block at market price. Those not eligible will instead be able to buy a renewed long lease, again at market price. We considered the existing rateable value restrictions on the enfranchisement of leasehold houses and concluded that there was no logical reason for retaining them. They will therefore be abolished.

The Bill does not neglect those who wish to remain as council tenants. The existing right-to-repair scheme, introduced in 1980, has proved too cumbersome and complicated. The Bill gives tenants a straightforward right to get repairs done privately and send councils the bill where councils fail to carry them out within a reasonable time. I hope that that will be widely welcomed on both sides of the House.

Will the Secretary of State give way?

I am sorry. I have given way many times and must get on.

I hope, too, that it will be widely accepted that when we change the rights of tenants in the ways that I have described, and the rights of parents in the ways that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education will describe later in the debate, we are not attacking local government. It should be the servant of its citizens, not the promoter of its own interests. It has, and will continue to have, a vital role in spending about £40 billion a year. But that role should be an enabling role. There are marry ways in which the local services that people need can be delivered. Local management of schools is one example. Competitive tendering ensures a choice of providers. Free from the responsibility of running a large work force, local authorities can concentrate on ensuring that local people get a high quality service.[Interruption.] Exactly. Effective monitoring of standards is essential. That task is made easier for local authorities if they are not providing the service themselves.

I understand the revolution in attitudes that is required of local authorities to fulfil such a role, but the importance of local government does not, and should not, flow from the extent to which it provides services direct to the public. There is no reason why a local council should not take great pride in a job well done, whether or not its work force carried it out—indeed, even if its work force did not do so.

If that enabling role is to be discharged effectively, it is essential that local government should be responsive, that it should not be remote from those whom it seeks to serve and that there should be clarity about its responsibilities. That is why we are reviewing its structure. The objective of the review will be to find the structure that is the best for each part of the country—the structure that most closely reflects the views and needs of the people for whose benefit local government exists.

It is right that cost-effectiveness should be an important consideration. In that light, I expect to see a move towards more unitary authorities, but I have no blueprint. I see no reason why there should not be, and every reason why there should be, diversity. Local government should see the review as a challenge rather than a threat. It is up to individual local authorities to make the case to their communities for a particular form of structure. The best way in which they can do so is by demonstrating efficiency and quality of service. I hope that local government acts in that spirit.

I hope, more generally, that we shall see a new partnership between central and local government. In the past, that relationship has not always been one of total harmony. I dare say that it will not be possible to avoid controversy altogether in the future, but I hope that we can keep it to a minimum.

The very first people I asked to see were the leaders of the local authority associations. I have suggested—and they have agreed—that we should meet informally on a regular basis. I hope that we shall be able to work together in the interests of the people whom we have been elected to serve.

My Department has responsibilities which touch on the quality of our environment at all levels—local, national, regional and global. I have set out how the proposals in the Gracious Speech will help to improve the quality of our environment at the most local level of all—people's homes and their immediate neighbourhood—but we need to address those issues at all levels and we need to make sure that we do so in the right context. Any serious attempt to improve environmental standards needs investment. If we are to invest we must earn, and if we are to earn—as a nation and as a planet—we must be successful economic managers.

The economy and the environment are not on opposite ends of a see-saw, with one able to rise only at the expense of the other. They are interdependent. We can create a high quality environment only if we build a high quality economy. The key is sustainable growth and that is what we must achieve.

This is a Government whose words are a prelude to action, not a substitute for action. Barely a single month has passed since we were re-elected, yet in that short time we have already announced new commitments of our own on climate change, helped to persuade the Americans to make comparable commitments, played a central role in the final round of the negotiations on the climate change convention in New York and committed $1 million to the international effort to support the non-governmental side of the earth summit.

The earth summit, which will take place in Rio de Janeiro next month, is a unique opportunity and it must not be squandered. That is why my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was the first national leader to make a firm commitment to attend. That is why we have now made clear our own intention to return our emissions of carbon dioxide to 1990 levels by the year 2000. That is why we have made it clear that, provided others play their part, we are prepared to commit new and additional resources to replenish the global environment facility.

We believe that the earth summit marks the opening of a new phase in the environment and development debates.

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

No, I cannot give way.

No conference, whatever its success, solves problems; it simply charts the course. It is what happens afterwards that really matters. In taking on the presidency of the European Community immediately after the earth summit, we will have a unique opportunity to get the follow-up to Rio off to a good start. We have clear and ambitious goals and we shall continue our policies to improve the quality of our national environment.

Britain's first ever White Paper on environmental policy, "This Common Inheritance", puts us among only four or five nations in the world which have produced a comprehensive policy on the environment. One of its central accomplishments was to set up a rigorous system for monitoring and reviewing on an annual basis the development of our environmental strategy. We have already published one report on the implementation of that strategy. In October, we shall publish a second report and we shall continue to publish reports every year. In addition, we shall be publishing in the autumn a statistical report on the environment, enabling everyone to monitor for himself or herself any improvements—or deterioration—that may take place.

We are examining the results of our consultation process on the shape of the environment agency and will shortly announce our preferred option. Drafting of the Bill will then proceed so that we can take immediate advantage of the earliest legislative opportunity. Meanwhile, the National Rivers Authority and Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution, which the Government established, will continue their excellent work of preventing pollution of the environment.

Protecting the environment and fostering sustainable development are not tasks only for Government. Many others have a part to play—business men, local authorities, scientists and the voluntary sector—and that is why we have sought to involve them more closely in the development of our environmental policy through the Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment and similar groups and by involving them in our delegations to international meetings. However, it is the ordinary citizen and consumer who have perhaps the most important part to play, for, ultimately, the fate of our environment—locally and for the planet as a whole—rests on the individual choices that we all make. It is the duty of Government to provide a clear and comprehensive framework of law within which those choices can be made and to build powerful institutions to insist on the implementation of those laws.

No Government could possibly claim to have done all that was needed to protect or improve the environment, but I am confident that we have put the United Kingdom on a trajectory of constant effort and achievement in improving environmental standards. Care for the environment will be in the forefront of all our policies. I pay tribute to the work of my predecessors. I take up the torch with enthusiasm.

4.34 pm

I congratulate you most warmly, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment. I wish first to refer to Sir Robert Rhodes James, who was my immediate predecessor as Member for Cambridge. He was well known for his enlightened views on higher education and for his excellence as a political historian and biographer. He championed the cause of students and was unafraid to oppose the policies of his Government when his conscience dictated. He was a courteous man who helped many people in difficulties, and he will be remembered as a man of integrity.

I suppose that many right hon. and hon. Members believe that they know the constituency of Cambridge. Many will recall hazy memories of their student lives in Cambridge: rolling lawns, high tables, political games in the union debating chamber, garden parties, punting to Grantchester,

"And is there honey still for tea?"

Judging by the condition of many hon. Members, there still is—and much more besides.

There is another side to Cambridge, however, about which hon. Members will know little from their student days. For many of my constituents, the harsh reality of Cambridge is a city with rising unemployment, chronic housing shortages, and poverty just below the surface. Increasing numbers of young people sleep rough and many old people live in fear of being unable to pay their bills. Students are being driven out of further and higher education by inadequate financial support. Single parents are denied grants for basic necessities. Nearly 17,000 households in Cambridge are in receipt of income support, including 5,400 pensioners and 2,500 single-parent families. One in four households in Cambridge is in receipt of some kind of means-tested benefit.

Cambridge has a low wage economy with at least one in 10 of the work force covered by the wages councils, on minimum hourly rates of between £2·66 and £3·06. Many of the people who make the beds, clean the rooms and serve the meals of future Cabinet Ministers are paid pitiful wages—how well they serve those people in their youth, and how quickly they are forgotten once university life is left behind.

The Queen's Speech acknowledges the existence of poverty in foreign parts, but, judging from their record, the Government will do precious little about that—and their programme for this Session of Parliament fails even to recognise the existence of poverty in this country. Are the Government so ashamed of the poverty that their policies have created that they dare not admit that there is poverty in our land? Do they intend to do nothing about the social fund even though they are aware that the resources allocated to the fund are totally inadequate?

In Cambridge, 70 per cent. of high priority applications to the social fund are turned down because of the meagre cash limit on the fund. Families with children, as well as pensioners and homeless people, continue to have claims for essential items such as sleeping bags and winter coats turned down by the Cambridge benefits office. Last year, the local district manager of the social fund had an application for an increase in funds turned down without any proper reason. This year, the local manager—whose area includes the Prime Minister's constituency—is again pessimistic, believing that his pleas for more funds will fall on deaf ears.

The Government are imposing severe financial hardship on increasing numbers of students. Bit by bit, the Government have eaten away at student financial support. By failing to increase grants in line with inflation throughout the 1980s, and by introducing top-up loans, the Government have made students into a new group of debtors. Through loss of entitlement to housing benefit and income support, the Government have made survival virtually impossible for many students. Then they abolished the vacation hardship allowance, causing poverty among students on an unprecedented scale. Their measures hit students in areas such as Cambridge—which has high rents—particularly hard, and there is worse to come.

The Government's failure to increase funding for institutions of higher education in Cambridge in line with inflation has meant that many colleges are making up the shortfall by swingeing rent increases which students have no new resources to pay. A number of colleges in Cambridge are already planning to increase room rents by 25 per cent. in real terms in the next two to three years.

The result of all those measures has been an increasing drop-out rate from institutions of higher education, owing to financial hardship. The introduction of the so-called access fund has been totally inadequate to counteract the devastating effects of the Government's other policies on higher education. However, it is not only the drop-out rate which gives cause for concern, but also the welfare of students, who are desperately trying to continue their studies against all odds.

In December 1991, a student from Homerton college in Cambridge was hospitalised owing to an infection of the liver, kidneys and intestines. In probing the source of the infection, the general practitioner was appalled at the conditions in which the student was living. There was no central heating, there were damp walls and the student had clearly not been eating adequately. The senior tutor at Homerton college has written that the situation uncovered by the GP was fairly typical of many of his students—what an indictment of Government policy that is.

What do the Government intend to do about poverty wages? Far from eliminating them, it is suggested that the Government will make the situation even worse by abolishing the wages councils, which at least prevented the inadequate rates of pay in many industries from falling even lower. The Low Pay Unit has estimated that the floor for pay after the abolition of the wages councils could be as low as £2 per hour. Is that really an acceptable level of reward for work in a civilised society?

The Government's low wages policy has created a poverty trap for so many families. Last year I took up the case of a father of five with a mortgage to pay who had lost his job. He found a new post, which paid £2·66 per hour—a net £95 per week. After paying mortgage interest and receiving child benefit and family credit, he would have been left with £42 to feed, clothe and support his family. Understandably, the man did not take the job because with income support and child benefit he previously received £138·50 per week and the Department of Social Security paid his mortgage interest. However, because he refused the job, his unemployment benefit was stopped for 20 weeks. What kind of encouragement to seek employment is that?

The poverty trap does not exist only for the unemployed. Many pensioners who are just above the income support level find it hard to survive. They have been especially hard hit by the poll tax and by the effects of privatising the water industry. Water rates in Cambridge have raced ahead of inflation. Since the abolition of water rate rebates in 1988, average bills in Cambridge have increased by 72 per cent. to £208. That particularly affects single pensioners living alone. The secretary of the Office of Water Services, Ofwat, eastern customer services committee has recently expressed concern that pensioners are going without food so that they can pay their bills.

The Government have no plans to tackle the problems of poverty in our country. Government Ministers use the language of equality, a classless society, a nation at ease with itself, to hide the fact that their policies are creating an ever more divided and unequal society. Their words are new-speak designed to enable the Government to avoid facing up to the truth.

I come to the House from a constituency where the Labour party was established 80 years ago, founded on the principles of social justice and equality. And how greatly our society needs those guiding principles today. I am the third Labour Member of Parliament for Cambridge, and the first woman Member. I follow in the footsteps of two men of high principle, Leslie Symonds, who was elected in 1945, and Robert Davies, who was elected in 1966 and whose political career was tragically cut short by his death in 1968. At his funeral Mr. Stan Newens, then Member for Epping, said:

"Robert Davies saw the Labour movement as a crusade for a new and better society, and he devoted himself to it without counting the cost—which was eventually his life. Any community owes a great debt to men like Robert, and his humanity, tolerance, self-sacrifice and devotion to others was a vital contribution to the Labour movement, Cambridge affairs and British politics."

No Labour Member of Parliament could wish for a finer epitaph.

I shall serve all the people of Cambridge and my country to the best of my ability, but I make no apology for bias towards the underprivileged. Cambridge elected a Labour Member of Parliament because we recognised the other side of the city of Cambridge, which the Government chose to ignore. We sought to understand the problems of the underprivileged and to reach out to them through our campaigning on the doorstep and by working on their behalf.

I feel enormously proud to have been entrusted to represent the people of Cambridge. I am equally dismayed that we should have a Government who care so little about social justice, but Labour has never underestimated the scale of the task necessary to build a fairer society. Although we are disappointed at the result of the general election, we do not give up—there are too many people in our society whose future welfare depends on us even to contemplate such a course of action. Not least among those are many of my constituents. After 24 years without effective representation, at last they have a voice.

4.46 pm

First, I congratulate Madam Speaker on her election to her high office and wish her every success in the many difficult decisions which she will have to make while presiding over our affairs. Secondly, may I congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and wish you well in the Chair.

Thirdly, it is a great pleasure to congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Ms. Campbell) on her maiden speech. She paid a generous tribute to her predecessor, Mr. Robert Rhodes James, whom many of us in the House held in the highest regard. She referred to his integrity and his distinction as an historian. Indeed, he made an important contribution to the work of the House and her kind remarks in that respect are greatly appreciated. The convention that maiden speeches should be uncontroversial is perhaps more honoured in the breach than in the observance nowadays, but I think that the House will recognise the hon. Lady's strength of feeling on the social issues to which she referred, and we shall look forward to hearing her on many future occasions.

Perhaps it is appropriate on the first Queen's Speech of a new Parliament to take stock. The status of the House has not changed greatly during the past quarter of a century, but clearly considerable changes may come into prospect since on the one hand the House is subject to claims for devolution of power to various parts of the United Kingdom, while on the other it faces the danger of a transfer of powers to European institutions. That combination may mean that the nature of the House may change in future years, perhaps in the not-too-distant future.

Therefore, I was much reassured by the speech on the Loyal Address by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, when he made clear his position on devolution and on Europe. It is reassuring that the outcome of the Maastricht negotiations was so successful from Britain's point of view. The fact that we obtained an opt-out clause which met this country's requirements was satisfactory, not least with regard to control over fiscal policy. Indeed, it would seem that many other European countries and Heads of State elsewhere are rather sorry that they did not follow our advice. However, the fact that we wrote our own opt-out clause gave us some discretion which we would not have had if there had been a general opt-out clause. In all events, that is important. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State will recognise, the principle of subsidiarity is extremely important for environmental matters. On the one hand there is often a case for a European approach to protecting the environment, but on the other some environmental issues should be decided in the United Kingdom and not in Brussels or elsewhere in Europe.

There has been some debate in the press today about the diversity of parliamentary systems. I hope that as we come to assume the Presidency of the European Community we shall seek to extend to European affairs some of the undoubted advantages of this House of Commons, with regard not only to budgetary discipline, but to the control of public expenditure. The fact that we have a Public Accounts Committee and a Comptroller and Auditor General that do that should be emulated in a European context. Each year we debate the report of the Court of Auditors, yet absolutely nothing is done about the criticisms that it makes of European expenditure. I hope that during our Presidency we shall take up that point strongly.

I welcome the statements in the Gracious Speech about the open government initiative. An increase in openness and a reduction in secrecy are important and are closely linked to accountability. Over the past decade or so we have made a considerable improvement in the level of accountability of the Government to this House through the introduction of the departmental Select Committees. As the hon. Member for Cambridge and other new Members will soon discover, it is difficult at Question Time to pin down a Minister because the subject changes from moment to moment. The moment one thinks that one has pinned down a Minister, the subject changes. Similarly, it is difficult to pin down a Minister when he or she replies to a debate because of the confrontational situation. The departmental Select Committee system is of tremendous importance because it is quite a different matter for a Minister to appear for two hours in front of an all-party Committee. Therefore, it is very important that those Committees should be set up with the least possible delay.

At the end of the previous Parliament the last action of the Liaison Committee, which I had the privilege of chairing, was to instruct me to write to the leaders of all political parties in the House to remind them of the Committee's resolution which read:

"That the Committee of Selection in the next Parliament should take full account of the view expressed by the Procedure Committee of Session 1989–90 that the process of nominating members of select committees should be completed within 30 sitting days after the meeting of a new Parliament, should proceed as a matter of urgency to place before the House its nominations for the membership of select committees and in particular should not feel bound to wait until the appointment of the last junior Opposition spokesman before submitting names to the House."

It is important that we should proceed with the nomination of Select Committees at the earliest possible moment.

In 1983 there was a delay from 15 June to 14 December and in 1987 from 11 June to 2 December before the Select Committees were set up. In the first case there were 66 to 69 sitting days and in the second 49 to 55 sitting days before they were all set up. It would be wrong if we did not set them up before the summer recess. If the Committees do not meet before then, the Clerks and advisers cannot get to work on the programme, and it would be nearly six months before the Committees were established and working following the resumption of the House in this new Parliament. That is why speed is important.

As I was Chairman of the Liaison Committee on the two previous occasions, I do not underestimate the difficulties of the negotiations that will arise. The resolution referred to the Opposition Front Bench. It should be possible to reach agreement on that because the number of individuals concerned must be small, which will prevent any unnecessary delay.

There are further difficult issues—for example, the participation of the minority parties and the chairmanship of the Committees. If the system is to have credibility, it is extremely important that there should be a number of Chairmen from both sides of the House. That is an essential part of the system. Problems are caused by the tradition, now firmly established, that the Committees should mirror the construction of the Departments. There has been no significant change to the Department of the Environment, but there have been changes in the structure of other Departments, not least with regard to the citizens charter and to sport and other related matters. We need to ensure that the Committee structure reflects those changes if the Committees are to monitor effectively the issues to be debated. I hope that we can make significant progress in that respect.

There are further considerations to be taken into account with regard to the European Committees. Those established in the previous Parliament did not work effectively. They were too few and did not have the expertise necessary to scrutinise effectively what has been going on in Europe and to report back to the Floor of the House. I hope that we can reconsider my earlier suggestion that we should have a sub-committee of the existing departmental Committees which have expertise and co-opt on to it other Members from the Floor of the House who have a particular interest in European affairs. It is difficult to man all the Committees in terms of pure numbers, so if we operate as I have described the House will be better at holding the Government and European Community organisations to account.

Those are important issues for Back Benchers from a parliamentary point of view. It is up to Back Benchers to bring pressure to bear so that they fulfil their responsibilities in this matter without delay. Otherwise, a large part of this Parliament will go by when the Government are not called to account in detail on individual matters.

Finally, there has been a great deal of talk about the nature of the present Government and the policy of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I see him within the tradition of the late lain Macleod, under whom I served my apprenticeship: extremely tough and rigorous on economic affairs but with a strong social concern for the everyday problems of individuals. The policies set out in the Gracious Speech reflect that. He comes to office at a time when it is tremendously important that Britain should be able to give a lead not only in European but in world affairs. Leaders across the world, from President Mitterrand in France to Mr. Kohl in Germany, Mr. Bush in the United States and the premier of Japan, are not in a happy position. I believe that we, as a British Government and a British Parliament, led by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, have an opportunity to play the role on the world stage which the House has traditionally regarded as a high priority.

I congratulate the Government on the content of the Queen's Speech, and I look forward to seeing the legislation come before the House.

4.59 pm

I am grateful for this opportunity to speak in the House for the first time, but I am equally grateful to the electors of Bath for giving me the opportunity to do so. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members do not think me disingenuous if I begin by paying tribute to my predecessor, Mr. Chris Patten, for whom I have considerable regard. I wish him and his family well when he takes up his new post as Governor of Hong Kong. He will bring to that task his considerable political and intellectual skills.

Chris Patten represented Bath for 13 years, and recent letters to the local evening paper, the Bath and West Evening Chronicle, clearly demonstrate that the electors of Bath held him in high regard. Even those who strongly disagreed with the policies that he supported acknowledge that he was a hard-working constituency Member of Parliament. In that regard, I recognise that it will be a tall order to follow him. Talking of tall orders, I understand that Chris Patten is likely to follow the precedent set by Madam Speaker, who has declined to wear the traditional wig. I understand that Mr. Patten is seriously considering rejecting the tall funny hat with the feathers on top when he takes up his new position.

The recent election was a busy period in Bath for visits from those on the Government Front Bench. We even saw the Prime Minister in Bath, but, on that occasion, he was without his soap box. On the other hand, my supporters were mainly from another place. I will long remember one of them who came with me on a bus trip through the centre of the city, who spoke through a loudspeaker urging the people of Bath to "Vote Don Foster. Vote Christian Democrat." No doubt that was an advance warning of how Liberal Democrat Members are likely to vote in the debate on the Maastricht agreement.

My constituency is a beautiful city. It is the only World Heritage site in Britain which is a complete parliamentary constituency, an honour which it shares with only Florence and Rome. Bath has the finest rugby union side in Britain, the finest musical festival, glorious architecture and wonderful people.

In June 1979, in his maiden speech, Chris Patten said:

"Bath is not a museum piece. It is an extremely busy city, although not quite as busy as we would like following the rise in unemployment in the last few years. It depends a great deal for its prosperity on a number of fine engineering firms."—[Official Report, 14 June 1979; Vol. 968, c. 720.]

Sadly, 13 years later, Bath is still not quite as busy as we would like following further recent rises in unemployment and many of the fine engineering firms to which Chris Patten referred are no more. Like many shops and other small businesses, they closed during the recession, often because of the twin attacks from the uniform business rate and high rents. I urge the Government to review rapidly the way that they support small businesses in particular.

Right hon. and hon. Members should be aware that beneath the facade of Georgian elegance Bath has the same problems as those associated with all cities in this country. We too have rising levels of homelessness, increasing unemployment, congested streets with significant traffic problems and ever-rising rates of crime, but the police are deprived of the resources that they need to tackle the problems.

Many people in Bath have suffered badly because of the collapse of those firms that formed part of the empire of the late Robert Maxwell. Maxwell pensioners have seen the promised rewards of a lifetime's work vanish in a cloud of deception, theft and financial jiggery-pokery. I, and my constituents, urge the Government to take quick and decisive action to relieve the misery and distress caused to Maxwell pensioners and to end the uncertainty that they face.

Education is another issue that is of considerable concern to my constituents. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment as Secretary of State for Education. As I speak, school governing bodies in my constituency are having to face up to how they will cope with cuts in their education budgets. Those cuts have been imposed because of Avon county council's need to reduce its education budget as a means of trying to avoid poll tax capping. In some cases those cuts will result in cuts in the numbers of teachers and, certainly, a reduction in the quality of education provided to pupils. That is in marked contrast to the Government's pledge in the Gracious Speech to

"continue to work to raise standards at all levels of education".

Such a pledge can be met only if it is supported by the necessary targeted increases in investment in education and training. Whatever the merits of the Government's claim to have increased expenditure on education, it is clear to Liberal Democrat Members at least that the current level of investment is inadequate to meet current need let alone any planned changes.

That view is clearly supported by many people in this country, and it was during the general election when the poll showed that three-quarters of the electorate approved of Liberal Democrat proposals to increase investment in education and training by £2 billion, even if that meant a I p increase in taxation.

A nation lives and dies by its human resources. Properly educated and trained, Britain's citizens are our greatest asset. Britain spends less as a proportion of gross domestic product on education than many of our industrial competitors, including France, America, Ireland and even Malaysia. If we are to catch up with our competitors and partners, we must become what we are capable of becoming—one of the most highly educated and highly skilled societies in the world.

Education is about more than economic prosperity. Education liberates while ignorance enslaves. Education widens horizons and enlarges choice. Education enables everyone, regardless of age, sex, background or ability, to realise their unique potential. Wise expenditure on education represents a nation's investment in its own future. Funding for education and training must be further increased and I and my constituents will welcome any Government moves in this direction.

In the Gracious Speech the Government offer a Bill to extend choice and diversity in education. But what choice is currently on offer? Schools must choose between sacking teachers and doing without books, colleges must choose between decent accommodation and up-to-date equipment and universities between overcrowded lecture theatres and empty bank accounts. Eighteen-year-olds must choose between forgoing higher education and starting their careers under the burden of debt.

The Government, rightly in our view, recognised that education and training needed reform, but the speed, complexity and the number of changes have left teachers and lecturers suffering from innovation fatigue. Meanwhile, parents are increasingly bewildered by the apparent emergence of a two-tier system of education. The time has come for the Government to stop and listen to the people of Bath and to people throughout the country. If they are serious about giving real choice to parents and students, they must recognise the problems that their legislation has created. It is vital that the new Secretary of State for Education restores the democratic process of engaging in wide and genuine consultation before any further changes are introduced.

5.10 pm

I wish at the outset to congratulate the new occupants of the Chair. I hope that we shall not cause them too much trouble in the coming Session. It is not only a duty but a pleasure to congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) on an eloquent speech, delivered with great poise. We look forward to hearing from him in the future, even if we shall not necessarily agree with what he says on those occasions, let alone on this one.

Hon. Members will have agreed with the hon. Gentleman in at least two respects, the first being the tribute he paid to Bath Rugby Union club, which many of us have watched with great pleasure. The second and more important was his tribute to his predecessor, and he rightly couched his remarks in generous terms. I am sure that I am not alone in thinking that when we ask who were the real heroes of the last general election, we shall agree that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and Chris Patten share the honours—if not equally, then Chris Patten must still take a large share of the credit for the result of the election. He goes to Hong Kong to take up a challenging new job with the good wishes of all on these Benches, and I have no doubt that he will succeed well in the difficult task that he is about to undertake.

The difficult task that hon. Members face today involves trying to cram a quart into a pint pot, in view of the shortage of time, so I hope that I shall be forgiven for making only one point about education, the subject being taken with the environment. I welcome what the Gracious Speech says about education, in particular about extending choice and diversity. The motion standing in the names of Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen is churlish when it says that no measures exist "to improve educational standards and opportunities". That shows how out of touch they are. If they do not believe, as I do, that grant-maintained schools have vastly increased standards and opportunities in education, they should spend more time talking to parents at schools.

In my constituency—the same must be true throughout the country—the grant-maintained system is proving an enormous success, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in his speech on the Loyal Address. I have a word of caution for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education, whom I welcome to his new responsibilities. I hope we may have his assurance that there will be no asset stripping by local education authorities in such a way that it will become more difficult for independent managements in schools to maximise the opportunities that lie ahead. I extend that beyond schools, to sixth form colleges, and I hope that my right hon. Friend will find time when he replies to the debate to deal with that aspect.

It may be convenient if I answer my right hon. Friend's question now with a resounding yes. We shall do everything we can to prevent local authorities from asset stripping before schools go grant-maintained and to prevent them from getting in the way of the democratic right of parents voting in favour of grant-maintained status.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that response. I assure the House that I had not given him prior notice of the question, which makes the response even more welcome.

Time permits me to raise only two matters concerning the environment. The first may seem parochial but it is a problem that my constituents share with many other people in Britain—the vexed question of gipsy sites. Many hon. Members will agree that the present situation is fundamentally unsatisfactory. It brings local government into discredit when difficult problems are handled in such a way as to undermine confidence in the equity of the system under which local authorities operate.

It is generally conceded that the Caravan Sites Act 1968 needs fundamental review and revision. It is clear that what has happened in the parish of Ash, at one end of my constituency, and in the ward of Knaphill, at the other, has not matched the aspirations of my constituents. They are entitled to have their rights fully recognised, to have the opportunity to put their points of view and to have those views debated in public and at length.

There is scope for the Minister who is responsible for the citizens charter to look urgently at the way that the system is working. The present position is unsatisfactory. There seems to be a race to get approval under the Act for registration so that the problem can be unloaded on to the next-door authority. That leads to many relevant factors, including the social impact of gipsy sites and the devaluation aspect, not receiving consideration.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that further problems are created when unauthorised gipsy encampments move into boroughs and it takes a long time before they can be moved on? That issue must be considered in the review of the legislation to which he referred.

I agree with my hon. Friend, and if I were not trying to make a short speech I would expand my remarks to cover the inadequacies of the Public Order Act 1986. Many serious defects exist in the present law and I had hoped that at the beginning of the debate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would say whether a review was in progress and, if so, when it might be brought to its conclusion. I hope at least that in correspondence he will give me some encouragement, because increasingly many people are arguing for the substitution of unitary authorities for county councils in dealing with these issues. We need more openness in dealing with the matter, with greater equity all round.

The second point on the environment to which I wish to refer requires me to declare my interest as a passionate angler, but as there are 3 million anglers in Britain, and most of them vote, hon. Members will agree that I need not apologise for raising the matter. Anglers are concerned about the environment pre-eminently because, if they are to pursue their sport, they need water of quality and quantity in which to fish. There is depressing daily evidence that that desirable situation is getting harder to satisfy. To a large extent, it is nobody's fault but the Almighty's. The Government cannot be blamed for the drought. As the Government have resisted the temptation to appoint a Minister who might be blamed, we cannot apportion the blame much further.

Even leaving the drought aside, I would not go so far as the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), who seemed to blame the Government for failing to appoint an environment agency. I do not know what powers such an agency might have. Most of those who are familiar with the situation agree that much could be done, without rearranging the brass plates on the doors in Whitehall and elsewhere, to ensure that we have effective action to deal with a problem that is easily identified.

We do not need an environment agency to deal with the problem of rivers running dry because of excessive abstraction. The National Rivers Authority has powers, if it cares to use them, to limit and, if necessary, revoke abstraction licences and to move away from the policy that it seems to have adopted lately of treating abstraction licences on a first-come, first-served basis.

There is an urgent need for my right hon. Friend to talk to the chairman of the National Rivers Authority, Lord Crickhowell, and get from him a full report on the action that is to be taken to end the scandal of empty rivers. In Berkshire and Yorkshire—for example, in the Pang and Driffield Beck—nobody can fish because there is insufficient water. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Boothferry (Mr. Davis) would echo that point if he were in a position to speak today.

In that context, will the Minister urgently consult the National Rivers Authority about the NRA's approach to the question of transferring water from one part of the United Kingdom to another? The NRA appears to have plans to use rivers as pipelines, regardless of the effect that that might have in transferring acidic water from one part of the country to alkaline rivers in another.

We must review the whole issue of the use of water, recognising that it is a scarce and precious resource. We must appreciate that rivers running with pure water are absolutely essential to the beauty of the countryside as well as to anglers who wish to fish in them.

There are subsidiary issues such as surfactants, foam-causing agents, and the menace, as many anglers see it, of the burning of orimulsion in power stations. Those are subjects on which I hope that the responsible Minister will produce full reports as soon as possible.

I am not anxious to speak at great length because I know that many others wish to contribute to the debate. I wish only to say that in the Gracious Speech we are rightly told that the value of the environment at home and abroad is something that the Government are pledged to defend. That statement is most welcome and I have no doubt that it will he honoured.

I welcome especially the initiative that has been taken by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in relation to the Rio summit. In his speech in the address in reply to the Gracious Speech, my right hon. Friend stressed that we were seeking to give assistance to other parts of Europe, including that which we called eastern Europe, which is now emancipated. Many of us would judge it to be an environmental disaster area. A high priority—I believe that we are the best nation in Europe to discharge it—should be attached to making industrial emissions cleaner and to fighting against environmental pollution so as to bring a civilised environment to areas that have been devastated by years of communist industrial inefficiency. That is one area—my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) listed others—in which I believe that we are uniquely equipped and qualified to set the pace at both European and world level.

We have before us an excellent Gracious Speech. I welcome its contents and I believe that it bodes well for the future of the entire United Kingdom.

5.21 pm

I start by congratulating you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as other hon. Members have done, on your appointment. I also take the opportunity of congratulating Madam Speaker, who represents a constituency in the black country, the west midlands, on her appointment. Those who come from that part of the country derive great pleasure from the fact that Madam Speaker is a local Member.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Ms. Campbell), who indeed made an eloquent maiden speech. Cambridge is fortunate to have such a Member. She is the third Labour Member, as she said, to represent the constituency, and its first female Member. She spoke eloquently indeed when describing the problems that faced her constituents. We heard an excellent maiden speech, too, from the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster). Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, he spoke without the slightest sign of nervousness. I am sure that we shall hear both my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman speak on many occasions in future.

The right hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) is, of course, the chairman of the 1922 Committee. He said that we have before us an excellent Queen's Speech. Obviously, I do not believe anything of the sort.

The hon. Gentleman would not.

Indeed. I have every justification for taking that view of the speech, which contains no mention of unemployment. There is not one word on that subject. Conservative Members may consider this to be old-fashioned, outdated and the rest, but I have not changed my view, any more than my Labour colleagues have, that unemployment casts an unacceptable blot on society and causes immense hardship.

Some of us had the privilege of listening to Merlyn Rees's final speech in the House, which he made shortly before the general election. He referred to the 1944 White Paper on employment, which was introduced by Ernest Bevin. It was accepted in that document that Government had a role in trying to ensure conditions of full employment.

Unemployment—deprivation of the right to work—is bad enough in itself but it is even worse that so many suffer prolonged periods of being unable to find a job. I do not gloat when Tory Members lose their seats and face employment difficulties. I lost my former seat in 1970 and in the conditions that then prevailed I was fortunate to find myself in employment within a week. I am glad, obviously, that Conservative Members lost their seats in the election and that there were many Labour gains, but I am sure that those Conservatives do not wish to be unemployed. It is understandable that they will make every possible effort to find work. They will find themselves in the same position as our constituents, who want to be able to work as well.

Church Action on Poverty sent all hon. Members this week a booklet on poverty. One of the contributors wrote about a part of Tyne and Wear where there is 84 per cent. unemployment. She stated that in some families two or three generations have never known what it is to be properly employed. The west midlands, too, have suffered in the second major recession, as we suffered in the early 1980s. Far too many people in the west midlands and in the black country are finding many problems in trying to obtain work.

People in their 50s, and even in their 40s, face an additional problem when they are told that they are too old to be taken on. When someone in his or her early 40s starts his or her political career in this place, no one considers him or her necessarily to be old. Far from it. I note that the Secretary of State for Education smiles. He should know that no doubt some of his constituents are in the position that I described. So many people are told even when they are in their 40s, let alone in their 50s, that they are too old to work. That is an additional problem when the economic climate is as harsh as it is at present.

In addition to that, there is what I can best describe as a growing underclass. In that group we see poverty, deprivation, lack of proper schooling, inadequate housing and poor opportunities at their worst. When the Government were elected in 1979, they made much of law and order. We know only too well that crime—in some instances serious crime—occurs frequently in many parts of the country. It is not only women who are greatly reluctant to go out after 7 pm in some areas. Does anyone doubt that the growing joblessness among young people is a factor in the crime statistics? Many school leavers find it impossible to obtain a permanent job.

It may be that after the Conservative election victory Ministers do not want to be warned by Labour Members, but I shall do so. I choose my words carefully. They will be playing with fire if effective steps are not taken to deal with the problems to which I referred. Often, those in the underclass, as I have described it, do not bother to vote. They feel alienated from the political scene. In some instances, they take the minimum amount of interest in public affairs. In percentage terms, the number of people in the underclass here, when set against the population as a whole, is not as great as that in the United States, but it is growing. That should cause the House much concern.

There are Conservative Members who believe that naked market forces have a solution to all problems. I assume that the majority of Ministers take that view. In more recent years, Americans have been told that government should be of the very minimum, but naked market forces have not been able to deal with the underclass and the poverty and destitution in that country. Surely what has happened in the United States is a warning to us to be extremely careful. It is a warning to the Government to recognise that there is a problem. Even if the warning comes from Labour Members, it is one that should be taken seriously.

The Secretary of State mentioned housing. It is ironic that almost all Labour Members, and, I imagine, a good number of Tory Members, receive more letters from constituents about this subject than about any other. Two thirds of those who come to my surgery come to talk about housing matters—mainly, although not entirely, about the need to be housed or rehoused.

I have made my position on the matter clear in a number of housing debates, and it is the same as that of all my colleagues. I accept that most people want to own their own property. If Tory Members want to believe their own propaganda about our supposed views on housing, they are entitled to do so. I have always said that as I own my own house—or am acquiring it from the building society—I could hardly wish to deprive others of the same opportunity. But the fact remains that a large minority, even in better conditions, cannot purchase, so rented and affordable rental accommodation is necessary.

For 13 years the Government have made it virtually impossible for local authorities to build. Not a single council house has gone up in my borough in that time. The Government have made no secret of the fact that they believe that local authorities no longer have a role in house building. That is dogma at its worst, and it causes a great deal of suffering and hardship. Young couples, perhaps with one child, tell me that they have to live with their in-laws or in a furnished room. I tell them that the Government say that they should be able to buy a place in the newly built housing in the private sector—whereupon they smile, knowing full well that they are not in a position to purchase. The only way such people stand any chance of acquiring adequate accommodation is through the local authority.

Housing waiting lists grow longer and longer. Why should people be penalised just because they cannot get a mortgage? The Government say that there are alternative forms of rented accommodation: the private sector. I accept that there is now more private rented accommodation—but without security, and at rents which people in need cannot afford.

I agree that housing associations have a role to play, but the figures are stark. In 1978, more than 20,500 new such dwellings were being built; that had fallen to 18,000 by 1990. I remind my colleagues of the figures for council house building. In 1978, the last full year of office for the Labour Government, there were well over 76,000 starts. In 1990, the number had fallen to 7,500. Is it any wonder that people find themselves in such a desperate housing plight?

There has been no response from the Government. The Minister said that he hopes that we will not oppose rents into mortgages, but that is not the issue. The real issue is providing accommodation for those who are desperately in need of housing and cannot afford to buy.

Understandably, Conservative Members will take much satisfaction from the fact that we have once again failed to win an election. Every Labour Member deeply regrets that, and we believe that our loss is the country's loss. We will not be in a position to implement what we wanted to do on housing, unemployment and pensions.

There will be the usual inquest on why we failed to win, and Conservative Members will take as much satisfaction as they like from that, too. We, however, can take some limited satisfaction from the fact that we made substantial gains and that 39 Tory Members lost their seats. With any luck, more of them will do so at the next election.

Labour Members have a duty and responsibility, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge said, to express the hopes and aspirations of the people to whom 1 have referred—those in difficulty, those who know that their problems are likely to be raised in the House only by Labour Members. No Tory Member would raise those sorts of issues because Tory Members are not interested in them. As well as expressing the hopes and aspirations of those who are more fortunate, Labour Members will continue to do our job in this respect. We have firmly re-established ourselves as one of the two major parties, and however much Tory Members dislike the fact, we are an effective Opposition. We will continue to be one and we will do our utmost to ensure that when the next election comes we will be able to form a Government.

5.35 pm

I thank the Chair for allowing me this opportunity to make what is known as a maiden speech. Other maiden speeches have already taken us to Cambridge and Bath, and we have now reached another beautiful English city—Chester.

I have some reservations about the phrase "maiden speech" because it has an unfortunate sexist ring to it. As a rule I do not like sexist language, although I have begun to have some reservations about politically correct linguistics since the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) told me of the Christmas pantomime in his constituency which, for reasons of political correctness, was retitled, "Snow Green and the Seven Persons of Restricted Growth".

On these occasions, and in these early days, new Members are anxious to do the right thing. They all say, and it is true, that it is much like arriving at a new school —Westminster high, a political academy for students of somewhat mixed abilities. There does not appear to be any formal prospectus but, happily, my right hon. Friend the Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen) has published an admirable guide to the culture of the place and my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley) has published an equally fascinating guide to the subculture. Fortunately, Doorkeepers and the police are always on hand to point one in the right direction. I have not yet found my way to the hairdresser's or the rifle range, but doubtless my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) will sort me out in due course.

Sitting in the right place is also vital. On the day of Madam Speaker's memorable election, I found myself innocently drawn to the spot immediately behind the Prime Minister—instinctively drawn there, I now realise, by the assumption that it was the correct place for the Member for the City of Chester because that is exactly where my predecessor, Sir Peter Morrison, was wont to sit when he served the Prime Minister's illustrious predecessor so ably and loyally.

Loyalty is certainly a word that one associates with Sir Peter, a true gentleman who served his Prime Minister, his party, his constituents and his country with unswerving loyalty, energy and commitment during nearly 20 years in this House. Now that he has moved on to fresh fields and oil rigs new, I am sure that Members on both sides will join me in wishing him well for the future.

I have no doubt that Sir Peter will be keeping a discreet eye on my endeavours here, as will his distinguished predecessor, Sir Jack Temple and, indeed, his predecessor Sir Basil Nield—

All still alive?

Yes indeed, all very much alive—we live a very long time in Chester because of the lovely water in the River Dee. Sir Basil was the Member of Parliament for Chester who pioneered what became the Adoption Act 1950, transforming for the better the lives of thousands of families throughout this country. On the day when we are invited to enter the ballot for private Members' Bills, that is a timely reminder to us newcomers of what a Back Bencher can achieve.

I understand that it is customary on these occasions to extol the virtues of one's constituency. For some Members, that may be something of a challenge because while the beauties and brilliance of Bradford, Brent or Bootle are very real, they are not necessarily as well known as they might be. For the fortunate Member for the City of Chester, it is different: the virtues of Chester are already celebrated.

Our city has been likened to the Conservative party—as modern as tomorrow, with a lot of time for yesterday. We combine the new—excellent communications, which will he even better with the electrification of the railway from Crewe to Holyhead, superb business parks, the best in British retailing—with the old: a unique walled city, a matchless heritage, a great cathedral now celebrating its 900th anniversary.

Chester has been justly described as the jewel in the crown of the north west. It is, in fact, a pearl in the oyster of England. If you. Mr. Deputy Speaker, have not yet been there, the Whitsun recess and the best hotels and guest houses in the land are waiting to welcome you.

In Chester, we have everything—including the Duke of Westminster, and I refer not to a public house but to a constituent with decided views, no doubt, on certain elements in the Gracious Speech, views that will be well worth listening to. I have found that all my constituents have views that are well worth listening to. They are articulate and concerned, and they are particularly concerned about the issues at the heart of this debate: local government, education and the environment. My constituents, particularly those fortunate to be elected last Thursday, are concerned that local government reforms should not erode local government accountability. They have especially charged me with attempting to unravel the impenetrable formula by which the standard spending assessment is arrived at and to explore why it is that a city such as Chester, with its special responsibilities towards our national heritage and its ever-growing contribution towards our national tourist industry, appears to be treated less fairly than it might.

My constituents—all of them—are concerned about education. They welcome local management of schools, diversity, choice, the raising of standards and the special emphasis that the Gracious Speech gives to teacher training. They recognise the need for reform, but they also recognise the additional burdens that reforms have laid upon governors and teachers alike.

In Chester, we are proud of our schools and colleges and pleased that no sooner had my right hon. Friend the new Secretary of State for Education hit his desk for the first time than he took the decision to save a threatened nursery school in Chester, sending out a clear signal that the Government recognise that the needs of the child and the voice of the parent are paramount and that nursery education—nursery schools as well as nursery units—has an increasingly important part to play in the educational life of our country.

My constituents—all of them—are concerned about the environment. They welcome the priority given to the environment in the Gracious Speech. They welcome the Prime Minister's initiative in being the first leader to commit himself to attending the earth summit in Rio. They salute the Government for securing the doubling of green belt land in the past decade and for recently supporting the green belt around Chester, not as an inflexible straitjacket but as a protective girdle which helps us to secure the unique nature of our city and encourages urban renewal rather than urban sprawl.

I particularly welcome the fact that the Gracious Speech specifically emphasises that environmental consequences are to be considered in every element of Government decision making. Where decisions are finely balanced, as they often will be, I sense that my constituents will want to see the environment given the benefit of the doubt.

As hon. Members will discover in the months and years ahead, my constituents have a great deal to say. That is why they welcome a listening Government—not a Government who pay lip service to the notion of listening and then carry on regardless, but a vital, thoughtful, progressive Government who regard listening carefully not as a weakness but as one of their greatest strengths.

5.43 pm

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) for an excellent maiden speech, delivered with great charm and eloquence. I do not know Chester—except for its race course, the memory of which is somewhat painful—but I congratulate him on his tour of that city and I wish him well in the House.

I also wish to congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment. For each of the previous four years I have spoken after you in the debate on the Queen's Speech. That was not to be this year, and I wish you well in your new post.

When I sought guidance from the Speaker's Office on the subject of each day's debate on the Queen's Speech, I was told that today one should nod in the direction of local government, education and the environment. I intend to do that, but in such a way as to focus on the issues as they affect the area that I represent in the north of Ireland, with all its tragedies. I shall start with local government, because we simply do not have any. It is difficult to speak about local government when we have none—when we are in a kind of limbo, detached in some ways, semi-detached in others, and without the luxury of being able to speak about the issues that most hon. Members will speak about today.

Historically, this is an important time for us in Northern Ireland. It is important in terms of the outside influences and developments which are coming to bear in a far-reaching and fundamental way. I believe that outside agencies in the European dimension, the EC and Maastricht, and the harnessing of diversity and differences in Europe will be a positive force rather than the confrontation that we have seen so often. I believe that that and many other outside influences will have a bearing on the creation of structures within the north of Ireland the—type of structures that will lead to an administrative system there which will give us a level playing field so that in debates such as this we can talk about local government as it exists rather than as a vacuum within our society.

As is obvious, we are presently involved in talks. It is a crucial and sensitive period and I do not want to speak about those talks. Suffice it to say one thing: we have a choice—either we can look for a neat, tidy little package which will take the Northern Ireland problem off the agenda here and out of people's minds, which will put it on the long finger, or we can look for a solution to the problems.

If we look for a neat little package, in 20 years' time some of us will be sitting here saying exactly the same things. It will be a futile waste of time. If we are looking for a solution to the problems, I believe that the time is right. The wind of change is blowing from outside and it is blowing inside in the desire for peace. It is blowing through the minds of many people as we approach the end of the century and we simply cannot allow this blight on our entire community, on our country to continue and go into a new century with the millstone of terrible violence and dissension around our necks. I only hope that the Government want a solution to the problem rather than a tidy little package which will suit their purposes in terms of their own presentation.

What happens in those talks does not happen in a vacuum. There is no ivory tower. The talks will be affected by what happens outside. Here I nod in the direction of the environment. One week ago, I stood outside an Army checkpoint in my constituency where yet another young British soldier had been blown to pieces by the Provisional IRA. On a previous occasion, I had asked that those static checkpoints be removed. Environmentally, they are horrendous, but that is immaterial when it comes to the cost in human life. Yet the Government persist with the daft, silly notion, which cannot be justified, that they should have those lookout posts there as sitting targets for the Provisional IRA and other paramilitary organisations.

Those people who know my prejudices and views may say that I am simply making that point in relation to Army activity in the north of Ireland. So be it. I will, however, quote someone whose opinion in that respect cannot be questioned. I refer to Brigadier Peter Morton, a former British Army commander in South Armagh, operations officer for Northern Ireland, and a Ministry of Defence planner. He is now retired, but he described lookout points in this way:

"Bases, perched like Crusader castles showing the flag on every Ulster road and hillside, are sitting targets for the terrorists, to be reconnoitred in safety and attacked at leisure.

They drain resources, sap the strength of the security forces, and place many lives needlessly in danger."

If I were the father of the young soldier who was killed a week ago, or of the young man who was killed some months ago, I would seriously question the validity of the decision to retain those static checkpoints. I would ask for what it was that my son died.

The Minister of State said in an interview after the latest incident that the purpose of the lookouts is to reassure the community, but the view of the Army is that they do not fulfill any useful purpose. They do not fight terrorism, but are there to reassure some sections of the community. Is that worth the loss of one or two lives, or even more? I ask the Secretary of State for Education to draw that matter to the attention of his colleagues.

indicated assent.

It is unacceptable for young lives to be endangered for no reason but to provide reassurance. The lookout post in the latest incident goes 60 feet into the earth, yet that post—one of 27 in my constituency—did not observe a digger 200 yards away as it loaded explosives on to a truck which was then sent along the railway line to the static checkpoint.

There is something radically wrong with a security policy that does not meet the situation. If lookout posts did not exist, many more soldiers would be available for patrols. One can be sure that the terrorists will not use roads where checkpoints are located. They will not be caught in that way. The element of surprise is all important, but that element has been removed in such a way that it puts lives at risk—to say nothing of the number of houses in the vicinity of that checkpoint which have been destroyed on two occasions. I visited the area a week ago, after the latest explosion, to see roofs, walls, and belongings gone. Yet there remains stubbornness, a refusal to be convinced, on the part of Government sources in the north of Ireland.

I refer next to the situation in County Fermanagh, which I will support with statistics. One full British Army battalion has for months been guarding the workmen who are building another static checkpoint. At the same time, the Irish army on the other side of the border devoted 76,000 man hours over three weeks to guarding that British Army battalion. That puts into perspective an aspect of security policy which cannot be defended.

I mentioned that there are 27 lookout posts in my constituency. Obviously, they see little and prevent nothing. Yet they are equipped with all kinds of surveillance equipment, which is giving cause for concern in terms of its effects on the environment and health. Does it give rise to a radiation problem? Is there a cancer-causing factor to consider? There is a growing belief among experts that such equipment poses a grave danger. I ask that that aspect also be investigated before it is too late. Such a suggestion may be poo-poohed, and cold water poured on it, but eventually sense will reign in the minds of those who make decisions.

My third nod is in the direction of education, in the hope that my remarks will help to inform those who are responsible for security in the north of Ireland. We have a serious problem with the IRA. The world knows it, we know it, and the Government know it. We have a serious problem also with other paramilitary groups—one of which has killed more people this year than the Provisionals have. It was responsible for the multiple murders committed at a bookmaker's in the Armagh road in Belfast, and for the shooting of the lady in a chemist's shop. The same group has been responsible for killings in the most horrific circumstances. I refer to the Ulster Defence Association.

The UDA uses a flag of convenience known as the Ulster Freedom Fighers and the Ulster Volunteer Force. It is one of the most horrific murder machines to be found anywhere. What is the official reaction? I hope that other right hon. and hon. Members will help me in this educational process. When asked in a "This Week" programme why the UDA is not banned, one of the present Ministers of State, Northern Ireland Office, the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Mr. Mates), replied:

"It is from a part of the community that believe they are under threat—and if they believe they are under threat, within the law they may protest about this. They may associate. That's not to say that there aren't some rowdy, hooligan, and possible criminal elements."

Good heavens—the Minister talks of

"rowdy, hooligan, and possible criminal elements"

in referring to one of the most horrific murder gangs operating within these islands. Is it any wonder that year after year, when we see the tragedy of the north of Ireland and what the people there have to endure, we grow intensely angry at the failure of this Parliament and of the Government ever to solve that problem? But solve it we must.

If we are to make political progress, and to hold talks that will result in a successful resolution of the political problems, we must end some of the nonsenses in what is supposed to be a security policy for the north of Ireland. I take this opportunity again to draw attention to them, because if we do not get to grips with those issues, no one will be able to solve the political problems.

5.58 pm

The hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) spoke with considerable feeling about Northern Ireland, but he will forgive me if I do not follow him down the route that he signposted so well. He was, however, quite right to air in this debate the issues that he did.

My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) spoke with great eloquence and wit. I am sure that the House joins me in looking forward to hearing further contributions from him. I would say that even if I were not standing for re-election to the executive of the 1922 Committee later this week.

It is a great pleasure for me to see my right hon. Friend the new Secretary of State for Education in the Chamber. I have not the slightest doubt that he will bring a different view and a different style to his office and to our education debates, especially in comparison with his immediate predecessor. He is, however, the fifth Secretary of State whom I have seen during my period as chairman of the Back-Bench education committee. I am sure that he will agree that we now look forward to a considerable period of continuity, which, in my view, is much to be desired. I hope that my right hon. Friend enjoys a long, useful and happy stay in the Department.

I also welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) to his new post as Under-Secretary of State. He brings an original mind to our debates, and I look forward with considerable interest to hearing what he says about education.

For the Labour party, however, it is business as usual and opposition as usual. True, Labour Members entertained some high and misplaced ambitions to move to this side of the House, but for them that must be a pleasure deferred. They will have to reconcile themselves to the prospect of at least another five years in opposition. That will provide them with an opportunity to reconsider some of their education policies—for, eventually, even they will come to understand that the nation's parents want more choice and diversity in the nation's schools, and that a single type of school, no matter how well intentioned, cannot satisfy all the nation's children.

The present Government have not hesitated to make resources available for education. Last year, education spending in the United Kingdom rose by some 16 per cent.; this year, it will rise by a further 7 per cent. Both increases are well above inflation.

The Gracious Speech stated that the Government would

"continue to work to raise standards at all levels of education",

and that a Bill would be introduced

"to extend choice and diversity in education."

I welcome those proposals, and I want more schools to receive grant-maintained status, which will enable more local initiatives to flourish. Grant-maintained schools have a better understanding of the wishes, aspirations and needs of local parents and communities than, certainly, many local education authorities.

So often, LEAs have sought to impose a rigid education policy on differing schools in a wide geographical area —a policy sometimes determined more by political considerations than by education needs. I believe that the more that parents are involved in the running of schools and the education of their children, the better. Most parents naturally want the best for their children, and parents can help to drive forward the necessary improvement in the standard and quality of state education.

I hope that clusters of schools will apply for grant-maintained status. I hope that, for example, denominational secondary schools will, together with their feeder primaries, make the necessary applications, and I believe that if they do so they should be considered as single units. It will still be necessary, however, for each school to ballot parents and, if parents vote against grant-maintained status for a certain school, that school will not be able to form part of a cluster.

I also believe that it should be made much easier for some of the smaller primary schools to obtain grant-maintained status, especially those in rural areas. I support the concept of the village school—often very small and often providing, despite its size, very good education for local children. Clearly, it will be difficult for some small schools to consider grant-maintained status on their own, but, if they join neighbouring schools of similar size, such status should be possible and even desirable.

I have long argued that the principal attraction of grant-maintained status is not the additional funding received by the schools involved, but the greater independence that such schools enjoy. [HoN. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am delighted to hear the assent of my hon. Friends.

And that of your right hon. Friend.

I am obliged to my right hon. Friend for that correction.

I am not arguing that all local education authorities stultify innovation and development. I believe, however, that since 1902, when they were first introduced, a number of changes have been made to education, society and, indeed, local government. I am far from certain whether LEAs in their present form are flexible enough to respond to the challenges of the late 20th century.

Despite the attractions of grant-maintained status, I am aware that not all schools will opt for that route. Some are likely to continue to work beneath the umbrella of the local education authority, in which event LEAs should be considerably modified. I believe that they will have to consider a new role—a role that may not be as positive as that which they currently enjoy. Moreover, some secondary schools, especially in the inner cities, may decide not to apply for grant-maintained status. I know that my right hon. Friend and his colleagues are particularly concerned about education problems in the inner cities. Although in some cases grant-maintained status may present a partial answer to some of those questions, it may be necessary to consider a substantial increase in the number of city technology colleges.

I am well aware of the benefits provided by CTCs. I know that they are able to offer a diversity and choice that are widely welcomed by the majority of parents. They are also able to improve substantially the quality of education available in the inner cities. I believe that CTCs can become bright beacons, lighting up the inner cities and giving real opportunities to children who, in so many other ways, are indeed deprived.

I am fully conscious that that suggestion has substantial financial implications; but the popularity of the existing CTCs, and the fact that they are always oversubscribed, demonstrate that they represent one method of improving education standards, particularly in the inner cities. Despite the best efforts of teachers and administrators, the comprehensive schools have not resolved the problems of inner-city education. They have now existed for 25 to 30 years, and some believe that that period has coincided with a gradual erosion of standards—again, particularly in some of the inner-city areas.

Despite what Opposition Members may believe, increased funding does not in itself resolve the problem. At least three additional elements are required to improve the quality and standard of state education. First, we need a lessening of the expensive local bureaucracy, which would allow more to be spent on individual schools and in the classroom. Secondly, we need greater independence for schools, with heads and governing bodies making decisions within the basic structure of the national curriculum. Thirdly, we need more involvement and interest on the part of parents, who, I believe, will become the great engine for change within our schools.

We also need a well-motivated and adequately paid teaching force. I have long argued, in the House and outside, that the majority of the nation's teachers are indeed dedicated both to their profession and to the children in their charge; but they must face some real problems, stemming, for example, from the growing number of single parent families and the break-up of the family unit. Teachers face an increasing lack of respect for authority, and a growing sense of indiscipline. All that adds to the problems of the classroom teacher.

I do not underestimate the problems or the challenge that teachers face, particularly in the inner cities, and I know that that issue very much concerns my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. As I said earlier, I urge my right hon. Friend to consider the possibility of expanding city technology colleges so that they may improve the quality of state education, particularly in our larger cities.

The Gracious Speech also referred to teacher training. I should certainly like students to spend more time in the class rather than the lecture room. The theory of education is, of course, important, but in my view it is secondary to the practicality of acquiring skills in teaching children in schools. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will understand the critical importance of ensuring that classroom practice takes place in those schools which have a good and deserved reputation for teaching and maintaining discipline, for those two aspects clearly go closely together.

Reference to teacher training takes me to another aspect and a different reference—dyslexia. Dyslexia exists. It is not a middle-class excuse for lazy sons or lazy daughters. I welcome the Department's initiatives in, first, giving guidance on how dyslexia should be identified and, secondly, when it is identified, taking the appropriate action to remedy the problems and difficulties. Teachers require special training both in the identification of dyslexia and in the teaching of dyslexic pupils. The frustration that must be experienced by children suffering from dyslexia is at times almost tangible.

I am pleased that the sum of £10 million so far has been made available over a period of three years for the reading recovery scheme, which helps to identify and remedy some of those difficulties. I am also pleased that the training of student primary teachers will include the consideration of dyslexia.

Can I pick my hon. Friend's brain on dyslexia, which is an extremely important subject? Does my hon. Friend agree that the time that it takes for children to be statemented in some local authorities is intolerable?

Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend. That, again, is a matter that is being closely looked at by the Department of Education. I hope that the statementing procedure will be streamlined to enable pupils suffering from dyslexia to be identified much sooner, to their advantage.

As for advanced education, I welcome the substantial increase in the number of young people who are now in advanced education. When we first came to office in 1979, the number of students in advanced education had slumped to about 700,000. Today, that figure is well over 1 million. To put it another way, in 1979 only one in eight of the target group was in advanced education. Today the figure is one in four and it is set to fall to one in three during the next few years.

That suggests to me two things: first, that there has been a substantial increase in the number of places in our colleges, polytechnics and universities to cater for the additional number of students and, secondly, that there has been an increase in the number of young people who are sufficiently well qualified to enter advanced education.

My main point regarding advanced education is a limited one. In particular, I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the size of the access funds. When they were first introduced under the provisions of the Education Reform Act 1988, they amounted to £25 million. They have now been increased to £25.8 million, an amount that is great enough only to cover the increase in inflation. That very modest increase in funds has not kept pace with the substantial increase in student numbers. My firm belief is that we should uprate the access funds to cater for the substantial increase in student numbers. The access funds do much to reduce student hardship.

l am completely in favour of the introduction of student loans. I understand the reasons for the grant having been frozen, but those two reasons give added impetus to my view that we should look very hard at the size of the access funds and that there should be an increase in the amount of money provided. I hope that my right hon. Friend will refer to that point when he winds up the debate.

The Queen's Speech contains an exciting programme. I commend it wholeheartedly to all parts of the House.

6.14 pm

I am grateful for the opportunity to make my first speech during this debate.

On these occasions it is customary to mention one's predecessor. Mr. John Hughes represented Coventry, North-East from 1987 until the recent general election. His convictions, and some of his methods of pursuing them, meant that he did not endear himself to everyone. However, he possessed a friendly and approachable way of dealing with his constituents. He certainly possessed tenacity, which he used on their behalf. Therefore, I pay tribute to him for his efforts on their behalf. I wish both him and his wife a peaceful and fulfilling retirement.

Many hon. Members know that Coventry, North-East was represented from 1974 to 1987 by Mr. George Park. I understand that he commanded considerable respect in this place. Hon. Members will be glad to hear that he commands similar respect in the constituency, where he is still very active in local community affairs. He is currently the chairman of the community health council in Coventry. He was very kind and helpful to me in the run-up to the general election. I thank both him and his wife for the help and kindness that they have shown me.

Coventry, North-East is a compact, urban constituency —an integral part of the city which, despite two devastating recessions, still employs more people in manufacturing than the national average. We have a complete mixture of housing: inner city areas, council estates and pleasant semi-suburban, owner-occupied areas. Despite its compact size, my constituency contains and is bordered by some valuable environments that deserve and, in large part, are receiving the protection that they need. In particular, I draw attention to Coombe Abbey park and the Sowe valley, which bring beautiful, natural countryside right up to and into the urban area.

Much work that is commendable has been done by the local authority, local conservationists and the Countryside Commission. They deserve our thanks and support, along with many other local groups that, through their hard work, do so much to maintain the quality of life in the area.

I am afraid, however, that we also have considerable problems in the constituency, as do all urban areas in this country. As I listened to some of the speeches yesterday and today, I found that I could hardly recognise the country that was being described by some Conservative Members. Our cities are in great danger. The trend, under current policies, is towards the position that has been reached in the United States. If effective action is not taken, we shall see in our country what I call the doughnut effect: cities with great holes in the middle, where people do not go and dare not go.

The Queen's Speech does not address those problems. It is not just a question of policing, although that is important. In many cases, the police are stretched beyond belief. Crime, and the fear of crime, has now reached a level that is totally and absolutely unacceptable—this, after 13 years in power of the party that claims to be the party of law and order.

Security, hope and opportunity must be brought back to citizens living in those areas. Current urban policy is, in many cases, exacerbating and increasing the divisions. The grand scheme is favoured rather than housing and school repairs and we hear speeches such as that we have just heard from the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey).

I had not intended to talk about education, but I join the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth in his congratulations to the hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) on his maiden speech. His accent, confidence and delivery and, although I am not an expert, probably his school tie, prove that he enjoyed a degree of choice in education. It showed in the way that he delivered his speech and he should be congratulated on his ability in that regard. However, in the constituency that I represent we do not have two or three cars per family to take the kids to school. Choice must mean a first-class local school offering first-class education within the area in which it is needed, and we certainly do not have that.

All those problems are of some importance but most important of all is the level of unemployment. In 1974, in his first speech in the House, Mr. George Park spoke of Coventry as being a great centre of manufacturing. He talked of his fears about the fact that British ideas were increasingly being developed abroad. His fears were well founded. We have seen great companies in our city, which were making a contribution towards the national economy and providing employment, going to the wall without any effective attempts to save them. The Queen's Speech talked of privatisation and other policies but said nothing about the regeneration and investment that will be necessary to stop that from continuing.

In 1987, Mr. John Hughes, in his first speech in the House, said that unemployment in the Foleshill ward of my constituency was 28 per cent. Now, five years later, it is 23 per cent. and increasing again. That level of unemployment destroys the fabric of communities and something must be done about it. It affects crime, education, the environment and health. Last year, the local health authority in Coventry did a statistical analysis of life expectancy levels in the different parts of Coventry. This is supposed to be a modern western country offering the best opportunities to all its citizens, yet it discovered a discrepancy in life expectancy levels of over seven years between the most affluent wards in the city and the most deprived. That is totally unacceptable. It discovered that the indicators of poor health followed almost completely the geographical pattern of unemployment levels.

We will not solve those problems by privatisation or anti-union legislation. We will not solve them by allowing hospitals to opt out or by any other of the policies that seem to be high on the agenda. We will not cure unemployment by simply supporting service industries, tourism and so on, important as they are. We must support manufacturing. We must make and sell things if they are to be successful.

I sat in the House yesterday listening to the plans for privatisation. During most of my life I have worked for Jaguar cars. That company was privatised while I was working there, and privatisation was probably far more appropriate there than in many of the proposed areas. However, it did not solve the problems in that company. Some directors became millionaires through lucrative share options, management bonuses, massive increases in salaries and cuts in taxation. They were handed down honours and so on. However, at the end of their reign, more than 4,000 people lost their jobs in the latest round of redundancies.

That is another proud Coventry company that is struggling to survive. The remaining work force, trade unions and the new management, who have at least brought a degree of professionalism in dealing with some of the problems, are working together to solve the problems and pull that company around. Privatisation did nothing for Jaguar and it will do nothing for our coal industry, apart from doing massive damage to our national interest.

Those are the issues that we should be addressing if we want to build a nation at peace with itself, where people of all races and both sexes can live in harmony and walk the streets in safety. Those are the issues that I shall be making my priority during my time in the House. I hope that if I can achieve just one thing, it will be to do some damage to the self-satisfied attitudes that appear to prevail in many parts of the House.

6.26 pm

It is with no little pride and a great sense of honour that I speak for the first time in the House. I must immediately make known the debt that I feel to my constituents for sending me here. I hope that the faith that they have shown in me will not be misplaced over the years.

My constituency is Woodspring. Like many hon. Members, I have received several hundred letters since the election saying, "Congratulations on a wonderful Conservative result—by the way, where is Woodspring?" Those who have been in the House before will not be surprised to learn that the reason they have not heard the name of the constituency more often is that it was represented by Sir Paul Dean, who spent a record length of time as a Deputy Speaker. He gave record service both to the House and to the country. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House join me in wishing him a happy retirement. After the length of time that he spent as Deputy Speaker, I am sure that he more than deserves it.

One of the questions that is of immense pertinence to Woodspring is its location. After the reorganisation of local government in 1974 the people of Woodspring, who had always belonged to north Somerset, found themselves in the much loathed county of Avon. The quicker Avon is abolished, the better—and the quicker my constituents are returned to Somerset, which is where they belong, the happier they will be. Any Minister who can push that through quickly will be assured of a warm welcome when coming to speak in Woodspring.

Woodspring extends from Portishead, south of Bristol in the north-west of the constituency, through Clevedon, Nailsea, the Chew valley and down to Paulton, a town which has particular difficulties in the wake of the Robert Maxwell affair. Like many of my hon. Friends, I shall he trying my best to get a fair deal for those who have suffered from the scandalous behaviour of Robert Maxwell and what he has done to those poor people.

There are several other problems in the constituency, courtesy of Avon county, not least of which is shared by many of my hon. Friends, and that is the problem of traveller sites. We require urgent reform of the Caravan Sites Act 1968. It is becoming scandalous that law-abiding citizens who work hard to improve their community and their homes and surroundings should be discriminated against by a piece of legislation which gives priority to those who have no semblance of regard for local community and no community spirit, and who contribute nothing. I urge the Government to undertake a far-reaching and rapid reform of that legislation.

It is with some sadness that I speak in this debate. I am one of the many doctors who qualified under the Conservative Government and their far-reaching reforms of the health service. I was disappointed—indeed, disturbed—to find that the Opposition, who a few weeks ago told us that health was the single most important issue facing the electorate and that the election was a referendum on the NHS, chose not to debate the subject in the six days of debate on the Loyal Address. Why has it slipped so far down the Opposition's agenda? Could it be that they were rumbled during the election and were shown to be posturing in the extreme, with no solid policies to oppose the reforms that the Government have made? That is the case.

Conservatives do not need any lessons from our opponents about caring. We heard the word "caring" used today during health questions as though it were the exclusive preserve of the Labour party. As a junior doctor and a medical student during the health workers' strike, organised by caring NUPE and COHSE and supported by the caring Labour party, I took blood samples in taxis through picket lines. That was the extent of their caring. In this spirit of great caring, dredging up personal cases of misery to try to find the one case that has gone badly in the national health service and overlooking all the reforms and successes that we have had, they have resorted to the lowest form of political debate. To try to say that every case that has gone wrong is typical is loathsome.

For the first time since its inception, Conservatives have introduced into the health service the idea that preventive medicine is important. Before the GP contract was introduced, we were told by our opponents—by the British Medical Association and by those who now oppose the new Home Secretary, whose bravery in introducing the reforms should be attested to—that we would lose the ability to see elderly patients and that people would riot get the medicines that they require. We have seen record immunisations, record numbers of women having cervical smears, and record numbers of visits. Yet when our opponents are asked to say what is good about Conservative health reforms, they are not able to give any examples.

look forward to giving many examples and I am sorry that the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) is not here to listen to some of the positive aspects of Conservative health policy. It is time he realised that not everything that the Government do—even in his view—is bad.

It is a great honour to speak in the House. I hope that in the coming months and years the health debate in the House will be more constructive than in the past, but, in the words of the Leader of the Opposition, I fear that it will be a triumph of my fears over my hopes.

I hope that Conservative Members will contribute constructively. The Queen's Speech was excellent and Conservative Members, especially the newcomers, look forward to the legislation that follows it, which will be good not only for our party but, more importantly, for the country.

6.55 pm

I should like, first, to congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your appointment. I should like to congratulate the new hon. Members who spoke before me—my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth) and the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox)—who, in their different ways, were excellent.

I am particularly grateful to be called now because I have spent most of my life suffering from a disability which is known as alphabetical order. My name is Wright, which has meant that I have tended always to be at the end of queues. People who use the principle of alphabetical order tend to think that it is a democratic, a just principle. In fact, it is just only to people who fall at the beginning of the alphabet. I hope now to escape that disability and look to Madam Speaker for help.

As evidence of my disability, I have a small majority —1,506. I sometimes think that it might be larger if only my name were different! Research shows that, if one's name appears high on the ballot papers, one has a small advantage. I had thought that if my name were, to take some of my neighbouring Members, perhaps Cormack, Budgen, Cash or even Boothroyd my majority might be 1,507 or 1,508.

Thinking about it more, it struck me that that political disability had loomed large in British political life generally. If one considers the people who have succeeded and those who have failed, one sees the principle in action. One has only to cast one's eyes across the list of British Prime Ministers this century to see exactly what the principle means. From Asquith to Attlee, from Balfour to Bonar Law to Baldwin, from Campbell-Bannerman to Churchill to Callaghan, the principle has been rampant through the political history of the 20th century. The great political casualties of the century have been the Thatchers and the Wilsons.

Indeed, during the debate yesterday, looking at the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, I thought that there but for the alphabet would not be a man reduced to such a sorry parlance. If his name were not Waldegrave, he surely would not be the Minister for filing cabinets and name badges for ticket inspectors. I noted that the Prime Minister, like Harold Macmillan before him, had taken the sensible precaution of coming slap in the alphabetical middle.

Hon. Members will notice that in selecting a constituency—Cannock and Burntwood—I chose one very near to the beginning of the alphabet to reverse the principle that I have been describing so far. It is in south Staffordshire. It is the heart, the quintessence, of middle England. It contains the towns of Cannock, Hednesford and Burntwood. Hednesford was particularly proud this week as its football team reached the final of the Welsh cup. I will not detain hon. Members with the mysteries of how a town in Staffordshire can reach the final of the Welsh cup, but I am sure that the House would wish to congratulate the team on that splendid achievement.

It has the beauties of Cannock Chase on its doorstep. Its people hewed coal for 100 years and are now having to find a different future. Its history is that of England itself. It was represented in the House for 25 years after the second world war by Jennie Lee, whom Labour Members remember particularly fondly, and who I also associate with adult education. It was inhabited by people such as the present Conservative hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) for a time and by Gwilym Roberts, who will be remembered as a warm, passionate and committed Welshman. I am happy to report that last week he was triumphantly re-elected to Cannock Chase district council. Part of the constituency was represented for a time by the present hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott). I pay tribute to him for the friendship and support that he showed me on coming to the House.

My immediate predecessor was Gerald Howarth, with whom I totally disagreed on everything. However—this is a tribute to him and me—we managed to maintain enough mutual respect to conduct a reasonably civilised election campaign. I acknowledge the work that he did for the people of the constituency and offer him just one word of consolation at this moment of disappointment for him. As one of the most fervent torch bearers for the handbag across the water, the present disposition of the House and of his party may not prove to be so congenial to him now as it was then.

As we have heard, many new hon. Members point to the contrast between what happens in this House and the din and clash of opinions outside—I refer especially to those who come hot foot from election contests in marginal seats—the subjects that people were talking about in the election. Like the miners in my constituency, who want to talk about the threat of privatising the only remaining coal mine. Or the blight caused by opencast mining ripping apart the environment. Or the distinction of having the first toll road—at least for 300 years—being driven through their countryside. They want to talk about cuts in the education system and about why there are no houses for the young people or enough jobs. They want to talk about such issues and they ask what the House is doing about them. Instead we find the ritual confrontations, the impassioned speeches to the near-empty Benches, the votes of which the result is already known. People outside ask what is going on—what is the House doing?

It is a fact—although it may be an unpalatable one—that this country has never taken the business of democracy very seriously. We have taken the idea of strong government and a strong executive very seriously but not democracy. Indeed, only half a century ago, in a classic formula, the Tory Leo Amery, when describing our system of government, said that it was

"government of the people, for the people, with but not by the people."

It was said of Leo Amery himself that if he had been just half a head higher, and if his speeches has been half an hour shorter, he might have become Prime Minister.

This process is now being taken much further. We already have the most centralised, concentrated and secretive system of government in the western world and the Government are now removing the existing arenas in which people can argue, do politics and disagree. We have the most anti-pluralist Government presiding over the historic emasculation of local government, sweeping away diversity, pluralism and independence wherever they can find them.

In the spirit of non-contentiousness that distinguishes these maiden speeches, I say with all seriousness that an older Conservative tradition would have been extremely worried about such tendencies. It was that tradition which used to taunt the Opposition about their centralising tendencies and their ambitions to strip local government of its powers. Yet these are exactly the characteristics that have distinguished the past 13 years of Conservative party rule.

My final remarks will cover education because it is my trade. I have spent my life in education and I feel deeply and passionately about it. There is much to talk about, especially what is happening, to universities and the threat to adult education in which I work. But it is about schools and the government of schools that I particulary want to talk. I have worked a great deal with school governors in the past few years, and I am bound to say that I was a great enthusiast for the Government's school reforms and for the education Act of 1986 because I believed that it introduced a new partnership into schools.

The Gracious Speech mentions some changes that are to be made which will affect school governors. The Government have now betrayed—that is perhaps a strong word but not too strong a word—school governors. They are having to re-educate them in the task that they are being asked to perform. School governors thought that they had gone into the education system as volunteers—many were parents—to support their schools and the system. They are now being taught that there is to be no education system and that schools are to he pitted against schools, parents against parents and communities against communities. That will certainly be the consequence of enforcing universal opt out. Governors gave up their time believing that there was one system to care for all children, but they are now being told that the system is to be driven by market forces. It is not surprising that many of those people are now leaving school government in vast numbers because they are not prepared to do what the Government want. Therefore, the Government have huge recruitment problems for school governors as a direct consequence.

I return to where I began. I am grateful to have swapped the principle of alphabetical order for the principle of catching the Speaker's eye. I hope that that principle will continue and that we shall consign alphabetical order to the dustbin of history and that from now—at least sometimes—the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

6.45 pm

May I say to the hon. Member for Cannock and Burntwood (Mr. Wright) that my name is Walden and my constituency is Buckingham—we should get together some time and drown our sorrows. The hon. Gentleman demonstrated the art of levity while at the same time combining it with substance and, I was glad to note, a hint of passion on the subject of education. He also seemed to speak with feeling about the constitution and the powers of this House. I recommend that, as a man of some wit, the hon. Gentleman should read, if he has not already done so, what is by far the best and wittiest study on that subject. It naturally comes from a Conservative writer, Mr. Ferdinand Mount. The hon. Gentleman is probably already aware of it, but I commend it to him. He will find, to his surprise, that he agrees with much of it.

I congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the new "Speakerine", as she would be called in France. Were he here, I would also congratulate my right hon. Friend the new Secretary of State for Education. I believe that post to be the most important in Government. Incidentally, on the constitution, I should like us to ditch some of the fusty old stuff about the great offices of state—I know of no more important office of state than that of Secretary of State for Education.

I have only a few minutes into which to cram my most recent prejudices, so I must get on. To sum up those prejudices, I believe that the main problems facing this country are not mentioned directly in the Queen's Speech. I believe that we are an under-educated and over-housed country, and I should like to explain why in about five minutes.

The first thing that I hope that my right hon. Friend the new Secretary of State will do is to reconsider nursery education. The Queen's Speech talks about raising standards at all levels. For most people in this country there is no nursery level, so he will not have to worry about standards in that respect. However, there should be a nursery level, and the fact that we won the election does not mean that we can simply ditch that subject in the hope that the many women in this country will not notice. It is a subject that my right hon. Friend should reconsider because the bald and simple fact is that anyone with any money at all buys quality, structured education for his child in order to give that child a head start, thus helping to perpetuate the social divisiveness—I try to avoid the word but I cannot think of any other at the moment—that still lingers in our society. When talking about opportunity in education, let us remember that there can be no opportunity unless every child has a chance at the beginning to get his or her head start.

I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider carefully the statistics routinely churned out by the Department of Education, which are completely misleading and give the impression—I do not know what the latest figure is—that about 85 per cent. or 90 per cent. of children in this country benefit from pre-school education. That is simply not true. The figures include everything from child minding to highly amateur ad hoc organisations which come together to look after children and then drift apart. That is not what I mean by pre-school education, and it is not what exists in more enlightened countries, such as France.

I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education will continue his predecessor's policy of shaking up the bogus philosophy behind primary education in this country, which has caused enormous damage—as usual—to people at the bottom of the social pile. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister knows what I am talking about. The issue has been raised only in the past year, but we must try to change people's minds and have vastly higher expectations for young children in primary schools because they can do a great deal more than what they are asked to do at present.

The really important element missing from the Gracious Speech involves the organisation of secondary education. Some great educational changes and, indirectly, social changes loom before us. We shall not be able to avoid them, even if we want to. Indeed, I believe that we should not try to avoid them. In particular, I refer to what I hope will he the swift break-up of the comprehensive system. It is not deemed politic on the Conservative Benches to discuss that subject, and that is another reason why I raise it.

It is impossible for Conservative Members to continue to support grant-maintained schools and allow that policy to continue in the post-election rush in some semi-anarchic way and say that it is a grand thing. It will not be grand if that policy—which I wholeheartedly support—leads indirectly to a reversion to primitive selection. It is not just a matter of opting-out schools choosing to become grammar schools. They can do that if they wish. There will be de facto selection in most, probably all, opted-out schools because parents will queue outside them and headmasters and headmistresses, who are human beings, will, whether they know it or not, find ways of selecting the most promising pupils. That would be disastrous, because we would end up with a two-tier system.

The great paradox is that the origin of the comprehensive system, which I believe is a deeply mistaken philosophy, was a typically British, class-conscious reaction to the previous rather crude selective system which, although it produced some fine grammar schools— I know, because I went to one—also produced many wood-sawing schools in which huge numbers of potentially intelligent children were written off at the start.

If we allow the present rather disorganised policy of opting out to continue, there is a danger that we shall return to the earlier system. I am not against selection, but I am against negative selection. There must be a change in philosophy, which is beginning to occur—for example, in Wandsworth—to selection by aptitude. That is what happens in more advanced countries. We do not have it in this country because we are hung up on antique class consciousness in education as we are in respect of so many other aspects of our society. That deforms our vision of education.

We are not concerned about education: we are concerned about the social implications of the organisation of schools, which is totally different. As Confucius would say if he were with us today, the primary function of education is education, and not the social organisation of the country. If we follow that principle, we end up with a healthier system than the old, crude selective system, of which I was a lucky beneficiary but many from my part of the world were not. There is a danger that we shall come full circle and return inadvertently to the earlier system, which would be totally at variance to what I understand to be the Government's philosophy.

We shall have to change an entire mentality. We must make people in this country used to the idea that there is nothing wrong, second class or debilitating about being selected by aptitude to attend a largely—though not completely—technological, scientific, vocational school. Such things happen abroad and there is no reason why they should not happen here. We must aim for parity between the academic schools—I use that term in no exact sense—and the more vocational and scientific schools. We must then face the economic consequences of that cultural change.

We cannot have crummy schools as we had under the old crude selective system of secondary modern schools without the facilities or the maths, physics and craft design and technology teachers to provide those schools with social status. I acknowledge that that may be a contradiction in respect of what I said before, but those schools need status to attract people and to get over the terrible cultural prejudice against anything to do with technological or scientific schools.

We must not forget the fact that aptitude means ability in a particular area. When selecting by aptitude, one would thus be selecting by ability. Is that not the case?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for trying to bring precision to my speech. He is right: there is no final distinction between aptitude and ability. However, there is a different cast of mind. With regard to ability, there is a danger of making a final judgment at the age of 11. Aptitude may imply spotting some ability that has yet to develop. I admit that there are no absolute categories, but it is possible to distinguish between them.

I am convinced that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is considering the process because that is by far the most important subject which does not feature in the Queen's Speech. Necessarily, it entails a reorganisation of local government which may lead to the abolition of local education authorities. The Opposition tend to refer to the LEAs as a democratic process. At the risk of boring myself, I must state once more that they are not democratic when judged by their absolutely piffling turnouts. Most LEAs run education on the basis of effective turnouts of eligible voters of about 15 per cent.

The democratic argument is largely, though not wholly, cant and we should not allow it to stand in our way when we reconsider the issue, as we must if we are not to return to a dangerous and socially damaging form of selection. We must reconsider the role of the LEAs and be bold in our public opposition to the principle of comprehensive education.

I was once in the unfortunate position of having to explain comprehensive education to the communist Chinese Education Minister. He asked me to repeat my explanation—which, as I was trying to explain it in Chinese, proved to be extremely difficult. He simply stared at me in disbelief and said, "You mean to say that you in your country send people of all abilities and aptitudes to the same school and put them in the same class, whatever their progress?" I had to confirm that that happened in this sleepy old country of ours. He could not get over that. In China, for all their peccadillos in some areas, such as human rights, they are pretty hard-headed when it comes to education. When they get rid of this communist nonsense we shall see the proof of that and see some results in China.

My second prejudice, which is linked with the first, is that I disagree fundamentally with the Government's housing policy. It is not the job of this or of any Government to tell people to own their homes. That is a primitive notion—a fetish which is doing enormous social and economic damage to this country, and eveyone knows that. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development knows it and has talked about our housing policy deforming our economy, as it has done—and badly —in the past.

The Queen's Speech states that the Government will look for ways to add to the already dangerously high number of people who own their own houses by changing the law here and there. Although I do not disapprove of those changes in principle—changes to leaseholds or whatever—it seems that there is a danger of the Government feeding house fetishism. They should not encourage home ownership. We do not need more home ownership. People need to have a choice of whether to buy and own their own house or to rent at a reasonable rent —the choice that people enjoy in France, Germany and America, which are all sophisticated countries in that regard. That should be Government policy, rather than to encourage the primitive fetishism of house ownership as the last Government but one did so catastrophically.

How many Members from both sides of the House have been on doorsteps during the election campaign and have been told by a mother, worried to death about her son, that he "got on the housing ladder"—encouraged by Government rhetoric—and fell off the ladder with a £20,000 debt. He is 21 or 22 and has a £20,000 debt before he has started in life. Should we be proud of that when we quote our figures of 67 or 68 per cent.? How high do we want to go? Do we want the country to seize up because of home ownership? In their frenzy to encourage home ownership, the Government seem to have lost sight of the fact that it is not good for business or for mobility. That is one of the reasons why it does not exist to the same extent in other countries.

I am not against home ownership—that would be a grotesque position—but the logic of the Government's philosophy should be not to encourage home ownership but to tell people that they will do their damnedest to give them an effective choice, on a level playing field, between owning and renting. That will overcome the problem. At present, the market is so distorted that there are 7 or 8 per cent. of people in private rented accommodation, while in other countries it is 30 or 40 per cent. 1 believe that Bangladesh and Switzerland are the only other countries with such high levels of home ownership.

In the present economic conjunction, things are going well. I am optimistic and I do not think that the Government are merely using rhetoric when they sound optimistic; I think that matters will improve. When people feel that they have a little more money in their pockets, one of the first things that they will do is to take out mortgages which are too big for them again, if the Government encourage them to do that. After our last experience of that, I hope that many people will understand the dangers.

To come full circle, this country has two major problems which were not mentioned in the Queen's Speech —we are under-educated and over-housed. To a large extent, the economy comes right if one gets those two things right, and one solves many economic problems. Those two matters are fundamental. I have confidence that the Government will do largely what I would like them to do on education, but I am a little more diffident about their housing policy because their attitude to home ownership needs to be revised and cooled off. We are over-excited about home ownership. We must tell people to be sensible and not to get into this silly debt business, which has done them and the country so much harm and which has distorted our economy.

Finally, I must mention two constituency matters. The first concerns education for the educationally subnormal. I hope that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will note one concise question. The other day a constituent who has a 19-year-old daughter with a mental disability who has been to a special school asked me why her daughter's right to attend that school was cut off at the age of 19, when the Government look after other people's further education long after that age at a huge cost. Frankly, I could not find an answer, which is why I am asking my right hon. Friends to provide me with one. If they do not have an answer, I hope that they will do something so that we shall all have one in future.

Secondly, I have a constituency matter for my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. There is a place called Maids' Moreton near the town of Buckingham in my constituency. There seems to be a presumption that the two places should join, although in neither case do the inhabitants want them to do so. The developer who wants them to join together is one of those persistent types, I am afraid. Why is there no arrangement whereby local government may say that there is a permanent presumption against development in the area because it would create too large a conurbation, and mostly because neither of the two communities wants it? I should be grateful if my right hon. and learned Friend could take note of that.

I have probably spoken for too long, and I apologise.

Before I call the next Member to speak I remind the House of Madam Speaker's ruling that there shall be a 10-minute limit on speeches between 7 and 9 o'clock.

7.6 pm

May I add my congratulations to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your appointment and to all those hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches today. The content of those speeches, which was sometimes amusing, was much appreciated by the House.

I had hoped to identify certain references in the Queen's Speech which would enable me to congratulate the Government on having advanced environmental protection in the list of priorities to be considered by the new Parliament. Regrettably, I find that I am unable to offer such congratulations. In reflecting upon certain proposed legislation which might have a bearing, I am concerned that the national lottery Bill may be targeted too narrowly. There must be provision for funding to spill over from heritage projects to encompass remedial environmental works, which are so often absolutely vital, and to commit complete and meaningful preservation of sites and buildings. In that regard, I ask the Government to learn from the justified criticism made of those bodies which have not managed to develop a co-ordinated approach to preserving our heritage in Northern Ireland. Nor do I expect that the intended housing, land and urban development Bill, which will bring another quango into being—the urban regeneration agency—will resolve that long-standing and increasing problem.

My scepticism is based upon the Northern Ireland experience with such bodies, but I shall not digress into a topic about which my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Forsythe) has such a close knowledge. From my experience, all too often such bodies tend to theorise on the problem rather than to embark upon practical measures to remedy obvious disadvantages and to arrest further decay.

I understand that the proposed green Bill is in hand, but apparently it will have to await a suitable slot in the crowded parliamentary timetable. That does nothing to convince me that sufficient priority has been given to the subject.

Perhaps the Government are still a prisoner of the former Prime Minister's vision of the great motor car economy and will not face the unpalatable fact that economic recovery alone those lines spells ecological disaster. To borrow a summary from a recent Sunday newspaper, it spells more cars, more factories to build them, more roads to carry them and more toxic fumes.

However, being of a magnanimous nature I accept that the 1990 White Paper on the environment covered everything from the stratosphere to the street corner. The Government were careful to include it in the Conservative manifesto on page 43, but the great issues continue to be addressed only on paper.

I accept that the Prime Minister was one of the first world leaders to announce his intention to attend next month's earth summit in Rio de Janeiro and I appreciate that the proposed environment agency will try to achieve wonderful things. The agency will collate the work of the National Rivers Authority and Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution, regulate the waste operations of local authorities and provide us with annual state-of-theenvironment reports.

That is all very commendable, but is there not just the suggestion of another army of paper tigers and another paper mountain? Is not this further consideration of the problems rather than action upon them? Are matters most urgent not developing at too leisurely a pace? Of course., there can be merit in hastening slowly, but we in Northern Ireland have had far too much of the snail's pace approach for far too long. We cannot draw limited comfort from some possible momentum in the proposed legislation.

Northern Ireland will undoubtedly be ignored and excluded yet again. I wish to caution the House on the basis of the previous Government's record on such matters in the Province. Following the publication of the Rossi report, I welcomed its recommendations and laid particular emphasis on recommendation 26 regarding the creation of a Northern Ireland environment agency. I did so enthusiastically not only on behalf of my party but in recognition of the widespread demand for such a body from a wide cross-section of informed opinion in the Province.

I share the opinions of the Select Committee on the Environment which catalogued the defects, weaknesses and difficulties that had arisen in the management of Northern Ireland. I use that term deliberately because the Province enjoys, not democratic government, but an unco-ordinated system operated by appointees and professional officers. I should like to know how I can repose trust in the Government's avowed environmental commitment when what I believe to be the central recommendation of the Rossi report has been rejected.

Surely in this matter it would have been useful to test such a structure in Northern Ireland, especially as the Government have not hesitated in the past to inflict experimental systems on the Province with no regard for the wishes of the people there. I would not wish Great Britain to have expectations raised, as happened in Northern Ireland, and then to suffer the disappointment of finding that the shadow, not the substance, became the reality.

The Government are failing to meet their obligations to protect internationally important areas for birds, particularly within Northern Ireland. A new Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' report reviews the Government's performance in protecting wildlife sites under the European Community birds directive and the Ramsar convention. The report highlights the

"appalling designation record in Northern Ireland",

where to date, of the 17 internationally recognised important bird areas in the Province, only two have been given any designation: Lough Neagh-Lough Beg, which was designated a Ramsar site in 1976, and Swan island, in Lough Larne, which was designated as a special protection area earlier this year. RSPB studies show that a further II unprotected, important bird sites in Northern Ireland are threatened by damaging development proposals, poor management or neglect.

At the present overall United Kingdom designation rate of only four sites a year, these internationally important areas will not be fully protected until the year 2040. Many will be destroyed before designation occurs. A comparison with other EC member states shows that Denmark and Belgium should complete their designations by 1992, with only the Netherlands achieving completion later than the United Kingdom. The total United Kingdom land area designated to date is less than 1 per cent. compared with more than 20 per cent. in Denmark.

The report on sites of special scientific interest in the 1990s, "A Check on the Health of Internationally Important Bird Areas", also shows that hundreds of important wildlife sites have been damaged or destroyed since 1981.

I call on the new Government to provide substantial, additional resources for environmental departments and statutory conservation agencies; to promise to complete all remaining designations of Ramsar sites within five years; and to make a firm commitment to protect these areas, allowing development only in the most exceptional circumstances. My call is for effective action throughout the United Kingdom to address now as a matter literally of life and death the issues of effective environmental protection and regeneration.

7.16 pm

I have enjoyed immensely listening to many outstanding maiden speeches this afternoon. I do not wish to deal with any one particular speech, but I will speak about urban problems and the urban regeneration agency. For that reason, I was extremely interested in what was said by the hon. Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth). As the House will know, I was Member of Parliament for an inner-city seat in Liverpool for nine years. The hon. Gentleman's comments were reminiscent of many of the problems that I experienced in Liverpool some years ago. Therefore, I was particularly concerned by what he said about Coventry. The problems have not gone away either in Coventry or in many other urban conurbations.

As the House may remember, I was a youth and social worker for many years before I came to the House. I was appointed by Lord Wilson, as he now is, as leader of one of the largest community projects of the Home Office that was concerned with urban problems. The hallmarks of the inner city are well known: deprived communities, unskilled labour, poor housing, race relations problems, rundown small firms and high unemployment. Inner-city areas got those hallmarks because over the years the poorest and least skilled congregated usually where they landed from boats—for example, in Liverpool and London—or at the centres of industry, such as the textile industry in Manchester. Small firms existed in those areas and were interdependent.

Over the past 25 years modern technology, high rents and the demolition of slums have resulted in the population moving from inner-city areas to outer city areas. The vast council estates of the 1950s and 1960s meant the wholesale displacement from the inner city to the outer city of poor and unskilled workers. Although the small firms continued there, they declined.

The hon. Member for Coventry, North-East used the image of a doughnut, but the place where the jam once was is now an empty hole. The people have departed and the jobs have gone. The inner cities are derelict, rundown and depressed areas. We are witnessing an attempt by the Government—and they have poured thousands and millions of pounds into it—to put the jam back into the inner city. I would normally be critical of pouring money into solving such problems, but I welcome the Government's announcement in the Queen's Speech about the setting up of an urban rengeneration agency, which is another attempt to deal with the problem. There have been many attempts and you will be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the Labour Administrations of the 1960s and 1970s set up many projects, as did the Conservative Government in the 1980s. The projects all had interesting names, but they often bore little relationship to what they did.

The Government have announced another attempt to revive the inner cities, but the jam will not be put back into the inner cities unless new methods of transportation are introduced. Unless motorways and the road transport networks go right into the inner city—to the point where jobs could be created and the enterprise zones and the urban development corporations are located—one will not get real commercial, industrial and manufacturing growth. The inner cities need new rail heads. The trouble with the railway stations in the principal cities is that it is impossible to drive large articulated vehicles to them. Therefore, it is not possible to use the railways to transport equipment and goods out of the inner city. Poor transport links rule out a revival in the inner cities.

The revival is taking place in the outer cities. It is happening at the junctions of motorways and on the outskirts of the major conurbations where all the new warehouses and factories have been built. Instead of people wanting to return to the inner cities, the movement is from them to edges of the cities, to the motorway junctions and to the areas beyond them to new towns.

The Government are brave to introduce another agency. However, despite the millions of pounds that have been poured into the inner cities by Labour and Conservative Governments, the inner cities continue to decline because there is no way of creating wealth and of housing people: the people have gone. Those who remain are the poorest, the most deprived and the unemployed and they have no scope or future.

I wish to consider what I hope that the urban regeneration agency will do. In my book "New Life for Old Cities" I considered how urban areas could be regenerated. I am glad to say that the Government followed most of my recommendations, but they have not done the trick. In the 1980s, the Secretary of State will remember that I wrote another book, entitled "Public Land Utilisation Management Schemes" which was an attempt to show how to get rid of derelict and vacant land in public ownership. The then Secretary of State for the Environment set up a register to identify the amount of publicly owned vacant land. At its height, it amounted to 116,000 acres, but since then the figure has dropped to 80,000 acres. However, there is still much public vacant land which could be used. "PLUMS" proposed that public authority land should not he confiscated but valued and a share certificate issued for that value. The land should then be marketed. Local authorities do not have the marketing ability to enable the value of the land to grow.

I hope that the new agency will follow my proposal of exchanging derelict and vacant land in public ownership—owned by local authorities and utilities—for a certificate which will grow in value as the land is marketed. That is why I intervened in the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to ask whether the new agency would have marketing powers. In the past, land has been compulsorily purchased and taken away from the public authorities, but they should share in its increased value—increased as a result of marketing and as a result of being passed over to the new urban regeneration agency. That agency will be headed by my former right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester, Mr. Peter Walker, so it is bound to be successful in its attempts to tackle the problems.

I am concerned about vacant land in the inner cities, but the problem can be solved by building on it. However, that will not happen if we do not do something about the problems of housing and job creation in those areas. I hope that the new agency will get hold of the land and give it to private developers who will do something with it. As they build factories, houses and shops, the value of the site will go up and the local authority will benefit from that increase in value because the value of its shares will increase. That must be the right approach.

There is a second reason why the inner cities should be revived and that is illustrated by my experience in my constituency in south Devon, which is surrounded by Plymouth—

Order. I must point out to the hon. Member that his time is up.

7.27 pm

May I add my congratulations to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your appointment and thank you for calling me to speak in the House for the first time?

I want to follow the tradition of the House by saying something briefly—it will be brief because of the time limitation—about my predecessors in Walthamstow. The seat of Walthamstow, West, which is part of the present constituency, was held shortly after the war by Clement Attlee, who was a Member of great distinction and Prime Minister for some years after the war. From 1970 to 1987, Walthamstow was represented by Eric Deakins who, I am sure, hon. Members on both sides will remember with respect and affection. From 1987 to 1992, Walthamstow was represented by Hugo Summerson. It would be foolish to pretend that he and I agreed politically, but I know that he did his best to represent the issues and concerns of the people of Walthamstow. I certainly intend to follow his example.

I want to refer particularly to some of the proposals in the Queen's Speech that affect local government, housing and homelessness. It comes as no great surprise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) remarked, that the vast majority of constituency problems brought to hon. Members are about housing. Given the scale of the housing problem in London and in the country as a whole, I find the sections of the Queen's Speech devoted to housing remarkably thin. There are no serious proposals in the Gracious Speech to tackle the problems of homelessness, and I fear that those problems will worsen in the future.

There are various reasons why the situation is unlikely to improve. In east London, in the area that I represent, Bow county court deals with most of the repossession cases from Walthamstow, which has the second highest number of repossessions in Britain—that in an area in which, by London standards, house prices are extremely low. In many cases, the banks and building societies, the prime lenders, seem uninterested and unwilling to work with other agencies which are trying to do something about repossessions and debt management.

A day conference was recently called by my borough council. It was attended by fuel providers, members of citizens advice bureaux and representatives of council departments, but the banks and building societies refused to participate. The problem of repossessions will continue despite the odd half per cent. reduction in interest rates. It will continue so long as people are made redundant and we live with the present rate of unemployment.

We have heard about proposals to improve the rights of tenants to have repairs and improvements made to their properties. My immediate reaction to what has been suggested is that it is another phoney charter, with the blame being placed everywhere but with the Government. Local authorities are being denied the resources to do the repairs, and at the same time are being blamed for failing to deliver what their tenants need.

It is meaningless to say that tenants living in larger estates should have the right to improve their properties when millions of pounds are required to rejuvenate those blocks and remedy structural problems. Such a task is far beyond the capacity of individual tenants. Consider what has happened in an area such as mine in recent years. I think of an estate that is now part of a housing action trust, one of the few such trusts that have been established.

Some years ago, the borough council produced a scheme for the total redevelopment of that estate, with the replacement of tower blocks by low-rise property. The Government were approached, but they said that the local authority could not be allowed to spend the necessary money. After protracted discussions with tenants, the formation of a tenant-controlled company was proposed. That would have enabled the company to do the work and have access to private money. The scheme was thought through and plans drawn up, but again the Government turned down the scheme.

In other words, when tenants approach the Government with proposals for real tenant involvement and power, the Government show no interest. As I say, that estate is now part of a housing action trust. The Government now have a responsibility, having forced the tenants down that path, to make sure that the redevelopment of the estate is made possible.

I welcome the proposals in the Queen's Speech on the rights of leaseholders. I hope that the legislation will do more than simply give leaseholders the right to acquire freeholds and extend their leases. Leaseholders should have the right to change or choose managing agents and to examine and, if necessary, challenge freeholders' accounts to see whether extortionate service charges are being imposed. Freeholders and landlords should have more responsibilities and be obliged to carry out repairs and improvements. After all, if council tenants are to have the right to have repairs done, the same right should apply to private tenants.

The Asylum Bill will have great impact in my constituency, which has many asylum seekers and various ethnic minorities. Walthamstow has the largest Pakistani community in London. Between 1980 and 1990, I chaired an inquiry into racial harassment in Waltham Forest. It was horrendous to hear what some people told the inquiry about their daily experiences. At one extreme, there were cases of violence, including physical assault and arson. There have been murders in my constituency in recent years. Letter boxes are sealed because people are scared that petrol will be poured through and set alight.

At the other extreme are incidents that might be thought of as trivial, such as verbal abuse and the use of graffiti. But for people who cannot step out of their front doors, go to the shops or take their children to the park, the threat of abuse is not trivial. When that happens every day, it has a great effect on the quality of people's lives.

Legislation such as the Asylum Bill generates a bad atmosphere. When the Bill was last debated, there was much talk of illegal immigration, social security scandals and other forms of criminality. Whenever such statements are made, especially by senior politicians, the suggestion is put about that certain communities are not to be trusted, and that in turn gives the green light to harassment. Indeed, it gives a certain respectability to harassment. That has a serious impact on the daily lives of many of my constituents.

Local voluntary organisations and local authorities must deal with the consequences, especially on housing estates. I regret that the Asylum Bill is to be reintroduced. I hope that, at least, the debate this time will be conducted in a more temperate way and that the Minister will have conducted genuine consultation before the measure is published. Rather than that Bill, my constituents need legislation to deal with harassment and discrimination. I hope that even at this late stage the Government will reconsider their decision to reintroduce the Asylum Bill.

7.37 pm

I wish at the outset to offer you, Madam Deputy Speaker, my congratulations on your appointment. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) on his fluent maiden speech. I am sure that we shall hear much more from him on a subject about which he clearly knows a lot.

I am in an awkward position because mine is not a maiden speech, nor is it a retread speech. I suggested to an hon. Friend that I was a re-retread, to which he replied that I must have worn rather thin. My physical appearance gives the lie to that.

I pay tribute to my predecessor, Sir Charles Morrison, who was respected by hon. Members in all parts of the House for his decency, common sense and independence of spirit. He will be sorely missed. I wish him a happy retirement.

I am privileged to represent the beautiful constituency of Devizes. It is an area of great variety, stretching from Salisbury plain in the south to north of Swindon, and the town of Highworth, in the north. It takes in an enormous number of interests, from defence through agriculture to car manufacturing at the Rover and Honda plants around Swindon. The variety of interests of my constituents that I shall be pursuing here in the coming years will keep me busy. I am fortunate to represent that great constituency.

During the recession, from which thankfully we are beginning to emerge, the construction industry—especially its smaller parts, of which there are many examples in my constituency—was hard hit. Anything that revives interest and confidence in the housing market will be greeted with great relief, and with that in mind I welcome the references in the Gracious Speech to tenants' rights. The dramatic achievements in extending the variety of housing tenure and, therefore, choice since 1979 have together formed one of the most profound sea changes of the past decade.

We have broken away irrevocably from the segregated housing of the post-war years, that soul-destroying and socially divisive separation between council and owner-occupied housing. The variety of forms of tenure and of housing agencies, not least the still growing housing association movement and the birth of other new agencies such as housing action trusts, have extended beyond recognition the frontiers of individual housing choice. New joint ventures by housing authorities will take that process still further, and I hope that we shall give them every encouragement.

I welcome the increased funding for the Housing Corporation this year, which I hope will be used in imaginative and sensible ways. It has been said by several hon. Members this evening that homelessness is of concern to us all wherever it arises, and I believe that we now have the means to tackle it in a constructive way. We need a co-ordinated approach and a continuing will to achieve it.

I welcome also the proposal to extend the rent-to-mortgage scheme to England from north of the border. When wearing another hat, I was somewhat involved in the original concept of the scheme. I believe that it provides another important avenue of choice for people's homes. I wish the proposal, a fair wind.

At the end of the day, choice is at the root of the Government's philosophy. I am delighted to see that in the Gracious Speech we are not resting on our laurels. There is so much further to go, especially in rural areas such as that which I now have the honour to represent. Choice is meaningful, however, only when it is available to all. I appreciate that we cannot reach that stage overnight and that there is much more to do, but at the same time I believe that the impetus must come from the Government over the next five years. We must show that we shall extend choice as far as we can.

In rural areas there is a major problem in providing affordable housing for local people both for purchase and for rent. So long as it continues, the concept of choice in such areas is of necessity severely qualified. There are those who call for major council house building programmes to meet the problem. I do not subscribe to that view. Council housing has a valuable role in providing one element of choice, but I do not believe that returning, as some Opposition Members have suggested, to massive council house building programmes would bring any long-term benefit to the provision of choice. There are better ways of meeting the problem.

First, I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench to try to ensure that rural housing associations are especially encouraged and that the special problems of geography and population densities in rural areas are recognised. I ask them to ensure that the issue of affordability in rural areas is properly addressed and that housing associations in such areas are given a sufficient share of available resources to meet their particular problems.

Secondly, I ask that local housing associations are encouraged further in their role as enablers rather than providers, and as co-ordinators of imaginative initiatives that can meet the problems of rural housing in a cost-effective and adequate way.

In that context I mention briefly the thorny issue of receipts from council house sales. I am fully aware of the macro-economic considerations that led to the restriction on their use as capital, and I do not argue with those considerations, but we must understand that it is difficult for those who see housing need around them to understand why money which has been raised from housing cannot be spent towards meeting that need. Perhaps my right hon. and hon. Friends will explore with the Treasury the possibility of using receipts from council house sales, not as capital—I understand the difficulties of doing that—but in a different and more revenue-based way as part of the enabling role of housing authorities in providing affordable housing for rent in conjunction with the private sector. That might provide an avenue, and I hope that that approach will be explored. I leave that thought with my right hon. and hon. Friends.

Housing still presents the Government with a vital and exciting challenge. It is one that lies at the heart of the concept of choice, which is central to the quality of life and is the bedrock of individual aspirations. I find it heartening to know that the Government remain determined and enthusiastic about meeting the challenge.

7.45 pm

First, Madam Deputy Speaker, I congratulate you on your appointment. For the record, I wish genuinely also to applaud the election and appointment of Madam Speaker, which was obviously an historic occasion.

I pay tribute to the work done by my predecessor, Dave Nellist, and in turn to his predecessor, Bill Wilson, and also his predecessor, the late Dick Crossman. The House will understand later why I have linked all three of my predecessors.

During different periods Dave Nellist and Bill Wilson, and to a certain extent Dick Crossman, all talked about two particular issues. Dave Nellist and Bill Wilson certainly talked about unemployment and problems associated with it. About 20 years earlier, shortly before the then Labour Government, Bill Wilson spoke of crime being associated with unemployment. Going back further, to 1945, we find Dick Crossman talking about the reconstruction of Europe and of Britain, which again raised the issue of unemployment. My predecessors and the issues to which I have referred were interrelated during different periods.

Coventry, South-East has its fair share of unemployment. Some of the area's major industries have been privatised, and I have been interested to listen to other hon. Members talk about privatisation. When it comes to privatisation, my constituents consider primarily their future prosperity and employment. That is certainly their position in the context of the railways and of General Plessey Telecom. Earlier on, my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth) mentioned Jaguar. Everyone is concerned about unemployment for it is a national problem.

In the past, Coventry was famous for its innovation and its employment prospects. But for the employment prospects, I should not have gone to Coventry. I should probably have gone elsewhere, and some people in Coventry may think that that would have been a good idea.

Coventry, South-East has employment problems and an inner city problem. Dick Crossman comes into that, because when he was a Minister he said that the then Labour Government would tackle inner city problems. He certainly produced innovative ideas. Some Conservative Members may argue that that Government's policies arid ideas did not necessarily lead to success. I spent 20 years in local government, and I can say that if there was a lack of success it was because of the lack of resources provided by the Government and their predecessor. There was a switch of emphasis and of policies. An example would be the reduction in urban aid grant. Those with experience of local government will know what I am talking about. There are many other examples.

Coventry, South-East, like the rest of the country, suffers from a lack of resources to develop its education system. We need resources for school building repairs, for building new schools and for better teacher training. Those problems should be dealt with; they are more important than talk of tax reductions.

Coventry, South-East has a major council housing problem because of the lack of Government resources to carry out the necessary repairs and to deal with homelessness; which means building homes for people who cannot afford to buy in the private sector. A great many people in the private sector are being subjected to mortgage foreclosures, and the numbers are rising in my area.

There has been much talk of home ownership from the Government and from previous Conservative Governments. Freedom to choose does not exist without economic freedom, and my constituency has its fair share of people without that.

We have another problem, which is not peculiar to Coventry, South-East. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) touched on it earlier when he mentioned the Asylum Bill. That Bill would have been all right if it had been conceived in justice. Instead, it was conceived in panic, because of Europe's fear of migrations from the east and the south. In many parts of Europe there is a phobia about those migrations, which are seen as a threat, and the Bill was one of the panic measures adopted by European Ministers.

To return to Dick Crossman, in 1945 we were going through the same sort of major debate on Britain's relations with Europe as we are having today—the "will she, won't she" debate. The question is whether we become more involved in Europe. The present Government, and former Governments, have procrastinated on that, but the Government have just won an election and it is time they clarified their position on Europe. If they do not want to be members, let them tell the country so. If they want to be only half-hearted members, let them tell the country so. But they should not mislead the country into thinking that they are involved in hard negotiations over Britain's rights when in fact they are putting on a charade—a half-hearted attempt to kid the Europeans that we want to play a major part as members of the European Community.

There was no real vision in the Queen's Speech. Some of my colleagues have already mentioned the plight in which the United States finds itself, and the trends in our inner cities which could lead to a similar situation here. The Queen's Speech was disappointing in that respect. There is no vision in the United States, either, and here we play petty party politics while a number of aspects of policy remain quite wrong. The speech did not deal with the fundamental problems of this country.

We have had debates about devolution for Scotland and Wales, but what about devolution for England? What about taking more power away from the English centre and giving it to people to exercise more constructively in new forms of regional government? The test for Europe will certainly be how effective regional government here can be.

I am honoured to have taken part in this debate, and I hope to serve the people of Coventry, South-East and the people of this country to the best of my ability.

7.54 pm

I add my sincere congratulations to those of many others who have expressed their delight at seeing you, Madam Deputy Speaker, in the Chair today.

With great pleasure, too, I follow the tradition of congratulating the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Cunningham) on his maiden speech. His constituency has a reputation of being one with a lively representative in the House, and the hon. Gentleman did not fail to follow in that tradition, so well set by his predecessor Dave Nellist, who was always controversial and who always put his case forcefully to the House. I am not the only Member who will look forward with interest to what the hon. Gentleman has to say in future.

I do not want to detain the House long, and in any case I will not be allowed to do so. I want to raise an environmental matter which is of considerable importance to my constituency and which is already causing anxiety and even fear there.

On 21 June, the summer solstice arrives and large numbers of hippies, itinerants and new-age travellers can be expected. Some of my constituents call them by names that cannot be expressed in parliamentary language. Large numbers are expected, and I prophesy that they will assemble in my part of Hampshire from the end of May. The same happened last year and the year before, and each time more of them came. Last year, about 4,500 camped at Rats Lodge in Longstock and, had it not rained, considerably more of them would have come. One can only wonder what will happen this year if there is fine weather.

I noticed that on the spring bank holiday about 30,000 people attended a pop festival at Lechlade in Gloucestershire, and if more itinerants and hippies come to my constituency in the pre-solstice period, the noise disturbance, the petty crime and the filth that they will leave behind will cause my constituents great anxiety. Such concern was well expressed last week when a public meeting was held in the town hall at Stockbridge. It was so full that 50 people had to be turned away—a good reflection of the extent of public anxiety.

The motion on the Loyal Address was seconded by my hon. and filial Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell) with many happy turns of phrase. The Queen's Speech stated:

"My Government will work both at home and abroad to protect the environment. They will ensure that the environment remains a key issue in all policy making".

It is certainly a key issue in Hampshire, and I want to raise two related problems with the Minister today—first, the parking of several hundred caravans, dormobiles and cars in a mass trespass by new-age travellers; and, secondly, the immensely noisy pop festival, for which the travellers provide the core and general set-up.

When large numbers of caravans arrive, landowners can ask the police to move them on. The police, using section 39 of the Public Order Act 1986, can do just that. In parenthesis, I should say that I have immense praise for the way in which the Hampshire constabulary has operated, avoiding confrontation but being firm and fair at the same time. The police move them on, but the question is where they move them on to. In Hampshire, they move them on to a loophole in the law, and it is that loophole that I want Ministers to plug as soon as possible.

Hampshire has 400 miles of green lanes. Many are classified as BOATS—bridleways open to all traffic. The verges are not marked, there are no kerb stones, there is no proper delineation and they have been there for some hundreds of years. When they are moved on, the travellers settle on either side of those green lanes. The police cannot know whether they are on private land or on a public right of way because there is no clear marking. If they are unable to prove that a traveller is on private land, they cannot evict him using section 39 of the Public Order Act. The police are then inhibited because they know that if they make a mistake they can be sued for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment.

One simple solution available to the Government is to extend section 39 to apply to green lanes, public rights of way and roads through the countryside at the discretion of the police. We are dealing not with a traffic problem but with a public order matter.

When I raised the matter in the House on 12 December 1991, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department—my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd)—agreed to suggest that a meeting be arranged between the Departments of the Environment and Transport and the Home Office. I am grateful to the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment for arranging that meeting in February with representatives of the police and Hampshire county council. The Minister recognised that action was and is required and I thought that I saw his hand in the Conservative party's manifesto during the general election which said that the Caravan Sites Act 1968 would be reviewed with the aim of reducing the nuisance of illegal encampment. That proposal is welcome, but it is not in the Gracious Speech and I and many of my constituents are worried about what will happen as the solstice approaches this year if there has been no change in the law. I have to tell Ministers in the Department of the Environment that I think that we are right to call for action now to deal with the matter.

There is a second issue that I wish to touch on briefly —where to site the noisy, pop festival for which the travellers now choose the site, provide the core and much of the organisation. I want to make three points. First, such pop festivals will take place; the question is where. If the police just move people on, there comes a time when those people will stop somewhere. They cannot spirit 6,000 or 8,000 people into thin air. That somewhere will go on being ill-thought-out, unprepared, invariably unsuitable and a confounded nuisance to those who live nearby. Clearly, we need a more constructive approach The Government, with the Secretary of State for the Environment in the lead, should identify sites far away from habitation so that the squatters can be moved to those particular places.

There is one Government Department that can help. The Ministry of Defence has just such sites in its possession. I have no doubt that it will defend its land with as much vigour as it would defend our shores in the event of an enemy attack. Nevertheless, in the wider issue of the environment it is right that the Ministry should be asked to identify sites well away from other people and habitation and make them available in that way.

There are a number of other points that I should like to make, but because of the time factor I shall close by saying that Hampshire county council will soon be in a position to become "designated", with all the benefits which will flow from that, having provided within the county an adequate number of gipsy sites. But the county council expects that it will take six months for the Minister to approve designation when the application is made. Therefore, I want to make a plea to the Minister that when that application comes to the Department of the Environment it should be turned around in six weeks, not six months. Slow decisions are not necessarily any better than quick ones and this matter calls for a fast and effective decision. With those words, I urge Ministers to take action.

8.4 pm

My first task is to congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your new post and wish you every happiness during the time that you occupy it.

I am the first Member for Birmingham, Yardley to make a maiden speech from the Opposition Benches for some 30 years, and I am only the second Member for Birmingham, Yardley to make a maiden speech from the Opposition Benches in some half a century. Yardley has a reputation for returning a Member of Parliament from the party which goes on to form the Government. That will cause disappointment on both sides of the House—on the Government side because Yardley did not follow the country, and on the Opposition Benches because the country did not follow Yardley. Needless to say, on this occasion I trust in the good political sense of the electorate of Yardley.

My immediate predecessor was David Gilroy Bevan. His great pride was that he was Brummie born and bred and he had a long record of service to the city of Birmingham in this House and in local authorities within Birmingham. There is a wide gulf between us politically, but whenever our paths crossed he was most courteous. He was also most generous in defeat, for which I thank him.

My last Labour predecessors from Yardley were Syd Tierney and Ioan Evans, both highly respected Members of the House and the Labour party. I was delighted to have Syd Tierney campaign for me in Yardley during the election. Having helped to win the marginal seat of Yardley for Labour, he then returned to his home in the north-east to help win the marginal seat of Barrow and Furness for Labour. Therefore, we have much to be grateful to Syd Tierney for.

My constituency is on the south-east side of Birmingham, adjacent to the national exhibition centre and Birmingham international airport. It relies for employment mainly on manufacturing industry within Birmingham and neighbouring Coventry. The economic prosperity of manufacturing in the west midlands region is the main factor which determines the economic prosperity of my constituents and I hope that in the next few years we shall see an upturn in the fortunes of that industry.

I have spent the past 18 years in education. I have worked in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Cunningham), who has just made his maiden speech. It is on the subject of education that I wish to address a few remarks to the House. I have in my constituency two comprehensive schools and many more primary schools, which offer a good standard of education to their pupils and communities. That is a great achievement when set against the background of change, uncertainty and underfunding that education has had to face.

When I met people during the election the one thing that they wanted for education was stability. They are fed up with ministerial changes of mind. As soon as one ministerial directive has been answered, it is countered with another and they start again. They also want stability of funding so that head teachers do not have to spend their time applying to this or that Government Department for funding for this or that project in order to educate the children whom they seek to serve.

Those who want stability in education will be deeply disturbed by the recent talk of the possible reintroduction of selection in secondary schools. If we were to reintroduce selection it would be the biggest upheaval that schools have had to face in recent decades, and the biggest danger to children's education that they have had to face in their lifetime.

I call upon the Government to end the speculation that selection may be returning by making it clear that they will accept no proposals for reorganisation from local authority or grant-maintained schools which include an element of selection either on academic ability or on aptitude for a particular subject. Those who favour selection advance it as a means of raising standards and widening choice. It is neither. Selection gives more power to schools and less choice to parents. Many parents will be powerless to exert any influence over the schools their children attend, which runs counter to the Government's stated intention of trying to increase parental choice.

The other side of the selection coin is rejection. For every pupil whose self-esteem is raised because he or she has been selected, the self-esteem of many other pupils is damagingly depressed by rejection. For every so-called first-choice school that attracts extra resources, there will be more so-called second-choice schools struggling to attract the resources that they need to raise standards.

It is impossible to devise a selection system, whether it be based on academic ability or subject aptitude, which does not hand the failure label to some children and the second-class label to some schools. That is no way to improve standards or widen choice. It favours the few at the expense of the rest. At the heart of any education policy should be a strategy, desire, and aim to raise the standard of every child's education and of every school. Selection will not do that.

During the general election campaign, parents and educationists spoke to me not of selection but of smaller class groups; of giving more time to teaching and less to form filling. Head teachers told me that they wanted to spend more time managing their schools and less time raising money to fund essential resources. They never referred to selection as a means of achieving those objectives. The Government ought to remove once and for all the spectre of selection from the education agenda on which this Session of Parliament is about to embark.

I am pleased to have made my maiden speech in a debate which embraces so many issues of concern to my constituents. I hope that in the months and years to come I shall speak again on their behalf. I am proud to represent my constituents and my party in the House, and I shall always do so to the best of my ability.

8.12 pm

I have the privilege of succeeding Sir Neil Macfarlane, who held the seat of Sutton and Cheam for 18 years. He had a distinguished career, and he served as a Minister for seven years. Sir Neil's time as a sports Minister left a heavy mark on him, for he had to cope with both the Bradford fire tragedy and the Heysel stadium disaster. On a more cheerful note, Sir Neil was himself an enthusiastic sportsman. He was captain of the parliamentary golf society, and boasted proudly that over a five-year period he led it to only one victory.

Sutton and Cheam is fairly well known throughout the land partly through its association with entertainers, such as Harry Secombe, and its adopted son, Tony Hancock —who, wearing the expression of a disappointed basset hound, lived at 2 Railway cuttings, East Cheam. He brought laughter to millions, but the problem for fans seeking his home was that his address was entirely fictitious. Tony Hancock in fact lived at a far less interesting abode in north London.

My constituency lies 13 miles from Westminster, inside the M25. Today's quiet, leafy streets belie a heritage that dates back to neolithic times. In those days, man travelled by river. Transport is still an enormous issue today, and I doubt that the early dwellers would envy the 3,000 commuters who struggle up to London on Network SouthEast.

The rail journey from Sutton has become so hazardous that no passenger can predict the time of his or her arrival. One constituent told me that the 8·17 am train is now known as the 8·37 am train, because it is always 20 minutes late. The service has not been improved by British Rail's programme of cutting down trackside trees on the basis that falling leaves cause train delays. It is hardly surprising that there has been an outcry by my constituents, who feel that local beauty has been sacrificed by British Rail going for an easy but by no means proven option. It is more a case of whistling in the wind.

I welcome therefore the Government's plans for privatising British Rail. Meanwhile, I trust that the passengers' charter will come in useful. A refund on fares would at least sugar the pill.

I deliberately chose to speak on the subject of education in the debate on the Gracious Speech because Sutton's character is best represented by its excellence in schooling, which is very much the result of Government policies. There can be found in Sutton the best examples of the benefits of offering the widest possible choice. Our two grant-maintained grammar schools—Nonsuch and Sutton Manor—have made such a mark that they are easily holding their own in The Times list of top 250 schools in the country. Today, however, I will focus on another grant-maintained school which I find exciting and elevating every time that I visit it.

Only a few years ago, non-selective Cheam High was regarded as a sink school. It was in such disarray that one of its pupils was caught riding a motor bike through its corridors. The current headmaster, John Vaughan, rescued the situation and reintroduced discipline—for without it children cannot learn. Working with Master and Miss Average, he gave each child hope, a positive identity, and a sense of purpose. In short, he put into practice the Government's programme of vocational education.

The pupils of that school are put through the national vocational qualification course at 17-plus, and the results are so good that local employers actively seek to recruit those children. This September, the vocational studies will develop one stage further, when the school's 16-year-olds will be among the first in the country to start taking their BTEC diploma course—the second year of which has parity with an A-level. There is no doubt that it is perfectly possible for all children to be higher achievers, provided their route of learning is suited to their talents. The second year BTEC qualifies children for a university or polytechnic, and serves as the alternative route to higher education.

Academic achievements are worth while, but they are not sufficient in themselves. There is parental concern about the decline in the teaching of the Christian faith. It is a sad reflection that, in a recent survey, only 34 per cent. of the sample knew why Easter day is celebrated, prompting the Archbishop of York to comment:

"It makes me wonder what kind of religious education some of these children receive at school."

In the Education Reform Act 1988, the Government tried their best, in section 8, to provide for a "mainly Christian" education while taking into account other faiths. In practice, that is not always done. Local education authorities set the curriculum, and in some Sutton schools multiculture and multifaith teaching has developed so far that Christianity is reduced to just another faith to be taken down from the shelf, together with Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, and so on. The time has come to take stock of ourselves. We should not be shy of being a Christian country, and we ought to insist that a "mainly Christian" education means just that.

It is not surprising that children lose their way emotionally and spiritually when they have been denied true Christian teaching and know little of what it has to offer. I would like to know how the provisions of the Education Reform Act 1988 are working out in practice nationwide.

It would be surprising if I did not touch briefly on defence. Nine years ago I launched my pro-NATO organisation, Families for Defence. At that time, we challenged the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and won; but national security remains as important as ever. The cold war may be over, but today we face multiple dangers, with instability in many countries, together with growing nuclear proliferation.

Currently, three former Soviet republics—Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan—still hold nuclear weapons, and there is no clear picture of what they are going to do with them. The southern republics now have rapidly growing armies. Next door, Iran is building up an awesome arsenal of her own, and Iraq, far from being subdued by the Gulf war, is reasserting herself.

Not only should we monitor the plight of the Kurds; there is another human rights issue that has been forgotten. I refer to the 850 Kuwaitis known as "The Missing Ones": men, women and children, some only 10 years old, who were snatched from their homes during the occupation and taken to camps in Iraq. Fifteen months later, they are still being held. The International Red Cross has their names.

I regard it as intolerable that the world should forget about those people in the mistaken belief that, after the liberation of Kuwait, all has been satisfactorily resolved. That is not the case, and we have a duty to ensure that they are released and returned home. There are lessons to be learnt. This is yet another example of why we should appreciate that peace has not yet been established in the middle east. We must therefore be ready for every contingency, and must plan for future defence levels accordingly. We must maintain our armed forces at the most credible level.

While I accept that we must adapt to modern conditions, it is vital that we are certain that we know what we are doing, and make up our minds about our commitments. I hope that, during the restructuring process, we do not make decisions now only to regret them later in the crisis. I think that the time has come for us to reaffirm our commitment to NATO. There has been a growing tendency in Europe to suggest that the American input is not necessary. I do not agree: we cannot do without the United States. In a major crisis, the United States is always there to help us, and the Gulf war was no exception. To exclude it would be a severe mistake, and would weaken the Alliance.

By the same token, satisfying the calls by the French and Germans for their own corps would serve no real purpose unless such corps were effectively associated with NATO. Otherwise, such action would undermine NATO and ultimately destroy it. It would do nothing for military effectiveness, and could seriously damage European harmony. In any case, we already have NATO's rapid reaction corps, commanded by the British and specifically designed to take on military tasks in and outside the normal NATO area.

I have raised the question of defence at the end of my speech, in particular, because my constituents in Sutton have frequently raised it with me. They come from courageous stock; they are dogged, and indomitable, and they are people whom I am enormously proud to represent.

8.23 pm

I congratulate you on your new position, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and thank you for calling me.

My constituency, Stockport, forms part of the wider metropolitan borough of the same name. It was created after the boundary changes in 1983. My predecessor was Tony Favell, a man of strong beliefs and uncompromising principles. He had, I know, a great deal of affection for Stockport, and his constituents wish him well.

Stockport is a town with a strong sense of community responsibility. Many people give their time, in a voluntary capacity, raise funds for and run the numerous clubs that exist for the elderly and the disabled, and also youth organisations and sports clubs. The Council for Voluntary Service, the citizens advice bureaux, Age Concern and Victim Support co-ordinate the work of hundreds of volunteers who provide a valuable service for the town. Charnwood nursery, a charitable trust which has been in operation for 20 years, offers children with special needs and normal children the opportunity to learn and to co-operate with each other from an early age. It is an excellent example of integration which, sadly, has not been replicated elsewhere.

Stockport has a very vocal local press. Papers such as the Stockport Express Advertiser, the Stockport Times, the Stockport Messenger, the Heaton Guardian, Down Your Way and the District Advertiser (Stockport) tackle issues of local interest with enthusiasm. Stockport also has an excellent football team, Stockport County, which was promoted last season, and is fighting its way to further promotion this season.

In recent years, the education system has experienced a period of rapid change with the introduction of local management of schools, the national curriculum, and assessment and appraisal. The national curriculum itself has changed several times. I have a daughter at a local state school, and I recently attended a parents evening to be given information about the GCSE courses that would help her to choose her options. I was informed by the school that the GCSE was to be altered to place less emphasis on course assessment and more on exams. The staff, however, could give me no information about what that actually meant for the individual courses, as they themselves had no information. Parents attending that meeting felt very confused and anxious. Now parents face the possibility of chaos.

Are the schools of Stockport to remain with the local education authority? Will some or all of them opt out? Who knows'? If schools apply for opt-out status, which schools will be given that status? What are the criteria? No one knows. We know the situation this week, but what of next week, next month, next year? This makes nonsense of stability. Will the opt-outs lead to a centralised bureaucracy? The Department of Education must know something, because it is apparently planning to move to a new building called Sanctuary house.

In 1986, Stockport underwent a reorganisation—with all-party support—of its secondary schools for 11 to 18-year-olds, and that has just been completed. It followed the Government's advice to take out spare places. Two schools were closed and three sixth-form colleges were created, one for each area of the town, to reflect local needs and diversity. As Stockport has taken out spare places, parental choice is of necessity limited by available accommodation. If all the schools opt out, set their own criteria for selection, and extend their catchment areas, where does that leave parents? What do they do? Do they apply to their first-choice school and hope that their children get in, apply to their second choice because their children have a better chance of getting into that, or apply to all the schools and hope for the best? It is a nightmare scenario for parents and children alike.

Will the Government allow opted-out schools to borrow extra capital to build? Or will the schools be into "cramming"? Shall we have huge schools with more than 2,000 pupils sending children home for private study because there is no room for them to be taught? Will some schools have shiny new buildings and new mobiles in the grounds, while others struggle to mend their roofs and provide books? That is an obscenity.

Stockport has taken a key role in strategic planning for its post-16 education. Since the three sixth-form colleges were created, the staying-on rate has risen to 75 per cent. What will happen now? If one of the secondary schools opts out and returns to an 11-to-18 intake, will that lead to the closure of one of the sixth-form colleges with consequent loss to the local community? Community groups will be dispossessed, and there will be nowhere for adult education classes to take place.

Who will make the decision? Will it be some distant regional funding council with no local knowledge? What will happen to non-vocational adult education'? How will that be funded? Will it be funded at all? Evening and day classes provide the community with an opportunity to take part in an enormous range of interesting and satisfying opportunities. It is part of a long-standing tradition. The loss of non-vocational adult education will be deeply felt.

These are genuine concerns of my constituents. They want stability and an end to the endless stress of change. I urge the Government to listen to those concerns.

8.29 pm

I have the honour to congratulate you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on your appointment and to say how delighted all Members are about it. I wish also to congratulate the hon. Member for Stockport (Ms. Coffey) on her interesting speech and to say how much the House enjoyed her humorous approach to an important and serious topic, which helped greatly.

As the hon. Member for Stockport said, the Gracious Speech places importance on education. I shall spend a few moments on that topic and, if there is time, refer to another matter which causes great concern to my constituents.

A number of speakers in this most interesting debate have questioned the comprehensive school system. Some have said that the system has failed totally. I do not accept that statement. The comprehensive ideal was one that those who conceived it could be proud of. It certainly inspired me for many years to work as hard as anybody could in the teaching profession. However, the comprehensive ideal has failed many children because it has proved to be impractical in many schools. That is its tragedy. That does not mean that it was not right to try. What went wrong was the insistence by Labour Governments that there should be a uniform system of comprehensive education. If they had not insisted on having a uniform system of comprehensive secondary education, I do not believe that the comprehensive school ideal would have failed. The ball has to be placed in the court of those who forced the issue to the extent that Labour Governments did.

People in this country and in many other countries will not accept uniformity. They do not want a monopoly. Monopolies lead to failure; people do not work in the ways that they ought to work, which causes problems. The lives of generations of children have been seriously damaged by local authority reorganisation schemes. The reorganisation of London schools into 97 comprehensives by the London county council and its successor, the Inner London education authority, over a period of about 20 years led to the enormous disorganisation of the education of hundreds of thousands of children. To a great extent, that damaged their subsequent careers.

There is a stronger consumer demand now than there has ever been for diversity and choice in education. Happily, the Gracious Speech confirms that fact. Parents, with the encouragement of successive Governments since 1979, are insisting on a choice of school and a choice of courses within that school for their children. That must be right. If people suggest that schools should tell children what courses to follow, that lets children down seriously and damages this nation. Such a process leads to children being under-educated, which damages our country at a time when we need to be able to compete strongly with countries throughout the world.

I believe that parents want more city technology colleges and more church schools. There is a slow increase in the number of church schools. They are very popular and parents want more of them. There is still a strong demand for single sex schools. I believe that the demand for grant-maintained schools will increase enormously. The Opposition need to realise that grant-maintained schools represent a social, political and educational revolution. The Labour party and the Liberal Democrats have not come to terms with that fact. Five out of the five secondary schools in my constituency applied for grant-maintained status. Four of the five achieved it immediately; the fifth will achieve it fairly soon. These schools are situated both in well-appointed and in very poor areas.

That revolution is being led by the parents. It is led not by Whitehall but by the consumer. In an area in my constituency which the Labour party has always thought of as its own, there was a mock election during the general election campaign. The Conservative candidate was elected with a majority of more than 200 over his opponents. That was not accidental. There has been a revolution. The Labour party needs to come to terms with that fact, if it is to begin to understand what is happening in education. I believe that there will be more grant-maintained schools. There is bound to be an avalanche of applications for grant-maintained schools.

The headmaster of Northolt high school told me that the local authority's cleaning budget took away £70,000 from his school and that he found a private contractor who could carry out the job for £40,000. The £30,000 that he has saved will be spent on more teaching and more books, pencils and rubbers.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No. My time is limited so, with respect, I cannot give way.

Such sums matter very much. Children will benefit greatly as a result. They can see that; so can their parents. The revolt against some comprehensive schools and the lack of choice in some areas could lead, as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) said, to a return of selection at 11—probably not on an academic basis but on the same basis as in Germany. As a member of the Select Committee on Education, I went to look at the way in which secondary education is organised in Germany. There, children are guided into the local gymnasium or realschule. The children go perfectly happily into vocational or academic schools. All those schools have ample resources. The teachers are well paid and the children achieve their potential within those schools.

There is a chance that we shall return to selection simply because of the pressure of monopoly throughout the country as a result of the policies of Labour authorities. Parents are revolting against it. The Labour party needs to recognise that it inspired the nation to take this action, in much the same way as happened in eastern Europe where the imposition of uniformity led to rebellion and dramatically changed the system. The Labour party ought to consider that intellectual argument. It is central to what is happening here. The Labour party has contributed to what has happened in a way that it has not fully appreciated.

Parents want their children to be stretched educationally. The country needs our children to be stretched educationally if we are to compete, even with countries such as Korea. By putting it that way, I do not intend to insult Korea. The number of academic courses and genuinely academic schools must be increased. More children must be given the opportunity to follow genuinely academic courses. That does not rule out vocational education in schools. As I know from my long experience, that is an important part of education.

As the Gracious Speech points out, teacher education and teacher training must certainly be improved. If we are to achieve that aim, those institutions must certainly be in competent hands. Lecturers must be drawn from those who have recent experience of teaching in schools. They must not have been away from it for a long period, so that they lose contact with what is needed. Teachers will need to he prepared more thoroughly than they have been so far, both academically and in the craft of the classroom, which is the basis of good teaching and sound learning.

8.39 pm

My first pleasant duty, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is to congratulate you on your appointment and to wish you many peaceful years guiding the debates in the House. In common with other hon. Members, I have listened to many fine maiden speeches which augur well for the House in the years to come in depth both of knowledge and of compassion for the social problems that afflict these islands today.

The environment is mentioned twice in the Gracious Speech. It says that the

"Government will work both at home and abroad to protect the environment. They will ensure that the environment remains a key issue in all policy-making".

Those undertakings contrast strongly with a lack of any commitment in the Government's programme that will address the pressing and vital environmental problems that we face, not just on earth as a whole but in our country today. In 1990 the Government announced their conversion to green issues. I should have hoped that they would have had the time and the opportunity to present to the House a strong programme for environmental protection legislation and to show that they intend to lead other nations towards environmental recovery for this generation and those to come. There do not appear to be any proposals for green legislation in the Government's programme.

It is equally disappointing that when the Prime Minister addressed the House on 6 May he did not give any commitment in respect of the great environmental issues, with the exception of a brief reference to the Rio de Janeiro conference, promising the Government's commitment to a target of returning carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by the turn of the century. That is an inadequate response to the urgency of the problem. In fact, that rather poor commitment was qualified further by his statement that it would be carried out only

"provided that others will do the same."—[Official Report, 6 May 1992; Vol. 207, c. 73.]

Surely we should be setting an example to the world in respect of all aspects of environmental protection. If need be, we must go it alone, for the practical reason that the process of tackling these major problems must start somewhere, must be started by somebody and must start within one of the western industrialised nations.

On ozone layer depletion, the Government seem immune to the urgency indicated by their own research group. In July 1991, the stratospheric ozone review group produced a report drawing attention to the strong evidence that destruction of the ozone layer in the northern hemisphere is greater than anticipated. It stated that above Britain and Europe there had been an 8 per cent. loss of the ozone layer in the past 10 years. That report was followed in October 1991 by a report from a group of 80 international scientists working under the auspices of the United Nations environment programme and the World Meteorological Office. It produced extremely disturbing findings and the Government seem to have paid little attention to them. We are talking not about ozone depletion in some far off place such as Antarctica, but about severe and dangerous ozone depletion over northern Europe and the very islands in which we live. Surely the Government are aware from their own research groups and scientific bodies that UVB radiation will have considerable consequences for the health and welfare of the people of these islands, Europe and the entire earth. They should be striving with the maximum urgency for control of ozone-depleting gases and their withdrawal from use, not by the year 2000 but at the earliest possible opportunity. The Government should have the courage to proceed with protecting the earth, whatever the economic disadvantage. They should provide leadership and, if necessary, by moral force should show the way forward to other nations.

The Government fall far short on matters other than simply ozone layer depletion. We have heard many sympathetic comments about the destruction of the rain forests. However, it was reported not long ago that several British firms are importing rain forest timbers in contravention of the 1989 Philippines Government ban. No action has been taken. At the earth summit in June it is anticipated that the Government will be seeking international consensus on a set of principles governing the conservation of forests. Surely the Government would have a much stronger arm if they sorted out their departmental disagreements. That would provide them with the authority to go before a world convention to negotiate a legally binding forestry conservation agreement.

We must also look at the Government's record on air quality control in the United Kingdom. It has already been noted that there is poor quality air in many parts of these islands. However, the Government boast of having created six new monitoring stations, making a total of 13 sites engaged in ensuring the Government's compliance with EC directive No. 2. That should be compared with Germany where there are 200 sites monitoring air quality control. Surely that is equally important to our citizens.

There is an urgent need, which the Government have neglected, to deal with environmental problems in our own households. They should support a Bill to ban phosphates, increase the biodegradability of detergents and introduce better environmental protection labelling for the consumer. Household detergent pollution is an urgent matter crying out for Government attention.

When we look at the environmental control measures promised in the Government's election manifesto, we see that they have already reneged on the commitment to set up an environmental protection agency by postponing it until not later than 1994. When I questioned the Northern Ireland Office regarding the situation in Northern Ireland, I was told that the commitment would not be implemented until well after that date. So we are probably talking about the turn of the century. That flies in the face of a 1991 all-party report on the environment, which recommended that the environmental protection agencies should be set up immediately.

Coming from South Down, I would not do justice to the environmental problem if I did not refer to the pollution of the Irish sea and the daily emissions from Sellafield of radioactive material. That is happening as we debate tonight and has been happening for the past 40 years. The radioactive content has been reduced from what it was several years ago, when there were some horrendous emissions of highly radioactive plutonium. Modern technology is available to clean up the discharge completely and it is one of the first issues that must be tackled.

Added to that environmental pollution, we are now creating another danger. I understand that as from June this year plutonium will be exported to Japan in a specially constructed cargo ship. Ironically, the adaptations to that ship were carried out at Harland and Wolff. That ship must contain a military complement and will be escorted by a military vessel. Apart from the expense involved, I have no doubt that that trade will be dangerous for the inhabitants of these islands. I am extremely concerned that, once again, nuclear waste reprocessing is being expanded by the introduction of thermal oxide reprocessing plant this year. The Government could at least have had the decency to await the environmental impact study that was promised.

I urge the Prime Minister and his team who will attend the Rio de Janeiro conference in June to have the courage to go forward with a greatly accelerated programme, redressing all aspects of the destruction of the environment. If they do so, they will receive the massive support not only of this country but eventually of the rest of the nations of the world. It is a question of determination, foresight and leadership. I hope that the Government can rise to the challenge.

8.49 pm

I wish briefly but warmly to welcome you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to your elevated office and to wish you well in the future.

Many hon. Members have referred to housing, and I want to do so briefly. The Opposition's amendment refers to omissions from the Gracious Speech. Many of those features are omissions because they are already happening —in other words, much work and money is being invested in solving the problems of homelessness and rooflessness. That is already bearing fruit in London. If the Labour party were to encourage some Labour authorities to return to use some of the empty properties within their gift, many of the problems of homelessness in London and other parts of the country could be solved. They and we could also bring into use unused premises above shops and so on.

The Gracious Speech deals with leasehold reform and rents to mortgages. I hope that the commonhold concept will soon be introduced in legislation. I hope that commonhold reform will embrace consideration of the problems that arise when a small house is divided into flats. In my constituency, it is often leaseholders of two, three or four unit blocks whose rights are abused by freeholders. I hope that my hon. Friends in the Department will bear in mind that leaseholders need the protection of commonhold as much as the occupants of larger units.

I hope that we will not forget leasehold reform of the public sector. All too often, people who bought flats from local authorities have no say in service charges, in when or what repairs are done or in capital improvements. I believe that they should have a greater say in such decisions. I hope that will be part of the Government's leasehold reform.

I welcome the proposals on rents to mortgages, but I hope that they will not stop simply at council tenants. Public sector tenants include housing association tenants, many of whom have been allocated to housing association properties by local authorities. In that process, they often lose the right to buy. The transferable discount scheme is offered for non-charitable trusts, but in London that is a joke because most people cannot afford the property values at which the discount applies. I hope that the rent-to-mortgages concept, which is good, will apply equally to tenants in housing associations.

I agree with the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady) about the global environment, but I wish to talk briefly, too, about the domestic environment. The biggest cause of pollution in London, the motor car, is clogging our roads. We desperately need a package of measures to encourage people to use public transport. However, they will use public transport only if it is adequate. We had the great cross-party debate in London, where we threw out the consultants' proposals for major road building schemes and opted unanimously for better and more public transport. I welcome the bold statement in the Gracious Speech that there will be emphasis on providing more rail facilities to solve our problems. I gently suggest that such a proposal could be implemented quickly by bringing forward the improvements to the Northern line, by ensuring that the Hackney to Chelsea rail link travels south through Wandsworth and—this is a very domestic point—by ensuring pedestrian access to railway bridges across the Thames so that people can use the river buses, which stop only on the other side of the Thames at Chelsea as opposed to Battersea. I hope that my proposals for improving public transport will be listened to.

The other improvement in domestic pollution that I should like to see is to do with the air—by which I mean not the air that we breathe but the air through which we hear. All too often we hear far too much. Noise pollution in the inner city is one of the curses of this age. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to give local authorities and the police real powers to confiscate equipment and to stop noise, whether from a private residence or from a public performance. Noise is a menace to people throughout the night, and in the summer, when people wish to have their windows open, it occurs throughout the day and at weekends as well. We need urgent action on those measures.

Finally, I want to follow the hon. Member for South Down in speaking about global environment problems. There has been much discussion about the preparations for Rio related to the need for population control to preserve and conserve the assets of our planet. That is right, but we in the west must understand that often the population increases because people in the developing world do not have confidence in the survival of their children. When we can increase their confidence, family sizes will decrease and we shall begin to preserve the planet as a whole. Today, 6,000 children will die of pneumonia; 7,000 children will die of diarrhoea and dehydration diseases; and 8,000 children will die of measles, tetanus, whooping cough and diphtheria. All those deaths—a total of 21,000 today, 7·6 million this year and 38·3 million over a five-year Parliament—are avoidable for a comparatively small sum of money. If the western world, with this country playing its part, were to spend money on enabling those children to survive, the size of families would decrease.

The cost of solving the pneumonia problem is 50p per child for antibiotics; the cost of solving the diarrhoea problem is 5p for oral rehydration tablets; and the cost of solving the measles problem is sixpence ha'penny for immunisation. For £1,170 a day, 21,000 lives could be saved today; for £427,000 a year, 7·6 million could be saved; and £21·3 million could save 38·3 million lives in a five-year period. Surely that is a price worth paying when we are talking about children and families that need our support. It is a question of chicken and egg. In this case, if the young chickens are able to survive, parents will not produce so many eggs to hatch and so we will start to solve some of the global environmental population problems that face the world at Rio and beyond.

8.58 pm

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me to make my maiden speech in the debate on the Queen's Speech, and may I take this opportunity to extend to you my personal congratulations on your selection as Deputy Speaker.

It is appropriate for me to pay a tribute to Mr. Ted Garrett, my immediate predecessor, who retired at the general election. Ted Garrett was popular with hon. Members of all parties. He did not seek the political limelight but was happy and content to discharge his responsibilities to the constituents of Wallsend in a simple, unassuming manner. However, his constituents knew full well that if they had a grievance—no matter against whom —Ted Garrett would pursue it with tenacity until it was resolved. I only hope that in my time in the House I shall be able to discharge my responsibilities to the constituents of Wallsend in the way that he did since becoming a Member of Parliament in 1964.

The constituency of Wallsend runs from the banks of the great River Tyne northwards to the old coal mining pit villages of the south-east Northumberland coalfield. Alas, the pits are no more, but the river is still active. Swan Hunter Shipbuilders has an international reputation for producing high-quality ships on time and at a competitive price. Its success is largely due to the positive partnership created over the years between the management and the work force.

Just along the Tyne, the other major employer is Press Fabrication, an offshore yard producing modules for the offshore industry. Last year it was named as the northern business of the year—a well-deserved accolade—but such success stories are only small glimmers of light in a dark and bleak environment.

In the 1980s we lost jobs and, for those in work, incomes decreased in real terms. Because of changes to the benefit system, those receiving benefits were pushed deeper into grinding poverty. The feeling of despair and despondency in my constituency is not unique—it is shared by most constituencies in the north-east. That is why, on 9 April, those constituents—those electors— registered a massive vote of no confidence in the Government's policies. Instead, they endorsed Labour's programme, which was based on care and compassion for all sections of the population, but that programme has now been denied to them.

We are debating a Queen's Speech that has more to do with envy, self-interest and greed than any concept of citizenship or community. On 9 April, more than 50 per cent. of the people who voted in the north-east voted Labour. Many of those people now believe—rightly so —that the Government have no mandate to govern the north-east. We are all aware of the current constitutional debate in Scotland. I believe that as a result of the election on 9 April a similar debate must now take place in the north-east.

I want to make one or two remarks about education. The Chinese have a proverb which says that the schools of a country are its future in miniature. I believe that to be true—we must invest in our future. But that has not happened in the past decade. An ever smaller share of our national wealth has been committed to education spending —a decline of 16 per cent. since 1979. That lack of investment has been combined with constant change in our education system. That system has been subjected to an almost permanent revolution in the classroom. As a result of that combination, our education service is now at breaking point.

The Queen's Speech refers grandly to choice, diversity and standards in education. However, what does that mean in practice if we strip away the rhetoric? The National Foundation for Educational Research has shown that reading standards in primary schools have declined dramatically over the past four or five years. We have heard today that if schools opt out of local authority control, that would raise standards. It is interesting to note that Her Majesty's inspectorate spent 300 days in opted-out schools, but no reports have been published. I have no doubt that reports would have been published if standards had risen.

The Queen's Speech refers to diversity. We know that "diversity" is a code word for selection and a return to the 11-plus—the examination that dares not speak its name. We have already heard that selection denies parental choice. That is nothing new. We have had the 11-plus and we have had selection. However, local authorities of all political controls moved against selection for good reasons. We all recognised and believed that childhood division would create a disadvantage for the majority. We cannot allow the Government to turn the clock back to the bad old days when 75 per cent. of our children were deemed failures at the age of 11.

Margaret Bondfield made her maiden speech as Member for Wallsend in 1926. She said:

"The Government appear to be trying to apply 19th century methods to a 20th century population, and it will not work".—[Official Report, 30 July 1926; Vol. 198, c. 2516.]

I do not believe that measures announced in the Queen's Speech will work. It fails to address the needs and realities of the 1990s. All that the Government can offer my constituents is a future made up of all their yesterdays. Our country and our people deserve better.

9.7 pm

I add my congratulations to those which have been showered on you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, from both sides of the House.

I also congratulate the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) on his maiden speech. I look forward to debating with him across the Chamber for many years to come.

When Madam Speaker called the first hon. Member to make his maiden speech during this debate on the Queen's Speech, that hon. Member said that he had been elected on his fifth attempt, something that he had in common with Madam Speaker. I have waited a little longer, although I also fought five general election campaigns before making this maiden speech.

I first stood as a Member of Parliament against the former Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Michael Foot, in the constituency then known as Ebbw Vale. I am sad that my arrival in this place coincides with his decision to depart it. Throughout the time that I have known him, he has been a man of the greatest courtesy, irrespective of our political differences.

I also have this claim to fame: at the last general election I managed to lose the Brecon and Radnor constituency by the smallest margin in the country, and I lost to Michael Foot by the largest margin. That is something to take with me. The experience of winning a seat, even by a vote as marginal as 130, is much better than losing by just 56 votes.

Politics are taken very seriously in my constituency. At the last general election the turnout in Brecon and Radnor, at 84 per cent., was the highest in the country. This time around the turnout was 86 per cent., but it is interesting to note that that was only the third highest. That shows me that there are people in my constituency who still believe that this is the cockpit of the nation, that this is where important decisions are taken, and that it is relevant and important that they should participate in elections.

My first words on being elected were of tribute to my predecessor, Mr. Richard Livsey, for all his hard work as constituency Member for Brecon and Radnor, and I am happy to repeat that tribute in this Chamber. As one would imagine from the political history of the seat, we have been keen political opponents for a considerable time, but that has never stopped us from enjoying a close friendship. I wish him well, although I hope that he decides to pursue an alternative career.

It would be remiss of me not to mention some of the other Members for Brecon and Radnor, starting with the example of constituency service set by the late Labour Member, Lord Watkins, the former Tudor Watkins, who held for Labour what is now regarded as one of the closest three-party marginals in the country for 25 years. He held the seat on the basis of the example of constituency service that he set, followed by his successor Caerwyn Roderick and then by the late Tom Hooson, whose untimely death led to the famous 1985 by-election.

It is my understanding that there has never been a one-term Member of Parliament for Brecon and Radnor and, as a supporter of tradition, I am hoping that that is a tradition that my electors will stick with. Having said that, I am aware that many hon. Members on both sides of the House and among the Liberal party have spent some considerable time campaigning in Brecon and Radnor. Most of them have come back from the constituency saying that it is one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, in Britain. I know that every Member of Parliament is bound to say in this Chamber that their constituency is the most beautiful, but I can say with some force that I have support from both sides of the Chamber for that proposition.

However, my constituency has its difficulties. It has the largest proportion of the land-mass of Wales and so 1 suppose that I may say that I speak for more of Wales than anyone else in the Chamber. It covers more than three quarters of a million acres of Wales, stretching from the upper Swansea valley to Shropshire, and from the suburbs of Abergavenny to the hinterland of Aberystwyth. It would not fit within the curtilage of the M25 motorway, which is a sign of how vast the constituency is.

It is well known that agriculture is an important industry in the constituency, and I welcome the observations in the Queen's Speech about agricultural marketing and reform of the common agricultural policy. I hope to return to those issues in this Chamber on other occasions.

During my maiden speech I must speak more fully on housing, on the basis that a large rural area such as my constituency often has difficulty persuading people that there is a rural housing problem. I recognise that there is such a problem. Until the election was called I enjoyed the honour of being the deputy chairman of Housing for Wales, Tai Cymru, the Welsh equivalent of the Housing Corporation. I am pleased that while I was involved in the board of that corporation we were able to convince the housing establishment—the housing professionals—that there really was a housing problem. We were able to commit some 27 per cent. of all Housing Corporation expenditure in Wales to trying to resolve that problem. I am pleased to see that now the Housing Corporation in England is starting to catch up.

I am disappointed at some observations in the amendment concerning the role of local government and criticising the Government's policy on housing as though housing were to be delivered only by local government. I am rather sorry that Opposition Members pay so little attention to the role of housing associations, their major achievements in recent years and the great support that they have had from the Government. Our Housing Corporation in Wales operates in positive partnership with local authorities. Local authorities have a role, yes —not perhaps as the provider, but as the enabler. Since Housing for Wales has been established it has been a key, leading body in developing the close relationship between local authorities and the Housing Corporation that is so important.

There has been a massive expansion in resources for the housing association movement and it is important that the money is targeted better than has been the case in the past. That is why we in Wales have decided that money must be directed, yes, to where local authorities say it is needed, but on the basis of their surveys of local opinion. Often local authorities adopt the stance that they always know best. It is important that they should be involved in liaising with local groups and local communities to assess exactly what the housing needs are, so that we are sure that money spent on housing goes where it should go.

I am pleased to say that the amount of finance made available to housing associations, particularly in Wales, has increased considerably. I was pleased to see the Conservative party's commitment in its manifesto to ensuring that the figures in the public expenditure line will be commitments for the years ahead. I see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales on the Front Bench and I say to him that I did not see any such commitment in the Welsh manifesto. I hope that there is nothing significant in that.

It is also important to recognise the role that private funding has played in the mixed financial regime with housing associations. Thirty per cent. or more of the expenditure available must come from the private sector. If it is to come, it must come on the basis of private funding being available. I congratulate the Government on commissioning a report from Hambro which, I understand, may have been in the Government's hands since January or February. So far the report has not been published. It is important that it should be published because it is necessary to take every available step to ensure that private funding exists.

I am a Welshman who has lived and worked in Wales all my life. I represent a Welsh constituency, but I am here as a Member of the United Kingdom Parliament. We have heard many remarks from Opposition Members about mandates. As a Member of this Parliament, I consider Wales to be an integral part of the United Kingdom, and I shall work during all the time that I am here to ensure that it remains so.

9.18 pm

May I offer you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my hearty congratulations on your appointment? You may recall that we first met 20 years ago when I was newly elected as a member of the Labour group on Islington borough council and you were leader of a rump of Conservative opposition members which had been reduced to five aldermen. My hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) did not intend to call you Mr. Deputy Mayor, but if he had said Mr. Former Alderman, he would have been correct. We are delighted to see you in your place.

It is my happy task to congratulate the 13 hon. Members who have made maiden speeches today as well as to congratulate the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), who has returned to the House for a third time. He is not so much a retread as an inner tube, but his speech was entertaining none the less.

There were eight maiden speeches by Labour hon. Members, including those from my hon. Friends the Members for Cambridge (Ms. Campbell), for Cannock and Burntwood (Dr. Wright), for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard), for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms. Morris) and for Stockport (Ms. Coffey) who took seats from Conservative Members at the general election. The fact that those five won those seats underlines the great difference between this Parliament and the previous one. Thanks to the effectiveness of our election campaign, the Government's majority has been reduced from more than 100 to just 21.

We have heard fine speeches from all my hon. Friends. I greatly enjoyed the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock and Burntwood, who spoke of the principle of alphabetical order and the way in which he suffered greatly as a result. His name begins with a W, and although mine begins with an S, I share his sense of discrimination. He also made a very important point, which the Secretary of State may wish to address, about the crisis in the recruitment of parents and other members of the public to serve as school governors. That crisis is caused by the fact that the nature of the job has changed, from one of giving support and assistance to the education of children within the school to the often unpalatable task of having to make cuts in budgets and deciding which teachers should be sacked or which budgets for books should be cut.

I greatly enjoyed the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, which is near to the area where I was born. He may not know—it is a little known fact—that for three weeks in 1965 my sister and I were employed full time by the Labour party to canvass the whole of the constituency as a prelude to a famous by-election win which took place some months later. I was paid the princely sum of £7 per week, and on the basis of that £21—

Too much.

That was before the idea of the minimum wage had even passed the lips of Labour spokespersons.

On the basis of the money I earned, I bought myself a suit. I still have that suit, and I can still get into it. [Interruption.] The good men and women of Marks and Spencer would be offended by the suggestion that the suit I am wearing today is 28 years old.

We heard fine speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Yardley and for Stockport, and I shall return to them. There were also fine contributions from the hon. Members for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth), for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland), for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans), and for Bath (Mr. Foster), as well as from the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Walker).

I also warmly congratulate the right hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten) on his appointment as the new Secretary of State in the freshly renamed Department for Education. The right hon. Gentleman comes to his post with many advantages. He knows more than a little about education, but perhaps his greatest advantage is that he is not the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), his predecessor who is now Home Secretary. Though that right hon. and learned Gentleman often entertained the House with his unusual combination of bravado and invective, the world of parents, governors, teachers and pupils, over whom he temporarily presided, was far from entertained.

The previous Secretary of State left the education service in turmoil, in a worse state even than he had found it 16 months before. He turned teacher training upside down, he pre-emptorily decided that history should end in 1963 and he planned the wholesale dismemberment of Her Majesty's inspectorate and the local inspectorate of schools, and the privatisation of what remained. Worse, he gave the impression of disinterest in the views and opinions of teachers and parents and rarely visited any state schools.

The former Secretary of State, now the Home Secretary, is, I believe, a practising agnostic. He has been seen inside a church less often than he was seen inside a school. The new Secretary of State, on the other hand, is a devout member of the Roman Catholic church and in a now celebrated article in The Spectator—which, fortunately for him, hit the stands after, rather than before, the election—he enlisted the assistance of the Almighty to explain away Conservative Administrations' lamentable record on law and order, namely, the doubling of crime in less than a decade. The Secretary of State said that it was all a consequence of declining church attendance and a

"dwindling belief in redemption and damnation which has led to a loss of fear of the eternal consequences of goodness and badness."

We shall, no doubt, be hearing more about the Almighty in relation to education policy. Even now, I understand that hard-pressed teachers of disaffected adolescents in inner city schools are clamouring for hell to be officially made part of the national curriculum, most likely in exchange for craft, design and technology, and personal and social education.

In his speech on Wednesday on the Loyal Address, the Prime Minister said:

"Our target is to raise standards, widen choice and open up opportunity for hundreds of thousands of children".— [Official Report, 6 May 1992; Vol. 207, c. 71.]

Opportunity, choice, standards—they are easy words to say and we can, and do, all drink to them. Their practice, however, is a great deal more difficult, and it is the likely practice of the Government's education policies and their probable consequence that I shall address tonight.

There are many policies on which there has been broad agreement in the Chamber, as with the introduction of the national curriculum and the local management of schools, and on many others there could easily be agreement, such as the rapid expansion of nursery education, for which the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden) called in an effective speech, or the serious integration of academic and vocational qualifications.

In the time available to me today, however, I shall deal with one policy on which there is far less agreement—opting out and the extension of the grant-maintained sector. Of all Conservative education policies, none has been sold more heavily on that litany of opportunity, choice and standards than the policy of opting out. Paradoxically, of all Conservative education policies, none contains within it more potential for reducing opportunity and parental choice than opting out, while doing nothing to raise educational standards.

Why the present Administration should have turned opting out into an article of Conservative faith is beyond me. It was, it may be recalled, dreamed up in the early months of 1987 by the Downing street policy unit as no more than a crude wheeze to destabilise a few allegedly unpopular inner city Labour local education authorities. It was a policy forced on a wholly sceptical Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker), who publicly clashed with the then Prime Minister on its likely impact. She said that by 1991 more than half of all schools would have opted out, but the right hon. Member for Mole Valley wisely predicted that only a few schools would opt out of the local authority system.

Despite the cynical enticement of schools named for closure then being offered opt-out as a salvation—despite the naked bribery of opt-out schools—by the last election, only 200 schools, less than 1 per cent., had opted out of the local authority system, and most of those were to be found in a handful not of Labour authorities but of low-spending Conservative authorities.

Opting out has now moved up from wheeze to dogma, with Tory Members and the Conservative press openly encouraging an avalanche of opting out, with the end of local democratic involvement in the school system as we know it. The Secretary of State said yesterday that he anticipated that the floodgates for opting out were now open, but The Daily Telegraph wrote in an editorial last Wednesday:

"A serious policy vacuum is becoming apparent at the heart of the Government's policies for secondary education."

It went on:

"Unless it is addressed soon, the opting-out process could become anarchic and thereby discredited."

That policy vacuum exists because of a central problem which the Secretary of State's predecessor and the Prime Minister have repeatedly ducked. The question is what kind of system will schools be opting into, not that from which they will be opting out. What lies beyond the floodgates of which the Secretary of State spoke yesterday is turbulence, uncertainty and territory that is unknown, not calm, charted waters. In that territory schools and their pupils could easily become the casualties. The wider the floodgates and the more schools opt out, the less will the past be any guide to the future.

I shall deal with five linked issues: cash, selection, parental choice, administration and standards. Roman Catholic bishops held a conference 10 days ago during which they expressed their deep unease about the prospects for opting out. The bishops said:

"We are deeply opposed to the considerable imbalances in funding brought about by the administration of the grant maintained school system, and we shall press for the removal of preferential funding for such schools."

When opting out was first put before the House five years ago, solemn undertakings were given by Ministers and by the then Prime Minister that local education authority schools and opt-out schools would be treated in a financially neutral way. As opting out began to flop, bribes were offered by Ministers and were taken.

Most schools which have opted out so far have done so simply for the money. The average sized secondary school has been at least £155,000 better off in its first year as a result of opting out, with capital funding running at twice the rate for local authority schools. Some of the extra cash has been taken directly from other LEA schools, which has impoverished them, but much has come from extra Exchequer expenditure. Immoral such bribes may have been, but with opting out on such a scale their costs were easily absorbable.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is not surprising that there were additional capital grants for some schools in the county of Lancashire, schools which had been grossly starved of funds and which therefore had to make up a great deal of leeway? Those schools, two of which are in my constituency, had been starved over the years by Lancashire county council. Having had the wisdom to opt out, they are now receiving the money that previously had been devoted to administration and democracy in county hall. They are now doing exceptionally well. Many such schools would not have received a bean from the county.

The hon. Lady is right to say that three or four schools out of hundreds that have opted out in Lancashire were starved of cash for their capital building needs. Where she is wrong—she knows this—is in suggesting that Lancashire county council is responsible. She came with me on deputation after deputation to Ministers, and she knows that it was the Conservative Government who starved the schools of funds, not the failure of Lancashire county council.

The question raised by the Catholic bishops and the question now being raised by governors, parents and local authorities throughout the land is whether the bribes can continue. I put the question to the Secretary of State, and I ask him to answer it. If, as the Government predict, 2,000 more schools opt out, that will cost the Exchequer—I leave aside the moneys that will be taken from local authorities and local authority schools—an extra £300 million. If another 4,000 schools opt out, that will cost the Exchequer another £600 million. Does that money exist? Are schools which now opt out to be offered the same level of bribes —"financial incentives", to use the Prime Minister's words —that schools have been offered in the past? I offer the Secretary of State the opportunity to explain. Come on —answer the question! This is a crucial issue for every school in the land. If the Secretary of State is unwilling to answer now, he had better answer in the course of his speech, because parents and governors have a right to know whether the same sort of bribes that have hitherto been offered will continue in the future.

A second issue, even more important than whether the level of financial incentives will continue, is selection. An increase in opting out will inexorably lead to greater selection at 11, since the schools and not the local education authorities will make the selection. Some grant-maintained schools have made it explicit that they want to turn from being comprehensives to being grammar schools. In any area we may rapidly see the creation of a rigid hierarchy of schools, with favoured, well-funded opt-outs at the top—grammar schools in all but name—and a second tier of council schools, secondary moderns or no hope schools, to use the words of The Daily Telegraph, at the bottom.

Time and again, during the election campaign and before, I pressed the former Secretary of State to say whether this two-tier system—this recreation of the secondary modern schools—was what the Conservative party wanted. Time and again he dodged the issue, but whether and how children are given their life chances at 11 cannot be a matter for agnosticism. Nor, as The Daily Telegraph witheringly commented in the same editorial, can the Government

"maintain its pretence of neutrality over the future of comprehensives by implying that it is simply allowing a hundred flowers to bloom".

Selection was never mentioned in the Tories' manifesto, yet selection at 11 there will be if opting out becomes the norm—and it will be far less fair and far more random selection than ever it was under the 11-plus. That, too, was a point made by the Catholic bishops, who said that

"Grant-maintained status would bring a random return to selection, which leads to the neglect of the less able or disadvantaged children."

The Secretary of State should also recognise a point in the powerful speech by his hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Walden), who said that if the Government continue to have no clear policy on whether they favour comprehensive schools or some sort of explicit selection, the consequence will be random selection and a primitive and disorganised policy from which the Conservatives will be the losers.

As the local authority system breaks up and as competition between schools intensifies, so, too, will parental choice decrease. As my hon. Friend the Member for Yardley pointed out, parents will no longer choose schools—schools will choose parents. In the four years since the Education Reform Act 1988, the proportion of parents successfully getting their first choice of school has fallen, and in areas with large numbers of schools which have already opted out, the anarchy predicted by The Daily Telegraph has already occurred. In the Tory borough of Bromley in London, where eight schools have opted out, 225 pupils and their parents have thus far had no choice of school because it has been impossible to offer them a choice under that authority due to the multiple applications to the opted-out schools now outside the authority's control. As The Times commented in an editorial,

"to pretend that the selective opt-out structure emerging as government policy has anything to do with parental choice is a deception".

Then there is the issue of the future administration of secondary schools. Opting out will result in the nationalisation of the school system—in its central takeover by Whitehall. But schools are not islands; their provision must be planned and financed and if not by local authorities, then by whom? Are we to expect under the terms of the much promised White Paper that Whitehall officials will administer the whole school system, or are we to expect appointed boards packed with Conservative place men and women, as happened with health authorities and NHS trusts? The Secretary of State had better tell us in his wind-up speech.

Lastly, the largest question of all: what is the purpose of the journey into the unknown that mass opting out will entail? For Labour, the only test of any education policy is whether it will increase choice and opportunity and raise the standards of education for every child. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wallsend pointed out, there is no evidence that the opting out that has occurred so far has led to higher standards.

Her Majesty's inspectors have spent 300 days on greater and more intensive inspection of grant-maintained schools in their four years of existence than any local authority schools have ever enjoyed. Yet, despite more than three years' intensive HMI attention, not one report has been published by HMI on grant-maintained schools. If those HMI visits and reports spelled out that opting out was leading to higher standards than would otherwise be the case, one can bet that the Government would have published those reports. They have shrouded those reports in secrecy, because they know the truth—that opting out has led to no discernible improvement in education standards. Nor can it. What it has done is to lead to a divided system, a two-tier system, and selection by the back door.

One point on which we should all agree is that standards of education in Britain for many children are not so high as they are in many comparable countries and not so high as they could and should be. Where the Government's policies are likely to lead to an increase in standards and an increase in choice and opportunities for every child, those policies will have our support. But where those policies seek to create a future out of a discredited past, they will have our relentless opposition.

In the article in The Spectator entitled

"There is a choice—good or evil",

the Secretary of State opened with the touching words:

"I believe in God. I worry about Him. I think that He probably worries about me."

The Secretary of State is not the only one, and he had better understand that his actions will be judged not only by the Almighty in the world to come, but by parents, teaches, governors and pupils in this world who want an end to underfunding, an end to pay-as-you-learn, and an end to double standards, and who want instead real investment and the choice and opportunity which come from delivering the highest standards of education to every child.

9.41 pm

I rise in what I understand in footballing parlance is called injury time, with 19 minutes to go to reply to the debate.

During the afternoon, Madam Speaker, your ears must have been burning while hon. Member after hon. Member paid you compliments in your absence. They will all be there in Hansard tomorrow for you to read at breakfast.

We have had a remarkable number of maiden speeches of extremely high quality. The debate started off as a bit of a heritage trail around Britain's historic cities, kicked off by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Ms. Campbell), followed by the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) and completed by my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth)—a sort of Baedeker tour of the tourist spots of the United Kingdom.

I greatly appreciated the graceful remarks made by the hon. Member for Cambridge about Sir Robert Rhodes James, as I am sure did others. The hon. Members for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Ainsworth) and for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Cunningham), neither of whom would claim a major part in the tourist guides for their constituencies—[Interruption.]—no, not because of the damage caused to the Baedeker guides but because of the damage that the Baedeker raids did to Coventry during the second world war. Both hon. Members spoke with great feeling about their constituencies and I congratulate them on what they said.

The hon. Member for Cannock and Burntwood (Dr. Wright) made some exceptionally interesting remarks, including showing a bit of independence, saying that he supported some of the Government's education legislation. The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Gerrard) was extremely generous about his predecessor, Hugo Summerson. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms. Morris) was equally generous about David Gilroy Bevan and the victor in Stockport over the Liberals was very generous— [Interruption]—over the Conservatives: we lost the seat. That was a deliberate mistake put in to ensure that hon. Members are learning the constituencies. We shall miss Tony Favell very much indeed. The hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) has come here with a reputation for being a bit of a left-winger, so my north-eastern spies tell me. Such people are to be cherished in these revisionist times.

After the hon. Member for Bath, we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester, who comes to the House with a reputation for humour, and he sustained it in his excellent maiden speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) spoke fluently without notes—a talent that was explained by his fellow countryman, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth), as owing to the fact that he is Scottish.

My hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring was followed by another Scot, my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), who spoke fluently and warmly about his constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Lady Olga Maitland) paid tribute not only to Sir Neil Macfarlane but to two remarkable residents of Cheam—the legendary Tony Hancock and Harry Secombe.

Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Evans), who scored a famous victory—and I will get it right this time —over the Liberals, also spoke without notes, showing that Welsh Members of Parliament can do that as well as Scottish right hon. and hon. Members who come south of the border.

We were fortunate this afternoon to hear maiden speeches of such quality.

I cannot refer in the short amount of injury time available to me to all the other interventions, but they included some frightening words from my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) about the future of Select Committees. I guess that wiser persons than myself listened with some trembling to his remarks. My right hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) said clearly that the Opposition were out of touch in their opposition to grant-maintained schools—and so they are. That view was echoed in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway).

We heard a couple of notable and thought-provoking interventions by my hon. Friends the Members for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) and for Buckingham (Mr. Walden). I imagine that I will be debating with them a great deal in the coming years.

Before turning to Labour's contribution to the debate, I shall refer briefly to the Liberal Democrats. It might be worth dwelling for a moment or two on the lamentable condition of their party, which, having been rebuffed by the British electorate, is now making advances to the poor old Labour party. Labour needs the amorous advances of the Liberal Democrats like a vegetarian needs a plate of raw meat. I suspect that if there is ever a coming together, it will be the Liberals who are gobbled up.

I have nothing against individual Liberal Members of Parliament. Some of them are rather nice. I am surprised that many of them remain in the Liberal party. For many months, I thought that the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell), with his cutaway collars and striped shirts, was a member of the Conservative party, and I bought him a number of drinks on that basis.

There is also that nice teenage president of the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy). I would like the party's deputy leader to pass on to that hon. Gentleman the information that if he chooses to cross the Floor of the House, I am authorised to offer him a job as my assistant Parliamentary Private Secretary. I have nothing against any Liberal Members of Parliament, and certainly not against our newcomer, the hon. Member for Bath.

The general election campaign did, however, provide one service to the public: it revealed for the first time to a wider audience the true face—and a very disagreeable face it is too, being unpleasant, personal and vindictive—of the more extreme Liberal activists in this country. It is a very ugly face indeed. They tormented my hon. Friend the Member for Littleborough and Saddleworth (Mr. Dickens) with personal attacks of a most shameful kind. My hon. Friend is a big enough man to deal with them, but he is still suffering—he is unable to be here this evening.

Those of my right hon. and hon. Friends who went to Cheltenham during the campaign came back reporting the insidious drip, drip of innuendo. "Vote for the local man," the Liberals said. Then there were the disgraceful scenes in Bath. I am sure that the new Member for Bath—whom I congratulate on his election victory—dissociates himself completely from those. There was organised chanting, and organised shouting down of our former right hon. Friend Christopher Patten. That was a blot on the whole election campaign.

Order. I should like to hear more about the amendment now.

You know what it is like with inexperienced Secretaries of State, Madam Speaker. I shall now deal with the amendment, but I hope that my hon. Friends will remember what I have said.

The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) was very cheerful. I appreciated his speech: it was an extremely good speech, with some good jokes. That is perhaps all the more remarkable because at present it cannot be much fun being a Labour party member concerned with Labour education or environmental policy.

Whoever wins the great Labour leadership battle, there may well be a reshuffle of responsibilities. I am sure that the hon. Member for Blackburn will play a starring role whatever happens; it is the question of who may succeed as Opposition education spokesman that worries me. I have heard ugly rumours that it may be the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott). That would be a serious matter.

Certainly, we shall not know for a long time what Labour's three Rs are. Will the Labour party be attracted by reading, writing and retrenchment, under the austere hand of the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith); or by the reading, writing and radicalism of the deeply dangerous hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould)? We shall have to wait and see. All I know is that the Labour party has been spared the reading, writing and revolution promised by the hon. Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone).

Whatever the direction in which the new leader of the party takes Labour's education policies, it will presumably be a case of a new set of three Rs. It will be "retreat, retreat, retreat" from every radical Labour policy on to Conservative ground. That will happen time after time. As experience has shown us over the past 13 years, what is outrageously conservative one year in education policy is Labour party policy in the next manifesto. That has happened time and again.

The hon. Member for Blackburn talks of the Conservative party's record on education. I am very happy to talk about our record. Our schools are being transformed: the facts speak for themselves. The national curriculum is transforming pupils' expectations and ensuring that all children have the core education that they deeply deserve. That is true equality of opportunity—Conservative equality of opportunity.

Examination results are getting better and better. Record numbers of our young people—this point should not be diminished by Opposition Members—are now staying on after the age of 16. Record numbers of people are now training to become teachers, and local management of schools is liberating schools up and down the country. I do not know of a single school with LMS, let alone grant-maintained status, that wishes to return to the bad old days of local authority domination.

Choice and diversity have now become a reality for increasing numbers of parents and their children, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth predicted all those years ago. Grant-maintained schools are a hit with parents. A revolution is beginning to sweep across the education landscape of the country. I should be happy to arrange a visit to any grant-maintained school in the country for the hon. Member for Blackburn and his Front-Bench team: it is clear that they need to be educated in excellence, which is what Conservative party policy is about.

I expect the revolution in our schools to gather pace in the years to come. I expect our schools, when all the reforms have been fully implemented, to be the envy of the western world. I want parents to be able to enjoy real choice, real diversity and higher expectations for their children. I expect them to play their part by helping their schools in many different ways. I certainly expect to see an ever-increasingly skilled and educated work force.

Above all else, however, as a result of our curriculum reforms and testing, I expect our children to do two things. I guess that the first will be laughed at by the Opposition, but I intend to explain what it is. I expect children to go to school throughout their school career and to stay there to be educated. I am simply not prepared to allow truancy levels to remain at the level at which they are now. What is the point of having good teachers, fine schools and all that public expenditure if children are not at school to enjoy that experience? Secondly, I expect our children to be taught to think for themselves, to read and to write properly, to spell and to do their sums—all the fundamental aims of a good education system.

Further thoughts about the structure of education will be made clear in the White Paper that I am now writing, which will be brought before the House in due course. Undoubtedly, it will be opposed by the Labour party on publication date, but it will be Labour party policy 18 months later—as it always is. Every time that we have introduced constructive proposals to improve education, the Labour party has opposed them and then changed its mind.

Look at the Labour party's record. In 1987, Labour claimed that we wanted to introduce a national curriculum only in order to give us a monopoly of thought in education. A few years later the national curriculum is Labour party policy. Look at tests. The Labour party said that tests would lead to arrogance or failure. Now it wants them. Testing is part of Labour policy. Local management of schools was condemned during the fun-filled 1989 Labour party conference. Hands up any Labour Member who remembers that with pride. I cannot see anyone doing so. Now the Labour party supports it.

Then there is opting-out. Just five weeks ago the Labour party made a pledge to ditch all our education reforms. Grant-maintained schools, local management of schools and city technology colleges would all be thrown out of the window. Now, five weeks later, after the Labour party's fourth general election defeat, revisionism has set in. Its leading education adviser, Professor Tim Brighouse, Professor of Education at Keele university, says that Labour should ditch its traditional commitment to comprehensives, let state schools develop in their own way and fund an increasing number of assisted places. Just five weeks after the election! I rubbed my eyes in disbelief.

I was not sure what the Labour party's official response would be, but one of the Labour party's spokesmen on schools was quoted yesterday in one of our great national newspapers as saying that Professor Brighouse's ideas were very sparky and deserved attention. There are a lot more sparky ideas coming from our side of the Chamber.

Because the Queen's Speech has been prepared by a Conservative Government, we have been spared the tired and reactionary programme that the Labour party would have given us. Had the Labour party been sitting on this side of the Chamber now, it would have been repealing the rates and beginning to renationalise industries such as the water industry that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment took so successfully into private ownership when he was Minister of State. The citizens charter would have been torn up on the first day of a Labour Government, with its commitment to public services of a high quality. Worst of all, the most important and fundamental social reforms of the last quarter of this century—our education and health reforms—would have been torn up and ditched. By the end of this Parliament, the British people, not the Conservative party, will have decided that those reforms are truly irreversible.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The House divided: Ayes 292, Noes 323.

Division No. 2]	[9.59 pm
AYES
Abbott, Ms Diane	Caborn, Richard
Adams, Mrs Irene	Callaghan, Jim
Ainger, Nicholas	Campbell, Ms Anne (C'bridge)
Ainsworth, Robert (Cov'try NE)	Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)
Allen, Graham	Campbell, Ronald (Blyth V)
Alton, David	Cambell-Savours, D. N.
Anderson, Donald (Swansea E)	Canavan, Dennis
Anderson, Ms Janet	Cann, James
Armstrong, Hilary	Carlile, Alexander (Montgomry)
Ashton, Joe	Chisholm, Malcolm
Austin-Walker, John	Clapham, Michael
Banks, Tony (Newham NW)	Clark, Dr David (South Shields)
Barnes, Harry	Clarke, Eric (Midlothian)
Barron, Kevin	Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)
Battle, John	Clwyd, Mrs Ann
Bayley, Hugh	Coffey, Ms Ann
Beckett, Margaret	Cohen, Harry
Beggs, Roy	Connarty, Michael
Beith, A. J.	Cook, Robin (Livingston)
Bell, Stuart	Corbett, Robin
Benn, Rt Hon Tony	Corbyn, Jeremy
Bennett, Andrew F.	Corston, Ms Jean
Benton, Joe	Cousins, Jim
Bermingham, Gerald	Cox, Tom
Berry, Roger	Cryer, Bob
Betts, Clive	Cummings, John
Blair, Tony	Cunliffe, Lawrence
Blunkett, David	Cunningham, Jim (Covy SE)
Boateng, Paul	Cunningham, Dr John (C'p'l'nd)
Boyce, Jimmy	Dafis, Cynog
Boyes, Roland	Dalyell, Tam
Bradley, Keith	Darling, Alistair
Bray, Dr Jeremy	Davidson, Ian
Brown, Gordon (Dunfermline E)	Davies, Bryan (Oldham C'tral)
Brown, N. (N'c'tle upon Tyne E)	Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)
Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)	Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)
Burden, Richard	Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'dge H'I)
Byers, Stephen	Denham, John

Dewar, Donald	Kennedy, Ms Jane (L'p'l Br'g'n)
Dixon, Don	Khabra, Piara
Dobson, Frank	Kilfoyle, Peter
Donohoe, Brian	Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil (Islwyn)
Dowd, Jim	Kirkwood, Archy
Dunnachie, Jimmy	Leighton, Ron
Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth	Lestor, Joan (Eccles)
Eagle, Ms Angela	Lewis, Terry
Enright, Derek	Litherland, Robert
Etherington, William	Livingstone, Ken
Evans, John (St Helens N)	Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)
Ewing, Mrs Margaret	Llwyd, Elfyn
Fatchett, Derek	Loyden, Eddie
Faulds, Andrew	Lynne, Ms Liz
Field, Frank (Birkenhead)	McAllion, John
Fisher, Mark	McAvoy, Thomas
Flynn, Paul	McCartney, Ian
Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)	MacDonald, Calum
Foster, Derek (B 'p Auckland)	McFall, John
Foster, Donald (Bath)	McGrady, Eddie
Foulkes, George	McKelvey, William
Fraser, John	Mackinlay, Andrew
Fyfe, Maria	McLeish, Henry
Galbraith, Sam	Maclennan, Robert
Galloway, George	McMaster, Gordon
Gapes, Michael	McNamara, Kevin
Garrett, John	McWilliam, John
Gerrard, Neil	Madden, Max
Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John	Maginnis, Ken
Godman, Dr Norman A.	Mahon, Alice
Godsiff, Roger	Mandelson, Peter
Golding, Mrs Llin	Marek, Dr John
Gordon, Mildred	Marshall, David (Shettleston)
Gould, Bryan	Marshall, Jim (Leicester, S)
Graham, Thomas	Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)
Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)	Martlew, Eric
Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)	Maxton, John
Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)	Meale, Alan
Grocott, Bruce	Michael, Alun
Gunnell, John	Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)
Hain, Peter	Milburn, Alan
Hall, Mike	Miller, Andrew
Hanson, David	Mitchell, Austin (Gt Grimsby)
Hardy, Peter	Molyneaux, Rt Hon James
Harman, Ms Harriet	Moonie, Dr Lewis
Harvey, Nick	Morgan, Rhodri
Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy	Morley, Elliot
Henderson, Doug	Morris, Rt Hon A. (Wy'nshawe)
Heppell, John	Morris, Estelle (B'ham Yardley)
Hill, Keith (Streatham)	Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)
Hinchliffe, David	Mowlam, Marjorie
Hoey, Kate (Vauxhail)	Mudie, George
Hogg, Norman (Cumbernauld)	Mullin, Chris
Home Robertson, John	Murphy, Paul
Hood, Jimmy	O'Brien, Michael (N W' kshire)
Hoon, Geoff	O'Brien, William (Normanton)
Howarth, George (Knowsley N)	Olner, William
Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)	O'Neill, Martin
Hoyle, Doug	Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Hughes, Kevin (Doncaster N)	Parry, Robert
Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)	Patchett, Terry
Hughes, Roy (Newport E)	Pendry, Tom
Hughes, Simon (Southwark)	Pickthall, Colin
Hutton, John	Pike, Peter L.
Ingram, Adam	Pope, Greg
Jackson, Ms Glenda (H'stead)	Powell, Ray (Ogmore)
Jackson, Ms Helen (Shef'ld, H)	Prentice, Ms Bridget (Lew' E)
Jamieson, David	Prentice, Gordon (Pendle)
Janner, Greville	Prescott, John
Johnston, Sir Russell	Primarolo, Dawn
Jones, Barry (Alyn and D'side)	Purchase, Ken
Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)	Quin, Ms Joyce
Jones, Jon Owen (Cardiff C)	Radice, Giles
Jones, Ms Lynne (B'ham S O)	Randall, Stuart
Jones, Martyn (Clwyd, SW)	Raynsford, Nick
Jones, Nigel (Cheltenham)	Redmond, Martin
Jowell, Ms Tessa	Richardson, Jo
Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald	Robertson, George (Hamilton)
Keen, Alan	Robinson, Geoffrey (Co'try NW)
Kennedy, Charles (Ross, C & S)	Roche, Ms Barbara

Rogers, Allan	Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)
Rooker, Jeff	Taylor, Matthew (Truro)
Rooney, Terry	Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)
Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)	Tipping, Paddy
Ross, William (E Londonderry)	Trimble, David
Rowlands, Ted	Tyler, Paul
Ruddock, Joan	Vaz, Keith
Sedgemore, Brian	Walker, A. Cecil (Belfast N)
Sheerman, Barry	Walker, Rt Hon Harold
Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert	Wallace, James
Shore, Rt Hon Peter	Walley, Joan
Short, Clare	Wardell, Gareth (Gower)
Simpson, Alan	Wareing, Robert N
Skinner, Dennis	Watson, Mike (Glasgow C)
Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)	Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)
Smith, C. (Isl'ton S & F'sbury)	Wicks, Malcolm H
Smith, Rt Hon John (M'kl'ds E)	Wigley, Dafydd
Smith, Llewellyn (Blaenau G'nt)	Williams, Rt Hon Alan (Sw'n W)
Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)	Williams, Alan (Carmarthen)
Snape, Peter	Wilson, Brian
Soley, Clive	Winnick, David
Spearing, Nigel	Wise, Mrs Audrey
Spellar, John	Worthington, Tony
Squire, Ms Rachel (D'mline W)	Wray, Jimmy
Steel, Rt Hon Sir David	Wright, Anthony
Steinberg, Gerry	Young, David (Bolton SE)
Stevenson, George
Stott, Roger	Tellers for the Ayes:
Strang, Gavin	Mr. Ken Eastham and
Straw, Jack	Mr. Eric Illsley.
NOES
Adley, Robert	Carlisle, John (Luton North)
Ainsworth, Peter (East Surrey)	Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Aitken, Jonathan	Carrington, Matthew
Alexander, Richard	Carttiss, Michael
Alison, Rt Hon Michael (Selby)	Cash, William
Allason, Rupert (Torbay)	Channon, Rt Hon Paul
Amess, David	Chaplin, Mrs Judith
Ancram, Michael	Churchill, Mr
Arbuthnot, James	Clapplson, William
Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)	Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)	Clarke, Rt Hon Kenneth (Ruclif)
Ashby, David	Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey
Aspinwall, Jack	Coe, Sebastian
Atkins, Robert	Colvin, Michael
Atkinson, David (Bour'mouth E)	Congdon, David
Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)	Conway, Derek
Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)	Coombs, Anthony (Wyre For'st)
Baker, Nicholas (Dorset North)	Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Baldry, Tony	Cope, Rt Hon Sir John
Banks, Matthew (Southport)	Cormack, Patrick
Banks, Robert (Harrogate)	Couchman, James
Bates, Michael	Cran, James
Batiste, Spencer	Currie, Mrs Edwina (S D'by'ire)
Beliingham, Henry	Curry, David (Skipton & Ripon)
Bendall, Vivian	Davies, Quentin (Stamford)
Beresford, Sir Paul	Davis, David (Boothferry)
Biffen, Rt Hon John	Day, Stephen
Blackburn, Dr John G.	Deva, Niranjan
Body, Sir Richard	Devlin, Tim
Booth, Hartley	Dickens, Geoffrey
Boswell, Tim	Dicks, Terry
Bottomley, Peter	Dorrell, Stephen
Bottomley, Rt Hon Virginia	Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Bowden, Andrew	Dover, Den
Bowis, John	Duncan, Alan
Boyson, Rt Hon Sir Rhodes	Duncan-Smith, Iain
Brandreth, Gyles	Dunn, Bob
Brazier, Julian	Dykes, Hugh
Bright, Graham	Eggar, Tim
Brooke, Rt Hon Peter	Elletson, Harold
Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thorpes)	Emery, Sir Peter
Browning, Mrs. Angela	Evans, David (Welwyn Hatfield)
Bruce, Ian (S Dorset)	Evans, Jonathan (Brecon)
Budgen, Nicholas	Evans, Nigel (Ribble Valley)
Burns, Simon	Evans, Roger (Monmouth)
Burt, Alistair	Evennett, David
Butler, Peter	Faber, David
Butterfill, John	Fabricant, Michael

Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas	Jackson, Robert (Wantage)
Fenner, Dame Peggy	Jenkin, Bernard
Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)	Jessel, Toby
Fishburn, John Dudley	Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)
Forman, Nigel	Jones, Robert B. (W H 'f' rdshire)
Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)	Jopling, Rt Hon Michael
Forth, Eric	Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine
Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman	Key, Robert
Fox, Dr Liam	Kilfedder, James
Fox, Sir Marcus	King, Rt Hon Tom
Freeman, Roger	Kirkhope, Timothy
French, Douglas	Knapman, Roger
Fry, Peter	Knight, Mrs Angela (Erewash)
Gallie, Philip	Knight, Greg (Derby N)
Gardiner, Sir George	Knight, Dame Jill (Bir'm E'st'n)
Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan	Knox, David
Garnier, Edward	Kynoch, George (Kincardine)
Gill, Christopher	Lait, Ms Jacqui
Gillan, Ms Cheryl	Lamont, Rt Hon Norman
Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair	Lang, Rt Hon Ian
Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles	Lawrence, Ivan
Gorman, Mrs Teresa	Legg, Barry
Gorst, John	Leigh, Edward
Grant, Sir Anthony (Cambs SW)	Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark
Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)	Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)
Greenway, John (Ryedale)	Lidington, David
Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth, N)	Lilley, Rt Hon Peter
Grylls, Sir Michael	Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)
Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn	Lord, Michael
Hague, William	Luff, Peter
Hamilton, Rt Hon Archie	Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas
Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)	MacGregor, Rt Hon John
Hampson, Dr Keith	MacKay, Andrew
Hannam, Sir John	Maclean, David
Hargreaves, Andrew	McLoughlin, Patrick
Harris, David	McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick
Haselhurst, Alan	Madel, David
Hawkins, Nicholas	Maitland, Lady Olga
Hawks ley, Warren	Major, Rt Hon John
Hayes, Jerry	Malone, Gerald
Heald, Oliver	Mans, Keith
Heath, Rt Hon Sir Edward	Marland, Paul
Heathcoat-Amory, David	Marlow, Tony
Hendry, Charles	Marshall, John (Hendon S)
Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael	Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)
Hicks, Robert	Martin, David (Portsmouth S)
Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.	Mates, Michael
Hill, James (Southampton Test)	Mawhinney, Dr Brian
Hogg, Rt Hon Douglas (G'tham)	Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick
Horam, John	Mellor, Rt Hon David
Hordern, Sir Peter	Merchant, Piers
Howard, Rt Hon Michael	Milligan, Stephen
Howarth, Alan (Strat'rd-on-A)	Mills, Iain
Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)	Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)
Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)	Mitchell, Sir David (Hants NW)
Hughes Robert G. (Harrow W)	Moate, Roger
Hunt, Rt Hon David (Wirral W)	Monro, Sir Hector
Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)	Montgomery, Sir Fergus
Hunter, Andrew	Moss, Malcolm
Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas	Needham, Richard
Jack, Michael	Nelson, Anthony

Neubert, Sir Michael	Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John
Newton, Rt Hon Tony	Steen, Anthony
Nicholls, Patrick	Stephen, Michael
Nicholson, David (Taunton)	Stern, Michael
Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)	Stewart, Allan
Norris, Steve	Streeter, Gary
Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley	Sumberg, David
Oppenheim, Phillip	Sweeney, Walter
Ottaway, Richard	Sykes, John
Page, Richard	Tapsell, Sir Peter
Paice, James	Taylor, Ian (Esher)
Patnick, Irvine	Taylor, John M. (Solihull)
Patten, Rt Hon John	Taylor, Sir Teddy (Southend, E)
Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey	Temple-Morris, Peter
Pawsey, James	Thomason, Roy
Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth	Thompson, Sir Donald (C'er V)
Pickles, Eric	Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)
Porter, Barry (Wirral S)	Thornton, Malcolm
Porter, David (Waveney)	Thurnham, Peter
Portillo, Rt Hon Michael	Townend, John (Bridlington)
Powell, William (Corby)	Townsend, Cyril D. (B'xl'yh'ath)
Rathbone, Tim	Tracey, Richard
Redwood, John	Tredinnick, David
Renton, Rt Hon Tim	Trend, Michael
Richards, Rod	Trotter, Neville
Riddick, Graham	Twinn, Dr Ian
Robathan, Andrew	Vaughan, Sir Gerard
Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn	Viggers, Peter
Robertson, Raymond (Ab'd'n S)	Waldegrave, Rt Hon William
Robinson, Mark (Somerton)	Walden, George
Roe, Mrs Marion (Broxbourne)	Walker, Bill (N Tayside)
Rowe, Andrew (Mid Kent)	Waller, Gary
Rumbold, Rt Hon Dame Angela	Ward, John
Ryder, Rt Hon Richard	Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)
Sackville, Tom	Waterson, Nigel
Sainsbury, Rt Hon Tim	Watts, John
Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas	Wheeler, Sir John
Shaw, David (Dover)	Whitney, Ray
Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)	Whittingdale, John
Shephard, Rt Hon Gillian	Widdecombe, Ann
Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)	Wiggin, Jerry
Shersby, Michael	Wilkinson, John
Sims, Roger	Willetts, David
Skeet, Sir Trevor	Wilshire, David
Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)	Winterton, Mrs Ann (Congleton)
Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)	Winterton, Nicholas (Macc'f'ld)
Soames, Nicholas	Wolfson, Mark
Speed, Keith	Wood, Timothy
Spencer, Sir Derek	Yeo, Tim
Spicer, Sir James (W Dorset)	Young, Sir George (Acton)
Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)
Spink, Dr Robert	Tellers for the Noes:
Spring, Richard	Mr. David Lightbown and
Sproat, Iain	Mr. Sydney Chapman.
Squire, Robin (Hornchurch)

Question accordingly negatived.

Main Question again proposed.

It being after Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed tomorrow.

Education Facilities (Mid Glamorgan)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Arbuthnot.]

10.18 pm

Unfortunately, lack of time allows me—[Interruption.]

Order. Will right hon. and hon. Members who are leaving the Chamber do so quickly and quietly?

Unfortunately, lack of time allows me to deal only with the problems facing the education service in Mid Glamorgan. However, I do not want to create the impression that the education service is not providing the citizens with what it has always provided them. Mid Glamorgan, as with Glamorgan before it, has provided the highest standard of education notwithstanding the enormous social and economic difficulties that we have faced as a consequence of our industrial history.

I want first to pay tribute on behalf of myself and my colleagues to the skill and dedication of everyone involved in the education service in the county over the years. Two types of difficulty face us in Mid Glamorgan—those difficulties which are general to all local education authorities, and those peculiar to Mid Glamorgan and the valley authorities of south Wales. General underfunding of the public education service is the problem faced and shared with other local education authorities. For example, on capital financing, Mid Glamorgan's capital building programme averages £6 million to £8 million in any one year, on a revenue budget of £240 million. No business of that size can properly exist on such a low level of capital investment—[Interruption.]

Order. I wish to hear the hon. Gentleman. Madam Speaker has already made it clear that Members should be quiet.

That is why we have old, badly maintained schools which are unsuitable, in design and layout, for modern teaching methods and for the delivery of the national curriculum upon which so much emphasis is placed by the Government.

Funding per pupil is the other aspect of funding which is of vital importance. Even allowing for the different basis for funding of the state and the private sector, the funding level per pupil is 50 per cent. higher for the private sector, which is reflected in better buildings, better staffing ratios and smaller class sizes, as well as salaries above the norm.

Much of Mid Glamorgan suffered in the inter-war years. Outward migration and a declining population meant that there was little school building in the 1920s and 1930s. Consequently, our schools are either pre-1917 or post-1950. Both types present maintenance problems. The old schools require extensive improvement if they are to deliver the national curriculum, and the Minister of State knows that very well. The newer schools, which were built to rigid Government-prescribed cost limits, resulted in flat roofs, system building and, in some cases, storage heating rather than central heating systems. That has landed the authority with considerable maintenance problems as the cheaply built structures deteriorate. That category includes most of the large secondary schools in the county area.

More than half of the authority's primary schools are pre-first world war, and they are often located in subsidence areas. Maintenance costs are high and the national curriculum has highlighted the lack of a water supply in classrooms, combined with inadequacies in electrical wiring systems and power points, which are necessary for the delivery of science and technology teaching. In the three years between 1990 and 1993 the LEA will have to invest £1·6 million of its own funds to carry out that work. The Government are not prepared to put in any extra money for that provision.

Welsh-medium education is one of the local authority's successes. Each year a new Welsh-medium primary school is opened. There are four Welsh-medium secondary schools in Mid Glamorgan. No other local authority in Wales can match Mid Glamorgan in its provision of Welsh-medium education, but that is not recognised in the capital allocations. There has been no Government recognition of the fact that the opening of a Welsh-medium school with a wide catchment area has little impact on the size of any English-medium school in the area. Welsh-medium schools create an additional demand for accommodation, which is not recognised in the capital grant.

Our county is a deprived area by any and every definition. The educational difficulties in the schools receive no Government recognition, in exactly the same way—oddly enough—that the health service in Glamorgan is not funded on the basis of deprivation factors, as a former Minister acknowledged in a debate some time ago.

Between the levels of special needs children, whom I shall return to later, and of achievers there is a large group of the school population which shows no motivation and has little parental support for educational development. The county has pleaded unsuccessfully for recognition of that.

Then there is the consequent drain on educational funding in the provision of a high level of free meals, clothing grants and so on. Instead, the Government face us with raw league tables by which schools are to be measured. No attempt is made to compensate for the fact that many pupils are deprived from birth of the richness of language, reading materials, educational play materials and parental support.

The local education authority has pioneered nationally a scheme of home-school support teachers, but that is limited by a lack of resources. Although the authority comes high up on the national scale of nursery provision, yet again there is a shortfall of resources which makes it impossible to meet demand within existing budget levels.

I should like to talk briefly about special needs and the poor, unfortunate children who must overcome multiple physical and mental handicaps simply to cope with the ordinary process of living. Many special schools in Mid Glamorgan have inherited their buildings from the old training centres when children with severe learning difficulties were considered uneducable. The buildings as a result are wholly unsuitable in terms of space and design to deliver a broad curriculum. The capitation allowance for special needs pupils is pitifully small. All special apparatus, minibuses, special chairs, standing frames and hydrotherapy pools are financed by private funds raised by the community and committed staff who are often exhausted by the extra fund-raising ventures during evenings and weekends.

I should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his superb work in the Rhondda in special needs education. Today I spoke to the headmaster of Bryncelynog comprehensive school, Mr. John Lloyd, who told me that he was desperately worried about the future of special needs education. Likewise, Mrs. Diane Johns, the headmistress of Pentyrch primary school. Does my hon. Friend agree that superb pioneering work in special needs education has been done in Mid Glamorgan? The prospects, however, are that schools will be opted out and there will be no provision whatever for this vital area of education. The staff and, I am sure, the parents of children with special needs are worried sick about that.

My hon. Friend is right. Teachers of special needs pupils face the greatest problems of all. Anyone who visits a special school will see the caring, loving way that the staff deal with children with epilepsy, cerebal palsy or Down's syndrome, and how the children enjoy themselves and become involved. It is an experience to go to one of the concerts that the Rhondda special school puts on to raise money. I urge the Minister to come to one and to recognise the needs of those children. They need extra resources, for example, for transport to school. The LEA is forced to accept the lowest tender which takes no account of the pupils' special needs and disabilities—for example, whether a child is epileptic or requires a special harness or lift to get on and off the vehicle. The Government always insist on the authority accepting the cheapest tender.

The same applies to school meals. The pupils by the nature of their handicaps must stay at school all day. There was a time when the resources were available and the meals were cooked on the premises so that account could be taken of special problems, diets and feeding difficulties. Obviously, some must be individually fed. Now cooking cannot be done on the premises because there are not the resources to maintain that facility. Instead, pre-cooked meals must be brought in.

There is a lack of speech therapists in Mid Glamorgan. It is incredible that over the past year there has not been one speech therapy lesson in the Rhondda special school. How appalling it is to have a special school without a speech therapist. It has been suggested that there is an immediate need for 10 additional speech therapists in Mid Glamorgan, but just one is available. The same is true of physiotherapists, educational psychologists and other support services. The health authority is supposed to provide those services to the education authority, but it, too, does not have sufficient resources. A further £100,000 would be required to reach the nationally prescribed ratio for educational psychologists.

It is clear that Mid Glamorgan is suffering from specific difficulties over and above those that it shares with other authorities. Even so, the local education authority is £8 million above the Secretary of State's standard spending assessment. If Mid Glamorgan's SSA was reduced as a result of charge capping, the effect on the education service would be devastating. The authority would fall even further behind in its attempts to meet our people's needs.

I was appalled at the standard of the speech tonight of the new Secretary of State for Education. If he can deal with such an important debate in such a trivial manner, education is in a parlous state. I despair of that right hon. Gentleman accepting a constructive argument from me —I hope that I do better with the Minister of State at the Welsh Office.

I am concerned about the possible opting out of schools that apply for grant-maintained status. There are five comprehensive schools in my constituency. The opt-out proposal fills me with alarm, especially as those schools will have the ability to select their pupils across the existing catchment boundaries. The first school in the Rhondda that opts out can choose a process of selection that need not be based on educational standards or aptitude—at least the old 11-plus purported to do that. Selection could possibly be dictated by a child's family and social background. Schools could develop an elitist system of selection whereby a child could be rejected, regardless of his abilities, because of his family and social background. Can one imagine the chain reaction in the other four comprehensive schools in Mid Glamorgan? Which one of those schools would end up as the ghetto for those who did not have a place to go to? Is such a process supposed to create the classless society? Such divisiveness would destroy the closely knit valley communities as no other policy that even the Government introduced could manage. I hope that a separate approach is adopted towards education in Wales which recognises our unique needs.

I would rather not raise the matter of the award of the school cleaning contract in Mid Glamorgan, but I must do so because it is causing great concern. That contract is worth £10 million and it has been awarded to a company called Taylorplan. Unfortunately, its chairman is a Labour peer, Lord Parry of Neyland. The Minister must monitor that company because it intends to sack 20 per cent. of the existing work force—about 400 people. That might well mean that the company is unable to fulfil its contract.

There was a time when people would take the job of school cleaner to earn pin money. In the valley communities today the unemployment level stands at 20 per cent. and in some of those communities a wife working at a school needs the money—it is not a good wage even in the current situation—to maintain, not supplement, the family economy.

Taylorplan evidently specialises in bidding low to obtain tenders. It has made losses ever since it started in business and it has had solvency and cash flow problems. Councils and district health authorities have been wary of it. I understand from Mid Glamorgan that it vetted the company closely on financial and performance indicators. In January 1989, Croydon council described it as "a high-risk company" and it insisted that its Australian parent company should give an unconditional guarantee of financial support. Westminster council—that great Socialist authority up the road—was told in February 1988 by the city treasurer that he had reservations about accepting Taylorplan's tender because, he said, it involved a greater than usual degree of risk.

Taylorplan has been paying on its contract £2·40 an hour to cleaners in Suffolk. In Warwickshire, it was paying £2·80 an hour. In Kingston-upon-Thames, its workers were not receiving sick pay and no holiday pay was given to cleaners. It pulled out of its contract with Suffolk county council after only three months. The contract was to involve cleaning 19 schools, but the company ran into problems. The schools were not being properly cleaned.

I could give a long catalogue of incidents. For example, at Airedale general hospital, inspections found insects, cobwebs, dust, impacted dirt, urine-stained chairs and dirty windows on wards. Carpets that should have been shampooed had not been cleaned for long periods.

Lord Parry is a member of my political party and is chairman and a director of that company. My hon. Friends and colleagues in Mid Glamorgan feel that it is inappropriate for a Labour peer who espouses a commitment to fairness and supports the statutory minimum wage to be associated in the way I have described. I challenge Lord Parry and his company to give an undertaking to the 1,500 cleaners in Mid Glamorgan that he will maintain proper wage levels and jobs. Either the county has been managing the situation hopelessly or the company is unable to fulfil its contract without a reduction in the work force of more than 20 per cent.

The company must maintain proper standards. Our children have enough handicaps and problems to overcome. We do not want them to be educated in filthy schools. If the company, under the Government's privatisation directives, is to receive such contracts, the Minister of State, who is responsible for education in Wales, must monitor matters and ensure that the contracts are being performed to a proper standard. If not, the company must go immediately.

I do not have time to raise many other problems that we face in Mid Glamorgan. Many of those problems could be resolved with a marginal increase in resources. The problems have been clearly identified. The provision of extra resources is the only way to solve them. I ask the Minister to put his money where his party has been putting its mouth in recent months, and properly to fund the education service in Mid Glamorgan.

10.37 pm

I congratulate the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) on his safe return to this place and on his success in raising this issue on the Adjournment.

I will deal first with the hon. Gentleman's last point —the Mid Glamorgan cleaning contract. It is for the authority to be satisfied that the standards that it requires of contractors are clearly set out in contract specifications and that adequate monitoring arrangements are in place. If contractors fall below those standards, it is open to the authority to seek redress in the normal way. I stress that it is the responsibility of the relevant authority to ensure that it receives the service for which it is paying.

The hon. Gentleman has chosen a wide-ranging subject and has covered a number of issues. I doubt whether I shall be able to answer all the points that he raised. I shall read his speech in Hansard and, if necessary, cover in correspondence any points that I am unable to deal with in my reply.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about school buildings in Mid Glamorgan, and I appreciate some of his concerns. Over the years, since I have had responsibility for education, I have visited many schools in Mid Glamorgan. I shall be visiting the area again next Tuesday, when I hope to visit Ysgol Gyfun Rhydfelen, at the school's request, to see the condition of the buildings.

There is no doubt that over the years local education authorities have not invested sufficient funds in maintaining their education estate and that they have built up a considerable backlog of maintenance. The exact extent of the backlog is not known, but work by the education authorities following the efficiency circles initiative of my right hon. and learned Friend the former Secretary of State should enable them to determine the size of the task that they have set themselves through lack of investment.

Recently prepared information suggests that Mid Glamorgan had about £9 million worth of outstanding maintenance in 1987, and that by 1991 this had risen to about £18 million. My officials meet the education authorities every year to discuss their capital spending programmes. They also inquire about the levels of maintenance spending, but this is not always easy for the education authorities to determine, especially if maintenance is carried out through a central organisation rather than through the education building programme.

Will the Minister give way?

The hon. Gentleman has left me only 10 minutes in which to reply. I am seeking to provide him with information.

Most problems are seen in schools which were system built 20 to 30 years ago, or in very old school buildings. There is no doubt that a large proportion of Mid Glamorgan schools fall into those categories. Central Government contribute towards county councils' capital spending by issuing approvals to borrow. In our planning for local authority spending we also take into account councils' past histories of supporting capital spending from their revenue accounts. This support is not, generally, directed at specific schemes or to particular service areas. In other words, we do not tell local authorities how to spend their resources, and it is for them to decide how to allocate them between services in the light of their own needs and priorities.

The level of potential capital investment that the Government plan for Welsh local education authorities is sufficient for them to meet their obligations according to their own priorities. In recent years, substantial increases in gross provision for education have been made. Between 1985–86 and 1991–92, capital resources notionally made available to LEAs for education building increased in real terms by no less than 38 per cent. Last year, the overall gross provision for education capital was £66·6 million. This year we have provided for gross capital expenditure by the LEA of about £63 million. That sum would have been higher but for the transfer of higher education from the local education authorities. Capital support for the higher education sector in this year has been set at almost £5·6 million. These figures reflect the high priority that the Government have given to the improvement of schools. It must be said, however, that local education authorities collectively have chosen to spend less than the Government have provided for in the past few years by 4·6 per cent. in 1989–90, 3·5 per cent. in 1990–91, and an estimated 15 per cent. in 1991–92, amounting to nearly £10 million.

Mid Glamorgan?

The hon. Gentleman has referred to Mid Glamorgan, and the figures that I have given are for the whole of Wales. I understand, however, that Mid Glamorgan has been spending about the notional allocation.

Of course, capital spending is not the full picture, especially as much maintenance work can be carried out from revenue accounts, and in 1991–92 education authorities budgeted to spend almost 30 per cent. more—

Will the Minister give way?

Order. If the Minister does not give way, Members know very well that they must then contain themselves, however difficult that may be.

I have only four minutes in which to cover all the points, and I want to discuss not only school buildings but special education needs, speech therapy and all the other subjects that the hon. Member for Rhondda raised.

I want to say a word about the work carried out from revenue accounts. In 1991–92, education authorities budgeted to spend almost 30 per cent. more than they did in 1979–80. Taken together with the decline in the school population, that means that for each pupil in Wales the average expenditure has risen by some 36 per cent. to £1,321 per primary pupil and by more than 40 per cent. to £1,884 per secondary pupil. At primary level, Mid Glamorgan is spending slightly less than the average, at £1,288 per pupil, but spending at secondary level is slightly above average, at £1,908 per pupil.

A difficulty which must be recognised is the continuing high level of surplus places in the system. There are some 118,000 such places in Wales altogether, which are estimated to drain local education authorities' resources by more that £20 million per year. That money could be better spent delivering better services in better schools.

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This Adjournment debate is specifically about education facilities in Mid Glamorgan, but all the Minister's answers have been about Wales in general. I know that you are not responsible for what he says, but surely he should deal with the subject of the debate.

That is not a point of order for the Chair. The Minister is well within the subject matter.

I know that Opposition Members do not want to hear the facts, but I was about to say that Mid Glamorgan continues to carry more than 13,000 surplus primary places and nearly 7,500 surplus secondary places. The hon. Gentleman will agree that that is a waste of resources.

The system of unhypothecated credit approvals for education building was instituted at the request of the local authorities themselves. If they then choose to spend their resources on services other than education, it is to those authorities that parents and right hon. Members should look to ensure that children receive the best possible education in the best possible surroundings. The alternative is that we in central Government should dictate to the LEAs what their education capital spending must be. I do not think that the local authorities would take kindly to that proposal, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that it is never far from my mind when I hear about "crumbling schools"—

The motion having been made after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned accordingly at twelve minutes to Eleven o'clock.

Volume 207: debated on Tuesday 12 May 1992

House Of Commons

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Fifth Day

Environment, Local Government And Education

Education Facilities (Mid Glamorgan)