I have a petition which was signed over the past weekend by more than 1,800 residents of Abbey Wood who are concerned that cost cutting has been put before public service. The petition

Sheweth that the Royal Mail proposes to close the Abbey Wood Sorting Office and relocate in Thamesmead; that the present office is easily accessible to Abbey Wood residents and is served by both buses and British Rail; that the Thamesmead office is not served by public transport, is located on a dual carriageway without pavements and that its relocation would cause great hardship, particularly to elderly and disabled people and parents with young children.

Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your honourable House will urge the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to review the proposed closure in the hope that he will take into account the overwhelming local opinion against this proposal.

I have the privilege to present a petition on behalf of my constituent Mrs. Debbie March, whose son Eric was blinded as a result of toxocariasis. He is one of about 100 children who suffer from blindness or serious disease of the eye every year as a result of dog mess. She believes, as do I, that we could prevent the problem by introducing a system of dog registration. The petition says:

To the House of Commons

The petition of citizens of the United Kingdom who declare that there is a danger of dirty parks and greens, stray dogs being put to sleep and a disease called toxocariasis for which there is no cure.

The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons think again about dog registration and the petitioners remain, and so on.

With permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a statement regarding the publication today of a consultation document on measures to tackle discrimination against disabled people. The document addresses five key areas affecting their lives. The Government would welcome comments on the proposals in the course of the next three months.

The Government give a high priority to helping disabled people to live with dignity and independence. Over the last 15 years, much has been done to further that aim. This document seeks to build on that record, offering wider opportunities for disabled people to partake in and contribute to the life of our community.

As the House will be aware, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister welcomed the fact that the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill was to be examined and discussed in more detail-in Committee. This and subsequent debates also provided the opportunity for other voices to be heard in addition to those of the supporters of the Bill—employers, small businesses and other service providers, the very people on whom the burden of any additional cost would be likely to fall. The Government's consultation document will ensure that all those affected will have the opportunity to comment on the next steps.

The first issue addressed in the document is that of employment. The quota system, which requires that registered disabled people should make up at least 3 per cent. of larger work forces, is increasingly recognised as unworkable. Only one third of those in the work force eligible to register do so—about 1 per cent. Therefore, the quota scheme as it stands cannot be sustained and the approach is, in my view, inappropriate to today's needs.

Many employers, of course, adopt good and sensitive practices when employing disabled people, but the Government recognise that some employers may discriminate unjustifiably against them. We are therefore inviting views on how that unjustifiable discrimination against disabled people can be tackled in this important area.

One option might be to strengthen the quota scheme itself, but it is hard to see how its underlying problem of low registration could be overcome. Another approach might be simply to repeal the quota scheme and replace it with an entirely voluntary system.

The Government are aware, however, that there is now widespread support for the present system to be replaced by a statutory right for disabled people not to be unjustifiably discriminated against in employment. Such a right would replace the quota scheme. We are consulting on ways in which such a right might be framed, but the Government would be prepared to consider the position again if there were substantial support for a workable and effective alternative.

The introduction of such a right would have to take into account the fact that some people would be unable to do some jobs because of their disability. Employers would also have to consider whether it was reasonably practicable —taking account of cost and other factors—to make an adjustment to the working environment or practices or to provide specialist equipment to enable a disabled person to do his job. A code of practice would be issued to provide guidance on those matters. We would draw on the experience of employers and disabled people when developing the code.

We believe that the right should apply only to people who have a substantial disability that is long term or recurring. We are seeking views on how best to define that group in a clear and practical manner. The new right, like the quota scheme, should not apply to employers with fewer than 20 employees.

Where individuals believe they have been unjustifiably discriminated against, they would have a right to complain to an industrial tribunal. However, it might be possible to provide, as an alternative to full tribunal proceedings, a less formal but more practical and more speedy process to resolve such issues.

Disabled people not only want jobs—important though that ambition is—they also want to be able to participate, to the greatest extent possible, in the full range of activities open to the able-bodied population. It is important, therefore, to make the environment increasingly more accessible to them. The building regulations have done much to make new non-domestic dwellings accessible as well as most extensions to such buildings.

We are considering whether the regulations should also apply to the design of new domestic dwellings so that they would take greater account of the needs of disabled people. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is considering advice in that area from the building regulations advisory committee. He aims to consult on detailed proposals before the end of the year. That will promote an informed debate on the extent to which new dwellings should be made more accessible to disabled people. There will be a similar consultation exercise in Scotland.

Making buildings physically accessible is of little use to disabled people if they are excluded by prejudice or groundless fears for their safety. We are seeking views on making it unlawful for any person providing goods or services to the public to treat people unfavourably because of disability. Discrimination would be ruled out in a variety of areas, including access to public places, accommodation, entertainment facilities such as cinemas, theatres and restaurants, as well as facilities for transport and travel. The new right of access would not apply where existing physical barriers prevented access or where compliance may create insurmountable safety problems. Where access was wrongly denied, a disabled person would be able to take civil proceedings. He or she would be able to recover damages for any financial loss suffered as well as damages for injuries to feelings. In the latter instance, it might be a fixed sum or an amount subject to an upper limit. The Government could vary the sum or limit in future years. Depending on the level of damages for injury to feelings, claims could be subject to the small claims procedure where proceedings are informal and simple and the cost relatively low.

However, the disabled person might often prefer that the situation which had originally caused offence should be rectified without recourse even to the small claims court. To facilitate the resolution of cases without recourse to legal action, the Government are considering whether to institute a mechanism to help the parties concerned reach a mutually acceptable solution. For example, that might be done by funding a voluntary body to provide an advice and conciliation service for disabled people.

I come now to financial services. We have received little evidence of discrimination in the provision of financial services. None the less, we are inviting the Association of British Insurers, the British Bankers Association and the Building Societies Association to develop and issue statements of good practice on the treatment of disabled customers, including clear advice on how to pursue complaints and, in the case of banks and building societies, to explain the role of their ombudsmen. The Association of British Insurers, for example, will be asked to include in their statement of good practice, first, the need to be aware of the main forms of disability and their relevance in assessing the size or probability of an insurance claim; secondly, that insurers should ask only for medical information that is demonstrably related to the additional risk associated with insuring the disabled person; and thirdly, the need for insurance companies to have a clear mechanism for the investigation of complaints from disabled people and for those complaints to be handled sensitively and speedily.

The ABI will also be invited to set up an independent advisory committee, comprising representatives of insurers and the disability organisations, to monitor the effectiveness of the statement of good practice.

The banks and building societies already follow the code of practice, "Good Banking". That code has, as one of its guiding principles, that banks and building societies should act

"fairly and reasonably in all their dealings with their customers".

The Government are committed to tackling discrimination against disabled people. There is a strong case for setting up an independent body that could closely monitor that area and advise the Government on the effect of existing efforts to combat discrimination. The body would work closely with existing bodies representing the interests of disabled people.

The new body might be called the National Disability Council. In particular, its duties would include monitoring discrimination against disabled people and advising the Government on general issues and measures relating to the elimination of discrimination and progress towards those aims; drawing up codes of practice when requested by the Government; reviewing the effect of the new right of access on business; and reporting annually to the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People, who would be required to lay its report before Parliament.

The Government, in their triple role of policymaker, employer, and service provider, can and should provide a strong lead. I am now co-ordinating a programme of action developed to build upon the many positive initiatives that are already taking place. Later this year, the Government will be launching a major publicity campaign designed to change attitudes and actions that adversely affect disabled people. We will also seek to involve organisations of and for disabled people in wider public consultations and to increase the representation of disabled people on public bodies.

A new programme for action on employment of disabled people in the civil service, launched in conjunction with this document, will provide a strategic framework and detailed action checklists to help Departments and agencies recruit and retain disabled people. Many Government Departments and agencies have already improved the accessibility of their buildings and the quality of service they offer to disabled people. To encourage this approach throughout the public service, a checklist on how the citizens charter principles apply to service provision for disabled people will also be published shortly.

The Government have an impressive record in helping disabled people, but more needs to be done. This document outlines the Government's proposals for further action designed to release the untapped potential of disabled people in our society.

I commend the document to the House and ask that hon. Members and all those who share our concern to improve the quality of life of disabled people by removing barriers and expanding opportunities, to respond in a constructive and forward-looking way to its proposals.

It was with some sadness that I listened to the Minister's statement on what could possibly be his last appearance at the Dispatch. Box. His words add very little to what was said in the previous debate in the House, and in his subsequent letter to me on 26 May.

The Minister knows that there are two ways of evaluating the Government's performance before the statement—it is either malevolence towards disabled people and their rights or it is incompetence. Those of us who have been here Friday after Friday know which it is.

It is clear to us that the Government did not have the honesty or integrity to oppose publicly and openly a Bill offering civil rights to disabled people, and that they did not have the courage to allow the House to make its own decision on such a Bill. That is the background to today's statement. But for the Government's total embarrassment on recent Fridays, there would have been no statement, however inadequate.

We received a copy of the statement very late—only a few minutes before the Minister spoke. I thank him for giving us a copy, but I see that it refers to codes of practice; we hear "voluntary" "advisory" and, unfortunately, "citizens charter", but we do not hear about "power" to disabled people. Nor did we hear about a commission, which is the only effective way to deliver rights to disabled people.

Will the Minister confirm that the statement says nothing about important matters such as education and transport, which seriously affect the lives of disabled people? The statement runs to five pages of guff, but contains nothing about education or transport. [Interruption.] If I am allowed to be heard, I shall continue. I know that there are certain sensitivities on the Conservative Back Benches—we have certainly witnessed a discreditable performance Friday after Friday. Once again, Conservatives would like the Opposition's voice not to be heard on this important issue.

Why does the statement fail to address various aspects? It is clear that the Government believe that education and persuasion are all that is necessary, workable, affordable and practical. Suitable legislation that meets all the criteria and which would deliver power to disabled people has already been before the House.

Why has not the Minister produced a document that delivers civil rights? That is what the debate is all about, but the Government are terrified of delivering them to disabled people. Why has not the Minister made a statement of intention that delivers on holistic and integrated approach? The House and disabled people outside know that the statement is piecemeal, partial, pathetic, grudging, belated and inadequate. Disabled people and their supporters will not accept it.

I recall a story about a parson who from time to time used to write in the margins of his sermons the initials "AWSL". They stood for "argument weak: shout loudly". Nothing better typifies the hon. Gentleman's approach than those initials.

The previous Labour Government's record bears no comparison with that of this Government in meeting the needs of disabled people over the past 15 years. We have trebled the amount of money provided to disabled people through the benefits system; we have introduced the disability living allowance, the disability working allowance and the independent living fund; carers' income has increased one hundredfold; and I believe that our record bears comparison with anything that has gone before.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) listened with great care to the statement, and that he will respond in his usual constructive manner when he has had time to reflect. I believe that it contains another major step in the right direction. We do not believe in the concept of rights in the sense that it was embraced in the Bill. We prefer to tackle the key issues affecting the lives of disabled people in a practical, workmanlike and affordable manner. We will continue that approach.

Does my right hon. Friend accept that his own abhorrence of discrimination is widely recognised and appreciated and that it is welcome that the Government are undertaking consultation? But will he further accept that the extent of the consultation needs to be increased and that it must be conducted, so to speak, without prejudice?

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government owe it to all of us who are concerned about this immensely important issue to make a balanced and realistic analysis of the benefits as well as the costs to the economy, and that it will not do to assert again in the consultation document that the cost of anti-discrimination legislation is £17 billion? We appear to have a dialogue of the deaf in this regard—not with my right hon. Friend, but with the economic Departments.

Will my right hon. Friend accept that the consultation needs to cover all the relevant fields and that it is for the Government to lead in the introduction of legislation to establish civil rights for disabled people on a comprehensive basis as a decent society requires, while safeguarding the reasonable interests of employers and service providers?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his opening remarks and I appreciate his concern. I sought to set out in the statement what we have identified as the key issues. However, it will be open to those who read the consultative document to respond on a range of matters affecting the lives of disabled people. The document contains some assessment of the costs that flow from action in these spheres and, if we move in due course to relevant legislation, compliance cost assessments will be introduced.

I understand the point that my hon. Friend has raised more than once about the need to balance costs with the benefits that might flow to society.

Manifestly, it is more difficult to quantify those benefits in financial terms than to quantify the costs, but undoubtedly there are benefits from greater employment of disabled people and from putting greater purchasing power into the hands of disabled people. That purchasing power can then flow out. We ought to recognise those: to quantify them is a much more difficult task.

Is not the Minister still up the river without a paddle? Does he recall my hour-long meeting with the Prime Minister, when it was made clear that the Government could not accept any Bill on this subject with cost implications? Is that still his policy?

Is he aware that the promoters of the civil rights Bill have consulted very widely already? Indeed, is he aware that, ever since I first published the Bill in 1991, the response has been strongly positive? Is he also aware that it would be a further and gross betrayal of Britain's 6.5 million disabled people to abandon a Bill which they say is so crucially important to them, and which has a parliamentary majority? Will there be a debate in this House on the document on an amendable motion?

It is certainly not open to me to deal with the last point raised by the right hon. Gentleman, but I have no doubt that he can make his views known in other quarters.

The manifest flaw in the approach taken by the Bill which we recently discussed is that the costs that were inherent in it were unquantifiable and unpredictable. It is important when the Government come to legislate that they have a clear view not only about the costs that they intend to accept themselves but about those that they intend to impose on business and other providers in our society. That was not taken into account by the Opposition in their approach to the issue. I believe that to create a concept of some over-arching right for disabled people leads one all to easily into the dangers that we have observed in other such legislation.

Name one.

I look particularly—I make no criticism of anyone involved in the process—

Pregnant ex-service women.

If the hon. Gentleman will let me complete the sentence—yes, precisely that. I find few people in my constituency who do not react with astonishment and dismay to the prospect of pregnant ex-service women receiving grants and compensation vastly in excess of those serving members of the armed forces who have been injured in the course of their duties.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on an excellent statement, which is welcomed on the Conservative Benches as a positive way forward for providing additional opportunities for Britain's disabled people. I particularly welcome his proposals for the Government's own lead. The Government are a big player as an employer. I urge my right hon. Friend to produce the action checklist and act on it as soon as possible.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, whose record in disability matters is well known and highly respected. As I said in my statement, if we are to encourage others to take action in this important area, the Government must set a lead and an example.

Is the Minister aware that, although his statement is all very well and good, it does not go far enough? Disabled people want to have their civil rights entrenched in law. They want to be treated like ordinary human beings, because that is what they are.

Why are there no details about transport in the statement? The Minister says that he wants to get more disabled people into employment. Does he not realise that without accessible transport, they cannot get to that employment? He mentioned action in the document. Is he now saying that education and persuasion have not worked?

No—I do not agree with the hon. Lady's last point. Increasingly, in terms not only of physical provision but of attitudes towards disabled people, we have made a great deal of progress. However, I recognise that I would not be making this statement today if I did not recognise that we needed to do better and go further in the future.

In a way, I believe that transport has been a good example of how significant progress has been made in recent years without the need for some over-arching legislation. On the railways, all new rolling stock is now accessible for disabled people. We already have in London and in other parts of the country pilot projects for properly accessible buses.

All new taxis in London have to be accessible to wheelchairs, and 80 other local authorities around the country are following the same rules that were started in London. Anyone who looks at what has happened in terms of accessible transport in Britain over the 10 years should recognise the substantial progress that has been made.

Is it not a parliamentary fact that private Members' Bills are frail craft, ill suited for highly controversial and expensive legislation? I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on presenting a document that talks in terms of what is practical and affordable. I congratulate him on getting money out of the Treasury for that purpose at a difficult time.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has also contributed a great deal on disability matters. [Interruption.] We shall have to see. This is a consultation document. I know that it may be an unfamiliar concept to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) to publish suggestions and then listen to what people outside have to say about them. We will listen to the representations that are made to us and then make firm decisions on the way forward.

I thank the Minister for giving me, as the most recent promoter of the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill, early sight of his statement and the consultation document. There have been many such Bills, and I hope that it will not be necessary for there to be many more.

Will the Minister acknowledge that the very reason why he has made the statement here this morning is that there is overwhelming support throughout the country for the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill? If the Minister is saying that the Government cannot accept the principle of rights-based legislation, will he tell please tell the House why neither he nor any of his colleagues voted against the Second Reading of the Bill and why he did not oppose a single clause of the Bill in Committee?

Will the right hon. Gentleman recognise that the one option for progress that has the overwhelming majority support of Members of this House is, indeed, the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill? In the spirit of consultation —I share his view that it is necessary to consult—will the Minister circulate with his documents for consultation the one proposal that a majority of Members of Parliament are on record as supporting?

I recognise the proprietorial interest that the hon. Gentleman has in his piece of legislation.

Don't be so patronising.

I am not being patronising. I genuinely understand the hon. Gentleman's commitment to the concept behind his Bill. I do not happen to agree, and the Government do not agree, that it is the way forward. I believe that much of the swell of support for his Bill came about because of a general wish in our society to meet the needs of disabled people. I believe that, when people understand what we propose in a practical and affordable manner, they will support us in the work that we are doing, and look forward to the action that will flow from the process.

I commend my right hon. Friend for both the tone and the content of his statement, and for the positive steps that he has taken in issuing the consultation document. It is far more in character than his attitude to the private Member's Bill, which some of us found rather disappointing, and which seemed to alternate between ambivalence and a negative approach. Will he assure me that, during the consultation process, full account will be taken of the needs and problems of those who suffer what has been described as the invisible disability—the deaf and hard of hearing?

It will certainly be our intention to take account of those needs as we go forward. I hope that the House as a whole, rather than harking back to the approach of the Bill so recently discussed, will look forward in a constructive way to the future. Anyone who has held my job knows that the largest group of disabled people n our society is the deaf and hard of hearing. We will certainly not neglect their needs.

In his reference to the financial aspects and how disabled people could have access to finance, the Minister referred to the "main forms" of disability. Does that mean that he is talking about the categorisation of disability? Disability comes in many forms, and each is distressing, and we certainly would not like to see any categorisation. As to monitoring discrimination, the Minister indicated that a much closer watch will be kept on that. Who will be appointed to do the monitoring and to whom will they be accountable? Finally, what budget limit has been placed on the exercise by the Treasury?

It would clearly be wrong to go into the consultation process with some predetermined financial limit on what action might follow, and no such thing has been done. We will be going out genuinely to consult on the proposals in the document, and then looking to see what action can be taken. We do not enter this with predetermined attitudes, and we look forward to receiving and involving all the organisations of and for disabled people, as well as hon. Members. Of course, we are not forgetting that there are many other people whose businesses and other activities will be affected by any legislation that we pass in this sensitive area.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that his statement successfully balances the special needs of disabled people with the reasonable ability of a Government to pay, unlike the past rhetoric of Opposition Members?

I am sure that that is right; it is the correct approach for us to take in this area. Having said that, I am convinced—I am sure that all those who have held my post are convinced—that there is still discrimination against disabled people. Of course, this involves some expenditure, but it also involves changing many people's attitudes towards disabled people and recognising the immense untapped potential there still is for disabled people to contribute in a whole variety of ways to our society.

The credibility among disabled people of the consultation that the Minister wants will depend on what happens after that consultation. The Minister referred to the three-month period. Can he tell the House a little more about what will happen?

Will there be a Bill, or will there be a debate initiated by the Government, which would give hon. Members a proper opportunity to discuss all the points raised in the consultation? If that is the case, can he assure the House that we will not be treated as we were, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry) was, over the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill, when we did not have a proper allocation of time? May we have an assurance that, after the consultation, something constructive will happen and there will be adequate time for the House to discuss that?

I would not have produced a document, as I have today, unless I was looking forward to positive action following the consultation process. I very much hope that, during the three-month period, we will get a good and positive response to the ideas in the document. Legislation is referred to in the document. We will have to see how to carry that work forward when we return.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the difficulty in this saga is not a question of principle but the practical application to help the disabled, in which he has such a singularly distinguished record? Is there not a stark contrast between the practical help offered by the Government in the instant help given to those on the disability living allowance introduced by this Government, compared to the Labour Government's mobility allowance introduced in 1976, which was phased in over a long period? Does that not demonstrate the differences between posturing and practical application?

Of course, Labour Governments suffer when they seek to introduce measures in this area—and, indeed, in a whole range of other areas—from their total and proven inability to run a successful economy. The controls of the International Monetary Fund always play a significant part in their activities.

Is not the reality that the Government have been dragged kicking, screaming and protesting into introducing the consultation document? May I take the Minister back to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox), about what might happen in terms of legislation? May we have an assurance that, in so far as the consultation period ends in three months' time, at the end of October, we will have legislation before July next year? I give the Minister notice that Labour will seek substantially to amend that legislation if it does not meet our objectives.

The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that I am not in a position to give that assurance, but I can tell him that we are approaching the consultative exercise, on which we are now embarking, in a positive way, and looking forward to a positive outcome as a result.

Is not the only pathetic thing about the statement this morning the ridiculous rant of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), and the fact that so many Labour Members have singularly failed to welcome what is an important step forward for the disabled?

Is it not a fact that this Government have achieved more for the disabled than the Labour party could ever have dreamt of 15 years ago? Is it not both presumptuous and impertinent for Labour Members to arrogate to themselves the monopoly of caring for the disabled, and the belief that they have the only practical and sensible system for achieving the sort of end for the disabled that all of us in the House want?

With his long experience of advocacy and presenting effective cases, I do not think that I can do better than simply say that I agree with my hon. and learned Friend.

If, as the Minister said, the costs of the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill are unquantifiable, how have the figures which I have heard, which range from £15 billion to £18 billion, been arrived at, and why was there no detailed definition of such costs in the Bill? Further, with whom will the Minister consult? All we have heard from Tory Members is an attitude to the disabled which suggests that they are constantly looking for patronising help. It is not help the disabled want; it is civil rights.

The document is being distributed across the whole range of those who are interested in this matter. Of course, it involves the organisations of and for disabled people, as well as hon. Members. It will also be of particular interest to those on whom any costs may fall, either in the public or the private sector. I look forward to receiving a whole range of views about the way forward, but the Government certainly intend to approach the matter in a constructive and forward-looking manner.

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement today and for the opportunity it gives the country as a whole for constructive consultation on this matter. Is he aware that the 60 per cent. increase in funding for the London dial-a-ride has been warmly welcomed in London since the demise of the Greater London council? Is that not a good example of how the Government have taken positive and constructive action throughout their time in office to help disabled people and not relied on adding burdens on industry which may in fact harm the interests of disabled people?

The whole point of the consultation document is to be able to balance a whole range of factors —some leaning one way, some another way. I certainly reinforce my admiration for the progress that we have made in terms of dial-a-ride. But in a whole range of other areas, surely those who have open rather than closed minds recognise the tremendous progress that has been made over the past 15 years.

Does the Minister recall that, when the National Health Service and Community Care Bill was discussed in the House, assurances were given by the right hon. Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley), who is now the Secretary of State for Health, that the advocacy provisions in the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986 were overtaken by the provisions in the 1990 Act? Obviously, that is now nonsense to all disabled people in the country.

The Minister made no mention whatever of advocacy provisions this morning. What steps will the Government take within the review to ensure that proper advocacy provisions for disabled persons are introduced in Britain?

Manifestly, those matters are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and, undoubtedly, the hon. Gentleman will take an opportunity to raise that matter with her. We certainly do not want closely to define the consultative process on the document. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that he has points that are relevant to it, he is welcome to put them forward.

My right hon. Friend talked about financial services and suggested that a code of voluntary practice is appropriate. Given the change in those financial services, that is probably better than primary legislation. In his discussions with the industry, and bearing in mind the fact that one of our larger institutions recently had to withdraw some of its employees from work because it got the guidelines wrong, will my right hon. Friend ensure that the guidelines, when they are issued, receive wide publicity and are aimed at customers of those financial institutions?

In addition, will my right hon. Friend stress to the industry the fact that, should it decide to place additional sums on a client's costs because he or she is disabled, it will have to be demonstrably proven that that extra cost relates to the disability and that there is a strong reason why such a cost should not be absorbed generally within the services?

I am sure that my hon. Friend's latter point will be taken seriously by those who take part in the consultation—the organisations that represent banking, insurance and building societies.

The document contains few international comparisons, which does not surprise me. In 1981, I was the rapporteur in the European Parliament for the International Year of the Disabled, which involved making comparisons between European countries on the situation of disabled people. At that time, the United Kingdom was very near the bottom of the pile on rights for disabled people, and it is still at the bottom of the pile. This document is the mark of a weak Minister, who has failed to make his case with the Treasury.

On the quota system, it has been suggested that the system ought to be voluntary. In other European countries, a financial levy is imposed on employers who do not meet the quota system. The Minister should consider that carefully, as its strength has already been established. The Department of Employment is one of the few Government Departments to have reached its 3 per cent. quota. Is he suggesting that, if there is a voluntary scheme, Departments will be able to throw the quota system out of the window?

I described earlier the new actions being taken throughout the civil service to encourage the employment and retention of disabled people. We will be approaching that matter very positively throughout Government.

The hon. Lady's recollection of the pattern of provision in other European countries may or may not be correct. I have visited a number of them since I was given my present responsibilities. In this country, we have nothing to be ashamed of in our provision for disabled people. She mentioned the concept of imposing a levy on employers if they fail to reach their quota, as happens in one or two European countries. Many employers in those countries prefer to pay the levy rather than employ a disabled person.

As part of his consultation, will my right hon. Friend explore better ways to promote best practice and effective practical help, such as the excellent decision by Trent Buses, which operates in my constituency, to replace its existing bus fleet with so-called "kneeling buses", to the great benefit of disabled people and the elderly?

I very much agree. Opposition Members often deride good practice as an ineffective approach. Of course I recognise that law has to play a part in our approach to meeting disabled people's needs, but I am sure that good practice, and a deeper understanding of the contribution that disabled people can make and the extent to which we can voluntarily overcome obstacles to their doing so—in a way that encourages good practice—also have an important part to play.

rose—

Order. I am now going to bring questions on the statement to a close. Hon. Members will understand that we shall be returning to the subject of disability. Today is the last day for private Members' Bills and I cannot deny those Members with Bills on the Order Paper the opportunity to reach their Bills.

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

This is an important measure, which has received all-party support in this House and in the other place. In the Standing Committee, I welcomed the support given by the hon. Members for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) and for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), and I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) here on behalf of the Scottish National party.

The Bill would introduce changes to fisheries legislation to allow my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to control all fishing activities in inshore waters, where it seems to him that such control is necessary to preserve stocks, or prevent disputes between fishermen using different and incompatible types of fishing gear.

Those powers are already available to my right hon. Friend where fishing is conducted from fishing vessels. The recent growth in land-based dredging operations, however, has allowed a coach and horses to be driven through the control measures that Parliament put in place in the Inshore Fishing Act 1984. That has meant that the full weight of stock conservation has fallen on one group of fishermen who are prosecuting the stock in question. There is broad agreement in Scotland that that is inequitable, and I believe that the House will share that view.

It is clear that the law should be changed to ensure that all who profit from an activity also contribute to the long-term survival of the resources that they are using. Only by that means can real sustainability be assured. Developments in other parts of the fishing industry have shown that sustainability can be difficult enough to achieve when all concerned are contributing to sensible conservation measures. It is clear that, without that solution, no conservation measures will work. If there is no conservation, there will be no long-term industry.

The problems of land dredging arise in many parts of Scotland, but the activity has proved most worrying on the Solway firth. That is partly because of the vast sandbanks that are exposed at low tide. They often stretch as far as the eye can see—about three or four miles. The sandbanks are ideal for populations of cockles and, in recent years, a fishery has developed to extract them.

In the beginning, a small number of local vessels adapted their fishing equipment to take cockles, but, as increasing numbers of tractors also joined in the fishery, it became evident that the cockle stocks were diminishing. That reduction was brought about and aggravated by the situation across the sea in Holland, where the Dutch Waddensee cockle fishery closed in 1992. Some of the Dutch fishermen decided to come to Scotland to prosecute the stocks there.

The hydraulic suction dredgers used are tractor-drawn. That is a highly efficient method of harvesting cockles, but unfortunately the dredgers sort, and almost entirely remove, cockles of a certain age and size, which significantly reduces the biomass of stocks within a site. The survival of the remaining cockles is good only if they are left undisturbed. Unfortunately, with that method of extraction, they are not.

Dredging has an impact not only on cockles, but on the other flora and fauna found in the sea bed. The magnitude of that impact will depend on the frequency of dredging, on the depth at which it occurs and on whether the fauna is able to move away from the site of disturbance. The damage is significant environmentally and has an impact on the life of the sea bed.

The stock reduction may in part have resulted from entirely natural fluctuations in stock levels. I understand that cockle stocks are especially vulnerable to large fluctuations in their numbers. I do not intend to go into details of the reproductive cycle of a cockle—

I do not want to encourage my hon. Friend to go into the sex life of a mollusk—exciting or dull though that may be. The obverse, however, is that, when sensible conservation measures are taken, the refreshment of stocks can be very rapid for precisely the same reason.

My hon. Friend raises a valid point, but he will recognise that the reductions that can occur naturally and through the aggravated process of dredging mean that it is necessary to have conservation measures, and that is what the Bill is about.

I was talking about natural fluctuations, which are a part of the natural biology of the cockle. It is clearly a factor within which fishermen have to work and, as my hon. Friend said, they must take cognisance of it. It is not impossible that some of the falling stock levels were due to natural and environmental reasons, entirely unrelated to either the land-based or vessel-based dredging activities. However, surveys of the cockle beds showed beyond doubt that the population had shrunk considerably.

Because of that, my hon. Friend the Minister had to judge whether the existing levels of fishing could safely continue, given the changing size of the cockle stock. A letter put out by the Scottish Office on 10 June 1993 referred to the stocks situation in Solway:

"Updated scientific assessment of cockle stocks in the Solway have just become available. These indicate that the biomass has improved slightly from its low in 1991…though stocks remain well below the 197m per square km detected in 1990. However much of the latest increase stems from good spat settlement in 1992 and these very young cockles form a very high proportion of the total stock biomass. Stock assessments of older cockles indicate a steady and continuing decline… After two poor years, the good spat settlement in 1992 is encouraging. However, the exploitable stock biomass remains at very low levels and is, in fact, below the level at which the fishery was closed last year."

As result of the statistics, the Minister extended the fishery's closure beyond July 1993 and has said that it will remain closed until August 1994. I understand that he has renewed that closure, because the situation is still poor. Of course, that applies only to vessels which fish from the sea.

It was at the point when my hon. Friend acted that local vessel owners pressed him and the Scottish Office to control the activities of all cockle fishermen, to make sure that sufficient population levels remain for stocks to regenerate themselves. They fully realised that they would have to be affected by any controls as well and their motivation was not to put an end to land-based dredging while they continued regardless. They accepted that, in the absence of powers to control tractor dredgers, it would be themselves alone who would have to stop fishing, at least in the short term.

I applaud the fishermen for the responsible attitude that they have shown to stock conservation and I also sympathise with them because they have had to suffer one-sided controls for so long. I know that they are eagerly awaiting the completion of the Bill and that they are equally eager for the powers to be used as soon as possible, to bring all fishing activities under the existing controls. I hope that my hon. Friend will say something about how he envisages the powers being used and how quickly and effectively they can be brought in.

Concerns have also been raised by other interest groups. Cockles are an important foodstuff for many coastal bird populations. The south-west of Scotland is particularly rich in bird wintering and nesting areas. It is not the only part of Scotland which is affected by the measure and which has cockle areas.

I received information from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds—it has been extremely helpful in the preparation of the details of the Bill and in providing background information to myself and colleagues who have approached it—that cockling areas that are of international importance for wild birds include not only the Solway but Dornoch firth, Cromarty firth and Otterswick in Orkney.

The areas are spread throughout Scotland and while the problem at present exists only in the Solway firth, it is likely that it could be aggravated, and could spread to other parts of Scotland. The Press and Journal of 28 April 1992 states:

"Pirates plunder Tain shellfish".

Tractor dredgers must have already got up to that part of Scotland.

The activities of tractor dredgers and, to some extent, other fishing activities, obviously upset the fragile balance which exists within the eco-system. In particular, dredging activities conducted at low tide can disturb roosting birds during the winter months, as well as the foreshore when it is exposed or covered with shallower water than would be the case with vessel dredgers. That means that overturned sand that has been left to dry out could have a serious impact on many other marine organisms that live in the same stratum of the foreshore as cockles.

If there are not enough cockles for birds to eat, they can starve to death. In the Dutch situation to which I have referred, there was a significant death rate among the eider ducks that fed in that area. Undersized cockles that are returned to the sea as part of the process of suction dredging are less likely to survive if they are returned to parts of the beach that have dried out.

On the other hand, vessel dredgers return small shellfish to the sea bed while they are still covered in water and that allows them to burrow easily back into the sand. Another clear impact on local bird populations—this applies equally to vessel dredgers and tractors—is caused by the fact that the number of cockles remaining for local bird populations is reduced. It must be obvious that that may have an impact on breeding success and can in extreme cases lead to the short-term survival of adult birds.

The House knows that much of rural Scotland has outstanding beauty. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am pleased to hear my hon. Friends from south of the border agreeing with that; may many more of them come to see the beauties of Scotland. In particular, they may like to see the beauties of the Solway firth.

The countryside is a valuable natural resource in its own right, but it is also of inestimable value in attracting tourists to areas that otherwise would have limited means of income generation. Tourists come for a wide variety of reasons, but one is to see the wild animals and birds that thrive in those areas. Any potential impact on birds would therefore be worrying in its own right, but could also have an impact on the long-term income generated from the tourism industry.

The Annandale Herald of Thursday 3 December says:

"Scottish Office environment minister, Sir Hector Monro, announced international conservation designations for the Upper Solway Flats and Marshes this week. The site, which straddles the Scottish/English border, has been made a Special Protection Area for Birds and a Wetland of International Importance under the Ramsar convention."

People will come to visit the Solway firth not just to see the bird life but to experience the peace and quiet which is so natural there. I know that the RSPB has circulated hon. Members with photographs of what the beach at the Solway firth looks like with the monstrosities of tractors and dredgers. There is a man in the photograph and it clearly shows that the suction dredger is more than double the size of that man. These objects go charging up and down the beach, ripping it to pieces, and they have an effect on the peace and quiet of the area.

The measures that the hon. Gentleman is proposing are generally thought to be constructive. Is it not all the more a pity that, the last time they came before the House, they were caught up in the disreputable attempts by his hon. Friends to delay and stop discussion of the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill? Is not the point that we should take from this that constructive measures such as these should not become a part of the tactics used in this place to stop other hon. Members' constructive measures?

If the hon. Gentleman had been present on that occasion, he might understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff) raised valuable points about the problems related to ownership of the tractors and leasing commitments. He raised valid points about which there was concern and he contributed significantly to highlighting the importance of the details of the Bill.

My hon. Friend will no doubt recall that the only reason that the Bill failed to complete its Committee stage on that day was that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) called an unnecessary Division, which meant that the Bill was lost.

I agree; that is why I want to ensure that we get the Bill through today.

I do not believe that all land-based dredging need necessarily be prohibited, but it must be controlled. That will ensure a proper balance between it and other types of fishing. The powers in the Bill will be used to ensure an overall balance between fishing activities generally and the flora and fauna that would be affected by any activity.

Land-based dredging techniques are in their infancy and I do not believe that anyone can say at this stage that that activity must be curtailed for ever more throughout Scotland and at all times of the year. It is important, however, to ensure that the Minister has flexible powers available to use in whatever way is necessary in the circumstances that face him. In this case, he should have the power to address the anomaly whereby conservation measures affect those who fish from vessels, while, unfortunately, they must watch as tractors on the beach continue to deplete the stocks of cockles.

The Bill has, therefore, been carefully drafted to allow seasonal controls and for those controls to apply to certain parts of the coastline only—for example, in areas of particular sensitivity to bird life. That flexibility is similar to the powers already available in the Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act 1984 in relation to vessels. Those powers have worked well in the past 10 years and it can only be right that, when the Act is extended, similar flexibility should exist in its revised coverage.

The Bill has support from both sides of the House and from all fishing organisations. I was speaking to Bob Allan, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, just last night and he reconfirmed his support for the Bill. I therefore believe that it should reach the statute book and pass into law as quickly as possible.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) once again raised the canard about why a number of Conservative Members are keen to speak about the Bill. I will not weary him once again with an account of those reasons; I simply refer him to column 1039 of the Official Report of 20 May, which gives a full and adequate account of our concerns about the Bill.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Kynoch) did not realise what he was saying when he referred to my non-attendance on 20 May. I am sure that, on reflection, he will recall that that was the day of John Smith's funeral and will want to withdraw his imputation.

I will happily give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Kynoch) if he wishes to help to clear up this matter.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. If the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) had been here on that day, he would have realised that we were sympathetic about the fact that Opposition Members were not present. I was not implying anything about his absence, but he was suggesting that that sensible debate had been totally unnecessary. If he had read Hansard fully, he would have appreciated that the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff) were valid. I do not want to imply that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan was absent through lack of interest and if that is what I did imply, I do not want it to be on the record.

Order. I think that those mutual explanations will suffice for the moment. Can we now get back to the Third Reading?

I agree entirely with your judgment, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

The two basic themes behind the Bill are environmental and economic. One deals with protecting birds and the other with protecting the activities of responsible fishermen. Both those needs are extremely urgent. It is my great regret that we were unable to give the Bill its Third Reading on 20 May, so that it could reach the statute book. Conservative Members, at least, know the reason for that.

There is an urgent need to act. I should like to quote from a leaflet entitled "The Solway Firth" produced by English Nature and Scottish Natural Heritage. It states:

"Today the Solway's highly productive and largely unchanged environment continues to play a key role in many people's lives. With careful management, some of the more traditional means of earning a living such as those in the fishing industry may contribute to the local economy for a long time to come. At the same time the relatively unspoilt coastline with its combination of mudflat, rocky shore, sea cliff and sandy beach is attracting new commercial activities that include tourism, bird-watching and industrial development.

To manage all the Solway's rich resources wisely so that they are still there for future generations to enjoy and use, will require a careful balancing of all present and future needs."

That sums up the purpose that lies behind the Bill.

About 19 months ago, the Scottish Office announced enhanced protection for the upper Solway firth. On 10 December 1992, the Galloway News quoted the Dairy-based RSPB conservation officer for Dumfries and Galloway, Chris Rollie, as saying:

"The RSPB are delighted that the Government has at last recognised the international importance of the Solway and we hope that this will increase the impetus for proper regulation of the cockle industry, for example, to take account of the internationally important birds and other wildlife."

On 5 May, The Herald contained a long report on concerns about marine pollution and human activities, particularly as they affect bird life. It reported David Dick, the RSPB's species protection officer as saying,

"points to 75,000 seabird deaths along Scotland's East coast in February. Scientists are fairly sure the birds died from starvation. They suspect bad weather played a part. But the scale of the deaths has confounded them.

Mr. Dick is also concerned at the increases of some bird populations and the decreases of others. It all points to further signs of an eco-system tilting out of balance.

'It shows just how little we know about how the sea works' he says."

I underline those points. I am sure that hon. Members will have noted Mr. Dick's observation that starvation on the other side of Scotland may have played a part in the deaths of those sea birds. The Bill is aimed at preventing that fate.

In the same article, Bob Allan, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, is reported as saying:

"fishermen are all in favour of participating in campaigns to sustain a healthy marine population, but he warns that they are being locked into 'a straitjacket of bureaucracy'—of regulations and directives from Brussels.

'The last thing we want is a whole new set of rules,' he says. 'If they are coming to talk to us as fishermen about ways we can help them to sustain bird population and other forms of marine life, fine. But they have to appreciate that the industry is in many ways fighting for survival.'"

Against that background, the federation's support for the Bill is all the more admirable.

Controls are urgently required to protect not just birds but, as the quote from The Herald suggests, fishermen. Fish Trader of 5 to 18 March states:

"Cockle beds in the Solway have also been closed and new by-laws are proposed for the Dee. Fortunately cockle stocks in the Burry Inlet, South Wales have been protected by a strict quota system and the fishery, centred on Penclawdd, remains productive.

Ups and downs in stock levels are typical in this fishery and cockle beds can regenerate quickly after a good `spatfall'."

That was the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside. The article continues:

"But many fishermen fear the cockle bonanza will be over unless stricter controls are introduced soon to protect the declining stocks."

In other words, this is a problem not just for the Solway firth and for Scotland but for the entire United Kingdom. That is why I am here, representing an English constituency.

My first question to the Minister is the same as that posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside. How soon after the Bill receives Royal Assent will its provisions be enacted? The need for action is urgent. In a recent letter to me, the Minister with responsibility for fisheries in Scotland said that, because we had lost the Bill more than a month ago, part of this season's stock has already been lost to effective protection. How quickly does he intend to introduce the measures in the Bill?

I have also received a series of specific questions from the RSPB, some of which I have written to the Minister about. He has been kind enough to reply in writing. As part of the RSPB's new and welcome marine life campaign, it published a document earlier this year, entitled, "Recommendations for the Protection of Seabirds' Marine Habitats", in which it spoke about the need to establish protected sea areas under United Kingdom law. It states:

"Biological targets should be established to judge the success or failure of management. Depending upon the objectives in protecting a site, targets could be in terms of richness of the seabed invertebrate community, fish stock characteristics or wildlife populations.

There must be a basis in law for managing all activities, even existing rights which are not compatible with site management objectives. Fisheries authorities must have proactive powers to manage fishing activities, both in the interest of the fishery and for ensuring fishing in an area is compatible with other uses of the site.

The Government is being called upon to protect marine wildlife and fisheries from various threats, such as tankers, offshore development etc. A coherent programme for identifying sites needing protection and controlling threats must be established by the Government, rather than the current ad hoc site protection measures."

The Bill is welcome—I hope that it will receive the approval of the House—but it is an ad hoc measure in respect of the RSPB's overall marine life campaign. Under the new European habitats and species directive, the Government are obliged to designate and protect coastal and marine areas, including the Solway, Cromarty firth and the Severn estuary, rather nearer to my constituency of Worcester.

I should be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister would say whether a decision has been made on which coastal and marine areas should be designated under the habitats and species directive and what new measures will be introduced to control fishing in such areas. The Association of District Councils in England and Wales and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities have asked repeatedly for certain activities below low-water mark, including fish farming, to be brought within the jurisdiction of local authorities. I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Minister would repeat what he said to me in his letter about the intention of legislation to extend the jurisdiction of local authorities below the low-water mark.

The regulatory mechanism for fisheries in Scotland is determined by my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for fisheries, and in England and Wales fisheries regulations are determined at local level by sea fisheries committees. Will my hon. Friend comment on an intention to introduce sea fisheries committees in Scotland?

I also press my hon. Friend the Minister about the levels of fine in the original 1984 legislation which are not addressed in the Bill. The levels are referred to in section 4(2), which states:

"Any person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £5,000 or, on conviction on indictment, to a fine."

Does my hon. Friend regard those fines as truly adequate 10 years after the original Bill? Was consideration given, in advising my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside, to the need to uprate those fines to provide an effective deterrent?

Several amendments that I have tabled have not been selected for debate. I do not challenge your decision on that point, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I hope that the Minister will be able to give some assurances about the issues that those amendments address, particularly the advice that is given to fisheries officers. The unselected amendments deal with reasonableness in enforcement. I seek a simple assurance from my hon. Friend the Minister that fisheries officers are advised to act reasonably at all times.

We know that the federation supports the Bill—hon. Members heard me quote the article in The Herald—and we heard of the federation's concern about the straitjacket of regulation and bureaucracy that it considers that it suffers from and the fight for survival that it is engaged in. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister would agree that we must not harass fishermen unnecessarily. Fisheries protection vessels—one of my family has served as a fisheries protection officer, so I know something of the subject—can engage in fairly intimidating tactics to stop illegal fishing. They can fire blanks, they can call up a frigate, they can buzz a vessel with a helicopter, and so on. Long chases can be quite exciting experiences. I hope that, at the end of a chase, there is no temptation to vindictiveness on the part of fisheries officers.

What would constitute unreasonableness? An intimidatory approach to searching individuals or cabins, excessive intrusions into privacy and so on all need to be considered. The Bill confers remarkable powers on fisheries officers—powers which I am sure that officers use with discretion. The House will be a little surprised to know that—I say this with no sense of flippancy—this is the only legislation that confers on fisheries protection officers, and sometimes naval officers, an absolute right to ask a pretty girl to submit to a strip search without giving any reason whatsoever. That might be a fanciful example of the powers in the Bill, but my hon. Friend the Minister will have to concede that it is factually correct. I hope that he will be able to assure me that the guidance given to fisheries protection officers deals fully with that point.

This is an important Bill for Scotland; the issues that it raises are important for the whole of the United Kingdom. I commend it to the House.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Kynoch) on introducing this subject. It is obviously greatly important to him and to other Scottish Members. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has raised the matter throughout the country. My eight-year-old son, who is a member of the RSPB, has brought the matter to my attention in the way in which only small children can, and he will no doubt do so in respect of other environmental subjects.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff), who obviously has an in-depth knowledge of the subject. I should be interested to learn the answer to his question about strip searching and whether it is true or nothing more than a fishy tale.

I represent a land-locked constituency, but my constituents are not land locked; they travel widely—for example, to Scotland and to other parts of the country. I am conscious from their comments on this and many other environmental subjects just how such issues are becoming increasingly important to everybody, wherever they may live. There is a need for conservation. There is also a need for people to be able to go about their normal course of business and earn their livelihoods. Often, there is considerable tension between those two requirements, but I suspect that that is not the case in respect of the Bill, as the intention is to do in Scotland what has already been done in England and Wales. Often, Scottish Members complain that legislation is introduced first in Scotland and then later in England and Wales. This legislation mirrors what already exists in England and Wales or can be implemented in England and Wales.

There has been an advance in cockle fishing techniques since the introduction of the Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act 1984. I suspect that it was not visualised then that cockle fishing could take place in other ways—for example, tractor dredging, which can be very destructive not only for cockle fisheries but for estuaries generally. I have always understood cockling to be a traditional activity in many estuaries in Scotland, England and Ireland. We all recall the song that we learned at school —[HON. MEMBERS: "Sing it."] I will not sing it, but it goes something like, "In Dublin's fair city, where the maids are so pretty". I am sure that hon. Members can finish the first verse for me.

The tensions and difficulties arise not in the traditional activity of cockling but in the suction dredging technique, which the Bill would control. An extremely disturbing survey undertaken by the university of Aberdeen showed that heavy exploitation by whatever technique of such fishing would result in, perhaps, a short-lived, high-yielding fishery but then periods when stocks were too low to support a viable fishery. Those who indulge in such techniques ruin the livelihoods of others.

The problem occurs elsewhere. Disturbing reports have been brought to my attention, in particular one in The Independent in June 1993. It was reported that more than 20 men were travelling the country in search of cockles and were using two articulated trucks, tractors and an all-terrain vehicle, and that they were attempting to take cockles from an estuary in Wales. The problem is more widespread than has been mentioned so far. The report goes on:

"a local cockle picker said of incoming gatherers: 'They have no right to come here. We want to gather cockles here for the next 40 years and not just for a couple of weeks'."

That demonstrates succinctly exactly what the Bill seeks to achieve. An article that appeared in a newspaper a few months earlier said that fast-moving pirates from the south of England are going to a bay in Scotland, which is rich in shellfish, to take the shellfish in a short period, thereby destroying the fishing there for the future.

Clearly, tractor dredging is causing great disturbance. It is not only destroying normal fishing but causing many difficulties for other wildlife, particularly birds. Hon. Members will agree that it is much easier to destroy than to conserve, but it is essential for the future that measures be available so that conservation can be dealt with in a sympathetic, clear and coherent manner. I support the Bill.

It is surprising that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond), who criticised hon. Members who wanted to speak in this debate for filibustering to keep out another Bill, has vanished now that the discussion is under way.

It is a pleasure to discuss a Bill on conservation, as we rarely have an opportunity to discuss conservation relating to a matter that commands widespread support from both sides of the House. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Kynoch) said, this is an important Bill. As an English Member, I step into this debate somewhat reluctantly as I want to discuss the Solway firth, which the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro), knows like the back of his hand. If I make an incorrect statement about it, I am sure that he will correct me immediately. I know the Solway because it is near my constituency. It is a wonderful part of the country and its estuary is of unique value to the landscape and wildlife of the British Isles, so it needs careful protection.

The area is also popular among tourists who go there to see the wildlife and landscape. I know of only one tourist who did not like the area. He was a local man called Paul Jones, who went on to become the commander-in-chief of the Confederate Navy during the American civil war and was responsible for the last invasion of these islands. Funnily enough, the area that he chose to invade was Kircudbright which is on the Solway, and he bombarded the town. So that tourist went back to the area with an evil intention.

The protection of wildlife in the area through the control of the cockle fisheries is essential. Hon. Members may not know that the other side of the Solway is England, where cockle fishing has been controlled for many years. The English have a much better record on conservation than the Scots. For instance, we took off the salmon nets in about 1865, whereas the Scots still have the right to take salmon with nets on their side of the Solway. I believe that the Scots refused to take off their nets in the 19th century because they were frightened that Englishmen would come and steal their fish. So rather than have Englishmen steal their fish, they would fish it themselves, regardless of the conservation consequences. That is a typical Scottish attitude.

The Scots had a fascinating way of catching salmon. I realise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that a salmon is a little larger than a cockle, but it is linked by fishing. The Scots used to ride on horseback and spear the salmon in the shallow waters of the Solway, so there is a long history of fishing in that area.

One of the problems faced by the Solway cockle is the change in status of the humble cockle. We have had a good discussion on the cockle this morning, although I was hoping to hear a little about its sex life. I read up on that interesting subject, but my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside rightly spared the House the intimate details. Whereas the cockle used to be eaten by Cockneys when they went to Southend-on-Sea, it has now moved up a scale and become a shellfish delicacy, particularly on the continent. Because the Dutch closed their cockle beds, the price of cockles has been forced up to such an extent that it has caused a bonanza for tractor dredgers on the Solway and other areas.

I have visited the Solway at night [HON. MEMBERS: "What for?"] I confess that I went there for wildfowl.

Will my hon. Friend pursue a little further the interesting question of why the Dutch had to close their cockle beds? Was it because of the overfishing, which the Bill is designed to prevent in this country? Or was it for some other reason, such as disease, environmental damage or pollution, from which we could learn a useful lesson to safeguard the future of our cockle industry?

I understand that it was because of pressure from environmentalists. Overfishing and the knock-on effect on bird life caused the Dutch Government to introduce regulations to ban cockle fishing in a substantial number of traditional cockle beds. The Dutch have a passion for fish and shellfish and are determined to buy it everywhere. Interestingly, Dutchmen are behind the tractor dredging industry on the Solway. Locals will confirm that, although the tractor dredgers are locals or southerners who come up to fish, they sell their cockles to Dutch merchants who wait in the area and pay large sums of cash for bags of cockles, which are rapidly moved overseas to Holland. There are also reports of Dutchmen using British-licensed boats to fish cockles in the sea. So the high prices and the increasing demand for cockles are problems faced by the poor mollusc.

The effect on bird life has differed according to the species of bird. I am grateful to the RSPB, which has been helpful on this matter. Curiously, although the overfishing of cockles is causing a decline in most species, particularly wading birds, the population of the pintail seems to be going up, perhaps because it feeds on smaller cockles which sea fishermen are putting back into the water. I hope that, during the period of consultation that will follow the Bill's enactment, we can examine that phenomenon so that that problem can be dealt with.

I welcome the Bill and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside on piloting it through the House. I wish it a speedy passage today and hope that it will be enacted as soon as possible so that the wildlife and traditions of the Solway firth may be preserved.

I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make a few comments. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Kynoch) on promoting the Bill so effectively. It seeks to amend the Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act 1984 to make provision for the control of fishing in Scottish inshore waters by vehicles or equipment. As my hon. Friend said, it brings the law in Scotland in line with that in England and Wales.

Many threads in the Bill are being examined today. One thread involves the livelihoods of those affected by cockling and the decline in cockling stocks in the Solway firth area, the good husbandry of stocks for the future and the closing of loopholes that destroy those stocks. There is a broader environmental picture. We are talking about wildlife conservation, fisheries development, business and leisure, all of which have conflicting demands.

The problem is not unique to Scotland. My hon. Friend referred to the experience of the Netherlands. Such was the decline of cockle stocks in the Waddensea, in the North sea in the Netherlands that a closure was made. That action was taken because birds in the area were consuming 13,500 tonnes of cockles per annum—more than the stock. That shows the importance of the cockle stocks, not only to individuals who wish to consume them, but to bird life.

The Solway firth is an extremely important natural habitat, particularly for oyster catchers, knots and sea ducks, which eat cockles. The Solway firth is a natural habitat for many species of bird life. We must balance the needs of the bird life with the needs of fishermen who make their livelihoods in the area.

I believe that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, were in the Chair when I initiated an Adjournment debate on a landlocked subject—metal detecting, which causes big problems in my constituency. Due to that experience I empathise with those in the Solway firth area. Illegal metal detecting destroyed crops in my region—a phenomenon that is not dissimilar to the destruction of fishermen's livelihoods and the depletion of cockle stocks in areas such as the Solway firth. The environmental damage caused is similar and parallels can be made between the two—the spirit of the Bill is the same as the spirit behind that Adjournment debate.

In 1985 and 1989, orders were introduced to make necessary adjustments to the 1984 Act. They stressed that fishermen should voluntarily restrict their actions. The Scottish Office displayed a willingness to be flexible. We now know that the cockle fisheries were closed and the ban has been further extended.

Research was done in the "Netherlands Journal of Sea Research" in 1990 and it was found that considerable damage could be done and recovery could be quick. But it was found that if the action was repeated regularly, it caused irreparable ecological damage. Suction tractors are a new innovation and cause extensive damage when used on an unsustainable basis. The aim at the heart of the Bill is to prevent the terribly damaging effect of tractor dredging that undermines fishermen's livelihoods.

Cockles landed in 1991 in the United Kingdom totalled 40,000 tonnes; by 1993, it was down to 20,000 tonnes. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) said, cockles have ceased to be the staple food of cockneys and have become designer food in fashionable restaurants. It is not only the birds that have suffered from the lack of cockles, but people's wallets.

The RSPB and Scottish Natural Heritage have pressed for the measure. The Solway firth is the largest continuous area of inter-tidal habitat in the United Kingdom and is a vital resting place for migratory birds. It is the winter home to many waders and wild fowl. Oyster catchers are particularly keen on eating cockles and 34,000 of them live in the Solway firth. In addition, there are many barnacle geese from Spitsbergen, as well as pink-footed geese. Some 120,000 different birds live in the Solway firth at different times and the ecological balance of that vital area of the United Kingdom is under threat from tractor dredging. The RSPB has pressed for the Bill, which has been introduced so successfully by my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside.

There is considerable resentment among local people at the activity of individuals who appear to own or operate the tractor dredgers. They are called dolers by some local people because they appear to operate in some sort of grey economy with their bull-nosed motor cycle tractors and they are regarded by traditional fishermen as fly-by-night operators with no sense of feeling or love for the sea and its bounty.

The statistics are frightening. The tractors can collect 1.5 tonnes of cockles per hour. We know from research into rates of depletion how damaging that can be. The Bill exposes that unwelcome activity. It highlights the importance of a balance in marine life. Cockle stocks on the Solway firth dropped by about 80 per cent. between 1990 and 1992. That drop must be halted. The Bill will control tractor dredging and, in helping to ensure that cockle stocks are replenished, will play a vital part in the ecological balance in one of the most beautiful parts of these islands.

The Solway firth is well known to me—I often take family holidays there—and I have had the opportunity to see tractor dredgers in operation. Such a sight would destroy any romantic idea that one had as a child of shrimping or cockling. It looks more like opencast mining.

The tractor dredgers are very efficient and quite ruthless in the way in which they take cockles from the surface and nothing much is left behind. My hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Kynoch) mentioned that cockles that do not meet the necessary size requirement are cast aside. That is different from what happens on boats. Cockles are cast aside onto the beach. Whether the molluscs survive depends to a great extent on the state of the tide. In observing the tractors in operation, I did not take the view that I was watching an operation involving biodiversity or recycling in the sea.

Given a good season, cockle beds quickly regenerate, but there must be an optimum level at which they cannot form. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmonds (Mr. Spring) talked about the Dutch experience. My hon. Friend the Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies) asked whether it was a question of disease or fishing. Therein lies one of the principal dangers of not passing the Bill. The nature of over fishing means that if a disease is introduced into cockle beds—which one hopes will not happen—the constitution of those cockle beds will make them less able to survive.

We live in a constantly changing world. Cockle beds in the Wash in East Anglia, an area which I represent, have been out of action for a whole season, but fishing is about to restart. Cockling has been taking place in the Solway firth for generations and fishermen have adapted. They, too, operate a dredging system. We should not lose sight of the fact that sustainable communities in the Solway firth rely on fishing. Our fishing industry has diminished, but communities can survive, and we can look forward to their being there for the next 40 or 50 years. Communities rely on fishing and enjoy untold benefits from it which extend across the region.

I do not take the xenophobic attitude that was perhaps displayed by some of my hon. Friends. I do not mind who eats the cockles, whether it is Scots, the Welsh, the English or even the Belgians—if I could differentiate between Belgians and an oyster-catcher. The importance point is that if the Belgians are paying for cockles, that money is coming back into the local economy. That is part of the process of ensuring that such economies can be sustained. It is right to try to influence control at the source rather than seeking to control the vessels or tractors that extract the cockles.

My hon. Friend has not mentioned what appear from the debate to be important consumers—the birds. What are we to do about them? We have heard that birds ate more of the Dutch stocks than the annual replenishment rate. Over-consumption by birds and not over-fishing by humans destroyed the Dutch stocks. Surely no conservation measure applied to this cockle fishery will be effective unless we can cope with the problem of birds. What does my hon. Friend suggest?

On that matter, I must defer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds who has great knowledge of the subject. It is a matter of common sense that if vehicles are removing molluscs at the rate at which my hon. Friend the Bury St. Edmunds referred, stocks for birds will be diminished. For birds to take cockles is natural. Long before dredgers entered the Solway firth and before my hon. Friend became a Member of the House birds were taking cockles there, but nature has a way of sorting out populations. Dredgers are artificial and destroy the balance of nature. That is the reason for fishery conservation.

Some 100 or 200 years ago, there was cockelling along the Solway firth, but the way in which the cockles were taken from the sea was quite different and not as efficient as current methods. If old methods were still used, the balance of nature would be preserved. The central theme is that this practice is an important part of the economy of the Solway firth. Communities rely on it and we must do our best to ensure that the balance of nature is maintained. That is why the measure is important.

I am delighted to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Mrs. Knight) has returned to the Chamber. She spoke about problems on some of our beaches caused by gangs taking cockles and other molluscs from local communities. That has led to a degree of tension and there has been some violence on our beaches, which I deprecate. By controlling the extraction of molluscs, the measure makes it less likely that cowboys will engage in raids and take from communities a commodity on which they rely as a major source of income. I commend the Bill to the House and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside on introducing it.

I have many points to answer from my hon. Friends in this important debate. As many hon. Members have said, I have a personal interest in the Bill, because I live within sight of the Solway firth and I know its shoreline particularly well.

The Bill has had all-party support and it made speedy progress when it had a chance to do so. I will not repeat what happened on 20 May: perhaps hon. Members know the sad reason why I was not able personally to promote the Bill that day.

The general agreement in this useful debate is that it is a worthy Bill. I pay a warm tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Kynoch) for guiding it through the House. I think that it is the first Bill that he has taken through the House under the private Members' Bill procedure, and I am glad to say that it looks as if it will be successful.

I thank Lord Campbell of Croy, who has great Scottish knowledge and interest, for guiding the Bill through the other place. We have had satisfactory progress on a Bill which will be of tremendous benefit to the Solway.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff) referred to the ecological and economic importance of cockling on the Solway. Many of my hon. Friends highlighted the importance to the whole shoreline of bird life on the Solway. The major areas are the Caerlaverock nature reserve and the East Park centre, which many thousands of people visit each year to see barnacle geese in particular, but also the large numbers of grey and pink-footed geese on the Solway in winter and the many other species of wild fowl.

The numbers of barnacle geese had dropped to a dangerous level 20 or 30 years ago, but now 15,000 to 20,000 of them come to the Solway each winter. There appears no reason to be too concerned about their long-term future, which is good news for all those interested in bird life. However, that raises questions among the large farming population in my constituency about how many geese are sustainable in the winter months. The farmers look longingly at the large financial assistance for the farmers on Isla, who have a similar, although bigger, problem with barnacle geese.

Many hon. Members have referred to the tremendous support for the Bill from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. I commend it for its support and for the information it has supplied to Members of Parliament. I am pleased to have a close relationship with RSPB officials in Scotland and throughout the United Kingdom on any matter that relates to Scotland.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester referred to the position of fishery protection officers. I am sure that they would always behave reasonably in carrying out their duties under the Bill. They have immense experience around our coast, both in fishery protection vessels and in aircraft, which are also important. The Scottish Fishery Protection Agency has a code of practice on enforcement procedures. My officials go into great detail on the law as it applies to fishing activities on the shoreline and out to sea.

I was glad to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Mrs. Knight) that her children are interested in wildlife. She was right to suggest that we should encourage children to take an interest as early in life as possible. England is, perhaps, fortunate in having slightly stronger legislation on tractors than Scotland. However, Scotland should soon catch up on that. My only disappointment was that my hon. Friend did not burst into song.

My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester raised two points about the habitat directive. Scotland is closely following through issues related to the marine environment. Under the Natura 2000 sites, we will fulfil all responsibilities. He referred to the sea fisheries committees. Scotland has always taken a different line on that. We feel that it would acid a layer of bureaucracy to an already complicated system and might, through byelaws, cause problems for the fishing industry. It is something of which we are constantly reminded by some fishermen, although others remind us that they do not want committees in Scotland.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson), who is an acknowledged expert on the countryside, shared his expertise with us. If I could just establish contact with him, I must say that I thought that I noted a hint of suspicion in his comments. I believe that he thought that English conservation legislation was perhaps more effective than the equivalent Scottish legislation.

I remind my hon. Friend that King Robert the Bruce introduced the first conservation Bill, which dealt with salmon, significantly before any such legislation in England. Of course, at about the same time we put certain men to flight at Bannockburn. [Interruption.] I want to keep hon. Members on side.

My hon. Friend was absolutely right to highlight the importance of cockling on the Solway. I shall not digress and become involved in the story that he was relating about John Paul Jones. The cottage in which he was born has recently been renovated and opened to the public, arid is located near to the main cockling areas on the Solway which we are debating. My hon. Friend also mentioned the support given by the RSPB, and I reiterate our gratitude to that organisation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring) gave us some interesting information about the amount of feed required to sustain the bird population. He is right to say that we have to find a balance between the long-term livelihoods of fishermen and the sustainability of the bird population. He also mentioned the barnacle. I am sure that there is a substantial number of Brent geese in his part of the world, just as there are substantial numbers of pinks and greys on the Solway and all around the coast of Scotland.

My hon. Friend also mentioned the fact that cockling on the beaches has become a particularly unattractive sight because of the sometimes venerable tractors and, more important, the diggers and other implements which do not mix well with those who enjoy walking on the beach or bathing in the summer when cockling takes place.

We have always accepted and welcomed cockling from boats, but the problems that have been highlighted are the reason for the introduction of the Bill. We have to prevent a modern form of cockling, which has been imported perhaps from Holland and which has overtaken cockling from boats which has existed in this country for many years.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) also stressed the importance of sustainability and of striking the essential balance between fishing from boats and fishing on shore. My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester asked a key question—how soon would we be able to take action? I highlight the imperative of the issue by pointing out that only this week I signed yet another order to ban cockling from fishing vessels from 1 August—in other words, the ban on vessels fishing for cockles will be continuous, because stocks are so low.

When the Bill has received Royal Assent, I shall, rightly, have to allow several weeks for consultation, but, subject to that consultation, which I must not prejudge, we shall have an order in place in the not-too-distant future. I believe that we are talking about a month or two. Initially, we certainly envisage that for the Solway firth, but, if the situation were to deteriorate on the Dornoch firth or the Moray firth or elsewhere in Scotland, legislation is available to be introduced quickly to deal with it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside spelled out the importance issue of the activity that we wish to restrict. When we introduced the Inshore Fishing (Scotland) Act 1984 to provide powers to regulate inshore fishing, no one anticipated that tractor-based dredging would be introduced a few years later. This is our first opportunity since the position became serious to prevent that from happening in the future. There will be proper consultation and we will take action on the basis of scientific evidence of the availability of stocks.

My hon. Friend's Bill will give us the opportunity to make an order, again subject to consultation, to prevent dredging of cockles by tractors. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds highlighted the huge tonnage that could be extracted in a week's fishing with dredgers. That is why we want to have the legislation in place as soon as possible.

I am disappointed, of course, that we have to prevent local fishing vessels from fishing for cockles, but that is because the stocks are so critical and so very low. After a year or so, we shall reassess the position and consider what can be done this time next year, when the order that I have just signed runs out.

We have to take all factors into account, as well as the additional duties that were placed on me and other Fisheries Ministers under the Sea Fisheries (Wildlife Conservation) Act 1992. That Act was introduced as a private Member's Bill and, like the Bill that we are discussing today, attracted strong Government support.

The long title of the 1992 Act adequately explains its function. It requires Fisheries Ministers and relevant bodies to have regard to the conservation of flora and fauna in the discharge of their functions under the Act. Section 1(1)(b) also requires Ministers to achieve a reasonable balance between conservation of flora and fauna and any other considerations to which they are required to have regard.

In effect, the Act merely confirms the existing position, because I and my colleagues in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and in the Welsh and Northern Ireland Offices already took such factors into account. However, it was helpful to confirm that in legislation and to bind our successors to the practice that we believed to be sensible.

Existing vessel-based fisheries came within the purview of the fisheries Acts. My powers would therefore be used after taking into account the conservation interests mentioned in the long title of the 1992 Act. The subsequent developments brought increasing numbers of tractors, which ploughed the exposed foreshore at low tide. Unlike the vessel-based fishery, those activities were not open to control under existing fisheries legislation. We therefore faced the unwelcome fact that a natural and finite resource was subject to exploitation by increasing numbers of operators, but that only one group was subject to control.

I should perhaps stress that I do not believe that all tractor dredging is necessarily harmful or that the activity should be prohibited under any and all circumstances. If that had been my view, I would have suggested to the House that section 3 of the Act should be amended to enshrine an outright ban in the primary legislation.

Dredging activities have shown themselves to be economically efficient. We must now examine what safeguards should be set in place to ensure that other factors are taken into account. In some highly sensitive areas, that may mean many year-round bans—I cannot rule that out—but in other areas it may be possible to develop controls that will allow judicious amounts of dredging to take place while still taking into account the impact on the stocks and the effects on other forms of natural life. Therefore, the issue is one of ensuring that the new activity is open to control in the circumstances required.

I and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, whose constituency borders the Solway as much as mine—indeed, more so—became increasingly concerned about the effect that combined fishing pressure might be having on stock levels on the Solway. The scientists at the Scottish Office marine laboratory conducted surveys of the stock level in the area affected. Some of the results of the surveys have been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds.

The surveys showed conclusively that the cockle stock had reduced significantly. It was not easy to determine whether that was due to the natural fluctuations which natural populations are subject to or whether dredging activities were having a more direct impact, but it was clear that the stock level had reduced to a point at which fishing pressure could make the difference between stock collapse and stock recovery.

We looked at other ways of trying to meet the problem; in particular, we recommended to local authorities that they might frame byelaws under the Civil Government (Scotland) Act 1982. But at the end of the day, because of the necessity to get almost universal approval from landowners to the shore, it was considered best to proceed as we are—by this legislation. That is why we were so glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside was successful in the ballot. We are about to see the Bill's enactment into law.

As I said, the Bill has considerable support from hon. Members on both sides of the House. I know that the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) gave it warm support in Committee. We will now proceed, once the Bill is enacted, to consult and then decide to bring in an order to deal with something that is presently, at face value, very harmful to the cockle stock on the Solway.

We are looking not only at the issue of saving the cockle stock but at the long—term future of the fishermen—the traditional fishermen who have earned a valuable livelihood over many years and who are now finding it swept away by modern methods which were, as I said earlier and as hon. Members mentioned, originally imported from Holland.

We are concerned about other fish. All in all, the Bill will be a valuable restriction and a tremendous help to the fishermen and fish processors. A number of fish processors in Scotland deal with cockles and other similar products.

Hon. Members have mentioned how popular cockles have become in restaurants abroad. Of course, that is very welcome. The amount of fish exported from Scotland is high, and that is important to the Scottish economy. It is interesting that in 1992, the total income from shellfish landings into Scotland was more than £46 million; yet, in 1938, the comparative figure was £70,000. Even allowing for inflation, that shows that it is an important issue in Scotland.

I am grateful to hon. Members for the all-round support that we have had for the Bill. It is right that we have highlighted our concern about not only the fishermen and the cockles but the tourists. What has stood out firmly today is the way in which hon. Members felt this was important to bird life, and the interest that has been shown by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

After all the explanations that we had in Committee, in another place and in this House, this is the moment when we should say, "Well done," to my hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside. He has achieved a significant piece of legislation—something with which we in the Scottish Office are proud to be associated. I am grateful to the large number of my hon. Friends who have shown support here on a Friday. I support the Third Reading of the Bill.

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

I am pleased to say that the Bill enjoys support on both sides of the House and beyond. You may have noticed, Madam Deputy Speaker, that today every national newspaper is carrying a delightful picture of yesterday's royal wedding. I hope that you have also seen a wonderful British film called "Four Weddings and a Funeral", which is a considerable box office hit—one of the most successful British films ever made. It is playing to marvellous business throughout this country and on five continents.

It seems that the whole world loves an English wedding and my Bill is designed to give couples who choose a civil wedding in England and Wales even greater choice as to where their marriages take place. The Bill would implement two of the most popular recommendations contained in the Government's 1990 White Paper, "Registration: proposals for change"—those aimed at introducing greater choice and flexibility for couples over a venue for civil marriage, by empowering local authorities to license suitable buildings, in addition to registry offices, as venues for such marriages, and by allowing couples to marry by civil ceremony in any registry office or approved building in England and Wales.

As the law stands, couples wishing to marry by civil ceremony have to do so at the registry office in the district where at least one of them resides. There are many reasons why people wish to marry by civil ceremony in other places, the most common being that they have moved away from their family home to study or work, but wish to return there for their marriage. Perhaps the registry office does not meet their expectations of a suitable place for marriage—it may not be sufficiently stylish or large. Those of us who believe in marriage want it to be celebrated in the style and manner that the couple choose.

I would appreciate it if my hon. Friend could reassure those of us who watched, "Love Story" and saw the rather sickening chic of the marriage sequence in that film, or who occasionally browse through the pages of Hello! magazine and have seen some of the grosser excesses of Las Vegas-style weddings, that his Bill will not open the floodgates for such scenes.

I am shocked by the revelation that my hon. Friend reads Hello! magazine. "Love Story" is not a British movie and therefore not one that I have seen. My hon. Friend can be reassured that there is no way that we want to move towards the Las Vegas style of wedding. Marriage is, we hope, a uniquely important event in any couple's life and the ceremony must be conducted with dignity in suitable premises. I shall elaborate in a moment.

By allowing local authorities to approve buildings such as stately homes and hotels as venues for civil marriages, and by removing the requirement to marry in the district of residence, the Bill will give allow members of the public a greater choice over the venue of their marriages.

My hon. Friend mentioned stately homes and hotels. I do not understand whether it is a requirement of the Bill that a marriage should take place in a public place, in the sense that an approved location is one to which the public can have access.

Yes. Being a distinguished lawyer, my hon. Friend has gone to the heart of the matter. One of the basics of the English marriage is that it should take place in a public place, so the place must be accessible to the public. Obviously a constituency such as mine, which is rich in heritage and packed with historic buildings and the finest hotels, is ideal. Candidly, I foresee a day when the City of Chester becomes the most popular location for weddings in the United Kingdom.

The Bill ensures that local authorities adopt a responsible attitude in approving buildings for civil marriages, by providing for the making of regulations setting out the procedures to be followed by councils. That follows consultation with the local authority associations and the drawing up of formal guidelines. The Bill has the support of the Association of County Councils, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, and the Society of Registration Officers—the registrars' professional organisation.

I am concerned because the Bill does not mention the Association of District Councils. For those of us who live outside the main metropolitan areas, the district council is the chief planning authority and it might be worried if unsuitable premises, from a planning point of view, were selected by the county council. Has my hon. Friend taken that into account in the Bill?

Yes. My hon. Friend will find that district and county councils will be able to work together on this in a satisfactory way. I shall show him the range of consultation that has taken place and he will be reassured on the involvement of the district councils.

As I have mentioned the registration service, this could be an appropriate point at which to pay a tribute to that service and the contribution that it has made to the civilised ordering of important moments in all our lives. The registration service in England and Wales came into being in 1837 and, in many respects, its organisation and procedures have not changed greatly up to the present day. It is in some ways comparable with the city of Chester and—some would say—with the hon. Member for the City of Chester in that it is a service that is as modern as tomorrow and yet has a lot of time for yesterday.

I am sure that my hon. Friend is whetting the appetites of those who wish learn about the provisions of the Bill and about the delights of the city of Chester. When will the proposals be put into effect if the House agrees to them?

If the Bill goes through the House and has a satisfactory passage through the other place, we hope that weddings will be taking place in this way this time next year, so it will be reasonably imminent.

Exactly a decade ago, the Government's programme of efficiency scrutinies included an inquiry into the registration service. The findings were published in the efficiency scrutiny report on the registration of births, marriages and deaths, and the report made nearly 50 recommendations for change.

In 1987, the Government announced that if time could be found, new legislation would be introduced. As a first step, a working group was set up and was asked to consider the scrutiny recommendations and to make proposals for the form that the legislation should take. The working group covered a wide range of interests, with representations from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, the Department of Health and Social Security—as it then was—the Home Office, the Association of County Councils and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. In sub-groups of the working party, the Society of Registration Officers, the National and Local Government Officers Association—as it then was—the Local Authorities Conditions of Service Advisory Board, the Society of Genealogists, the Institute of Population Registration and the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies were also represented. The consultation process was wide and deep.

My hon. Friend has given a long and impressive list of professional societies, corporate bodies and voluntary organisations which were consulted in connection with the Bill. Were people at any stage also consulted?

Very much so. The working group reported in 1988 and its recommendations were published in a Green Paper called "Registration: a modern service". That Green Paper received 600 responses from throughout the United Kingdom, including many from public bodies and other organisations, but also many from individuals. The great majority of those who responded registered broad agreement with the proposals.

In January 1990, the White Paper to which I referred was published and the proposals that it contained put forward a sound basis for reforming and modernising the registration service in England and Wales. Because of the many other reforms that this great reforming Government have introduced, it has not yet been possible to find time in the parliamentary programme to introduce the legislation necessary to implement many of the proposals. I am aiming to remedy the matter from the Back Benches.

Last year, I introduced a Bill relating to the registration of deaths. The Bill whose Third Reading we are now considering proposes to introduce two of the most popular recommendations contained in the White Paper to give members of the public greater choice over where their civil marriages may take place. It will also give local authorities greater scope and flexibility to deliver a service geared to the needs of the local population.

I pay tribute to hon. Members on both sides of the House for the work that they have undertaken to get the Bill to this stage. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen), who has taken a keen interest in this matter. He has been actively supported from his Front Bench by the hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) and by the spokesperson on the Liberal Democrats Front Bench—I suppose that it is its lone Bench really—the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms Lynne).

In Committee, the hon. Member for Leyton tabled half a dozen amendments, half of which would have brought a religious dimension to what is essentially a Bill about civil marriage. It is important to understand that the Bill relates to civil marriages. About half the marriages that take place nowadays in England and Wales are civil weddings.

The hon. Member for Leyton wanted the Bill amended to allow for religious marriages to be solemnised in any building approved by local authorities. He felt, in particular, that it should be made a requirement for every local authority to approve a Buddhist or a Hindu temple, a Muslim mosque or a Sikh gurdwara within its area and that persons other than registrars should be able to solemnise such marriages.

I hope that I was able to reassure the hon. Member that the law already provides for the registration for marriages of any building used as a place for religious worship and certified as such by the Registrar-General. I believe that the procedures involved are reasonably straightforward and the cost is certainly minimal. There are 281 eastern religious buildings currently registered for marriages in England and Wales. There is scope for further considerable extension. Marriage ceremonies in those buildings can already be performed by the religious celebrant, where that is required.

The hon. Member for Leyton also tabled an amendment to allow marriages to take place in gardens and other public open spaces, bringing English law into line with that of other parts of the world. My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff) mentioned the possibility of beach-style weddings, the sort of thing that might feature in American or Australian films. That would change English marriage law fundamentally. My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Evans) raised that point in a timely intervention. Apart from specific and historical exceptions, marriages in England and Wales must take place in a registry office, a church or chapel of the Church of England or the Church of Wales, or in buildings of other religious denominations, Christian or non-Christian, registered for marriages. It is a basic tenet of English law that marriages take place in buildings publicly recognised as being suitable and approved for the purpose.

It is also necessary for the venue of the marriage to be capable of clear description so that a specific and known venue can be included on the notice displayed at the registry office and to give ample opportunity for any legal objection to be made. The idea of a wedding in a garden may seem romantic, but it could be an elusive venue. We do not want to encourage people to get married behind the bushes. We want to know where the marriage is taking place.

The climate in our country might be said to be against open-air marriages. It might be possible for a marriage to take place in what could be described as a garden room within a permanent structure. It would not be possible, however, to hold a marriage in a large open space, somewhere like Hyde park, because one would arrive to witness the wedding, but would not know where it was—it could be anywhere. That is why we do not envisage open-air marriages.

A moored ship on a permanent site, such as the Thames, might be a possibility as a venue, but not a free-floating vessel. One must know where—[Laughter.] My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) is amused at that suggestion, but there is a serious point behind it. One wants to be able to attend a wedding, let us say—[Laughter.]

I intervene to assist the hon. Gentleman while he convulses. It is an interesting point. Should not marriages be conducted on a moving vessel?

On a submarine?

Some marriages would have been better conducted in a submarine, kept quiet and never allowed to rise to the surface. What about a captain's power to twin people? I thought that captains still had such power. Would it go?

That power will not be affected. We are talking about civil weddings in England and Wales. My serious point—it is wonderful that such a happy measure is being received in such happy terms—is that it is vital that people are able to have access to the place where a wedding is taking place. Although we want to introduce greater choice in respect of a wedding venue, it is a serious and important public event. Therefore, access to it by the general public is essential. A wedding must be at a location that is well known, open to the public and, consequently, stationary.

The hon. Member for Leyton withdrew an amendment aimed at ensuring that the regulations that are provided for in the Bill would be formally approved by the House and the other place rather than being subject to affirmative resolution. Although I recognise the importance of the Bill—the number of right hon. and hon. Members who are present today underlines its importance—I do not believe that the regulations made under it are of such significance that they warrant the affirmative resolution procedure.

In Committee, I was able to offer some good news to the hon. Member for Leyton—this will please my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Mrs. Knight)—who asked when the legislation would be implemented. I have encouraging news on the timetable for the implementation of the Bill. The hon. Member for Leyton proposed that the Bill should automatically come into force three months after receiving Royal Assent. I do not believe that such an amendment would have been necessary.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister. Not only is he a fine Minister and an adornment to any Government, but he has taken a particular interest in the work of the registration service. Publicly and behind the scenes, he has worked hard to ensure that the important reforms are put forward as rapidly but as sagely as possible. I have been assured by my hon. Friend that, should the Bill pass into law this Session, from January next year, couples will be able to marry in the register office of their choice in England and Wales.

Clause 2, however, requires the making of regulations and the setting up of the necessary procedures for the approval of premises by local authorities. We do not want to harm a good job by doing it in a hurry, particularly when, as has been said, there might be a need for discussions between county councils and district councils. A three-month deadline would be restrictive. I hope that the provisions can be brought into effect within the first six months of next year.

A spring or early summer wedding in an approved building is therefore a distinct possibility. Think of it, Madam Deputy Speaker—this time next year, at wedding receptions across the land, once the bride and groom have been toasted and once the best man has celebrated the bridesmaids, glasses might be raised to the hon. Members who give a fair wind to the Bill today.

Would it not be very good if, as they raised their glasses, they could think of the prospect of living in a warm and comfortable home which had been enhanced by the House also making progress on the Energy Conservation Bill?

We have to proceed one measure at a time, but I understand the right hon. Gentleman's desire to move on to his business, which is why I conclude by saying that this is a good-news Bill which is designed only to add to the nation's sum of human happiness. I commend it to the House.

I welcome the Bill and the change that will occur in our nation's marriage laws provided that the Bill passes all its stages before the end of this Session. I am one of the Bill's sponsors and I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) on getting it this far. When, in Committee, he compared the Chairman, the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill), to Hugh Grant, the star of "Four Weddings and a Funeral", I thought that he was pushing his luck. I am pleased that he did not compare you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to Andie MacDowell, the female lead in that film, because that certainly would have been pushing his luck. When he said that, I thought that he might—

Order. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman does not push his luck. He must remember that Third Reading is about the content of the Bill.

Yes, I had better move on to safer ground.

The current marriage laws were enacted in 1949 and are out of date and restrictive. They do not give couples who want to get married the same rights and choices as those in other countries. I want that choice to be expanded, which is why I introduced a Bill—number 13 on today's Order Paper—on St. Valentine's day last year and again this year. But my Bill will not make progress, whereas this one will. With due respect to this Bill's proposer, my Bill is better, but we must take what we can get and the form that he proposes is welcome.

This Bill deals with civil weddings and their location, whereas mine deals also with their religious aspect. In my Bill, couples can choose to get married in the manner that they wish, whereas under this Bill, the registrar decides where the venue should be, but at least it is a move in the right direction. I was particularly concerned that many couples are forced to have two weddings. In 1949, the law makers in this country knew only about the Church of England, the Quakers and the Jews. Many other ethnic minorities were not covered effectively by the wedding laws, so they have been forced to have two weddings: first, a religious ceremony—

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he is not answering an exam question comparing and contrasting the various methods. He must concentrate on the Third Reading of this Bill.

This Bill relates only to civil weddings, so many people will still be forced to have two weddings. Those people will be not just ethnic minorities but couples in which only one partner is religious or when the partners have different religions. Such couples will have problems. The hon. Member for City of Chester assured us that a wedding could take place in gurdwaras, mosques or temples, and I welcome that. I hope that the "Minister for marriages", as he called himself in Committee, will add his assurance in that respect. Perhaps the guidelines that his Ministry will publish will included guidance for local authorities and registrars to allow marriages to take place in those venues in all circumstances if they are located in their vicinity. I hope that the guidelines will take that matter into account.

I should like marriages to take place in gardens, open spaces and parks. That happens in other countries. It is well known that in Australia couples like to get married under Sydney bridge. I do not see why couples in this country—

Order. I fear that the hon. Gentleman was not listening when I said earlier that we can discuss only what is in the Bill. Open-air locations, and certainly Sydney bridge, are not in the Bill.

I appreciate what you are saying, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the Bill is about locations for weddings and marriages. The registrar can choose nice buildings in the location, which is right. The locations should include the person's own garden. That would fall in line with giving the couple the choice. When people get married they spend money and are prepared to do so, but some may not wish to spend too much money.

The couple may also wish to get married in the place where they will live out their vows, so their garden may have a special significance to them. It is a shame that we are still restricting that choice. The measure could still include provision for open doors, mentioned by the hon. Member for City of Chester, even if the ceremony were in an open space. There could be an arrangement so that other people could object so that the marriage complied with requirements under the current law.

I welcome the Bill. A press release has been issued by an organisation called Garlands. There is a role for celebrants to conduct marriages, as happens in other countries around the world. Our law should recognise the fact that a celebrant could have a good role to play. I should have thought that the Government would have welcomed the idea of a celebrant, who conducts a sort of business—the Government say that we should encourage small businesses.

When I was presenting my amendments in Committee I spoke to one of the Clerks of the House who said that he hoped that the Bill and the changes would be passed because when he retired he would like to build a church in a beautiful location and let people come to be married there for a charge. That is a reasonable aspiration and a business which could be encouraged by both sides of the House.

The press release is headed, "Wedding Survey Reveals Discontent with Venues". It states:

"More than one in five couples with no religious beliefs marries in church simply because they want the tradition and pomp of a church ceremony.

'It was everything I wanted' said one bride. 'I just closed my mind when it came to the religious bit.'

A survey of recently married couples published today reveals that 60 per cent. weren't able to have their first choice of wedding venue because of Britain's current restrictive marriage laws.

Churches were the first choice of those who held firm religious beliefs, but over half of those questioned would choose to marry in a beautiful garden, if they could. And stately homes, castles and hotels also came out high on everyone's list. Nobody at all gave a register office as their ideal venue. In fact, increasing numbers are voting with their feet and are getting married abroad in their search for a romantic wedding.

The survey was commissioned by … Garlands"—

which—

"specialises in organising wedding ceremonies in unusual venues."

The survey continued:

"Current law allows a marriage to be legalised only in a register office or church … Many couples come"—

to Garlands—

"wanting to be married in a beautiful building or by a river and then are heartbroken to find that, although they can have their own ceremony where they like, they still have to go to a register office to register their marriage. And they feel that this effectively means having two ceremonies."

It states:

"The survey shows that religious couples often have to marry in a register office because the local priest is intransigent over divorce or mixed religions, or refuses to marry non-churchgoers. And non-religious couples often choose a church simply because they want the solemnity of atmosphere or else they end up in a register office if they aren't prepared to lie about their beliefs.

"Although many register offices are attempting to make their ceremonies more memorable affairs in order to accommodate the desire for a meaningful event, some are still very mundane places without character. 'Dark, dismal and naff was how one bride described her London register office. 'Drab and office like' said another.

"The only alternative one-stop venue at present is a church but in fact only 1 per cent. of those questioned were churchgoers. Some 53 per cent. of the brides claimed some religious beliefs and 40 per cent. of grooms. But 35 per cent. of brides and 48 per cent. of grooms said they had no religious beliefs at all."

A Garlands representative said:

"That's very significant… Many people aren't religious but their wedding is still the most important day in their lives and they should have an equal right to a grand and dignified ceremony where they want it. If only a tiny minority of the population are churchgoers, it seems wrong that other than register offices churches are the only buildings which can be licensed to register marriages."

The press release then refers to the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for City of Chester. It welcomes the relaxation of marriage laws and states that his Bill

"proposes that certain other buildings such as stately homes and hotels should be able to be registered for marriages and that couples should be allowed to marry in any register officer and not just the one in the local authority area in which they live.

"Gyles Brandreth's Bill is a start but it doesn't go far enough… I'd like to see a situation where the marriage is legalised not because of the building it takes place in but by the officiant who performs the ceremony—whether he or she is a priest, registrar or trained marriage celebrant. Then people could have their wedding where they want just as they do in the Australia and the USA. They're much more enlightened than we are."

That is a press release from a company and a celebrant with knowledge in this area and it puts the issues clearly. The proposal would widen choice. It shows how out of date our marriage laws are. It shows how we could and should introduce further reform to take into account couples' wishes on marriage, which are not being met in many cases.

The Bill introduced by the hon. Member for City of Chester is an important start in the achievement of change and I welcome that. It is the only prospect of achieving change quickly. I hope that we will approve it today, that it will be passed in another place and that those many couples that the hon. Gentleman referred to can have the wedding of their choice next summer.

A change in the law will still be necessary in the not-too-distant future to increase choice so that couples' wishes can be met. I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Chester. He has set in motion important changes. The Minister for marriages is also the Under-Secretary of State for Health. The Department of Health has only few opportunities to present legislation to the House in every Session and marriages, I suspect, are a long way down the list of important matters on which health legislation is required. If it were left to the Government, it is likely that it would take several decades to change the marriage laws.

I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Chester on picking up the issue and proposing changes that can be passed by the House.

Like the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen), I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) on introducing the Bill and on the perspicacious, persuasive, perceptive and even passionate way in which he spoke. Like a wine waiter introducing us to the virtues of a good claret, he showed that this particular variety would be distinctive and greatly enjoyed by many celebrating people.

As the hon. Member for Leyton said, it is right that we should pass a deregulation measure which will allow the 60 per cent. of people who do get their first choice of marriage venue a greater opportunity to do so. As part of my lengthy preparation for the debate, I asked the registrar of deaths and births in Kidderminster in my constituency about the figures on marriages in registry offices and in Church of England and other authorised religious establishments. In 1989–90, there were slightly more marriages in religious establishments—346 compared with 288 registry office weddings. By 1993–94, the position had been reversed and more people—286 against 283—were getting married in registry offices. The measure will give those people greater choice. The figures are not surprising as one third of marriages nowadays are remarriages.

As the hon. Member for Leyton said, sadly, parts of the Church of England take a dirigiste attitude and people are forced into registry office weddings although they would prefer a religious ceremony. That probably has something to do with the appalling fact that a 1991 survey showed that some 57 per cent. of people of the marriageable age of 18 to 24—it is getting older nowadays—were ignorant of the nature, purpose and history of Good Friday. By encouraging people in the way that the measure seeks to do, that situation could be improved.

There is a broader reason why it is important to give couples more choice of places in which to be married. It is that successful marriages depend on the involvement not only of couples' families but of their communities. Given the production line nature of many registry office weddings, it is often difficult to provide a personalised atmosphere, but the investment and memorableness of the wedding occasion are preludes to a successful marriage.

Earlier this year, The Daily Telegraph published an article in which Lesley Garner said:

"Marriage is more than a ritual that many consider outdated. It is the offering of protection and security under the law."

Any change in the way in which people get married—especially as it affects those 50 per cent. who get married in registry offices—that underlines that and involves the family in a place that is familiar or has an impressive setting, would make it more likely that people will take their marriage vows more seriously and think more carefully about the implications. It may be a forlorn hope, but in my view that could lead to more stable marriages.

Such changes may also encourage more people to get married. At present, 25 per cent. of children are born out of wedlock. While I make no comment on people's decisions about life style, many people do not get married because they feel that it is a hassle and would not mean much to them. If they were able to get married surrounded by their family in a happy and familiar setting, they might be prepared to consider it slightly more seriously. That leads me to what I think is the Bill's only fault, which, I hope, can be remedied by the regulations that will oversee the way in which local authorities decide on the places that are appropriate for marriages.

I have a great deal of sympathy for the view expressed by the hon. Member for Leyton that we should encourage maximum flexibility in the choice of places for registered weddings. Sadly, many stately homes and chateaux mariages—the sort of hotels that would be applying for licences—are anything but the kind of places where marriage vows should be properly exchanged.

Perhaps the house of an aunt or that of a mother or father would be more appropriate for marriage vows, whether outside or indoors. The legislation should allow local authorities on a temporary or permanent basis to permit such places to be used for registered weddings after deciding that health and safety and planning regulations have been met. It is important that the public should be able to gain access to such events. Obviously, that would be up to the local authority and, ultimately, the registrar. He will have discretion over whether to marry a couple after he has seen—together, I hope, with local authority officials—the surroundings in which weddings will take place.

Provided that the regulations can be drawn up in a flexible way, people will be allowed to marry in registered surroundings of their own choice rather than the long-standing and possibly inappropriate choice of the local authority. That would meet the objectives of the Bill.

With that important proviso, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester on bringing the Bill to the House and I wish it every success.

Like other hon. Members, I welcome the principles that animated my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) to introduce the Bill. I want to take just a few minutes to deal with three or four points of concern about the detail of the Bill, with which I hope either he or my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will deal when they reply to the debate.

My first point is that to which I alluded in an intervention; it concerns the respective duties of county and district councils. In the majority of cases, there would be little difficulty in the two local authorities reaching agreement on the designation of a particular building as a suitable site for civil marriages. There would be no problem with most hotels, to take the example most frequently cited. However, I can imagine circumstances in which there might be a clash of opinion. We all know of certain public buildings and of private buildings with a public function, such as sports stadiums, whose construction and use has been permitted by the local district council subject to fairly stringent planning conditions.

Where there is a difference of opinion between the two authorities, whose power will prevail? Will it be the county council, with its proposed right under the Bill to designate particular premises as suitable for civil marriages, or the district council, which might say that the building cannot be used because its planning conditions state that it may be used for certain defined purposes only and not for anything else? Will the county council, as registration authority, have to seek planning permission from the district council?

I want to question the definition of "premises" in the Bill. I do not think that a full answer was given to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen). I understand that a particular building or a garden attached to a building is covered by the definition of "premises". If a couple wanted a Disraeli wedding, they could book Hughenden house or its garden. If they wanted to be a little more adventurous and have a John Wilkes wedding, they could book Prebendal house in Aylesbury for that purpose. However, if they wanted a Hellfire club wedding, would the West Wycombe caves count as premises under the Bill's definition?

Even though a couple could not use a field or a large park, would a small, easily identifiable, well-defined and fenced area of open space count as premises? Could they hold a John Hampden wedding by the Ship Money memorial in the field just outside Prestwood?

My third query relates to public access. Public access is crucial because a wedding is not only a private but a public ceremony. All of us who have been through the ceremony as a participant know that the most heart-stopping moment comes when the minister or registrar asks whether there are any objections to the marriage. I am worried especially about the designation of premises outside a couple's registration district. I hope that the regulations will contain provision for adequate notice to be given—and to be given publicly—of certificates and licences so that members of the public are able to exercise their lawful right to voice a legitimate objection in that one in a million case where such an objection exists.

My final concern relates to the record of marriages taking place under the proposed new system. In passing, I regret that my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester did not feel able to include in the Bill a provision covering information additional to that contained in marriage certificates. In this respect, England and Wales have much to learn from the Scottish system.

I ask the Minister and my hon. Friend to take on board the use that genealogists make of certificates, licences and other material relating to weddings. Such material is especially important for the reconstruction of family history. Whereas my hon. Friend and I would probably not have too much difficulty tracing our ancestors, even though we might not know exactly where they were born and married or where they died, people with a more common surname might find it more difficult knowing only the name. In such cases, the place of residence and, associated with that, the place of marriage, become more important. I hope, therefore, that registers of licences and certificates provided for in the Bill, and especially of documents relating to marriages that have taken place out of a couple's home registration district, will be made available as a matter of course to genealogists and other legitimate researchers.

In view of the time, I shall be as brief as possible. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth) for introducing the Bill because I was one of those caught up in the bureaucracy that he seeks to abolish.

Eighteen years ago, when my wife and I were planning to get married, I was living and working in London and she was living and working in High Wycombe, although we wished to marry in York where her parents lived and where she had been brought up. In order to be married in York, not only did she have to re-establish her residence there for a couple of months before the wedding but I had to make four separate visits to the registrar in London to persuade him to study up and get the forms right to enable us to be married in York. My impression was that if two professional, reasonably articulate people found it so difficult to overcome such bureaucracy, most people must be living in sin because they could not have got through all the hoops in the first place.

I hope that either the Minister or my hon. Friend can clarify, first, the religious use of premises. The notes that my hon. Friend has helpfully circulated state that for premises to be registered under the Bill there

"must be no recent or continuing connection with any religion."

Filton folk centre is a major public building in the town of Filton in my constituency, and it would be ideal for registration under the Bill as drafted. However, at weekends it is regularly used for services by at least one major evangelical Christian group.

The premises would be perfectly adequate for the celebration of marriages at other times or, indeed, at the same time because there are plenty of rooms in the building. I hope that the restriction under the regulations concerning connection with any religion will be applied, if necessary, not to the whole of a building but to a particular part of a building or a particular part of a building at a particular time. If not, what would otherwise be ideal premises will be completely excluded.

There are two matters on which the Bill does not go far enough. There has already been some discussion of whether people should be entitled to be married in a private home or their own home. In fact, quietly, the Bill permits that in two types of home. The Bill will permit the marriage at home of the owners or occupiers of a stately home or their families. It will permit the marriage at home of the owner-occupiers or employees living on the premises of a hotel. That is wholly admirable. I hope that in building on the legislation in future that principle could be extended. I hope that the matter can be considered in the regulations.

I understand the difficulties that are admirably expressed in the notes that my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester circulated in relation to his argument that weddings must be held in a public place. However, I commend to him the principle that the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) and I became used to in our youth. At certain times of the year—I am thinking of the passover service held at home—private premises are thrown open to all comers. The door is left open and an extra place is laid at the table to anyone who wishes to walk in. I can see no reason why, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) said, a private house cannot be made into a public place for a particular purpose and on a particular occasion. There are now many religions and branches of religions in this country for which either a combined religious and civil ceremony or one following the other would be ideally held at home. I cannot honestly see any reason why the law should be so restrictive as to bar people from ordering what is often the most important day in their life as they and their families desire.

The second matter is that, to my great regret, while the Bill and the proposed regulations under it recognise the increasing practice of registrars of allowing some music at a civil ceremony, there is still a crazy distinction—I can only describe it as such—between religious and secular music. Why is it that popular tunes such as "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" or "Sheep May Safely Graze" are barred from use in a ceremony because they originally formed part of a cantata? Why is it that Rossini's "Stabat Mater", which has been described by critics as the most secular piece of religious music ever written, should be barred because of its title?

Why is it that if one is particularly fond of Ravel's "Danses Sacrées et Profanes"—roughly translated as sacred and secular dances—one has to pick the bits of the dances that are permitted to be played legally at a ceremony? It is a crazy distinction and any registrar who was serious about it would find that there was little secular music that had not been made into a hymn tune at some time or another.

I hope that when the regulations are made under the Bill they will be somewhat wider in their application to what is permissible. Subject to that, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester for introducing the Bill. I wish he had been in a position to do so 19 years ago and I certainly do not wish to delay its passage.

Time is pressing on so I shall simply limit myself to dealing with some of the points raised during the debate. First, the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) raised yet again his obviously deeply felt desire to have been married in a garden. As we know, there are some problems with marriage law—

Order. My problem is that that is scarcely relevant.

That is what I was about to say, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall turn to my next point.

The Bill is about civil marriage. Matters to do with marriages in temples are taken care of. Those places can be registered and, as long as an authorised person or registrar is present, there need be only one ceremony. I think therefore that that is not relevant to today.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) made a good point about which local authority would be designating. The answer is that it is metropolitan boroughs, county councils and London borough councils at present. That will remain the case, although district councils—of course, there may be changes in all this; we do not know—can put forward their own civic buildings for consideration. But there will be no change to that.

My hon. Friend said that among other excellent places in his constituency are the Hellfire club caves at Wycombe. I have to tell him that I used to play in a rock band called "The Hellfire Club", and I have some knowledge of the activities that those gentlemen—Wilkes and others—got up to in the caves. Those activities would not lend any sort of dignity to the institution of marriage, so the answer to his question is probably no. Being caves, they can hardly be called a permanent structure, either—although that is a matter for geologists.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr.Stern) raised a number of interesting points. He pointed to the criteria for designation, and mentioned a place used by religious groups at some point. The criterion will be something along these lines: any building that would be seemly and dignified, and therefore appropriate to the institution of marriage, will be permitted. The fact that such buildings might be used at some other time for religious purposes would probably not be relevant, but that would have to be left to the discretion of the local authority concerned.

On the matter of the music, I was deeply impressed, as was the whole House, with my hon. Friend's erudition in these matters. If I may, I will write to him and deal with what he said.

I warmly welcome the Bill. We have a strange, quaint custom, particularly at the beginning of Adjournment debates, of welcoming debates that do nothing to help the Government, and congratulating hon. Members who are about to get up and do everything that they can to destroy one's credibility. In this case, however, I most sincerely and warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth). For the past two years, I have been trying to find ways to help the White Paper commitment to the improvement of civil marriage. My hon. Friend has made that possible. I am quite sure that what he and other hon. Members have said—that this will add to the dignity and, we must now say, the popularity of marriage at a time when it certainly needs it—means that this is one of the most useful and beneficial pieces of legislation to have emerged in the past 11 years.

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

I shall be brief. I commend the Bill to the House, and in doing so I thank those who are responsible for its being here—primarily, Lord Renton. He is better known to many of us in this place as the right hon. Sir David Renton; he was a Member here for many years and the predecessor of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in the constituency of Huntingdon. He piloted this Bill through another place with the general support of peers in all parties.

I had the good fortune to take on the Bill and, had I won a place in the ballot, I would have introduced it last year. I took the Bill through Committee with the support of hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the House and I am grateful for that support. I am especially grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Technology, who is on the Front Bench today, and to our right hon. Friends the Minister for Industry and the President of the Board of Trade, all of whom have been extremely helpful in supporting the Bill.

The Bill has one simple, but important, aim—to outlaw the practice of market overt. Members on both sides of the House will know that if goods in Bermondsey market, which is the one that is almost always quoted, are bought between sunrise and sunset, the title of the goods purchased passes to the purchaser, regardless of the origin of the goods. The market has been castigated as a thieves' den for that reason. The Bill contains no threat to the legitimate traders of Bermondsey market and it has the strong—indeed, passionate—support of the various antique dealers associations, the Antiques Trade Gazette, the Metropolitan police and many other police forces who have been in touch with me, all of whom see it as a small, but positive and helpful step. The Historic Houses Association is yet another organisation which lobbied for the Bill and welcomes its introduction.

I know that some of my hon. Friends have matters that they want to raised and we have little time. With the leave of the House, I shall respond to them if there is an opportunity. I commend the Bill to the House.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for speaking so briefly. I propose to be equally brief. He is wrong to suggest that in Bermondsey market one can pass title regardless of origin. The rule applies only to goods acquired for value in good faith. That is not such a startling proposition and, indeed, it is one which is echoed in other areas of the law.

My concerns about the Bill are that, first, it does not apply, and has no relevance, to car boot sales, which are the modern curse, where fences dispose of property. Secondly, a proper understanding of the rule is so narrow that it will arouse greater expectations for change. The problems of prosecuting people who buy colour televisions—stolen from my constituents—in public houses in Cwmbran are exactly the same as those of prosecuting people who buy antique items in Bermondsey market at and under value. The law does not affect that problem.

I do not intend to talk out or to oppose the Bill, because I am satisfied, having talked to my hon. Friend the Minister, that the Government can deal with it in a way that will satisfy all of us. The problem that my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) identified is important, but—partly as a result of the heritage lobby, with and for which he is elegantly associated and an important spokesman—it is only one aspect. Ironically, he wants to tear up the pages of Coke's institutes and Coke's reports, which are still the law of the land on the topic, and to replace them with the Rocky Horror alternative prayer book version; but never mind. If there is a social need to do so, I can understand the force of the argument, but the problem with the Bill is that it does not deal with other situations that are equally open to challenge, and the matter ought to be given broad consideration.

For example, mercantile agents in possession can pass good title to goods, which means that if one takes one's car to a car salesroom to ask for a quote and it is sold on to someone else, that other person takes good title.

Secondly, if we buy trust property that is sold in breach of trust by a trustee, the rule is that the purchaser for value in good faith takes good title. It makes nonsense of law reform to take one aspect of chattels of a particular class and deal with it on its own. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider whether the Government will review the general position.

The next problem is that the Bill moves English law further away from European law, rather than the reverse. The rule in the French civil code is "La possession vaut la titre", which is very similar to the doctrine of market overt. Will my hon. Friend the Minister consider, because this is a single-market issue, whether there ought to be a European approach as to the circumstances in which good title in goods is passed and the circumstances in which it is not. If one buys and imports throughout the European Community—whatever the appropriate balance of protection between the vendor and, on the one hand, the person from whom the goods are stolen and, on the other, the bona fide purchaser—it is a matter with a European dimension that is dealt with on that basis.

Has my hon. Friend had any consultations with the City of London corporation? One of the glorious anomalies is that every shop in the City of London is a market overt in the class of goods in which it trades. He is seeking here to abrogate the ancient privileges of London, and I should be very interested to know what consultations he has had on that aspect.

What has tended to happen in recent years is that our ancient franchise markets—the kind of market to which the market overt rule traditionally applies—have been greatly undervalued by those in power. I am bound to say that we have seen attempts to deregulate them which the Government have had to slightly reflect upon, and this is another fairly brutal attempt to whittle away at their considerable privileges.

I have several traditional franchise markets in my constituency, and I see colleagues in the House who represent agricultural constituencies where rural franchise markets are a part and parcel of life and perform a valuable social function. Farmer Giles can still turn up and sell his potatoes or his beasts. It used to be that one bought them with good title, and one could sue the auctioneer or those running the market. The Bill would stop that.

I urge my hon. Friend to consider the question of franchise markets. He should not abolish them as a feudal anomaly where they are valued and appreciated institutions. Nevertheless, will he consider a general review of the way in which markets are regulated and run? I hear what those in the antiques trade who make complaints about Bermondsey market say. I have never been there and I have certainly never bought anything there, although I may have driven past it.

Those who complain that particular institutions have become thieves' kitchens might perhaps consider whether they have a remedy in the law as it stands, rather than promoting Bills of this sort.

I shall also be extremely brief, and I could not better the erudition with which my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Evans) expressed his concerns—which I share, particularly those about livestock markets. The reservations that I have about the Bill include the fact that we are intending to sweep away a piece of English history which goes back for many hundreds of years at just after 2 o'clock in a deserted House on a Friday in July, and that is a pity.

The Bill will not do what it is designed to do, and it will pursue people in one market at the expense of livestock markets in my constituency. I have one charter market in my constituency which has existed since mediaeval times. We do not know—and my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) also does not know—whether it is a market overt or not. I suspect that it is, but there is a dispute about that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth said that there could be real problems in dealing with the issue of title, which is currently covered by that aspect. While I share those concerns, I do not propose to obstruct the passage of the Bill; but it is worth a moment's pause before we abandon a piece of legal history to the dustbin.

I shall respond to some of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Evans) put directly to me. He asked me to consider whether the matter could be looked at through the European Commission. That is an interesting point and I will consider it. I do not believe that the Bill contains some of the anomalies to which my hon. Friend has referred, but I shall want to look carefully at it in the light of what he said. I will respond in due course.

We are conducting a more general review and we have known about the Bill for some time. There have been no representations that the market overt rule ought to be kept. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) almost argued against his own point in one respect, when he referred to his local market and said that he was not sure whether it was a market overt or not. There are some problems with definition as to which markets are covered by the general rule of market overt. I do not think that there are particular reasons for keeping it going.

Indeed, it is something of a puzzle why it was not abolished when the common law regarding the sale of goods was first codified in the Sale of Goods Act 1893. The rule has been much criticised as a thieves charter, and although there is not a great deal of evidence that market overt is used as a means of disposing of stolen goods, it can no longer rationally be defended. For that reason, the Government support the Bill and commend it to the House.

With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his remarks. I should like to reply briefly to my hon. Friends the Members for Monmouth (Mr. Evans) and for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson), to whom I am grateful for saying that they will not ultimately oppose the Bill. I cast no aspersions on the learning of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth, but many learned lawyers, including Lord Renton and Law Lords in the other place, believe that the Bill is desirable and sensible. On the law, I rest my case.

To say that, because market overt has been enshrined in English history since 1189, there is no reason to get rid of it, is hardly an argument. William Wilberforce could have bowed to the same argument when the slave trade was being abolished and one could still be branding people and doing all sorts of other unmentionable things. That argument does not hold, because something that has a long history behind it is not necessarily correct.

I am glad to note what my hon. Friend the Minister said about Europe and it is, of course, important that we discuss matters with our colleagues in the European Union.

As for the City of London, as a freeman of the City—if I have to declare that interest—I have received absolutely no representations from any of my colleagues or from common counsel on this. Many of them know about my interest in the Bill, just as they know that Lord Renton took it through the other place.

I will not weary the House by quoting an extremely learned letter from Brian Davenport QC—I believe that my hon. Friends the Members for Monmouth and for Hexham have seen the letter—but, as he points out,

"As a matter of history, there is nothing new in the suggestion that the law of market overt should be abolished. This was unanimously recommended by the Law Reform Committee in its twelfth report in 1966."

He goes on to deal with the livestock market and notes:

"The Law Reform Committee reported that over half the livestock markets in England were private markets and therefore could not be markets overt. In the case of each of the others it would have to be shown that the market was established by charter or had existed since before the year 1189."

I do not believe that the farmers of Hexham or of anywhere else are in danger. No one likes dealing in stolen goods in any event, if he is an honest man, and most farmers are honest.

I am conscious that another measure is to be discussed briefly, so, once again, I commend the Bill to the House.

To be considered on Friday 21 October.

There are amendments to the Bill.

It will not be in order for the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Sir P. Fry) to move his new clause, because consideration has been deferred by the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe), who is in charge of the Bill.