To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make it his policy to investigate the effect of the cash incentive schemes available to enable tenants to move from public sector to private sector housing on local house prices and house availability for local people in Wales.

I shall certainly watch these schemes with great interest, and I expect the results to be beneficial.

Does the Minister accept that there is something offensive and unfair about the fact that Welsh taxpayers' money might go by way of grants to people from cities such as London to buy houses in Wales that local people cannot afford? Thousands of local people are trying to find rented accommodation or, if they can, to buy. Does not that need an initiative by the Welsh Office to ensure that equivalent funds are available for people in Wales to get a home, which so many of them are unable to do at present?

No, I think that the transferable discount scheme represents good value for money. It is certainly good value compared with new build, for instance. It facilitates two important objectives: allowing families to own a home of their own, while freeing other accommodation for housing need. I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are already making great efforts, through Housing for Wales and housing associations as well as local authorities, to create further housing throughout Wales, particularly in rural areas.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many hectolitres of Welsh wine have been produced in each of the last three years and from how many vineyards.

One hundred and thirty one hectolitres were produced from 10 vineyards in Wales in 1989; 202 from 13 vineyards in 1990; and 147 hectolitres from 16 vineyards in 1991.

As I know the Secretary of State enjoys the odd glass of Welsh wine, whether at home or in his office, will the Minister explain why the Government seem to discriminate against Welsh wine and Scotch whisky in their taxation regime? A bottle of English or Welsh wine is subject to 98p tax, whereas a bottle of French wine is taxed at only 2·2p. Is the Minister aware that Rovral, a poison not allowed to be used on Welsh vines because of its content, is allowed to be used in France and that we import French wine without asking questions? Finally, why do not the EC rules and regulations allow us to use the word "Welsh" on the labels of wine made in Wales?

My hon. Friend will be well aware that taxation matters, to do with either whisky or wine, are for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am glad that my hon. Friend has drawn attention to the fact that we have some excellent Welsh wines. I gather that none of them is a quality wine because we do not have enough sweet reserve—and looking at the faces opposite me, I am not surprised.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list all those individuals who hold two or more positions on quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations in Wales.

I shall arrange for the list of 47 names, out of the total of over 1,200 public appointments, to be published in the Official Report.

We are assured by the Secretary of State that politics have no part in the appointment of people to quangos in Wales—and that goes presumably for the new chairman of the Gwynedd area heatlth authority, the former Tory party chairman in the Caernarfon constituency, and for the late lamented Mr. Grist and others. I could name several hundred of them in Wales. Given this insidious system, is it not time that the Secretary of State introduced an element of positive discrimination so as to introduce some form of legitimacy into this terrible system in Wales?

Why did Dafydd Thomas go to the House of Lords then?

That famous saying—the Lords is not a quango—will presumably go into the Official Report. I am not too sure whether it was in order.

Will my right hon. Friend tell the House whether some individuals are appointed to two or more non-departmental bodies purely because that generates cohesion between various bodies? Does that not lead to a greater understanding between non-governmental bodies and ultimately to better government in Wales?

It takes two to quango.

I hope that that is not in the Official Report.

Does the Secretary of State agree that, whenever possible, political patronage is best avoided? If so, what is his policy on advertising for people wishing to be appointed to public bodies? Will he start to advertise, to draw on the widest possible selection?

Yes. We have advertised and, as I told the Select Committee, we are placing composite advertisements in Welsh newspapers asking people to come forward to be considered for public office. I take this opportunity to thank the hon. and learned Gentleman, who is one of the Members of Parliament who submit the names of suitable individuals. I have been able to respond by appointing them to public office.

May I ask my right hon. Friend, on behalf of all the wonderful ladies of Wales, to state what action he or his Department is taking to ensure that more Welsh ladies serve on such bodies?

My hon. Friend has hit on an important point. Of the appointments that we make to public bodies in Wales, 18 per cent. are women. I have clearly said that I would like the target to be 30 per cent., and I hope to achieve that by 1996.

Why does the right hon. Gentleman appoint persons from the Wirral to quangos in Wales? Will he concentrate on being the Secretary of State for Wales rather than the Secretary of State for the Wirral? Why does he appoint people to quangos in Wales when at the same time he plans to take away assisted area status from Deeside and to prevent the expansion of Deeside industrial park, which is adjacent to the Wirral?

The assisted area review is another matter. As to appointments, I understand that in preparation for Labour winning the general election, the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) and the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) had a little list of people who would be suitable for appointment. If they will share that little list with me, it might help—I might well be able to appoint some of those persons to public office. By keeping that list quiet, the hon. Gentleman does himself and his right hon. and hon. Friends no good at all.

Does the Secretary of State really understand the contempt and derision that he is bringing on the Welsh Office by the way in which he exercises his patronage over public appointments, especially as neither the right hon. Gentleman nor his party has a mandate from the people of Wales? Nevertheless, the right hon. Gentleman appoints Conservative party hacks. Is it not clear that quangos produce neither more effective nor more efficient administrations than democratic structures? Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that it is time that all such matters were made subject to proper democratic control and scrutiny through a Welsh assembly?

Democratic accountability lies in this Chamber, and it is evidenced by the fact that the hon. Gentleman raised those questions with me—[Interruption.] I say to the Opposition Back Benchers who shouted at me that Labour has not denied the existence of that little list. I should like to see it, so that I can consider appointing people from Wales, irrespective of their party affiliation—which I always endeavour to do.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the future of coal mining in Wales.

The outcome of the Government's review of the coal industry will be set out in a White Paper to be published in the new year.

I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be pleased to know that recently I was fortunate enough to visit north Wales, where I met a number of people who lived in the vicinity of the Point of Ayr coal pit, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson). They strongly made the case for their pit to be taken over by a consortium of local miners and other local people. They feel that it could well be one of the most productive pits in the area.

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the role of the private sector in Welsh coal mining. We have more than 90 licensed mines—two thirds of the United Kingdom total—which employ about 1,300 people in Wales. I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of the private deep-mined sector.

Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating the miners of the Point of Ayr colliery, whom I visited last Friday and who last week—yet again—broke all production target records, proving how profitable and viable the pit can be? Will the right hon. Gentleman take it from me—not from the hon. Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman), who represents a seat in Essex—that the one thing that the miners, their families and their north Wales community do not want is privatisation? They wish to remain part of British Coal, productively and viably, and to make a success of their livelihoods and their future.

The hon. Gentleman should be careful about trying to introduce party political division to this subject. A number of hon. Members on both sides of the House would like Welsh coal mining to develop, in the private sector.

As my right hon. Friend and you, Madam Speaker, will know, I was born in Wales, and I know all about the past—if not, perhaps, the future—of the coal mining industry in that country. Will my right hon. Friend remind the House how many pits were closed during the 1960s and 1970s under Labour Administrations?

My hon. Friend is right: 331 pits were closed under Labour Governments. That is an enormous total. Of course, pits have closed under all Governments; the difficulty that now faces British Coal is that it produces more coal than it can sell. All those points will be carefully considered in the energy review that is being supervised by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade.

The Secretary of State has made what strikes some of us as a disturbing statement. He said that, if British Coal were not prepared to transfer its licences to another operator, that was a decision entirely for British Coal. Will the right hon. Gentleman and the President of the Board of Trade make it clear that, if British Coal refuses to hold tenders, the licences will be taken away from it and will be issued by the Government in the future?

I am grateful for the opportunity to clarify exactly what I said. I said—as all coal Ministers have said from the Dispatch Box—that decisions on individual pits must be a matter for British Coal. Returning to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay about whether there should be a viable private sector place for the Point of Ayr colliery—or, indeed, for Betws—I very much hope that British Coal will give careful consideration to any such proposal. If I become aware of circumstances in which British Coal is not prepared to give proper scrutiny to a private sector bid, I trust that the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies)—and others on both sides of the House—will make me aware of them.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the figure for male unemployment in Wales at the latest available date.

As at October 1992, the seasonally adjusted male unemployment figure in Wales was 103,000.

In view of the shattering blow suffered by Newport over the weekend with the announcement of the proposed closure of the GEC-Marconi factory and the loss of 400 jobs, I should have thought that the Secretary of State would at least have the decency to answer my question. Does the Minister appreciate that this is essentially a high-tech factory and that no equivalent work is available locally? Will the Secretary of State, with his colleagues, the Secretary of State for Defence and the President of the Board of Trade, intervene to prevent the closure from taking place?

It would be unrealistic not to accept that there have been unwelcome announcements such as the news from GEC-Marconi. I note, however, that the hon. Gentleman does nothing to acknowledge the excellent news about the 200 maintained and the 280 new jobs at the two INMOS factories in Newport—one of which I believe is in the hon. Gentleman's constituency—or the other recent announcements of support for 300 new jobs at Ford of Treforest and 200-plus new jobs at Robertson of Treforest or the Australian investment at Amcor of Mold leading to the creation of 150 new jobs there. There is certainly a positive side to the coin, and the hon. Gentleman should take that into account.

May I say, without any discourtesy to the Minister, that the Opposition find it peculiar that the Secretary of State is not answering questions on employment in Wales? May I put it to the hon. Gentleman that if pressures continue on the Royal Ordnance factory in Galscoed, there will be more job losses at the ROF, and that that will be poor reward for half a century of loyal, highly skilled service to the defence of the nation and in the production of excellent products? Will the Minister ensure that, at all levels in the Government, full account is taken of the change in strategic needs so as to ensure that we manage to continue to use to the maximum the skills and commitment of the people at Galscoed?

I accept that the right hon. Gentleman intended no discourtesy, and there is no discourtesy in my suggestion in return that the doom and gloom that the right hon. Gentleman always preached as a Leader of the Opposition who lost two general elections would have done nothing to reduce unemployment in Wales. If he were at the Dispatch Box now, he would be accepting the social chapter of the Maastricht treaty, which would mean another 70,000 unemployed in Wales.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, as a result of the large loss of male full-time employment, the valley communities' per capita share of gross domestic product is now barely 70 per cent. of the national average? What significant additional funds will come from the Welsh Office or from the funds agreed at Edinburgh to create some degree of convergence and cohesion between the economies of the valley communities and that of the nation as a whole? The principles of cohesion and convergence should surely apply within the United Kingdom as within Europe.

The hon. Gentleman again ignores the recent announcement that my right hon. Friend was able to make to the effect that, in the coming financial year, here will be a total of £243 million, through the Welsh Development Agency and regional selective assistance, to help industry and redevelopment, especially in the valleys of south Wales. The hon. Gentleman chooses to ignore the fact that the latest figures show that average earnings in Wales are increasing faster than the United Kingdom average and that our unemployment rate is now lower than that for the United Kingdom as a whole.

There is great concern in the Newport area following the announcement about GEC-Marconi and there are fears, too, that, on top of the job losses, Newport will lose its assisted area status when the assisted area review is completed. The same applies to Deeside and to the Cardiff travel-to-work area, where, in the past few weeks, there have been 200 redundancies at Wiggins Teape and 260 further redundancies at Powell Duffryn Standard and at the British Rail wagon works in Cathays. The curious thing about those job losses is that none of them relates to the recession in trade: they all relate to the Government's incompetence in handling transport and defence matters. Will the hon. Gentleman give us a guarantee that all those job losses will be fully taken into account before any areas in Wales are downgraded for assisted area purposes?

All pertinent matters will be taken fully into account by my right hon. Friends and by the President of the Board of Trade as he conducts his review of assisted area status. Already, we should be able to point to the successes that the present policy is achieving. The hon. Gentleman would probably be interested to know that, in the first three quarters of this year alone, regional selective assistance succeeded in attracting and maintaining almost 8,000 jobs in Wales.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement as to the statistical basis for his decision to make Wales a separate single region for the cereals scheme; and if he will deposit the relevant detailed statistical information in the Library.

The statistical basis is the cereal production survey which was conducted over the 1986 to 1990 harvest years. The data shown are in the United Kingdom regionalisation plan, a copy of which has already been placed in the Library of the House.

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the statistical data to which he referred are inadequate to separate regions within Wales that have very different cereal outputs? Will he please explain why, if that is the only reason, he has treated Wales as a single region, whereas Scotland has been treated as two regions, with less-favoured areas treated differently? Will my right hon. Friend he let us know what steps he proposes to take to put right that extraordinary state of affairs next year?

Answer.

I have to say to my hon. Friend—I need no help from the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock)—that the data are insufficient. I recognise that. What I have said to my hon. Friend and to other hon. Friends who have contacted me on behalf of their constituents, and indeed to the leaders of the National Farmers Union, is that we have to find a better statistical basis. We are now conducting a survey to find ways in which we can have more reliable data on which to base our decisions for the second and subsequent years, because this decision is for only the first year.

I have written to the right hon. Gentleman about farmers in my constituency who are farming very near the English border and who are obtaining substantially less than their colleagues a few miles away in relation to cereal production. If at all possible, will the right hon. Gentleman try to secure a more level playing field on the issue next year so that cereal producers in Montgomeryshire, for example, are not placed at a disadvantage compared with colleagues in Shropshire, particularly when some farms actually cross the English-Welsh border?

Those cross-border comparisons work both ways, as the hon. and learned Gentleman is aware. I was advised that I did not have sufficient statistical data on which to base a decision to look forward on a county basis or on a less-favoured area/non-LFA basis, and I am doing everything possible to ensure that I have the right statistical information on which I can base a decision for the second and subsequent years.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what was the outcome of the Minister of State's visit to Milan; and if he will make a statement.

My visit to Milan was made in connection with the second highly successful Welsh Office trade mission to Lombardy. It gave me the opportunity to reinforce contacts and to open formally, on behalf of Control Techniques plc of Newtown, Powys, the new factory of its Italian subsidiary, Soprel.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. Was there any positive financial outcome to his visit to Milan? If so, is he considering making similar visits to Milan and, indeed, to many other parts of the world which in the past have proved so fruitful in bringing jobs to Wales?

I am delighted to tell my hon. Friend that there was a very positive outcome in that the companies on the export mission returned with more than £5 million worth of orders. As that and other export missions have been so successful and are clearly of great benefit to Wales, my right hon. Friend and I are considering how we might expand the programme.

Did the Minister discuss with the Italians their investment in Welsh industry, especially to create jobs in the Agrate area? Unfortunately, those Welsh jobs will now become Italian jobs. From 1993 the INMOS transputer graphite chip will be produced in France and Italy only. When shall we get investment in Welsh technology, particularly for the Newport Wafer Fab Company, on the same scale as that invested by the French and Italian Governments in their industries? The truth is that in the future there will be 200 jobs in INMOS when once there were 850. We have also lost 500 jobs from Marconi. How can we be anything but gloomy about that situation?

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware of the development at INMOS whereby I understand that additional investment from a Hong Kong-based company will lead to additional jobs. Of course, investment is international these days. I spoke to representatives of the distinguished Italian company, Cogefar Impresit, the largest building contractor in Italy and a subsidiary in Fiat, which has invested extensively in Cardiff and is interested in further investment in south Wales.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement about the future of the valleys initiative programme.

I will make an announcement in due course.

The Secretary of State will be aware from figures that he has given to me that one in three male adults covered by the valleys initiative programme are now out of work; they are either on the official unemployment register or economically inactive. That unemployment rate is much higher than elsewhere in the United Kingdom, especially for those in the economically inactive category. When the right hon. Gentleman makes his announcement, what specific proposals will be included to address the problems faced by village communities up the valleys—communities which are dying? I have spoken to the right hon. Gentleman about those communities and I know of his interest in them. They are industrial villages and they need to become areas of high technology, high quality and high skills. They need a distinct strategy and investment from the Welsh Office and the Welsh Development Agency to achieve that.

The hon. Gentleman and several of his hon. Friends have put proposals to me and I am now considering how best to develop the initiative. I hope that implicit in everything that is said is a recognition of the fact that the programme for the valleys was a good initiative taken by my predecessor, Peter Walker, now Lord Walker, which has achieved positive results. There is, of course, much more still to do.

Has my right hon. Friend estimated what the level of unemployment in the valleys would have been, had it not been for the valleys initiative and had unemployment in Wales increased according to the national average?

My hon. Friend raises an important point. Since the programme started, unemployment in the valleys has gone down from 34,000 to under 33,000. Had the unemployment rate in the valleys gone up in accordance with the United Kingdom average, nearly 10,000 more people would be unemployed in the valleys. I hope that the House recognises the importance and value of the valleys initiative.

The Secretary of State will realise that there are other problems apart from unemployment in the valleys. Is it not time that we had a housing initiative in our valleys to allow district councils to build homes once again, or a schools initiative concentrating on books and equipment instead of the silly league tables that were published last week? Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that the only way in which the valleys initiative can succeed is when he works with and not against our local valley councils? We call on him to set up a valleys standing conference of the valley local authorities which can act as the engine for the proper revitalisation of our valley communities.

I gain great strength from the fact that the Welsh Office and the local authorities work in close partnership in the valleys area. One of the first meetings that I had when I was visiting every valley was with the local authorities. The hon. Gentleman must not downplay the achievements that the Welsh Office and the local authorities have had in the valleys area. There is, of course, more to be done, but the largest land clearance programme anywhere in Europe is currently being undertaken in the valleys. A great many things are taking place, including the remarkably successful experiment on community revival strategies. Five communities were given £500,000 each by the Welsh Office towards local community projects. I am now reviewing the results of all those strategies with a view to taking the programme for the valleys forward when it comes to a close at the end of March. I am determined to make sure that we learn all the lessons that must be learnt from the past and present programmes.

To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has to publish the party political affiliations of those he appoints to public bodies and quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations in Wales.

None. This information is not held centrally.

Presumably the Minister of State is reluctant to tell the House about the party political affiliation of appointees because recent analysis showed that 65 per cent. of appointees were Conservatives or had leanings towards the Conservative cause. The invitation of the Secretary of State for Wales for the production of lists is irrelevant, because a Conservative Secretary of State is bound to appoint more Conservatives than anyone else, as the record shows. The Minister must surely be aware that we are talking not about the appointment of the odd Liberal, Labour or Plaid sympathiser but about a system that is wrong. It is a grotesque distortion of the democratic process and the best argument for a Welsh Parliament that I have ever heard.

The hon. Gentleman really does astonish me. We do not ask prospective appointees, either on our nomination lists or in conversation, what their policies are. If they reveal on their nomination forms that they are active in politics as part of their qualification to serve the public, that is a matter for them, but we have no record of appointees' political affiliations. The hon. Gentleman does no service to his own supporters or to those of Opposition or Conservative Members by seeming to imply that activity in a political organisation somehow disbars a person from office. We have heard about the Labour party's "little list". I wonder whether Plaid Cymru has a little list, or whether the hon. Gentleman is able to make any recommendations, because I do not recall hearing from him about anyone he wished or thought suitable to be nominated for office.

Will my right hon. Friend entirely resist the McCarthyite sentiments being shouted from the Opposition Benches? Will he note that the chairman of Housing for Wales was asked recently by the Chairman of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs whether he had ever been a member of the Conservative party and said that he had first been appointed to public office 18 years ago by a Labour Government? Will he further note that there will be incredulity in Wales at the remarks of the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies), discounting so many public servants as party hacks, especially the noble Lord Brooks who holds two such appointments as well as being a former leader of the Labour group on South Glamorgan county council?

I hope that the country as well as the House heard what my hon. Friend said. The Labour party's obsession with the political affiliations of public appointees takes us back to the time when it regularly appointed failed Labour candidates to high office in Wales; quangos were very much its preserve. The obsession of the hon. Member for Caerphilly with quangos and appointments shows that Labour is already thinking in terms of its little list, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State called it.

May I remind the Minister of State that it was Gilbert and Sullivan who had a little list and not Kinnock and Jones? Quango appointments of people with associations—I put it no stronger—with the Conservative cause in Wales have reached almost one-party state level. The extent of the Minister's embarrassment is evidenced by the length of his completely unconvincing answers on the subject.

I note that the right hon. Gentleman has not denied the existence of the list. He has thrown it away with a reference to Gilbert and Sullivan, but he has not denied its existence and there are some guilty faces on the Labour Front Bench. Party affiliation, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I am sure that there are many people whom the Labour party considers to be Conservative political hacks, as it calls them, but who in fact are not, and perhaps many people who I think may belong to the Labour party but who do not.

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when he next intends to meet representatives of the civil service unions to discuss the impact of the Government's market-testing programme in the civil service.

My ministerial colleagues and I have meetings with the civil service unions from time to time to discuss the range of Government policies. Meetings on market testing take place as the need for them arises.

When contracting out has been set up by civil service departments and agencies, will the Minister instruct them to apply the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981 to those transfers, thereby avoiding the legal mess in which Ealing council now finds itself because it failed to apply TUPE? Will he confirm that in applying TUPE to the contracting out of its photocopying services, the Central Office of Information has set a firm precedent which the rest of the civil service will follow?

The TUPE regulations have of course applied since 1981—there is no question about that—and if they have been wrongly applied in any individual case it does not change the overall position, which is that application of the regulations has allowed a great deal of contracting out in the central Government and local government sectors.

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that money saved as a result of market testing can and will be reinvested in our public services?

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We are market testing about £1·5 billion of central Government services. If the savings were to run at the rate of about 25 per cent., which we have achieved in the much smaller programme so far, we should achieve about £300 million of savings a year to plough back into services.

Is the Minister aware that the Government decided to sell to Robert Maxwell the Professional and Executive Register, which provides services for people with professional qualifications? The company went bust and some of the people who worked for it set up by themselves, but the Department is now setting up in competition with the people whose organisation it privatised. Is that a proper way in which to conduct a public service?

I shall inquire into the particular case, but the right hon. Gentleman is perhaps ill advised to press connections between our party and Mr. Robert Maxwell.

Will the Minister now attempt to give a straight answer to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion)? It might enhance what little credibility he has left as Minister for open government. If the situation is as clear as he suggests in relation to the application of TUPE, can he explain why the Foreign Office has suspended programmes for market testing until further clarification is given, the Welsh Office has told its health authorities to cease contracting out while it seeks legal advice and the Health and Safety Executive has put its programme on hold because it has received contradictory legal advice? Will the Minister give a straight answer which his civil service Departments will understand and stop the prejudice that he exhibits to the effect that private is good and public must, by default, be bad?

There is no need for the hon. Lady to be quite so offensive. I have tried to explain the issue to her several times and I am sorry if I failed. It is not very difficult. Each individual case must be judged against the 1981 regulations. Nothing has changed because of the Bill currently before Parliament. Obviously, it could not have done, as the hon. Lady is claiming that cases have got into difficulty under the 1981 legislation.

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what representations he has received about science policy from the Institution of Civil Engineers.

We have received a final total of about 800 responses to the consultation process for the White Paper on science and technology. Copies of the responses from organisations, including the excellent contribution from the Institution of Civil Engineers, will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses as soon as possible.

Can my right hon. Friend tell the House whether the institution emphasised the need for the adequate teaching of science and mathematics in schools? Does he agree that the national curriculum will make that far more feasible?

The submission made the point about the importance of technological and science education more broadly. My hon. Friend is right. In the medium to longer term, the national curriculum will greatly improve science and technology education. In the past five years, there has been a welcome increase again—a recovery—in the numbers reading technology and science courses at universities and polytechnics. That is welcome, too.

In considering the responses that he has received, has the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster read the interesting report from Lancaster university headed, "Future Relations between the Ministry of Defence and the Office of Science and Technology"? Does he agree with the conclusions reached in that report?

I am sorry to say that I have not read that paper, although I have a high regard for Lancaster university. I shall now read it and I write to the hon. Gentleman about the conclusions that it reaches. It will certainly be taken into account.

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what plans he has to extend his charter mark scheme to the European Commission.

None, but considerable interest in the charter was expressed at the recent European "Service for the Citizen" conference held in London under the United Kingdom presidency of the Community and at the meeting of directors-general for public administration in European Community states which took place at the same time in London.

As the public are increasingly affected by rules and regulations from the European Community should we not use the last few weeks of our presidency to press for the citizens charter to be extended to the Brussels bureaucracy? Will my hon. Friend don the mantle of St. George to do that important job?

I hope that my hon. Friend has noted the conclusions of the Edinburgh summit which apply the citizens charter approach to the European Community. The basic principle of subsidiarity has been recognised, reaffirmed and expanded. There is a commitment to greater openness in the Council of Ministers. The Community is to have an ombudsman. Those are all the result of British efforts and British initiatives to try to do as my hon. Friend suggests.

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what progress is being made under his charter proposals.

Excellent progress is being made. More than 90 per cent. of the initial 150 commitments in the programme of action in the 1991 citizens charter White Paper have been met or are in hand. More than 80 further policy commitments were set out in the citizens charter first report which was published on 25 November.

I welcome the initiative. I should be pleased if, in the spirit of Christmas, the Minister could extend the initiative to the homeless and the unemployed. May we have a charter for the homeless and the unemployed this Christmas?

I greatly appreciate the hon. Gentleman's comment on the citizens charter. There is a charter for the Employment Service, and in my previous ministerial job I was responsible for it. The Employment Service is doing its best to apply charter principles to improve the quality of the service that it offers to unemployed people.

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what methods his Department has used to judge how the public sector is meeting its targets for improved service to the citizen.

The citizens charter commits all public service providers to setting specific levels of service and to measuring and publishing details of their performance against those standards. The way in which this is done will obviously vary from service to service.

Does my hon. Friend agree that monitoring standards in public services and publishing the results is vital? Is the Prime Minister keeping a watching brief on progress?

I can confirm to my hon. Friend that the Prime Minister is keeping a close eye on progress. He will host the third seminar on the citizens charter on Wednesday 17 February 1993. There have been several important developments covering the whole spectrum of public service reform since the Prime Minister's previous seminar in June this year. We have now published the first progress report on the citizens charter. My right hon. Friend and I consider it to be of the utmost importance that we regularly review progress in implementing the charter. The seminar will give us a further opportunity to do so at the highest level.

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what response he has had to the report on the citizens charter.

We have had a very encouraging response to the citizens charter report.

Instead of the Minister talking as his belly warms about things like charters, why does he not listen to the people who are really shouting out—the unemployed people who want a full employment charter and the people who do not have roofs over their heads who want a homeless charter so local authorities can build houses? Why does he not listen to the pensioners who are crying out for an extra £20 a week so that they can keep warm this winter? Those are the policies that the people out there are shouting for, not these tinpot charters.

As the hon. Gentleman is, I suppose, the greatest partisan of lost causes in the House, I regard his attack on the charter as rather a compliment to it. The work to improve performance in local government and central Government to meet the needs of people is reinforced by the work that we are doing on the charters.

Is not the success of the citizens charter demonstrated by the interest taken in it by European Governments and also by the interest now being expressed in the United States?

That is entirely right. As the recent conference that we held in London showed, there is tremendous international interest in the citizens charter principles. The president-elect of the new American Government has made it clear that he regards this kind of campaign, which is derided by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), as very important.

The Minister has previously told me, and states again in the report, that he intends that customers should give a view about the quality of service that they are receiving and that customers should be heard in relation to how charters are being met. How does he intend to involve the customer in setting charters in future instead of consulting them only after charters have been set?

The hon. Member makes a good point. We announced in the first report that we would be conducting regular surveys of customer needs. That is a useful first step. However, the principle that the hon. Member states is absolutely right. In every case the service provider should sets objectives and standards after consulting the public and users of that service very widely.

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what proposals he has to improve the co-ordination of Government policies on alcohol and drugs.

Cabinet sub-committees, bringing together all relevant Government Departments, co-ordinate Goverment policy on alcohol and drugs. These are chaired respectively by me and by my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council.

Does the Minister recognise that there is a need for all Government policies, including the application of the law, education, social services, housing provision and residential treatment, to be drawn together if we are to tackle those two misuses? Will he have a word with the Secretary of State for Health, who seems most obstinate in regard to listening to advice on the issue, and with her junior Minister, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo), and persuade them that the arrangements that are to come in from 1 April will greatly damage the provision of residential facilities for alcohol and drug misusers? Will he persuade his colleagues to find a new arrangement quickly before the threatened closures start to apply, from as early as February, so as to ensure that those facilities continue to be available?

After my useful meeting with the hon. Gentleman and the all-party committee on alcohol abuse, I passed on to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health the representations that were made to me on that occasion. My right hon. Friend is clear that the community care new arrangements will meet the needs, but I have passed on the feelings of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues on that matter.

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what proportion of the commitments in the original citizens charter White Paper have been met, or are in the process of being met.

More than 90 per cent.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his most encouraging reply. Is he aware that, despite the efforts of some courteous and hard-working staff, the British Rail service from Plymouth to Paddington remains at best patchy and at worst downright unreliable? Can he assure me that under his watchful eye standards will increase?

I can confirm, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear in a speech last week, that it is our intention to drive up standards on British Rail. The standards that we set this year were merely the starting point.

Why are unemployment, homelessness, and the plight of pensioners described by the Secretary of State as "lost causes"? If they are lost causes by this Government, it is time this Government went.

The hon. Member gives me the opportunity to clarify exactly what I meant. It was not those important issues which are lost causes. A lost cause is anything that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) supports. This Government have done and are doing much more for those causes, which are close to our hearts, than the Labour Government ever did.

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on the budget of the five research councils.

The science budget in 1993–94 will be £1,164·6 million. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will be announcing its distribution shortly.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer, which I suspect shows an increase in cash terms on the total budget for the five research councils, four of which have their headquarters in my constituency. What reassurance can my hon. Friend give the House that the budgets of the individual research councils will not be at the mercy of international currency fluctuations in so far as they affect the cost to Britain of its membership of such international organisations as CERN?

I can confirm that my hon. Friend is right. The sum represents a 4 per cent. increase in cash terms, which is significant in what has been a difficult public expenditure round.

Will the Minister confirm that although the total for all Government expenditure remains as planned for next year, the science budget for research councils has been cut from that which had been previously planned? Does he acknowledge, therefore, that the effect of the creation of the Office of Science and Technology has been to reduce the priority given to science by the Government?

I do not accept that at all. The hon. Gentleman is completely wrong on that point. This year has been difficult for public expenditure. It has obviously had implications for every part of public expenditure, but we think that it is an important achievement to have safeguarded a 4 per cent. increase in cash terms.

Will my hon. Friend consider increasing the importance of near-market research, relative to fundamental research, as one of the mechanisms for improving our industrial strategy?

My hon. Friend's question is pertinent to the White Paper on science and technology which we are developing. That White Paper will be published early in the new year. Both science and technology are important. They feed through into the industrial development of the economy. Fundamental science provides the background of ideas and opportunities for training the people who will take forward science and technology throughout the economy.

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he proposes to implement a constituents charter.

I have no such plans. Constituents already enjoy competition and choice—and the right to demand redress—through the ballot box.

That seems to be a great lost opportunity. Would it not be an imaginative extension of the charter principle if constituents—electors—were able to get some recompense from a Government who break promises that they made at the general election? To take one example from many—[Interruption.] the Prime Minister has come in on time—I refer to the promise made by the Prime Minister when, just before the election in April, he said, "Vote Conservative on Thursday and the recovery continues on Friday".

So far as I remember, the deputy Leader of the Labour party has already withdrawn all the proposals made at the election, so the hon. Gentleman's suggestion seems rather foolish. He has had the opportunity to put the arguments to the electorate three or four times now, and he has always been rejected.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we had a constituents charter there should be regular testing, as there is at general elections? In the past four general elections our constituents have had their say on how well we have behaved and performed. In 1979 they voted Conservative. In 1983 they voted Conservative. In 1987 they voted Conservative. In 1992 they voted Conservative. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman has his answer on consumer testing of what policies our constituents prefer—those of the Labour party or those of the Conservative party.

I would only complete the prospect by saying that it is likely that our constituents will do the same again in 1996 or 1997.