Commons Chamber

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House Of Commons

Wednesday 6 November 1996

The House met at half-past Nine o'clock

Prayers

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

Land Ownership (Scotland)

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

9.34 am

I take this first parliamentary opportunity to congratulate President Clinton warmly on his re-election in the early hours of this morning. That has a connection with the debate, because, while I do not know whether President Clinton has any Scottish ancestry, several of his predecessors as President were cleared from Scottish land. The whole House will want to congratulate the re-elected President, and we believe that the high hopes that he has for his second term can be realised.

Land tenure and ownership in Scotland is a. big subject—too big for an hour-and-a-half debate in this place. I believe that the matter is best suited to consideration, improvement and action in a Scottish Parliament. Westminster does not have a good record on debating land reform in Scotland, nor does it have a record of action in dealing with the many injustices and iniquities of the Scottish land position. The most appropriate description is too little, too late.

I shall range across examples from several constituencies across Scotland. I have tried to notify the hon. Members whose constituencies will be mentioned, and, of course, I shall take interventions as I cross from constituency to constituency.

One thing becomes clear as the subject is researched and ventilated. The idea that abuse and misuse of land in Scotland is confined to any one area of Scotland is wrong. This is a problem, a question and a scandal that affects every area of Scotland. The latest legislative scrap from the Westminster table on the broad issue of land is the Transfer of Crofting Estates Bill, which falls into the category of too little, too late. The response of successive London Governments to the pressing problems of Scotland's rural communities can be illustrated in the same way.

It was some 40 years after the famine, more than a century after the start of the clearances, and only years after the so-called crofters' war, that this place finally passed the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886. That measure was welcomed because of the security of tenure that was finally offered to crofting communities in the north-western counties, but it was a lost opportunity in its failure to tackle other problems, none more pressing than the desire for more land. It was too little, too late.

In the 1890s, London's response to the long-standing and pressing cries for more land was the feeble Congested Districts (Scotland) Act 1897, which created a body with some vision, but its hands were firmly tied by having too few powers and insufficient funding. That was too little, too late. The Act is redolent of an approach to the problem that said that there were too many people as opposed to the people having access to too little land.

In the 1970s, there was some tinkering with the feudal system and crofting legislation. More than two centuries after the first serious calls for land reform in Scotland, this place finally managed to squeeze in a Bill that cut a bit here and reformed a bit there, in the shape of the Freshwater and Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) Act 1976. That created more problems for people who sought recreational access to Scotland's rivers. The 1970s was a lost decade for Scotland, no better highlighted than by the lost opportunity for meaningful land reform.

I shall highlight some recent cases of land abuse and feudal speculation that not only illustrate the failings of the current system of land law but show the real pain that the application of these mediaeval laws causes to families and communities the length and breadth of Scotland. It will be for the people of Scotland to judge—and they will judge very shortly—whether the Government's response in any way matches the scale of the problem.

In the numerous examples of land abuse, the most shocking truth is that none of the perpetrators are breaking the law. The law is their justification, their cloak and shield. That feudal law desperately needs reform.

A number of the cases with which I shall deal today are reasonably well known, at least to some Members of the House, some of them are less so, but they all point to exactly the same conclusion. To end the fear and doubt experienced by families and communities across Scotland, to remove the dead hand of the land ownership lottery, the only solution is radical and real land reform.

The House heard details in a previous Adjournment debate secured by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) in May this year of the crisis facing the islanders of Eigg. From Schellenberg to Mamma, the people of Eigg have been badly served by the failings of land law.

In the earlier debate on Eigg, the Minister noted that the island's owner

"has a responsibility not only for the environment, hut for looking after his asset"—[Official Report, 1 May 1996; Vol. 276. c. 1113.]

Both Maruma and Schellenberg before him clearly neglected this responsibility.

The good ideas for progress on Eigg—there have been some substantial initiatives—have come from the people of the island, but barriers have been erected against them time after time by the laird and landowner. Concerned and frustrated by the lack of development and the insecure future that that presented for the island, the community came together to form the Isle of Eigg Trust five years ago, and began to work towards community ownership. The trust has now produced a business plan for the island, it has sought to develop sustainable woodlands and it is looking for avenues to create new employment, but, without community control, there may be more lost opportunities to come.

Like a petty laird in his castle, Keith Schellenberg, the previous owner of the Island, contemptuously announced that he would never sell the island to anyone who wanted to involve the islanders in the running of their own community. That is a mediaeval attitude, but one which perfectly fits in with our mediaeval feudal land law.

Today, the islanders face an even worse situation. While Maruma paints himself into obscurity at home in Germany, he has found himself notorious in Scotland. In a scandalous asset-stripping exercise, Maruma has left the hills of Eigg bare of stock, is overseeing a continuing and rapid deterioration of the island, its land and buildings, and, in a throwback to darker days, has a third of the families without secure tenure, fearful even for the roofs over their heads.

What next for the islanders of Eigg? The public appeal is in its final month. The National Heritage Memorial Fund meets within a few weeks to make a decision on the trust's bid for lottery money—an award which would be more justified in the eyes of many Scots who buy lottery tickets than, say, the £13 million spent by the board on purchasing the Churchill papers.

Like many other hon. Members, my office has been in regular communication with the Isle of Eigg Trust. I support its campaign for community purchase of this estate, and I urge hon. Members to sign the early-day motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Ms Cunningham), which supports the campaign. I share their plea for greater community involvement in the development of its own and other landed estates.

The Scottish National party is currently examining the proposals made by the Scottish Land Commission. I am delighted that one of its proposals for community land councils, including the whole community in creating a management plan for their local area, has been given a broad welcome by many groups, including the following comment from the secretary of the Isle of Eigg Trust:

"There should be some measure of protection for fragile rural communities so that their homes and livelihoods cannot be bought and sold at the whim of individuals with little or no understanding. Islands seem to be at particular risk due to romantic notions. The safeguards set out in the Scottish Land Commission report would seem appropriate."

As it is not the policy of the Government to interfere in the private ownership of land, are we to understand that they support the ownership of large areas of Scotland by landowners such as Maruma? In view of the experience of the Eigg residents, how can the Government claim to be sensitive or committed to sustainable development of rural areas?

In a feeble response this May, the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Kynoch) said that the islanders should submit proposals to the rural challenge fund, but is it possible for the Eigg residents to take advantage of any part of the Scottish rural partnership scheme if they do not have secure access to land and buildings? The people of Eigg do not think so, and I think that we should hear today what the Minister has to say.

The Secretary of State for Scotland recently paid a visit to Eigg, and said that he had great sympathy with the predicament facing the islanders. In The Daily Telegraph on 26 September this year after his visit, he said:

"They explained the real difficulties facing the island. I was rather appalled by the description they presented to me of an island whose infrastructure is crumbling and suffering from serious neglect. The present situation is shocking and is not sustainable. However it is difficult to see that I can do anything directly, but I will make sure that my officials at the Scottish Office are fully aware".

There we have it. The Secretary of State believes his powers to be almost superhuman across the range of activities and legislation in Scotland, yet he comes to Eigg, expresses sympathy, says that it is a scandal, and adds, "What can I do? I am only the Secretary of State for Scotland."

What I hope to do in this debate is suggest to the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Robertson) some actions and initiatives that the Government could take, and say whether or not the current legislation programme offers the opportunities to take those initiatives.

I have focused thus far on the island of Eigg, and my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross hopes to have an opportunity to raise her concerns about the Blackford estate in her constituency, but Members will be aware that many other communities across Scotland depend on the whim of their landowner or feudal superior.

As the Scottish Land Commission confirmed—

rose—

I see that I have provoked a response from one of the feudal superiors in this very Chamber. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman wants to give us some first-hand experience.

I have been goaded. Madam Speaker. I hope that it will not come as too much of a shock to my hon. Friends to learn that I happen to be the feudal superior of the Barony of Eyemouth, which may sound rather a quaint title. It involves me in minor chores every now and then, such as signing legal documents for people. They are minor chores to me, but represent considerable legal expenses and all the rest of it for the people involved. It is a ludicrous anomaly. I do not like to sound too radical, but perhaps, before we get into the second millennium, it might be appropriate to abolish once and for all the feudal system in Scotland.

I thank the hon. Gentleman. He will be delighted that his wish not to sound too radical will certainly he taken on board by his Front-Bench spokesman. The hon. Gentleman can now stand for new feudal superiority in Scotland.

He will also be pleased to know that the Scottish Land Commission has confirmed that most landowners are responsible, display an acceptable level of management and effect their duties as feudal superiors, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands that one of the great difficulties is not just the inconvenience and expense that his own feudal estates and obligations can place on people, but the fact that an industry has now grown up on land speculation.

People buy up feudal superiorities not to cause some administrative inconvenience, not even to have the title, but to exact substantial sums and penalties on the people who are unfortunate enough to come within their maw. Many landowners are responsible, as the Scottish Land Commission confirmed, but that is to some extent a happy accident. The case I am making today is that there should be no lottery in Scottish land.

There are fears and doubts just now in Knoydart. The land market across Scotland is fluid. With perhaps the exception of the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) and the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson), who knows who their superior or landlord actually is? No sane person can dispute the words of the hon. Gentleman or deny the need for real reform, some control and greater community involvement.

Landowners make a difference to people's lives, and I shall be detailing to the House the ways in which people from Lanarkshire to Aberdeenshire have had their lives blighted by landowners and land law.

I want to deal first with the problem of pre-emption. This aspect of feudal law is designed to give first claim of purchase to the feudal superior when a property is sold on, or if there has been a breach of a feu condition. I shall focus on one serious example which highlights the inherent problems caused by this remnant of the feudal era. It is a case which will impact either on thousands of former council house tenants who took advantage of the right-to-buy legislation to purchase their council home, or, alternatively, on every council tax payer in Scotland.

The former Ross and Cromarty district council became embroiled in a dispute with Broadland Properties, which, in 1991, became feudal superior for a number of council estates in Ross-shire. As superior, Broadlands sought to take advantage of the powers it retained in the feu, and is now claiming thousands of pounds to grant a waiver for the properties sold to the council tenants. I understand that the Court of Session has found in favour of feudal law and the rights of the superior. That legal principle will shortly be tested further in the House of Lords.

If the current position stands, I am advised that its impact might be felt by other councils, from Glasgow to the Borders, to Moray and right through the highlands. There is potential for vast sums to be paid from council funds to feudal superiors for rights which exist in law but which surely have no place in a decent society.

Hon. Members may be aware that the Government are proposing to abolish pre-emption for their own properties transferred under the forthcoming Transfer of Crofting Estates (Scotland) Bill. I ask a simple question: if that is good enough for the Government in a narrow piece of legislation, why not sweep away pre-emption across Scotland?

Pre-emption allows a remote landowner, or a feudal speculator, to interfere in the day-to-day life of ordinary people, and there is no possible justification for the exercise and abuse of those private property rights.

The unjustifiable aspects of feudal law are numerous, as I am about to demonstrate. I am grateful to my lion. Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross for passing on a letter that she received from Mr. Brian Hamilton—a man currently dubbed in Scotland "the raider of the lost titles". Mr. Hamilton enclosed a letter he wrote in August to the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside, in which he went into some detail concerning the current law on prescription.

As things stand, after the registration of a deed, and followed by 10 years of possession of the property, that deed becomes unchallengeable. Mr. Hamilton pointed out that that allows those who register a deed for property that is not theirs to gain an unchallengeable title to it after 10 years. He failed, however, to point out to the Minister how that law has protected many people from the predatory investigations of companies like his own.

I want to bring some examples of Mr. Hamilton's activities to the House's attention. The first concerns two of my own constituents, Mr. and Mrs. Gauld, from King Edward in Banffshire. They were tenants of Grampian region in the Old Schoolhouse in King Edward. In 1984, they purchased their house from the regional council. One day before the exact 10th anniversary of their purchase, when they would have become the unchallenged owners, they were contacted by Cairnglen—a company specialising in feudal investigations, and were told that, in fact, they were not the real owners of their house.

Before I explain the Gaulds' case, I want to let the House know how Cairnglen operates. It seems to be run by an individual called Gordon Kerr, although there are various dummy directors and others involved in the operation. Mr. Kerr used to work for Grampian region, and I am told that, in that position, he had access to records regarding Grampian region's schools and educational properties. Mr. Kerr knew that, in the 19th century, across Grampian and the country, landowners gifted land and buildings to communities for use as schools. Those properties were rarely transferred, so, when the building ceased to be used for educational purposes, the ownership was open to question.

As I have already said, I have been told that Mr. Kerr is acting upon the knowledge he gained while an employee of Grampian region. He further investigates the properties that he has identified, locates the feudal superior, and then approaches him to offer a mutually beneficial agreement in return for that valuable information. The profits from that grubby exercise can be considerable.

Ordinary individuals are, of course, terrorised by the impact of Cairnglen's investigations. In the Gaulds' case, Mr. Kerr or his representative contacted their feudal superior, Captain Alexander Ramsay of Mar, who duly signed over a disposition in Cairnglen's favour, which was registered in the Register of Sasines on 22 March last year.

Mr. and Mrs. Gauld were fortunate in one respect—when they purchased the property, their solicitor had been far-seeing, because he took out an indemnity for £50,000 from the regional council. It has been reported, however, that the claim, which may be tested in court soon, is not for £50,000 but for as much as double that. Mr. and Mrs. Gauld now face a battle to stay in their own house, or the prospect of paying thousands of pounds on top of that indemnity to "re-purchase" it.

I blame the law for the Gaulds' predicament, but I also question the motives of those who search through old titles and take advantage of obscure clauses and ancient laws to cause such misery for ordinary people. I hope that those who are responsible for the action about to be raised against the Gaulds in the Court of Session now examine their actions and, if possible, their conscience. If they proceed with that claim, they will deserve the contempt and condemnation of society, and, I hope, every Member of the House.

Whether one considers the law of prescription from Mr. Hamilton's angle, or from that of the Gaulds, there is no doubt that change is required. Mr. Gauld was head teacher at King Edward's school for 25 years, and I believe that his wife taught at Turriff academy for the same length of time. They are pillars of the local community.

The defence offered by Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Kerr and others of their activities is that they are proceeding against incompetent lawyers or insurance companies, that the only individuals who suffer are regional councils, and that no one will notice the difference. I met the Gaulds earlier this year, and they have had two years of anxiety since the letter came through their door one day before they had the unquestioned title to their property. That retired couple have suffered such anxiety when they should be looking forward to a secure and safe retirement.

People like Mr. and Mrs. Gauld are the pawns in a game played by people like Mr. Kerr and Mr. Hamilton. Those who indulge in such activities and those who sign over their feudal entitlement to them bear a heavy burden of responsibility for the anxiety caused to hundreds of people—it is possible that it could become thousands of people—the length and breadth of Scotland.

Brian Hamilton has profited by many hundreds of thousands of pounds from his feudal speculation, and left lives and nerves shattered in his wake. The law is a mess, but the Government have done nothing to tackle the problem.

In Aberdeenshire, Mr. Hamilton purchased the remnants of the Huntly estate for a mere £2,500. In Kinnoir, he made £125,000 from Grampian region, which sold the property of redundant school buildings to a private bidder. Near Huntly, he proceeded with eviction action against teachers in two properties, and pocketed £150,000. By purchasing feudal superiorities from Aberdeen university, Mr. Hamilton has gained access to a claim for £750,000 of land in Portlethen.

Mr. Hamilton's purchases have not been limited to the Aberdeen area—he has properties in Dundee, Glencoe and Lanarkshire. He has blazed a trail which others are now following, and which poses a threat to many currently unaware and innocent home owners across the country.

Mr. Hamilton's most recent activities, in the village of Boghead in Lanarkshire, highlight yet another flaw in our land law. One case, involving a couple, the Reids, who face eviction and a bill for £30,000, has its roots in an issue already raised in a dispute over ownership, but Mr. Hamilton purchased the right to pursue that couple, and will legally profit from it.

The other cases involved casualty clauses in the ancient leasehold for a number of houses in the village. Again Mr. Hamilton has purchased a right to pursue individuals on the basis of obscure and mediaeval feudal clause. Efforts have already been made to clear those outdated mechanisms from our law, but, as the Boghead example shows, those previous attempts have failed. It is now surely time to clear up that section of feudal law, and I urge the Government to come forward with serious proposals to save others from experiencing the fear and doubts that Mr. Hamilton has created in Boghead.

The solicitor who represents the action group in Boghead, Mr. Cameron S. Fyfe, wrote recently to the Secretary of State for Scotland. He proposed two possible solutions that had been suggested by Professor Sinclair of Strathclyde university, who is an expert on land law. He received a letter from the Scottish Office on 23 October, and without going into detail, it basically stated that nothing immediate is proposed to be done. That must be dismal news for the people of Boghead and frightening news for other people in Scotland who will be caught up in the legal tangles arising from Mr. Hamilton's profiteering from bad laws.

I have condemned Mr. Hamilton, but I would take as genuine his desire for land reform. Now, however, I shall further criticise him for taking his newly purchased feudal superiorities too seriously, and stepping into the character of a remote and arrogant 19th-century laird.

In Boghead, he sought settlement of casualty payments from Mr. George Malone. Mr. Malone is 82 and, according to press reports, faced a substantial bill to settle his casualty debt to Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton commented on the case to the Sunday Mail, saying:

"I'm clearing up the casualty position, and offering the tenants the chance to buy me out. Mr. Malone is a special case. He's old and probably does not have much money. I'll do him a special deal. But if he is making any complaints, then the offer is withdrawn."

Those words sum up Mr. Brian Hamilton.

I have had the opportunity to examine in some detail the recommendations and evidence of the Scottish Land Commission. In the course of 10 public hearings, the commissioners spoke to almost 200 individuals representing groups as diverse as the Scottish Landowners Federation, tenants, crofters and farmers. The examples of land abuse that the commission uncovered are instructive. They included the case of an individual who could not get a grant for a development because the owner of the land in question could not be traced—an example of the incredible secrecy surrounding land ownership in Scotland.

From questions tabled last Session by me and my colleagues on this Bench, it is quite clear that the Government are among the most ignorant—at least, they say they are—when it comes to the question of who owns Scotland. Reform is needed to open up information relating to every aspect of land and the grants given to large estates to develop their land.

Such issues highlight another example from my constituency. The Gardenstown Harbour Trust had to fight for 40 years and trace and translate an obscure mediaeval document before it could prove to the Crown Estate Commissioners that it did not owe mooring fees in its own harbour to the Crown. The Crown Estate Commissioners' actions throughout much of Scotland are disgraceful—chasing vassals with the fervour of Mr. Hamilton, they are obsessively secretive and inadequately accountable, and change and reform are long overdue.

The Scottish Land Commission highlighted the abuse of feudal laws by councils and organisations such as Scottish Homes. It received evidence pointing to the activities of some local authorities and housing agencies that insert feudal conditions into deeds for those purchasing their council houses. The council then sits in judgment on what our constituents do in their own homes, just as it did when it was the real landlord. To add insult to injury, it then charges a fee for doing so.

The land and property law of our country should not be a mechanism that allows some people to make a fast buck. It should not allow one group of individuals to interfere in the property rights of the majority. For all those reasons, it is surely clear to even this Government that Scotland's law is in urgent need of reform.

What is the Government's legislative response in the coming Session? It is the Transfer of Crofting Estates (Scotland) Bill—too little, too late. The Government's proposals fail not only to meet the challenge of land reform, but to give the wider crofting community what it desperately wants and needs—more land, bigger holdings and opportunities for new entrants into crofting.

The Government's proposals nevertheless open up the opportunity for genuine debate on land reform in this House. Perhaps, acting together, the Opposition parties could extend the clauses on pre-emption in that Bill to all people in Scotland. There may be a chance to talk about the real needs of crofters and other communities throughout Scotland. The Secretary of State has a cherished public relations touch, which matches his Thatcherite zeal to sell everything whether it moves or not, but his zeal in this cause might well result in land hitting the top of the political agenda. I look forward to the debate on the subject, because the Secretary of State will lose and the people of Scotland will win.

I am grateful to Mr. Andrew Wightman, who recently published "Who Owns Scotland?"—an update of the pioneering work done some 20 years ago by the late Mr. John McEwan. He relates a possibly apocryphal story about a Fife miner, who is walking home one night with a brace of pheasants in his pocket. He meets a landowner who informs him that that land is his, so he had better hand over the pheasants, double quick. "Your land?" says the miner. "Yes," replies the laird, "my land and my pheasants." "And who did you get your land from?" inquires the miner. "Well, I inherited it from my father." "Who did he get it from?" the miner continues; the laird splutters, "His father, of course. The land has been in my family for over 400 years." "Okay, so how did your family come to own the land 400 years ago?" "They fought for it." "Fine," says the miner, "Take your jacket off and we'll fight for the pheasants." The story is apocryphal and humorous.

It is not funny.

The right hon. Gentleman says that it is not funny, but it illustrates the fact that we are debating an historic question and an historic injustice. My speech is meant to show that that historic injustice is still being visited the length and breadth of Scotland.

The challenge facing the Government is whether the legislative programme that they have announced—a limited and insubstantial crofting measure—can be extended to gather a cross-party consensus on radical change to at least some aspects of land law in Scotland. No sane or decent person can support the abuses that I have described this morning. Surely, within that piece of legislation, we can take action on casualty clauses and pre-emption rights, and so do something substantial to meet the real needs of the people of Scotland.

The hon. Member on Labour's Front Bench does not seem to think that this issue deserves a high priority—[Interruption.]

Order.

The hon. Member on Labour's Front Bench does not seem to feel that the issue deserves a high priority.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I rise to express my dismay at the hon. Gentleman's purely negative remarks. I have made no comment whatsoever, and I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his remarks. I am here to listen to the debate, because Labour realises that land is an important issue in Scotland. I want that scurrilous remark to be withdrawn.

I was referring not to the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall), but to his colleague the hon. Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. McAvoy).

Order. If the hon. Gentleman refers to another hon. Member, he should be specific, especially when making allegations. I heard the hon. Gentleman refer to the hon. Member on the Labour party Front Bench, who is the hon. Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall). The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) should make it clear that he was not referring to the Labour Front-Bench spokesman. The hon. Gentleman was, in any case, treading on tricky ground, so I suggest that he hurriedly withdraws his remarks.

I will gladly take your advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was referring to the hon. Member for Rutherglen, who interjected from a sedentary position a few seconds ago.

I did not.

He did—I heard it and I am sure that other hon. Members and Mr. Deputy Speaker heard it. I made a fair comment.

My point is that land issues in Scotland have not been treated as a high priority in this House. It is time they were.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I cannot let the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen be besmirched in this manner. I made a sedentary intervention—I did not think that the remarks of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) were particularly funny.

Order. Now that we have had it clarified, first, that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan was not referring to the hon. Member for Dumbarton and, secondly, that the sedentary statement was not made by the hon. Member for Rutherglen, perhaps the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan will do the House the courtesy of withdrawing his allegations against both those hon. Gentlemen.

I will gladly do so, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and in the—

Order. I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Perhaps he will now continue with his ordinary speech.

In the tradition of collective responsibility, I am sure that the Labour Members will share the responsibility in that matter.

My substantial point is a simple one—that the issue of land in Scotland has not been awarded high priority in this House, and it is time it was. It is time for substantive change. Before us, we have a part of the legislative programme that addresses a single narrow issue in the Scottish land debate and was chosen by the Secretary of State for his own purposes.

The hon. Gentleman has raised an important—indeed, fundamental—matter, and I agree that the House should address it. I am sorry to say that the unfortunate way in which he has presented it sometimes gives offence, but the matter is serious and must be addressed, so I welcome the fact that he has brought it up.

I exercised substantial restraint this morning when I dealt with the cases. The feelings that I expressed are as nothing to the feelings being expressed by many people the length and breadth of Scotland who are experiencing real difficulties caused by those ancient feudal overhangs.

The challenge, whether for Conservative Members or for Opposition Members, is whether we shall rise to that issue—whether the current legislative programme will give an opportunity to deal with at least some of those abuses. I ask a fundamental question: will the Minister and his colleagues at least consider whether the scope of the narrow measure on crofting that has been laid out in the legislative programme can be extended to tackle some of the substantive issues that I have discussed this morning?

I regret that the hon. Member for North Tayside (Mr. Walker) does not always appreciate the tone in which I speak. I would not expect us always to agree, but I expect the issues to stand on their merits. Something requires to be done about the state of land in Scotland, and any hon. Member who does not rise to that challenge and support that cause will have to face his or her constituents with some humility in less than six months' time.

10.10 am

I am glad that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) has raised the important issue of land tenure in Scotland. As he said, and as we all know, it is an extremely complicated issue, which cannot be rushed into willy-nilly at short notice. It is impossible to make progress between now and the general election, so I believe that the next Government should consider giving the matter careful thought in a major inquiry.

I am not deprecating the land commission instituted by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond), but I wish to place on the record the fact that it is not a statutory body but an ad hoc committee set up by the Scottish National party for its investigation into land tenure in Scotland.

I was glad that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan said that there are many highly responsible landowners in Scotland, who do good work and look after tenants and add greatly to the community. Perhaps he tends to overlook the difference between land tenure and land management. It is very important to ensure that land is managed properly, irrespective of who owns it. He should bear that thought in mind in future discussions.

I understand that, this weekend, the Scottish Landowners Federation, of which I am a member—although I do not speak on its behalf—will give a response to the Scottish National party's land commission inquiry. Unfortunately, this debate was a few days premature, so the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan did not have the benefit of advice from the federation.

I cannot accept what the hon. Member said about the operations of Cairnglen and others. It is reprehensible to purchase feus with the objective of buying out the current owner of the property, and we all want that problem to be sorted out in the not too distant future.

Such behaviour is very different from that of those who happen to have owned feu titles for very many years; when a building changes use, by law it must fall back into the ownership of the person who gave the original feu. That is different from the position, which the hon. Gentleman rightly outlined, of a company or individual searching out feus and buying them up, and putting the current owner of a house in an impossible position. I agree that that is very unfortunate, and it should be cleared up by legislation in the foreseeable future.

First, does the hon. Gentleman accept that, in my constituency, such as on the island of Arran, long-standing owners of the land exercise the powers of feudal ownership ruthlessly, so the distinction between people does not apply? He does not appreciate the fact that people suffer from that. Secondly, does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Scottish Law Commission has prepared a draft Bill, which is lying unused? It could be made law very quickly, in this Session of Parliament, if there were any political will to do so.

I note what the hon. Gentleman says. I am not aware of either point in detail.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan said that the debate was about land tenancy in Scotland. When I was responsible for agriculture in Scotland, I felt that we should seek a way of modernising—if that is the right word—land tenancy in Scotland. However, the subject is complicated, and I believed that it was necessary to take everyone with us, both the landowners, who were quite keen to go ahead with changes, and the National Farmers Union of Scotland, representing many tenant farmers who were very reluctant to alter the present arrangements.

I believe that we could have proceeded on the basis that the legislation was not retrospective, and that we should be allowed in future, as was agreed in England in legislation two years ago, to let land on an agreed term of five, 10 or 15 years, or whatever was wanted, with repossession at the end of the term. That seems to be working quite well south of the border.

One aspect of the feu system is worth considering in terms not of ownership but of planning. Often, especially some years ago, that additional hurdle to take in terms of planning has been beneficial in retaining a great deal of the beauty of the countryside. We do not want to throw that away without careful thought.

I shall make only one more point, because others want to speak, and the subject needs more detailed discussion than can be conducted in this short debate.

We must reach a result that is universal for the whole of Scotland—rural and urban. It would be wrong to change laws affecting one area rather than another. We must aim to create a simplified system. I agree that the issue is highly complicated and technical, especially where the feudal system is concerned. Many people forget that, in many cases, it is possible to buy out fens at relatively modest cost.

I am glad that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan raised this matter, and I am glad that the my hon. Friend the Minister will respond. The subject deserves further discussion. We shall have to hold a full inquiry for legislation some time in the more distant future.

10.17 am

The House is indebted to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) for securing a debate on the very important topic of land tenure and land ownership in Scotland. I shall make two or three quick points in the short time that I have.

My first point—an important one—is that, as the hon. Member emphasised, land tenure and ownership has risen to the top of the political agenda in Scotland during recent years. He knows that many of the issues of land ownership and land use were mentioned in a debate that I secured last year on wilderness areas. The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Sir R. Johnston) secured a similar debate earlier this year.

Those debates, the spate of articles that have appeared in the Scottish national press in recent months, and the two excellent books—one by Andy Whightman and the other by Auslan Cramb—show that the issue of land tenure and land ownership is climbing the political agenda in Scotland. It is doing so because people realise that the feudal pattern of land ownership in Scotland is not a harmless relic but has real implications for people's lives, especially in the highlands; and I shall speak about the highlands.

One good example has already been mentioned: the legislation proposed by the Government on crofting trusts. It is not merely an irony that the Transfer of Crofting Estates (Scotland) Bill was launched in the House of Lords. It is a well-worn pattern under this Government that legislation affecting land management and land use issues originates in the other place. That was the case with the Deer (Scotland) Bill in the previous Session, and we saw how it was mauled in the other place. I am afraid that the pattern will be repeated with the crofting trusts Bill.

That is a clear illustration of the continuing power given to a small class or caste of people by their ownership of vast tracts of land in Scotland. That could have immediate financial consequences for the Government, because the crofting trusts Bill creates the possible right of pre-emption, which may be exercised by former landowners over estates now owned by the Secretary of State, and might result in their receiving a small—or even a large—financial windfall. That is a clear example of the continuing effect of land ownership on public policy in Scotland.

My second example is more local but still relevant to the debate. It shows that the impact of land ownership is manifested not only in what landowners can do, but in what they can prevent.

I refer to the activities of the Uig and Hamnaway estate in my constituency, which recently objected to proposals by local business people to set up a mussel farm near one of the lochs on the estate. Many people have grounds for objecting to economic developments, but the stark fact is that such an objection from a large estate carries more weight with the Crown Estate Commissioners who finally decide those matters than would an objection from an ordinary crofter. That is a further example of the continuing power and influence of landowners in the highlands.

I shall not reiterate the arguments that I advanced in the debate last year, except for one point that is particularly relevant. I proposed the introduction of new and strict controls over the sale of large estates in the highlands. There is currently a controversy over Eigg, but each year large tracts of land are sold off to the highest bidder, regardless of community interests or environmental need. That is a continuing abuse, which must be halted.

I suggested last year that we pursue the proposals by the Highlands and Islands development board almost 20 years ago, when, in a report in 1978, it called for mechanisms to control the sale of land. It is about time we legislated for such mechanisms. That will be an early task of the Scottish Parliament that will be set up by the next Labour Government.

My proposal is that there should be a specialised land commission or land use council covering the whole of the highlands and islands, which would have powers to veto the proposed purchase of any estate which did not conform to the environmental and economic criteria set down by the land commission. Every prospective purchaser of a large highland estate should be obliged to carry out an environmental and a developmental audit, and the purchase should be allowed to proceed only if those audits were passed. Any subsequent failure to conform to the terms of those audits should result in the purchaser having to relinquish the title and sell it on to another person or body able to fulfil the terms of the audit.

My proposal would involve no compulsory purchase, no nationalisation, no state ownership and no cost to the public purse, but it would soon have a dramatic effect, as it would weed out the most unsuitable speculators and purchasers of large estates in the highlands. It would deflate the speculative value of those estates and thereby put land ownership within the reach of ordinary communities, which, as we see, are aspiring to take over ownership and control of their own estates.

Scotland's feudal pattern of land ownership is not just a quaint relic from another era; it still represents a serious distortion of the social and economic life of the highlands and islands, and it is about time it was reformed.

10.25 am

I shall contribute briefly to the debate, to enable other hon. Members to make their contributions.

The only part of the speech by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) with which I would take issue was his description of the crofting legislation that will shortly come before us as "too little, too late". It is certainly too late, but my anxiety is that it is too much, in terms of its blank permissiveness. It grants a blank cheque, financially and legislatively, to the Secretary of State. I agree with the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald) that, in the coming weeks, we shall see the extent to which it is gutted in the other place.

It is 20 years since the last Government-proposed crofting legislation went through the House. It is not satisfactory for a matter so complex and convoluted to be considered only once in a generation. In a Scottish Parliament, we could do better.

In a throwaway phrase, the right hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) highlighted the problem when he spoke about the many good estate owners and landowners who "look after" their tenants. Some of us find such paternalism offensive. It has no place in the last few years of the 20th century, as we head into the 21st. It should be a matter not of tenants being looked after, but of people having their own rights.

The hon. Gentleman rightly raised the Ross and Cromarty district issue. Let me probe the Minister on that. The matter is before the courts and has arisen with a right of pre-emption which has been exercised locally. It could have considerable knock-on effects. The basic problem, which arose from the Black Isle originally and has gone all the way to the House of Lords, is that the Government thought that they had attended to the issue of the rights of pre-emption in 1982, and that council house sales overrode those rights. Of course, that was not the case. Although we would very much wish their Lordships to overturn the situation, that is clearly taking some time.

The Government seem to be contradicting what they said in the mid-1980s. As long ago as 1985, the Scottish Office expressed the view that, if litigation highlighted the problem, which it now has, the Government would immediately contemplate amending legislation. They have been immediately contemplating it for more than 10 years now.

The Government could have addressed the issue with what would probably have been a one-clause Bill. They themselves acknowledged that there had been an oversight when they passed the right-to-buy legislation. They should have addressed the issue rather than causing cost to the public purse—the local authorities, the Government and the Law Lords—and distress, frustration and anxiety for the individuals concerned. I make a plea to the Minister: why have the Government waited so long, and why have they not acted in the way they said they would act 10 years ago?

Two recent examples from my constituency underscore the growing sense of anger about the issue. Two rural primary schools are being closed on the Lovat estate. One is at Knockbain near Beauly, and the other is at Kirkton five miles away. Despite the fact that both schools were built and maintained with public money, Highland council has no option but to give them back to the Lovat estate, which owns the ground on which they were built in the 19th century. There is no question of the legality of that; the Lovat estate is on all fours and is quite right.

Councillor Jimmy Munro, who represents the Beauly and Strathglass ward, sums up the problem well. He says:

"I don't agree with the system, but we're stuck with it. If we had been able to sell the two redundant schools, we could have put the money towards the new Kirkhill school, which would have meant that the council would not have had to borrow so much money to build it."

When one considers that a community asset, which has been in community use and community upkeep for more than a century, is reverting to an estate, one can understand why people feel so strongly, especially as the money could have been better applied elsewhere.

Another example concerns a constituent who came to me recently, who wanted to build a small workshop and back porch on his house. He is not a well-off constituent, but a small business person who is operating at the margins. The estate on which he lives demanded a fee of £500 to give approval for him to carry out the work. It advised him that that was standard practice. The fee is £500 a throw, and there are many such approvals every month of the year. That is pernicious activity by estate owners in this day and age.

The Scottish Law Commission has been mentioned. I was not filled with enthusiasm by the response from the Minister of State when I asked him when he intended to take up the gauntlet thrown down by the commission, and to embark on a degree of reform. He replied that the matter was one to which the Government would give due priority. The letter was signed by the Minister of State, who is the younger brother of the Duke of Hamilton. He contested the succession to the earldom of Selkirk in the heraldic court. That does not fill one with enthusiasm or a belief that the Minister of State will give as high a priority to dealing with feudal issues as many of our constituents would wish.

10.32 am

All of us are grateful to the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) for introducing this debate on a very important topic. He was more restrained than usual, and rightly so, because the feudal system and laws about which we are talking are a relic of the Scottish Parliament. In other words, they are laws enacted by Scots to the detriment of Scots.

Although he may contend that a Scottish Parliament might have removed those laws, fortunately for his case, the matter has never been put to the test. The hon. Gentleman was also correct to be restrained, because the last Labour Government started to do something about the feudal system, with the redemption of feu duties. They did not abolish feudal rights, but they might have done so if the hon. Gentleman's party had not brought down the Government and sided with Margaret Thatcher.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan had another reason to be constrained. From the cases he described, he seemed to be making the point that has dogged all land ownership questions in the country for some years. It is not a question of who owns the land and whether it is in foreign ownership or Scottish ownership. The people the hon. Gentleman described were Scots abusing the Scots. I hope that we shall hear no more of the argument that, if only all the land was owned by the Scots, everything would be fine, and that the only problem is the foreign owners.

As the right hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) rightly pointed out, there are two issues here. One is the ownership of land, which is important, but the other is how the land is managed, the point on which I shall concentrate. A good owner can manage the land well, and a bad owner can manage it extremely badly. That is true of management of the grouse moors, the lochs and the deer forests. That point also affects the area in which I am particularly interested, which is access to land. The approach to access is variable; the Minister and I have discussed this on other occasions.

As the Minister knows, a concordat has been established by Scottish Natural Heritage which is a major step forward in agreement and co-operation between landowners and those who use the mountains about access to the land. This is probably the last chance the landowners have before legislation giving the right to roam is introduced, and they have a duty to make it work. The great problem with the concordat is not that it is voluntary, but that, although it was negotiated with the Scottish Landowners Federation, about one third of landowners are not members, and the federation cannot enforce the concordat anyway.

Despite the concordat, there is still a persistent hassle factor in the Scottish mountains. By that I mean trying to gain access to the mountains and finding notices that say, "Because of Government restrictions, no access". We know that there are no Government restrictions and that the notices are misleading, but the signs hassle individuals and restrict their access.

There are locks and gates throughout the highlands, but not because there are picture house queues waiting to gain access to the mountains. I am not talking about areas like Snowdonia or Sca Fell. I am talking about places like Arkle and Foinavon, where, at almost any time of year, one can walk for a week and never see anyone. I hope that the Minister will keep an eye on access, especially in the particular area that we discussed when we considered the Deer (Scotland) Bill.

Since that Bill was passed, I have done a quick check on notices saying, "Stalking in progress, no access to the hills". Again, those notices are not legally binding, but people adhere to them, partly because they do not want to be shot when they are moving around the mountains. As the Minister will know, stalking is not permitted on a Sunday, yet my recent check has shown that such notices are still up on Sundays. I have asked the Deer Commission and Scottish Natural Heritage to consider the matter, and I hope that the Minister will ask them what they are doing about the problem. If we are to get access, there has to be a two-way process.

I now return to my hobby horse—the national parks, an important form of land management. They have been around since just after the second world war. The Minister of State was responsible for setting up the Countryside Commission study into the matter in 1988, and it reported in 1990. We are still no further forward with national parks. The pressure on Loch Lomond is getting unbearable, and the pressure on the Cairngorms is ripping the area apart. There is bad land management there, and scars such as the Cairngorm funicular are being proposed.

It is proposed that the Cairngorms should become a world heritage site. That, however, will not happen under the current arrangements. The Cairngorms are important not just to this nation's heritage, but to the world. Will the Minister please once again consider national park status, if not for all the areas proposed, at least for the two I have mentioned?

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan was right to say that land is an important political issue, and it will become more important. As people get more time and as cities expand, we need the lungs of the mountains, the wilderness and the countryside. It is wrong that those areas are exclusively in the hands of individuals, be they Scots or foreigners. We all have an interest in those lands. They should be held in trusts. We must give this issue more importance; otherwise, we are in peril of reneging on our responsibilities.

10.39 am

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) on securing this debate, and on his speech. Before I come to the specific issues he raised, I want to mention briefly a matter that has been a constant source concern and complaints in my constituency: the management of Blackford estate. It is not a highland estate, so it shows that these problems are not confined to the highlands and islands.

The problem of the Blackford estate is often raised by farmers, local residents and local ministers of religion, who are concerned by the issues that are brought to the fore when they consider the management of the estate. The estate contains many farmhouses—they are in double figures—some of which are visible from the A9, which is one of the main roads through Scotland. Those farmhouses have been allowed to fall into rack and ruin over a period of years. Many people living in the area were raised in those houses, and they must stand by and watch what was a perfectly adequate family home being allowed to fall into dereliction. The estate is in absentee ownership. The owner appears to have little concern for the local community, especially in Blackford.

Those houses could have been used as homes in a part of Scotland that has a housing shortage. As recently as last week, the estate owner was trying to obtain planning permission to demolish some of those houses.

Ian Thomson occupied one of the bothie cottages to highlight the fact that it is nonsense for houses to be allowed to fall into dereliction and for land not to be used, yet when someone tries to do something about one of the houses or one of the fields, attempts are made to remove him. Those attempts failed in court at the first hurdle. The sheriff felt that it was hard to see how it could be argued that Ian Thomson was doing damage to property, given that he was repairing property that the owner was allowing to fall into dereliction. It is an astonishing case, but unfortunately it highlights what is happening.

Land ownership seems to be an area in which vandalism is legal, which is exactly what is happening on the Blackford estate. Even the Scottish Landowners Federation, which is hardly a radical body, does not defend the management practices of Blackford estate. That estate is 30 to 45 minutes from Glasgow—a centre of population in Scotland. This issue is not confined to the far north-west or to the islands.

The Minister will try to convince us that matters are not as bad as they seem. I dare say that he will boldly state that the Government's support for private ownership rights is paramount, and he will condemn any outside interference in those rights or in the land market. Perhaps he will even call such attempts bolshevik, which was the Government's considered response to the 17,000-word Land Commission report.

If he does so, he will have failed to grasp the central arguments of our case. It is precisely the interference of a handful of occasionally unpredictable feudal superiors and landowners in the private rights of the majority that concerns us and the people of Scotland. We urge the Government to undertake land reform to protect the rights of the majority.

I am sure that the Government will ask us to wait for the report of the Scottish Law Commission before they take any action. That head-in-the-sand attitude is not good enough. Why should the House accept that nothing can be done to remove the threat to the majority posed by pre-emption rights, when the Government blithely propose to remove such rights as they affect their own property in the forthcoming Transfer of Crofting Estates (Scotland) Bill?

My hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan raised the issue of casualty clauses and their impact on the villagers of Boghead. Letters from the Boghead residents' solicitor, to which he referred, have been copied to me. They offer a way forward, with or without the Law Commission report.

They point out that the Feudal Casualties (Scotland) Act 1914 abolished feudal casualties, but not the leasehold casualties that have had an impact in the Boghead case. In the opinion of most experts, that was an oversight. The principle of removing those casualties is not in question. From what I have heard today, it is not called into question by Conservative Members. Those letters offer a solution: an Act of sederunt passed by the Lord President of the Court of Session amending the legislation to prevent the likes of Mr. Hamilton from enforcing his right to payment of casualties.

The Scottish Office reply says that the Lord President is concerned about the vires of such an action. I am sure that hon. Members would offer him full support if he took such a course of action. I hope that the Minister will deal with that point.

That is a short-term solution, but it would have an impact on Boghead residents. In the longer term, it has been suggested that the Long Leases (Scotland) Act 1954, which contained a provision for the transfer of such leases into feus—but only for a period of five years-be reinstated. That is a simple measure, following on from an accepted principle, but it has been rejected by the Government in favour of a wait-and-see approach.

Those are two possible solutions to the problems outlined during the debate. I hope that the Minister will take them as constructive suggestions. I think that there would be consensus in the House on reform, but I fear that it is a challenge that the Government do not want to take up.

With the Transfer of Crofting Estates (Scotland) Bill, the Secretary of State has given us a purely cosmetic Bill that will make little difference to the lives of crofters affected, and absolutely no difference to more than 90 per cent. of crofters. That is not good enough, and the Government will be judged on their failure. I hope that they will accept that we can have consensus on the changes that can be made, which will make a difference to many people in Scotland and which will be welcomed by the people of Scotland as a whole.

10.46 am

I shall be brief, because hon. Members on the Front Bench want to speak. Some years ago, I moved an amendment that I thought dealt with the problems in Blairgowrie relating to ownership, feus and so on. To my horror, I discovered that it had not, although the Law Society of Scotland and I thought that we had addressed the matter.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue. I also welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) has raised the matter. I hope that never again in Scotland will we fight one another for our land.

I shall be extremely brief. Feudal power and law are nothing more nor less than an up-market protection racket. Until we recognise that, we will not confront the problem with the seriousness it deserves.

I want to draw a distinction between the activities of the newcomers to this field, such as Mr. Brian Hamilton, and the traditional exercisers of those powers. It is a racket waiting to be exploited. It is just as bad for the people who live under the Seafield, Lovat and Arran estates of this world, which have silently and perniciously exploited these powers for many years. The first part of the reform—the redemption of feudity—was put through by the previous Labour Government. It is essential that the job is finished, and that the whole business of feudal power is swept away, because it has no place in the last decade of the 20th century.

10.47 am

I congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) on securing this debate, and on bringing some important, fundamental and serious issues to the attention of the House. We empathise with individuals, such as Mr. and Mrs. Gauld, on their heartache and concern. As the hon. Gentleman said, they are at a stage in their lives when they should have some contentment and peace of mind. Instead, they are far from content, and are living on a day-to-day basis. Something must be done about that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) mentioned the Scottish Law Commission's draft Bill on feudal reform. I suggest to the Minister that we could implement that straight away. The Opposition would be happy to co-operate with him on that. My hon. Friend the Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith) referred to land management.

There is no draft Bill; nor is there a report.

I think that there is a draft Bill. I should also remind the Minister that, in 1993, I introduced the Carrying of Knives (Scotland) Bill and that, within 24 hours, the Government introduced a similar draft Bill. If the Government could show the same concern and attention to the land issue as they did to the knife issue after I introduced my Bill, the Opposition would be very happy to co-operate with them.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith) said, the issue of land reform is extremely important. I am very concerned about Loch Lomond. There is much history on the issue—going back to 1945, when the Ramsay committee recommended establishing national parks. In 1965, Prof. Robert Grieve made the same recommendation. In fact, the Minister of State, Scottish Office commissioned the Countryside Commission to look at Loch Lomond—and, in July 1990, it recommended national parks, although nothing has yet happened. The fact on which the House should focus—whether we are talking about the Cairngorms or Loch Lomond—is that voluntary solutions do not work.

In the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994, the village of Luss, in my constituency, was taken out of the former district of Dumbarton and put into Argyll and Bute. No concern was shown about the feelings of local people when making that change, and it was made in the most back-door manner. Today, I received a letter from one of my constituents about a planning application for a coffee house in Luss, which will despoil the village's amenity. The former Dumbarton district council worked on the issue with local residents, and, with section 50 planning, it ensured that the local environment would be treated properly.

The planning application was passed by three votes to two by the new Argyll and Bute council-despite the desire of the local representative, Councillor William Petrie, that it not be approved-and the approval will despoil the local amenity. In her letter, my constituent states that local residents are fighting the decision to approve the application, and that they have engaged a Queen's counsel to fight the injustice. The QC thinks that there is a good case, because

"Argyll and Bute Council should not have gone ahead with the second application before the Scottish Office had dealt with the appeal on the first. We have almost raised the Q.C.'s fee of £6,500 and as none of us are well off, you will know how strongly we feel about this issue!"

That letter goes to the heart of the issue of planning and land management in Loch Lomond. The Government paid no attention to the issue in the 1994 Act, and, as a result, we are faced with the current situation.

I should tell the Government that there can be change by reaching a consensus with the Opposition. Even in the Government's dying days, the Opposition would be quite happy to co-operate with their proposals—or with any Government's proposals—on the issue. Yes, we have used the Scottish Grand Committee in the past, and why cannot we use it again? The Opposition are ready, but we are waiting hear whether the Government are ready.

10.51 am

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) on securing this debate, and I have listened with great interest to the wide-ranging points that have been raised in it. I fully agree with the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan that land tenure and land ownership are vital issues. A sound system of land tenure and reliable and accessible information on it is an essential cornerstone of any economic system.

I acknowledge many of the criticisms of the current system that have made during the debate. Indeed, the Government are publicly committed to reform and, in particular, to abolition of all remaining aspects of the feudal system. I can assure the House that our aim ns to provide Scotland with a system of land tenure that will meet the needs of the 21st century and beyond.

We all welcome that declaration, although I hope that the Minister is not about to say "but", and then tell us that it will be delayed for some time. There is pending legislation, and he has heard about pre-emption and casualty clauses. Will the Minister at least tell us that he will widen the scope of that legislation to deal with those two matters, which are causing such misery and were the subject of previous legislative attempts that failed? Will he answer that precise point—that we can take action now—instead of waiting, as he is about to tell us?

Perhaps if the hon. Gentleman will allow me to speak—he spoke for half an hour, and I have seven minutes to respond to a debate that lasted one and a half hours—some of his questions might be answered.

To make progress with that aim, in 1990 we asked the independent Scottish Law Commission to begin a major and wide-ranging review of property law to provide advice on the way ahead. In 1991, the Commission issued a discussion paper on abolition of the feudal system, and it is now working towards producing a report. As hon. Members will appreciate, it is an extremely complex area of the law. The Commission is wrestling with considerable technical difficulties, and with the often conflicting views obtained during consultation on how those should be resolved.

In October 1995, the then Lord Advocate appointed Professor Kenneth Reid, a respected expert in property law, to be a member of the Commission, with the specific remit of completing the property law projects as soon as possible. We have made it clear to the Commission that that work is a priority, and I would like to see it completed before work on any new areas of law reform is begun.

I understand that the Commission is making progress towards finalising its proposals, and I await its report with considerable interest. In such a complex area, we would not wish to move forward without the benefit of the Commission's advice. We would, of course, also wish to obtain the views of all interested parties on what the Commission proposes. However, I can assure the House that, once the most appropriate approach is established, we are committed to completing the reform of the feudal system and will give priority to any required legislation.

We have heard in today's debate of the problems that owners of some leasehold properties—for example, those in Boghead in Lanarkshire—are facing over unexpected demands for casualty payments. I have the greatest sympathy for those who find themselves in that unfortunate position. The Government do not, however, have any powers to intervene in what are essentially private individual cases of dispute.

I should emphasise that the casualty payments that are being levied by landlords, and the conditions in leases which provide for them, are entirely legal. They are set out in the title deeds of the relevant properties. It is for solicitors acting on behalf of clients intending to purchase leasehold properties to check the conditions of the lease and to make clear those conditions and their implications for their clients. If that is not done, it is open to individual owners to make negligence claims against solicitors who advised them when they acquired their properties.

There are no quick legislative fixes for the problems. Existing leasehold casualties could not be abolished without provision to compensate the landlords for loss of future income. Leasehold casualties that are already due would not be affected, and would remain payable by the tenant. Therefore, in the short term, no legislative solution' would benefit the affected residents in Boghead.

The law on long leases is one of the subjects to be tackled by the Scottish Law Commission as part of its review of property law, and progress will be made once the work on the abolition of the feudal system is completed.

After listening to today's debate, it is clear that land ownership in Scotland is an issue that rouses very strong passions, and it is understandable that hon. Members should wish to debate the issue. It was in that context that, as much as he tried to be measured in his speech, the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan could not quite stop the dark side of nationalism from appearing—the dark side that, under his leadership, has been the hallmark of the Scottish National Party.

The SNP's hallmark is characterised by xenophobia, and by the ugly face of nationalism. What he did not mention, however, are the sinister—indeed, odious—forces that drive him to xenophobia. Those forces are perhaps best displayed in his party by its youth wing, which has produced a leaflet. Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I quoted from the leaflet, you would stop me after I read the 11th word, because it is nothing short of obscene filth, based on the obscene xenophobia that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan peddles as his political creed in Scotland.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is this travesty in order? It has absolutely nothing to do with the debate.

It is such a wide-ranging debate that, at the moment, the Minister's speech is in order.

Therefore—if the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan is serious about the issues that he raised today, and serious in bringing them to the attention of the House and the Government—he will take this opportunity to disown the obscene and xenophobic filth produced by his party's youth wing. My right hon. Friend Secretary of State has challenged him on two occasions to dissociate himself from the remarks. I now give him a third opportunity, in the House, to dissociate himself from his party's youth wing and from that leaflet.

I will give the Minister the opportunity to tell us what he will do about the 900-year history of feudal obligation in Scotland. What measure will be in the Government's legislative programme, and when will the Minister start addressing the issue instead of delivering his mindless abuse?

It is now on the record, for the third time, that the hon. Gentleman will not dissociate himself from that leaflet, which, as I said, is nothing short of obscene, xenophobic and anti-English filth.

A great deal of nonsense has been talked about land ownership and management in Scotland. A landowner who does not live on his estate is not necessarily a bad manager of the land. There are those who enjoy harmonious relationships with their tenants and the local communities. Their estates are well-managed and are they able and willing to maintain and develop their estates and consequently continue to support or even expand local employment. Conversely, there are those who reside on their estates who may be less satisfactory landlords.

I repeat my belief that Scotland's system of land tenure and land ownership is flexible, resilient and capable of being adapted to meet the needs of the next century. The Government are committed to doing just that on the basis of advice from the Scottish Law Commission. We are also prepared to take direct action, where appropriate, to ensure that general policy on land ownership is adapted to meet the needs of particular areas of Scotland where the normal mechanism of the market is unlikely to work effectively. We have had a good debate, and I am confident that the Government have found the best way forward.

World Poverty

11 am

I am grateful for the opportunity to debate a sphere of policy and practice that is of the greatest concern to the Government, to many charitable organisations and to the overwhelming majority of people in Britain—our commitment to overseas aid and the initiatives that we are taking to relieve world poverty.

The timing of the debate could not have been more fortuitous, as we are at the time of year when my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor is doing his pre-Budget arithmetic and making difficult decisions about the best way to balance the many and inevitably competing priorities and demands on public expenditure. He will be seeking, quite rightly, to exercise the prudence for which he is renowned—from which our economy is now reaping the rewards—and to ensure that sound public finances are maintained, delivering sustainable growth and permanently low inflation.

Against that background, a hardy perennial feature of political life in Britain is that rumours about cuts to some key Government budgets and boosts to others abound. Civil servants—and others, I suspect—often set hares running to persuade campaigning groups to lobby on their behalf with at best speculative and at worst downright mischievous and misleading reports of reductions in spending on important elements of policy. Allegations that the axe is about to fall on overseas aid always seem to peak in October and early November. If those rumours had regularly proved accurate, our overseas aid budget would not be at its current substantial level.

This morning, we have the opportunity to raise the quality of the debate beyond rumour-mongering about the forthcoming Budget, to put on record the size and character of the overseas aid that the Government provide on behalf of the people of Britain, and to identify the principles against which the effectiveness of our aid programme should be assessed. We have the opportunity to make it clear that an effective overseas aid programme is about more than arguing about the amount of money that is spent on taxpayers' behalf: it is about making sure that our nation gives what it can to that important work, that those valuable, but inevitably scarce, resources are used by those who can derive the greatest benefit from them and that, where possible, the scope for abuse or waste is minimised.

I shall put on record the basic facts of our aid programme. The United Kingdom has, rightly, always been proud of the assistance that it makes available through official sources to people in other countries who are far less fortunate that us in economic terms. We maintain a substantial development assistance budget of £2,154 million in the current financial year. I do not deny that such spending was down in cash terms by about 5.4 per cent. on the previous year, but such a reduction was the inevitable result of the public clamour that we all witnessed for last year's Budget to concentrate resources on education, the national health service and the fight against crime. It is important to remember that expenditure on overseas aid can be committed only at a level that is sustainable by our economy and which takes into account public feeling on how different sectors of service provision should be prioritised.

The overseas development aid budget, however, is planned to increase by £47 million to £2,201 million in 1997–98 and by a further £69 million to £2,270 million in 1998–99. That commitment makes the United Kingdom the world's sixth largest donor by volume, behind Japan, France, Germany, the United States and the Netherlands. The programme is recognised internationally not only in terms of its size, but in terms of its effectiveness, its focus on poverty and its emphasis on encouraging private sector involvement.

The British Government, on behalf of the British people, have signalled their commitment to move towards the United Nations recommended level of 0.7 per cent. of gross national product to be spent on overseas aid as soon as economic circumstances allow. Although we certainly have considerable progress to make in that direction from the 0.28 per cent. of gross national product that has so far been achieved, the House will note that average expenditure for all donors remains at about 0.27 per cent., and that, among the wealthier G7 nations, we devote a larger share of our GNP to aid than Japan, the United States and Italy.

One fact that is often overlooked is that the British people do not expect the Government to arrogate to themselves all responsibility for overseas aid. We have a proud tradition of voluntary giving to some of the world's best and most effective charitable agencies: Oxfam, CAFOD—the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development—and Christian Aid, to name but three. There are many more. Such voluntary giving means that individual donors can decide for themselves which projects to support and which causes to prioritise. In addition, individual contributions can be enhanced as a result of a provision that was introduced some time ago whereby the charity can claim back tax at the basic rate. For example, if someone donates £1,000, the charitable organisation can claim back tax at the basic rate, and so receive £1,240. That is a considerable advantage to charitable organisations.

Individuals can exercise the rights of, and fulfil the responsibilities laid upon, that informed Christian social conscience that has characterised our society for so many years and which, at least recently, seems to be making something of a comeback in the political popularity stakes.

The net effect of the tremendous amount of voluntary giving is that the United Kingdom exceeds the much less publicised United Nations target on total aid. United Kingdom combined private and official aid flow to developing countries exceeds the United Nations recommended level of 1 per cent. of GNP. That is a good news story to which we should give greater attention.

I seek an assurance from the Minister that, building on the past developments of the Overseas Development Administration, it will remain a clear policy priority that public official budgets do not subsume that most important voluntary element of our nation's giving.

We are rightly seeking to ensure that our overseas aid budget works constructively to support the development of sound democratic institutions free from corruption, to serve the needs of developing countries and to support the development of sound economies to increase prosperity and create more opportunities for British businesses.

The success of the British economy—the direct result of the Government's prudent economic management policies—-has led to British private investment in developing countries being at a record level. The United Kingdom is the third largest source of private finance capital to the developing world. That means that British businesses and the British people are investing in the future of the world's poorer nations, enabling them to step on to the first rungs of the ladder of economic growth with confidence.

Our aid is well targeted: 75 per cent. of United Kingdom bilateral assistance goes to the poorest developing nations—well above the average for all donors. A substantial proportion of our bilateral programme is devoted to meeting the basic needs of the poorest communities—basic education, primary health care, mother and child health, nutrition, water and sanitation. Considering our record, there can be little doubt that the British overseas aid programme is among the most generous in the world and, more important, among the most effective.

There have been changes in the level of overseas aid funding and the way in which control over that expenditure is exercised. Whereas in the past we concentrated on bilateral aid programmes, there will be a continuing shift towards multilateral projects, particularly through the European Union and the United Nations.

Knowing my views on those two august bodies, my hon. Friend the Minister will not be surprised to hear that I shall take this opportunity to seek some specific reassurances. First, those organisations, which are notoriously inefficient in administration and bureaucracy, must be forced to improve their efficiency and effectiveness to ensure that funds go to the needy, not to the administrative machine. Secondly, any corruption in official international agencies must be stamped out ruthlessly. Anyone found stealing from the mouths of the world's poorest people should be punished severely, no matter how senior their position. Thirdly, the international agency concerned should acknowledge the British contribution to its aid budgets in its dealings with recipient nations so that those benefiting from British generosity know that the British people have put their hands into their pockets, either through taxation or through voluntary donations.

In my experience, bilateral aid is often better targeted, more effective and more visibly British than multilateral projects. It gains more political and commercial credit for the United Kingdom, and is of more practical help to the recipients.

Despite my reservations, multilateral bodies will play an increasing role. For example, the work of the World bank in co-ordinating policy dialogue on economic reform is vital. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that, in charity work, small projects often deliver a better return on investment than grandiose schemes.

Many of the developing world's poor people live in countries with a policy and institutional framework that is not conducive to the rapid, broad-based growth and human development needed to make significant inroads into poverty. Many have suffered from civil conflict. To respond effectively to that challenge, we must take into account the relevant historical, cultural and social factors, as well as economic considerations, when designing and implementing poverty-reducing programmes.

Recent World bank poverty assessments, which take into account the perspectives of poor people, have shown that, in addition to material deprivation, poverty includes social and geographical isolation, vulnerability to natural or man-made shocks and powerlessness. The ODA's poverty-focused development assistance seeks to tackle all those important issues. That will be achieved by giving more effective support to strengthen the capacity of institutions that work directly to extend economically and socially sustainable benefits to those sections of society with the greatest need and the least access. We must also support institutions that stimulate self-help and encourage the poor to take control of their lives to improve their living standards and quality of life.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to assure me that resources and energy will be concentrated on three areas: first, projects designed to influence and shape broader policies on direct poverty reduction; secondly, projects designed to enhance the capacity of poor people to stimulate effective responses from services, while enhancing the capacity of service deliverers to respond appropriately to the demands of poor people; thirdly, direct assistance in emergencies designed to save and protect livelihoods, support effective coping mechanisms and achieve a smoother return to long-term development.

In furthering such aims, my hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues at the Foreign Office, with the Secretary of State for the Environment, have played an increasingly active international role, setting the lead. My right hon. and noble Friend the Minister for Overseas Development will shortly set out for the world food summit in Rome, the aim of which is to give new impetus to international discussions on food security to prevent starvation. The House will wish her well in seeking to take forward British aims to secure international policy on food security, to secure the full and efficient involvement of all the relevant United Nations and other organisations, and to build on the outcomes of previous summits.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will bear with me if I reiterate concerns that I have previously expressed in the House on such international summits and the way in which their agendas and conclusions are manipulated by others. I note with interest the understandable and growing opposition voiced by developing nations at the recent United Nations meeting in Istanbul, at which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment gave an inspiring address, rejecting the culture of negativity and death. I also note the reference made at the Rome meeting of the Committee on World Food Security to the unqualified promotion of the phrase "reproductive health", with its unfortunate connotations of abortion on demand according to the definitions provided by the World Health Organisation.

I am delighted that the texts agreed in Istanbul and Rome rejected the approach bulldozed through the United Nations World Conference on Women, which promoted abortion on demand—in the guise of reproductive health—as a human right. The G7 nations, the developing nations and the Muslim nations have rightly insisted on a formula linking the phrase "reproductive health" with the report and programme of action of the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. The Cairo document insisted on national sovereignty on abortion and that abortion was not to be promoted as a method of family planning.

I seek the Minister's assurance this morning that this approach—rejecting definitions of reproductive health with connotations of abortion on demand—will be endorsed by the British Government at every opportunity. My hon. Friend must leave no stone unturned in the battle to prevent British taxpayers' money from being used to fund programmes in China that involve compulsory abortion and sterilisation, which must be repugnant to all right-thinking people.

I am concerned at the growing acceptance in the Foreign Office of the mantra that any link between aid and trade is contrary to Britain's interests. I know that many expensive reports on the matter from the Treasury, the ODA and Touche Ross have argued that tying aid is counter-productive, but I remain to be convinced by that argument. If we could rely on all other donor nations—both in theory and, more important, in practice—to untie entirely their aid budgets, the free market thus created might on balance create marginally more opportunities for British businesses than it destroys.

We know from experience that, when it comes to shifts in international practice, the United Kingdom will lead the way, while others will lag behind or fail to move at all. As a result, British businesses will lose out. In other words, we live in a practical world, and we must ensure that our competitors and partners live up to what they say. I see no reason in principle why aid and trade should not be linked where it is in Britain's interests so to do, provided that the effectiveness of the aid programme itself is not compromised. In short, if British taxpayers' money is to be used to buy vehicles, it should be used to buy vehicles from Land Rover rather than from Mercedes-Benz. I do not need to tell the House that the product would be better and its cost lower, or that the benefit to the recipient nations and the British economy would be greater. I do not think that anyone can argue with that.

I have sought this morning to highlight a number of important principles and to put on record a number of key facts. Above all, I hope that I have created an opportunity to raise the quality of debate on overseas aid in a manner that will help the House. It might assist my hon. Friend the Minister if, in closing, I summarised by saying that we have a record on overseas aid of which the United Kingdom can be rightly proud, but we must seek to improve on it as economic conditions allow. We must continue to ensure that aid is carefully targeted to those who need it most, and we must resist the move away from bilateral to multilateral projects. We must use aid programmes to enhance democracy and encourage sound economies, and we must stamp out waste and corruption in international organisations.

We must reject abuses in the aid budget to fund the spread of abortion, and we must move away from tying aid to trade only when we are satisfied that other countries will—in practice as well as in platitude—do the same. Words are cheap, but actions always speak far louder.

In my short speech, I have attempted to highlight how the action taken by the United Kingdom to aid the poorest countries in the world and those far less fortunate than ourselves speaks volumes. We must continue to build on our excellent record.

11.24 am

I congratulate the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) on obtaining this debate and on her thoughtful speech. She raised themes with which it is well known she is associated, and for which there is more sympathy in the House than she may imagine. I had hoped that, when she referred to stamping out the improper allocation of aid, she would call for the resignation of the Minister responsible for the Pergau dam aid.

She also talked about the problems of childbirth and family planning questions. My view is simply that the best way to solve such problems is to empower people by letting their economies grow. It is a fact that the best form of birth control—if that is the problem facing the world—is a rich economy. For an economy to succeed, all citizens in it must be allowed to play their part, and I shall address that subject later.

I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), to the Government Front Bench. He was the Whip on the Standing Committee on the Finance Bill last year, and he marshalled his troops effectively to ensure that the rich were protected while the poor were given a worse deal from this miserable Government. Now that he is a gamekeeper turned poacher, I hope that he can secure a better deal for the ODA from his former colleagues in the Treasury.

Like charity, alleviating poverty worldwide should begin at home. Frankly, a Government who have deliberately, wittingly and with cold-blooded precision drafted laws to increase poverty in our country are ill-placed to provide a lead in alleviating poverty around the world. What does the Bible tell us? In Ecclesiastes, it states:

"The poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard".

One should add women to that, because they bear the burden of poverty more than any other section of our community. The voice of the poor is excluded in the modern world, and is not represented in the boardroom, the newsroom or the Cabinet room, where decisions are made. The alleviation of poverty around the world will come as a result of enabling and empowering the poor.

Among the poorest of the poor are the children of the world, more than 100 million of whom are forced to work. The hon. Member for Congleton may be aware of a lovely poem by Elizabeth Barret Browning, "The Cry of the Children", which reads:

"Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers Ere the sorrow comes with years?

… They are weeping in the playtime of the others In the country of the free."

She wrote that more than 100 years ago about this country, but the ambient noise of today's political circuses drowns out the sound of weeping children around the world. According to even modest estimates, 100 million children are working. Some 15 million of those children, according to Human Rights Watch, are placed in servitude to an employer to pay off a debt.

Human Rights Watch cites the case of Kali in India, a nine-year-old girl who has been working in a silk factory since she was six. Perhaps she produces the silk used to make the cheap shirts that we buy from Marks and Spencer and C and A. Kali's mother needed £75 to pay for her husband's funeral and, to secure that loan, she sold Kali into slavery. Each morning, that child leaves home at 7 o'clock and returns at 9 o'clock at night, and she earns £5 a month for working a 14-hour day. That story is repeated in other countries. Carpets, footballs, toys of all description and clothes are made for sale in Britain using this odious form of labour.

In theory, the liberalisation of world trade and the growth of free trade and wealth in the world should put an end to such child labour, but everyone who examines this subject reports not a decline but an increase in child labour. Far from child labour dwindling to a few isolated spots in the third world as a result of trade liberalisation, we see it increase and encroach into new areas of high-profit economic activity, such as child prostitution.

What perhaps is worse, and should concern the House, is that the use of child labour is spreading back from the third world. Not many miles from the House, and in many other big cities in Britain, there are textile workshops with home workers who have not reached puberty. According to the university of Paisley, an estimated 1.7 million children work in the United Kingdom, not delivering newspapers as we all did as kids, but in economic, gainful activity. Indeed, in the Prime Minister's constituency of Huntingdon, the meat-packing company Hilton Meats was recently fined £12,500 after pleading guilty to employing 14-year-old children. Moral exhortation about what is happening in the third world rings hollow at conferences while we allow so much child labour in our own country.

What can we do? Moral exhortation, as I said, is not enough. Law and the enforcement of law are needed. Shaftesbury and those who fought in the 19th century against child labour understood the difference between a sermon or inspiring speech at some international conference and enforceable law. Wilberforce understood that passing a law in the House against slavery was of little use unless it was enforced on the high seas and other nations were drawn into a worldwide campaign to abolish slavery.

What was true then is no less true today. The need to take global action against child labour and other forms of poverty and inequality is hampered, alas, by reaction at home which, whether in the Government or the media, first, denies the need for effective international action; secondly, actively conspires against policy proposals when they are advanced; and, finally, wallows in the smug self-satisfaction of the pretence that the market alone can solve those problems.

I should like to put forward a three-point approach to the question of alleviating world poverty. First, at the Government level, we need to work at devising international solutions and programmes to defeat poverty. Secondly, at the business level, we need a new politics of ethical business behaviour, which we can already see taking shape in some parts of the business community and which should be supported and encouraged. Thirdly, each individual—all of us as consumers, employees and shareholders—can play a part by insisting that the goods and services we buy are provided on the basis of fair trade and decent working conditions.

Let us look first at the Government level. The internationalisation of trade, which is a growing trend and one that I welcome as a strong free trader—is bringing with it a new body of international law. Commerce throughout history has worked only if contracts are enforced and are enforceable at law. Standards, patents, so-called intellectual property rights, market access, dumping rules and all the paraphernalia of national commercial law and regulation are being reproduced internationally. We see that process in the European Union to enable the single market to work and we see it in the World Trade Organisation, in the North American Free Trade Agreement and in the thousands upon thousands of pages of directives and regulations about which the hon. Member for Congleton and her hon. Friends sometimes complain, but which are the stuff of making any market or any commercial set of relationships work.

Endless tribunals are needed to make free trade work. But just as national economies have social and environmental costs and consequences—which, for 100 or more years, we have regulated through health and safety, clean air and child labour legislation—so the international economy has social and environmental costs and consequences. Inch by painful inch, the call for international law and regulation on social and environmental questions—the cry from the poor of the world for their concerns to be heard at the table where the new rules of world trade are being written—can be heard.

The most concrete expression of that call is the demand that the new World Trade Organisation look at child labour, workplace health and safety rights and the right of employees to belong to free trade unions, which even the World bank in one of its reports held up as the cornerstone of free economic activity.

"We are keen to include social issues on the agenda of the World Trade Organisation."

Those are not my words or those of the new Labour party's policy programme, but a statement by Sir Leon Brittan, the former Thatcherite Minister, when he addressed the European Parliament two years ago. Sir Leon, Vice-President of the European Commission and the senior Commissioner responsible for trade, has consistently argued that the World Trade Organisation should at least agree to discuss social issues in some form through a working party—not to regulate wages, but at least to have a discussion.

The aim, in which Sir Leon is supported by the international trade union movement, is to find a non-protectionist, trade-enhancing way to enable the employees of multinationals that operate in third-world countries, and those of national companies, to have some say in the distribution of the wealth that their labour creates. That is a sensitive issue and powerful forces are ranged against it, including many multinational corporations and many third-world Governments, who represent an economic elite such as that disposed of in Pakistan earlier this week. They are ranged against the idea of a social clause because the men who profit from Government control of trade and the economies that deny social rights to too many third-world countries do not want child labour or union rights discussed at the World Trade Organisation.

Despite Sir Leon's commitment to that policy, I have to report to the House that, only last week, he was stabbed in the back by the Minister for Trade at one of the secretive Council of Ministers meetings, at which the existing European Commission policy for a WTO discussion on the issues was sabotaged. The language on setting up a WTO working party on social questions has gone, although the Council of Ministers' statement—which provides guidance for the EU position at the WTO interministerial conference in Singapore—referred to the importance that the European Commission attaches

"to the efforts of the International Labour Organisation to promote the universal observance of core labour standards."

That is a small advance, but there was a retreat, under reactionary pressure from the British Government, from a clear policy position that Sir Leon had been outlining for at least two years.

At least the statement I have just cited is a positive statement that can only embarrass our Ministers, who only a year ago in the shape of the then Secretary of State for Employment, now the Secretary of State for Defence, were floating the idea of a United Kingdom withdrawal from the ILO. It required interventions in the House to the Prime Minister and an early-day motion, signed by a huge swathe of Members from all parties, to stay their hand. We welcome the Council of Ministers' affirmation of the importance of the ILO and regret that the British Government, only 12 months ago, were talking about a United Kingdom withdrawal.

In the battle to alleviate world poverty, we cannot dissociate the issue of trade from labour standards. The United States under President Clinton has made clear its commitment on that issue. We welcome his election victory last night and the defeat of the Conservative party candidate, Senator Dole. The raising of the minimum wage to a fair and decent level in the United States, under President Clinton's leadership, has undoubtedly contributed to his excellent election victory, and we look forward to that policy being implemented in this country.

If the European Union detaches itself from the United States over the question of the WTO examining social issues, we should not be surprised if the United States takes unilateral, extra-territorial action. We are refusing to work in partnership with our allies in the United States and make efforts to achieve a multilateral response through international agencies such as the WTO. I worked for some years in international organisations and I have no illusions about how useful working parties are.

If the message from the December WTO inter-ministerial conference in Singapore, from our Minister for Trade and from our Prime Minister to the world's poor, the world's child labourers and the other workers who face increasing poverty is, "We will not even discuss your problems," I warn the House that the poor of the planet will want no part in a world that excludes them. The road that they will go down instead will, alas, be the road of crime, of terrorism and rejection, and of supporting extremist solutions.

None the less, let me bring some good news to the House. Although our Ministers bury their heads in the sand, there is now a call for new ethical business behaviour at international level. Transparency International is an important organisation which, with the support of many big business companies, argues in a concrete fashion that we must put an end to corruption. I am talking about corruption such as that in the Gulf, and that exposed by the Pergau dam affair—corruption with which, alas, too many British companies' names have been linked.

Progressive British companies are now supporting European works councils, which allow their employees to have some say in those companies' international affairs. Swedish and German multinationals allow, indeed encourage, their union representatives to make contact with workers in overseas subsidiaries.

More needs to be done. A good example is the Rugmark scheme, which was set up to ensure that rugs sold in western shops are made in fair working conditions in the subcontinent. Unlike most carpet stores in the United States and Germany, retailers such as Ikea, Liberty, John Lewis and Bentalls refuse to sign up to the scheme. I appeal to those companies to support Rugmark.

Big British success stories such as the Body Shop now support the idea of ethical accountability and transparency. That means not insisting that one western standard be applied everywhere, but ensuring that transparent and accountable systems work, with inspections and accreditation to reinforce the ability of people in the south to raise standards in a culturally and economically appropriate manner.

The Co-op and Sainsbury are preparing to develop ethical approaches to sourcing, and are committed to work with the Fair Trade Foundation to support, through an admirable charter, the idea that what we buy in our shops should be produced in fair conditions.

That leads us to what consumers can do. There are now more and more examples of consumer and corporate pressure having an effect. We saw that in the outcry over the footballs produced for the Euro 96 competition. Those were made by child labourers in Pakistan, but FIFA has agreed that in future the footballs that it uses will be produced in fair conditions.

Textile retailers, too, are discussing those ideas, and there are fair trade campaigns. We can now buy Café Direct, an excellent coffee made by third-world producers in fair conditions—and I should like to see some bought and sold in the horribly refurbished House of Commons Tea Room.

In America, consumer boycotts have been effective. In Latin America, there has been a decline in child labour, as United States textile retailers have been forced to respond to such boycotts. Pepsi has now been banned in most United States campuses because of the company's refusal to draw a line and stop investment in Burma.

I have mentioned three ways in which we can alleviate poverty—Government action to support international initiatives, business action to support ethical fair trade and action by consumers to put their money where they know it will help to stamp out poverty throughout the world. Two of those processes are under way, but the third., Government action, will begin only when we have a Government committed to alleviating poverty—not only abroad, as the title of the debate implies, but more important, at home in our own country.

11.43 am

I congratulate the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) on her success in the ballot and on the excellent points that she made in her speech, many of which I strongly support. I shall say more about that later, but first I shall comment on the speech by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), whose call for higher business standards I support.

Listening to the hon. Gentleman, my mind went back several years to the time when I was at Harvard business school, where the professors are regularly assessed by the students. Year after year, the professor who came top was Professor Roland Christenson, who lectured on business policy and delivered to his students the strong message that there was no problem in the world greater than the fact that hundreds of millions of people did not get enough to eat and that millions of children died every year. The hon. Member for Rotherham was right to draw attention to that.

The other problems that the hon. Gentleman addressed, such as child labour, are serious too, but the fact that children are dying is the greatest issue of all. Clearly we want children to be properly educated rather than used as cheap labour, but even being used as cheap labour is better than dying.

The hon. Member for Congleton spoke strongly about the role of voluntary agencies, and I support what she said. In Bolton, there are strong supporters of the World Development Movement, Save the Children and Oxfam. I believe that such agencies play an important part, and that, as the hon. Lady said, Britain leads the world in that respect. I spent much of my childhood in India. Other members of my family have spent time in Africa, and are now in India again—no doubt concerned with the work of voluntary agencies there.

The hon. Lady spoke about tying together aid and trade, and said that it was better for workers to be in Land Rovers rather than in Mercedes-Benz. There is sometimes a problem when aid workers are seen to be enjoying a standard of living far above that of the people whom they are supposed to be helping. Sometimes they live in luxury hotels and drive luxury cars, but it would be better if they were closer to the people they help, and drove vehicles not so different from those used by the indigenous population.

The hon. Lady drew attention to the summits in Rome, Istanbul and Cairo, and then talked about abortion, especially in China. I shall pick up some of her points. Some years ago, I saw the work done in Hong Kong by the Home of Loving Faithfulness in providing adoptive homes for severely handicapped Chinese babies. The Chinese have no tradition of adopting children, and there is a role for this country to play.

I ask the Minister to pay attention to the need to improve the process of inter-country adoption. I am sorry that in the Queen's Speech the Government failed to announce their Bill on adoption. I do not know whether there will be an opportunity for them to introduce it over the next few months, but as they produced a draft Bill on which there was a long consultation period, it is unfortunate that the legislation cannot now be introduced. Measures such as the ratification of the Hague proposals should be properly addressed by the House. Then we could be happy in the knowledge that this country could play its full role.

We are aware of all the problems in China. At the beginning of her speech, the hon. Member for Congleton said that she preferred a stronger emphasis on bilateral than on multilateral aid. In general, I would support that idea, but in China there are difficulties in knowing how, in such a coercive regime, to become involved with proper family planning. I am sure that the hon. Lady agrees that in that case it is as well to work on a multilateral as on a bilateral basis.

I am sure that on that topic the hon. Gentleman will join me in deploring the fact that the British taxpayer's money is used, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, to support coercive abortion in China. That policy cannot be supported by any civilised person.

I do not believe that I can agree with the hon. Lady. Last month, I received a letter on that very subject from the Minister for Overseas Development. It said:

"We do not give bilateral support of any kind to China's family planning programmes, but do provide annual grants to support the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and their work throughout the world, including China, to promote better reproductive health and improved quality of life for women and men."

I certainly support the Government in their work on that front, and I do not believe that what the hon. Lady suggested happens.

I want to draw attention to the difficulties that British couples face in trying to adopt children from abroad. There have been a number of recent newspaper articles—The Sunday Telegraph carried one earlier this year—on adopting children from China. There were also articles in The Sunday Times in June last year and The Times in October last year. They pointed out that approximately one Chinese baby is adopted each week by a British couple. Given that, the Government can help to bring about a better future for some of the unfortunate children in China. All the children are girls and we know that they can indeed be left in the infamous dying rooms because of policies in China.

Britain is almost unique among most of the developed countries in not having a central agency that can help to provide a smoother process of inter-country adoption. The couples who have written to me, and whose stories have been referred to in the papers, have described the great difficulties of the process of adopting a baby from China. China insists on dealing with a central agency here. There is no central agency here, although the Department of Health has an overall co-ordinating role.

Local authorities are required to approve the adoption, and some couples have had to move to get a local authority to approve their adoption of a child from China. A couple in Fulham had to move to East Sussex. Couples elsewhere, such as Staffordshire, were told that, because of the policy of the council where they lived, there was no chance of their being able to adopt a baby from China. I find that totally repugnant, and hope that the Government will give attention to the matter by bringing forward the Bill on adoption, so that the issue can be properly addressed and an inter-country adoption agency can be set up in this country to provide for such adoption.

I reiterate my support for a number of the points made by the hon. Member for Congleton. Difficult issues concern tied aid and trade. I agree with her that, in an ideal world, none of the countries would attempt to tie aid to trade. When some countries do, we in this country can clearly feel at risk by not doing so as well. On balance, the less we tie aid to trade, the better. We should certainly target our aid to those who are in the greatest need, which includes the unfortunate children in the orphanages in China. We should do our best to cut out waste and corruption and insist on very high standards in our overseas aid.

11.51 am

I, too, congratulate the hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) on securing this debate, which concerns a very important topic. She may be as surprised as I was when I heard her speech to hear that I agreed with very much of it. Indeed, I agreed with most of what she said about the current position of aid. I am not at all happy about the reduction in aid that has taken place and, of course, continues to take place.

The hon. Member for Congleton referred to the reduction in the context of the country's economy. It may well be that, until the economy begins to turn around, it will be difficult to envisage the aid figure increasing. Fortunately, there is a real prospect of the economy improving dramatically in the next two or three years following a change of Government, and for that reason, Labour is very clear about what it would do through overseas aid. We would use much of what is generated by an improved economy to enhance the aid budget.

The importance that the Labour party places on overseas development aid is shown in a document that was recently published, which clearly states that a Labour Government would resort to the position on aid held between 1976 and 1979, when there was a Department responsible for overseas development aid. A department of international development will enhance not only the quality of aid but the importance given to it as a central part of a Labour Government's programme.

I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes), who will be a member of that Government and—I hope—hold the office that he shadows, will be in a strong position to put into practice many such policies, not least what has been termed the 20–20 Compact, which is very important and emerged from the Copenhagen social summit last year. Under it, 20 per cent. of aid provided by donors goes to basic services in return for a commitment that the recipient countries spend 20 per cent. of their gross national product on the same sort of basic services. That is very important to beginning to turn around the effectiveness of aid and ensuring, as the hon. Member for Congleton said, that the poorest people benefit. I certainly support her in that view.

I should like to mention one part of the speech of the hon. Member for Congleton with which I did not agree. I find it rather unfortunate, although not surprising, that she returned to the issue of reproductive rights and what she terms "abortion on demand" as part of aid policies. Such a term is an exaggeration and a distortion of the purpose of aid for women's sexual and reproductive health, which must be at the core of any serious policy that hopes to deal with poverty. The hon. Lady mentioned self-help. I thoroughly agree with that concept, but she mentioned it with regard to women's rights as if in some way such self-help was being discouraged through the policies that are being advanced. She used some rather emotive language, as she has in the past.

In preparing for this debate, I dug out the comments of the hon. Member for Congleton during a similar debate four months ago, in which she accused me by implication of having blood on my hands as a result of being an office bearer of the all-party population, reproductive health and development group. If she does not remember that, I am sure that the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Clifton-Brown), who is the chairman of that group—I am its treasurer—and who was the butt of her remarks, does remember it. She made an extremely offensive allegation, and I hope that she will take this opportunity to withdraw it. The accusation was wide-ranging and referred to the hon. Gentleman's friends, of whom, in the context of the group, I am certainly one.

The hon. Member for Congleton has, unfortunately, peddled many untruths in respect of the aim of aid and aid programmes. In doing so, she has undermined the efforts of many organisations that do sterling work in the field, such as Marie Stopes International, Save the Children and Oxfam. They have communicated to me that they are stumped by some of the comments that have been made.

Some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Congleton about the United Nations fall into a similar context. She has often vilified the UN for what she terms coercion in reproductive rights and various aspects of it, yet she refuses to acknowledge that its population fund specifically outlaws any form of coercion in its programmes. Its projects require adherence to human rights and insist on approaches to service delivery that are grounded in informed consent, free choice and quality care. There is no evidence to the contrary. The same is true of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, whose constitution says:

"contraceptive information and services shall be provided strictly on the basis of voluntary acceptance and informed choice."

There is no evidence to the contrary.

In July, the hon. Member for Congleton also criticised Baroness Chalker and the Overseas Development Administration itself for its policies and the way in which they are delivered. Such criticism is most unfair. On 11 July 1994, Baroness Chalker said:

"The watchword is choice—there is no place at all for coercion".

Such comments are wrapped up in the debate on what is happening in China. I am well aware of the horror stories that have emerged from that country, and I am sure that many of them are true. I am not in any sense apologising for what happens in China, but we must understand that China has—I believe—21 per cent. of the world's population, but less than 10 per cent. of land that can be cultivated to feed its population. Something must be done to address China's population growth. Although I am not in any way suggesting that the policy of restricting families to one child or the way in which it is policed is justified, we need a little more objectivity in our approach to such issues.

The hon. Member for Congleton also talked about the manipulation of the agendas of some of the major world conferences that take place from time to time, and she specifically mentioned the one in Cairo. Again, her remarks were unfortunate. Much of what emerged from Cairo has, unfortunately, been distorted. It is unfortunate to talk of those outcomes in terms of birth control or abortion. Those of us involved in issues relating to reproductive rights do not use the term "birth control". The issue is not about controlling but about assisting people through self-help initiatives, to which I referred earlier, so that informed choices can be made. It is a matter of allowing people to be in a position to choose for themselves.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) said, the best antidote to overpopulation is a growing economy, but that is an extremely long-term prospect for many countries in the developing world that are burdened with debt; for example, the Ugandan economy is growing at 5, 6 or 7 per cent. a year, which is favourable progress, but it is pulled back by the debt that it has to service. Many countries will not have strong economies in my lifetime, so shorter-term population measures will have to be considered.

It was disingenuous of the hon. Member for Congleton to talk of the Muslim community; I do not know what that means, as there is no such thing as the Christian community. In the aftermath of the Cairo conference, Benazir Bhutto, the hapless ex-Prime Minister of Pakistan, said that it was the lack of adequate services, not ideology, that confronted us in population stabilisation. The way in which Islam is marshalled in an attempt to support the arguments of the hon. Lady and her hon. Friends is unfortunate, as the Koran is clear on the right of women to choose.

I ask for more clarity and more understanding of the position of those of us who have a general interest in aid and who consider reproductive health a central issue. It has been helpful to have this debate and, notwithstanding my criticisms of the hon. Member for Congleton, I hope that our discussions will inform future debates on the subject.

12.1 pm

I join in the genuine congratulations to the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) on securing this debate and on her diligence is pursuing the issue, although we are not in agreement on every point.

This has been a summer of change in overseas development. I pay genuine and warm tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor) who has done a sterling and splendid job not only as a Front-Bench spokesman on overseas development but in a lifetime of political service: she is a model and inspiration to us all.

I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms Short) to her new post as principal Opposition spokesman on overseas development. She is with Baroness Chalker at the moment at an Action Aid launch. People have already realised that she brings her usual dynamism to her new portfolio; in the past couple of weeks she has raised the profile of development almost single-handedly and, as the Americans say, "We ain't seen nothing yet."

I welcome the hon. Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox) to his new position as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The Government have made a good appointment and I am optimistic for his future, short-term though it may be in office. As a Scotsman from East Kilbride, he will bring good sense and intelligence to his new responsibility. The hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) has undergone an even more spectacular change and we welcome him to our side of the House, where he seems much more at home.

At the Tory party conference a great deal was heard about opportunities—with the catch phrase "opportunities for all"—but lost opportunities would be a more appropriate description of the past 17 years. As some of my hon. Friends have said, the lost opportunities both at home and abroad could stand as a fitting epitaph for the Government.

Morality, we hear, is high on the Government's agenda. The real morality of the Government on the issue that we are discussing will be judged later this month, when, as the hon. Member for Congleton said, we get the results of the public expenditure round. I fear that there will be yet another cut in overseas development, at the same time as the Government continue to offer more tax cuts to the privileged of this country. To reduce inheritance tax for the rich while assistance to the poorest both at home and abroad is cut further is typical of the Government's lack of morality.

It is unacceptable to live with such huge inequalities within and between nations. Those inequalities breed poverty, disease, suffering and conflict, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) said. We in the Labour movement believe that morality consists in ensuring that people throughout the world have their basic rights upheld.

What are those basic rights? They are the basic right to food, when 800 million people do not get enough food every day; the basic right to water, when 1.3 billion people lack access to safe drinking water; and the basic right to a home, when 27 million people have fled their homes as refugees and a further 15 million are displaced within their own countries. Those are the rights and that is the morality that we want from the Government. That is where the opportunity and the challenge lie for the British aid programme—a programme which can and should make a difference.

Opportunities abound for Britain, which retains a privileged position in international institutions: we are a member of G7 and of the Commonwealth, and we have a place on the boards of the International Monetary Fund and the World bank. Labour will institute a change in the World bank and appoint an executive director who is an expert in development rather than in finance. The IMF's structural adjustment criteria for the developing world seem almost designed to increase rather than to reduce poverty in the developing world.

The Government are losing the opportunities that their position gives to influence responses to poverty. They have ideal springboards for action, another of which is a permanent seat on the Security Council, which allows us to play a significant role in the United Nations.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham welcomed the re-election of President Clinton, as I do. I hope that the Americans will now support the United Nations much more strongly in its peacekeeping and peacemaking role, in early warning and in conflict resolution, because conflict is one of the principal causes of poverty, as my hon. Friend said. Let the Americans ensure that their contributions are up to date.

The Government have various opportunities in the coming weeks and months. The world food summit in Rome has already been mentioned. Can the Minister tell us what the Government's approach will be there? Will they press for an end to the dumping of European Union agricultural surpluses in developing countries, ruining food production in those countries? That would be a step in the right direction.

The World Trade Organisation conference in Singapore in December would be an ideal opportunity for the Government to show their commitment to the developing world. Will the Minister follow up what my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said and argue the case for a social clause to be added to international trading agreements to ensure that all countries in the world trading system uphold the human rights standards enshrined in the UN convention, to prevent child exploitation, forced labour and prison labour and to guarantee the right to join a trade union?

My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham told the moving story of Kali; such inspiration should motivate the Government at the Singapore conference. It is astonishing that the American Government are far more progressive on the social clause than the British Government. I hope that we shall get a more positive statement from the Government today. Beyond that, the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Edinburgh next year is a great opportunity for further progress.

I hope that we shall get a more positive statement from the Government today on development education. We hear too much in education about bringing back the cane. That is a very English term. As the Minister knows, it would be the strap in Scotland. Let us hear less about that and more about development education. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood said yesterday to the Development Education Association, development education should be an integral part of children's schooling to give them the opportunity to learn about the challenges and causes of poverty and the opportunities to eradicate it.

The hon. Member for Congleton said that we must take account of public opinion on spending. The public care about development. Opinion polls consistently show that nearly 80 per cent. of Britons think that aid should be given to the developing world. We have heard in the past few weeks about the Defence Secretary fighting in Cabinet for his spending commitments, about the Health Secretary fighting for the health budget and the Transport Secretary fighting for the transport budget.

The problem is that the Minister for Overseas Development is not a member of the Cabinet. She cannot argue the case for overseas development where the real decisions are made. That is why the budget has gone down year on year. It was 0.52 per cent. of gross national product and rising when Labour left office; now it is 0.29 per cent. of GNP and set to fall with the Tory Government. That is why Labour will restore the Minister for Overseas Development to a position in the Cabinet to argue the case for overseas development alongside the other Secretaries of State.

I want briefly to mention recent events in Zaire, on which I hope that the Minister will also touch. Many minds in the House and in the country have been focused by the awful pictures on television of refugees fleeing their homes as the crisis grows deeper day by day. We know that that region of Africa has had a long and bitter political past. The eastern and western sides of the former split in the world of cold war politics allowed the people of the region to be abused and made the crisis almost inevitable. Our past actions, as well as basic morality, make it a duty on us to assist those in need.

I welcome, of course, Baroness Chalker's statement and her commitment of £130 million over two years, but I want to ask the Minister to go a bit further. Will he undertake to use the Government's influence in the UN Security Council and the European Union to press to ensure that our excellent non-governmental organisations, to which the hon. Member for Congleton referred, have access to help and have some security assistance? They have been in severe difficulties in the past few days, as the Minister knows. Will he bring pressure on the Governments of the region to seek a regional political settlement? Will he push to strengthen the international war crimes tribunal to ensure that those responsible for the genocide are punished and that justice is seen to be done?

I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to dissociate himself from the remarks of the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Upminster (Sir N. Bonsor), who said at Foreign Office Question Time:

"There is a limit to what the international community can do to help those who will not help themselves."—[Official Report, 30 October 1996; Vol. 284, c. 649.]

That is an appalling attitude and illustrates the attitude of some Tories to British aid. It undermines the work of our non-governmental organisations in the region. I hope that the Minister, who is a bit more intelligent than his colleague, will dissociate himself from it.

We heard about tied aid and the aid and trade programme. We want to reduce the amount spent on consultancy: 32 per cent. of our bilateral programme is spent on payments to consultants. That is an appallingly large amount. I hope that it will be reduced; it certainly will be with a change of Government.

I want to mention the scandal of the delay in the publication of the National Audit Office report on British aid to Indonesia. That investigation was begun in the wake of the Pergau dam scandal, but the final report is a year behind schedule. I understand that it is being held up in the Foreign Office while Ministers search for excuses to explain it away. The Opposition and the public will not tolerate another cover-up. Ministers have promised that the Government will abide by any recommendations in the report. I hope that it will be published as quickly as possible.

The hon. Member for Congleton mentioned human rights abuses and coercive population practices in China. For two days, I was able to join an Overseas Development Administration independent assessment team that carried out in September an assessment of the policies and activities in China of the ODA, the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the United Nations Fund for Population Activities. I ask her to await the publication of that report, which is imminent, before rushing to judgment. Knowing her preconceptions, I fear that my request is vain. I hope that she will realise that it is wrong to infer from the presence of those bodies that they in any way support and tolerate such practices. That is not the situation. When she sees the report, she will realise that her comments were over the top.

The Government will be judged not by their fine words today, but by their actions: their actions in the public spending round, at the world food summit and at the World Trade Organisation. If they miss any more opportunities, the British people have not much longer to wait. They will soon have the opportunity of putting that right and giving a Labour Government the chance to put Britain's overseas policies back on the right track.

12.16 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

(Dr. Liam Fox)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) on obtaining this important debate and for the doughty way in which she follows these issues in the House. Not for the first time, we are in complete agreement.

I also have the pleasure of congratulating my right hon. Friend Baroness Chalker on all her work. Government and Opposition Members will want to add their congratulations on the job that she does on our behalf. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) for his kind words. That may be the last time that we shall agree in this debate.

This is an important debate. We need to see aid in a wider context than that of bilateral aid. I am sorry that aid has been treated as a political football and reduced to a trite and simplistic debate in recent years. We need to build support for development. The debate needs to be updated in the light of the changing pattern of aid. It is not only how the aid is given that matters, but how it is used: we need to change the focus of debate from input to outcomes.

There is a moral case to be made for aid. It is not just a matter of soundbites about what great Christians hon. Members of whatever party may be. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) said that charity begins at home, as more harm has been done to the case for aid by that phrase than by any other. The House is full of knockabout politics, but it is not mature to pretend that the relative poverty in which some people in the United Kingdom undoubtedly live is in any way comparable with the starvation and absolute poverty that exist overseas. It does not help us to have a mature debate to have it premised on that phrase.

The Government's overall aims on aid are clear: to relieve poverty and suffering and to promote sustainable growth. We do that through bilateral aid, a multilateral programme, the non-governmental organisations, debt relief, trade development and private investment. The nature of our aid has changed. We have moved away from bricks and mortar aid to more sustainable aid, as my hon. Friend mentioned, by providing expertise. I am sad that that was not brought out more in the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton was correct in the figures that she gave for our aid budget. Our bilateral budget was £2,154 million in 1996–97. We are the sixth largest donor, behind Japan, France, America, Germany and the Netherlands, and at 0.28 per cent. of GDP, our overseas development assistance is above the average of all donors and ahead of the United States, Japan and Italy. All those figures are on the record.

The hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Watson) was correct when he said that we needed to use our wealth to help those less fortunate than ourselves. That is what I refer to as the moral case. The hon. Gentleman has written a book entitled "Rags to Riches", which could have been a history of the economy under the Conservative Government but which I believe is something else.

We need now to look at the output from our aid programme and where it goes. Where the aid goes matters greatly. Three quarters of our bilateral aid goes to the poorest countries. I recently visited slum clearance projects in Calcutta. No one can tell me that that was not money well spent. People now have clean water and, for the first time, sewers that are covered. They can live cleanly without having to wade through mud to get to their houses. That is a proper use of our aid budget. We must concentrate our aid where it is most needed if we are to have any sort of priorities.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton asked whether, by placing greater emphasis on our multilateral aid, we were losing a foreign policy tool. That would be so if we played no role in directing multilateral policy and the recipients did not recognise any benefit as coming from the United Kingdom's role. My hon. Friend is correct in saying that in our European projects and some other projects, we need to get better value for money, simplify administration and reduce costs. That has to be the United Kingdom's role, because our model of aid is regarded, as the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) will have seen when he goes abroad, as a prime model for other countries to follow. The one thing that is said wherever one goes in the world about British aid projects is that the quality of aid is second to none. We must ensure that that is also the case with the multilateral agencies.

The multilateral agencies give us an advantage of scale. We are part of the World bank, of which my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a governor. Through its concessional facility, the International Development Association, it has among the most effective multilateral aid programmes.

Perhaps my greatest sadness in today's debate has been the absence of an acknowledgement of the role of the non-governmental organisations. They are a national asset. They are something which Britain does very well. The NGOs can often reach areas that we cannot reach, for political as well as logistical reasons. Examples such as the work of Oxfam and Save the Children in Cambodia spring to mind.

The role of NGOs has changed. They exhibit greater professionalism. There is a greater willingness to work together and with bilateral and multilateral agencies. They take a longer-term perspective. They recognise our aims to encourage skills rather than provide bricks and mortar. They are able to operate in areas of political and cultural sensitivity in which government cannot always operate. They have also achieved—I am sure that this comment is echoed on both sides of the House—ever greater stature in recent years. For example, 10 years ago the then World Wildlife Fund was probably associated purely with pandas, but the organisation now operates on human development as well as environmental projects. That is a mature path for the organisation to have taken, and I welcome it. However, we have to point out that the United Kingdom's aid programme is six times the value of all the NGOs put together. We have to remember its scale when we talk about the size of our aid programme.

The Government have also concentrated on debt relief. It does not really matter to a country whether we give it money bilaterally, multilaterally or by writing off its debts. Money is money and the United Kingdom has taken a leading role in debt relief. We have written off aid loans to 31 of the world's poorest countries at a value of £1.2 billion. I am sorry that the Opposition did not give any credit to the Government for that. The official bilateral debt of 21 countries has so far been rescheduled under the Naples terms. That has provided up to 67 per cent. debt relief. That was an initiative of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Do the Opposition ever mention it? Do we ever get the credit for doing that?

The heavily indebted poor countries debt initiative launched at last month's World bank and International Monetary Fund meeting was based on proposals made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor. None of this did we hear from the Opposition. None of this do we ever hear from them, because they like to concentrate on one narrow political football with which they think that they might score cheap political points rather than engage in a genuine debate. We need to have a genuine debate. The aid debate has been sidelined for too long and it is too important to be treated in the light-hearted and trite way in which it often is treated in this country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton raised some issues linked to abortion. She is well aware that she shares my personal views on the subject of abortion. The Government's position is clear. Abortion is not acceptable as a method of family planning. We are prepared to provide assistance to treat the complications of unsafe abortion, but coercion has no place in family planning policy. No United Kingdom bilateral aid supports Chinese family planning policy, as has already been stated in the debate. We are constantly engaged with the UNFPA and IPPF on related subjects. We shall continue to make our views known, as I have outlined.

So a spectrum of help is clearly available. We have direct aid. We have pump priming, for example, by the Commonwealth Development Corporation, the work of which is not often recognised in the House. Every £1 invested by CDC brings in £5 of private investment. We have private investment. We have trade. The World Trade Organisation summit will seek to give the least developed countries access to the developed markets. The United Kingdom has been at the forefront of that move. We regret that some others—the United States, some of our EU partners and Japan—are dragging their feet and we hope that they will not do so when the summit takes place.

rose

I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman will appreciate how little time I have.

We are historically a free trading nation. We pushed the general agreement on tariffs and trade last time. We are pushing free trade by the year 2020. We believe that that growth in the world economy will benefit most those in the least developed countries.

We must not forget the role of private investment. It provides huge amounts of money—now the largest amount—to the developing countries. One needs only to travel, as I have recently, in south Asia to realise the value of private investment to those countries. However, private investment needs to be attracted. It cannot be directed by government. Good governance, increased expertise and debt relief all make private investment more attractive.

At the outset, my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton mentioned one United Nations target which is never mentioned by the Opposition. It is the UN target for combined private and official flows to developing countries. The target is 1 per cent. of GNP. The United Kingdom exceeds that target. The Government should get the credit for that because they have pushed the expertise and changes in the aid policy which have made private investment in those countries attractive and will provide them with greater prosperity in the longer term.

Does any other country hit that target?

My hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not take her intervention, which was almost sedentary.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House are concerned about the tying of aid. I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton said. Genuine multilateral untying of aid would be acceptable to us, but we cannot accept the untying of United Kingdom aid with the risk that others will not untie their aid. That would not be to the advantage of the United Kingdom, the aims of our aid policy or the recipient countries. We hope that we can reach a multilateral agreement on tying of aid, but it certainly is not the Government's intention to settle for a one-sided policy.

I am sorry that we do not have more time in this important debate to discuss Zaire, which was raised by the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley. Political and security problems lie at the heart of the crisis. We all recognise that no purely humanitarian solution is possible, and he is right to suggest that we need a regional settlement. Yesterday, I met some of the British NGOs working there. The idea of humanitarian corridors merits further consideration. We currently await a detailed proposal from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The United Kingdom is doing a huge amount to provide aid. We have a proud record. Far too often in this country we are unwilling to say what we are doing, and what we are doing well because of the drip feed of cynicism from the media and doom mongering from the Opposition. I am proud of our record, which is the Government's record.

Order. Time is up, I am afraid.

Fire Services (Lancashire)

12.30 pm

I should like to thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to raise an important issue, which is of immense concern to my constituents and others throughout Lancashire.

A crisis is facing the fire service nationally and in my county. Lancashire is by far and away the busiest shire county fire authority. The county has dense urban areas, lots of industry, and of course, Blackpool, which poses particular fire risks, as does the rest of the Lancashire coast. Last year, the number of incidents shot up by 16 per cent. to 34,814. The number of calls that the Lancashire fire brigade dealt with rose by 14 per cent. to 55,872.

It is a busy fire brigade, and, like many fire authorities throughout the country, it is spending above the level that the Government consider to be right and appropriate. The county's chief executive, Gordon Johnson, wrote to the Minister's colleague Baroness Blatch, on 13 September:

"there is a major crisis developing with an alarming divergence opening up between central government allocation and actual spending here in Lancashire."

In 1993–94, Lancashire spent £33.6 million on its fire service, which is 4.2 per cent. above the fire services standard spending assessment-the figure that the Government believe to be right for the county to spend. In 1994–95, that percentage gap had widened to 4.9 per cent. Last year, the gap widened yet again to 5.8 per cent. The forecast difference between what the Government believe the county should spend and what it is actually spending on providing its fire service is a staggering 10.2 per cent. So, the county will be spending £37.9 million on our fire service, but its SSA is £34.4 million.

There are good reasons why Lancashire fire authority has to spend at that level, which I shall discuss in a moment. First, I refer to a document entitled "Standards of Fire Cover Review", which was produced by the county's chief fire officer, Gordon Russel, in June this year, dealing with fire cover standards across the county. He made it perfectly clear that the report was his and that its purpose was to give an up-to-date picture of the changed categories of risk around the county. He set out possible options for change. He said in his report that his review, which has been considered by county councillors, was

"based on existing national guidance"

according to the Home Office national minimum standards of fire cover.

Mr. Russel stated that one option was to cut one of the two retained pumps at Barnoldswick, in my constituency. Furthermore, were he to follow Home Office standards, he could remove one of the pumps at Colne. Those suggestions, which cause great anxiety, surface regularly every year when they are considered by the councillors. Nothing happens, but those suggestions have a tremendously damaging impact on the morale of the firefighters.

Barnoldswick is a designated C risk area, but it is home to many important industries such as Silentnight Beds, which could go up in a puff of smoke. I am not suggesting for a moment that that would happen, but the materials that it uses to make beds are highly combustible. The Rolls-Royce plant that manufactures fans for aeroplane engines is based there. It is also home to Albert Hartleys and a number of other textile firms. I also live in the town. It is not part of a wider conurbation, but its status as a separate town has implications for response times and other considerations.

Colne is a different kettle of fish, and is designated a B risk area. It is one of the busiest two-pump retained stations in the country. Last year, it took 460 calls. The suggestion that those two fire stations could lose one pump each has been made according to the minimum standards of fire cover set down by the Home Office, which were agreed in 1958, almost 40 years ago. I take the view, as does everyone else to whom I have spoken, that that suggests there is something fundamentally wrong with those standards, and that they should be looked at.

I should like to make it clear for the record that I do not want to see a reduction in fire cover in my constituency, and I do not believe that that will happen. Even if the fire authority were to decide to get rid of those two retained fire pumps, it would save about £30,000—a small sum against the fire authority's budget of £38 million.

My local council is, unfortunately, run by the Liberal Democrats, who have relentlessly exploited the issue year after year. Tragically, they chose to vote down a recommendation put last September to Pendle borough council by Councillor Carol Hopkins, who is the leader of the Labour group. All she asked the council to do was call on the Home Secretary to conduct a further review of the Home Office minimum standards of fire cover. The Liberals voted that down because they said it would

"detract from the united response to the County Council".

Those Liberal Democrats never miss the opportunity to vilify and condemn Lancashire county council if it suits their purpose.

The Liberals have shamelessly exploited the issue and stoked people's fears and anxieties by predicting that the fire engines at Barnoldswick and Colne would be cut as part of a wider package of cuts. They have ignored the fact that the possible loss of two fire engines was suggested by the county's chief fire officer, Gordon Russel, to the fire authority; instead they have dubbed it "Labour's crazy plan".

In Barnoldswick, the Liberals sent a personalised letter to my constituents stating:

"Taking one of our two fire engines away will make it less safe for people in Barnoldswick. It will put lives at risk. Voting Labour in the Council by election will give a green light to the Labour controlled authority that it is OK to take our fire engine away."

A Focus leaflet produced by county councillor and Pendle borough councillor, David Whipp, states:

"Do you want Barnoldswick to lose its fire engines? This is the only cut in services put forward for Barnoldswick-and it has come from the Labour run Fire Services Committee. This plan will put local lives and safety at risk. Yet only … the local Liberal team are fighting against it."

He said that, if people voted Liberal, it would be a protest

"against the Labour Party's crazy plan."

That sort of mendacity has an effect. The Liberal Democrats recently presented a petition signed by 3,500 people who are obviously concerned that the town's fire cover may be reduced. They have launched a propaganda blitz. Hardly a week goes by without acres of coverage in the local press. There has been a blizzard of Focusleaflets perpetuating the lie that the Labour party wants to cut our local fire cover.

What is the position? In a letter that I received yesterday—Guy Fawkes day—the chief fire officer said that the Lancashire fire authority

"has given a continued commitment to sending two pumps to all known building tires, immaterial of risk classification. Home Office recommended minimum standards only require one pump to be sent to C and D Risk areas. The Authority has accepted that minimum Home Office standards in C and D Risk areas would not provide adequate protection for the Lancashire community in that any householders should reasonably expect, wherever they live, to have the same level of service delivery from its Fire Brigade, even though it will inevitably take longer for fire appliances to arrive at an incident."

We in Barnoldswick—a C risk area—remember the horrific fire that occurred earlier this year in the old Gwent fire authority, now the South Wales fire authority. Only one pump was sent to a blazing domestic fire in which children were trapped and two firefighters lost their lives. The question whether one or two pumps should be sent is not an academic one. When one pump is sent and that is inappropriate, people and firefighters can lose their lives—firefighters did lose their lives in Gwent earlier this year.

The chief fire officer told me that the safety of individuals is of paramount importance, but that he must have regard for the safety of his own firefighters. He concluded:

"It is our view in Lancashire that all emergency calls to building fires should have two pumps responding whenever an emergency call is received."

That is what I would like the Home Office minimum standards to say, because they are currently deficient.

I raised my concerns with Baroness Blatch on 30 July. She responded on 2 September. She reminded me—as if I need reminding—that

"all fire authorities have a statutory duty to provide an efficient fire service in their area and this is generally interpreted as a brigade which can meet the nationally recommended standards of fire cover."

As I have already pointed out, those national standards are grotesquely inadequate. I rely on the professional view of Gordon Russel, our chief fire officer. I repeat that I want the Government to give a firm commitment to an early review of the minimum standards.

Baroness Blatch spoke of "an efficient fire service", yet the Government, over the years, have asked fire authorities to push an enormous boulder uphill. The Government's assessment of the amount of money that fire authorities should spend to provide a common standard of fire cover across the country is plainly unrealistic. The SSAs have not kept pace with inflation or, indeed, with the firefighters' pay award, which is coming up.

A fact sheet from the local authority associations tells me that the Government are already providing less than is needed across the country, and that the situation is becoming "critical"—their word. The associations tell me that spending in fire authorities

"will rise by 5 per cent. next year due to factors beyond local authorities' control."

That has implications. We in Lancashire have an efficient and well-run fire service, but the Government are making it difficult for Gordon Russel and his team of firefighters to provide the service that people have a right to expect.

All sorts of nonsenses are built into the SSA formula. Lancashire was at the forefront of the effort to tackle the problem of malicious calls, yet the SSA formula does not reward its success. Although the number of malicious fire calls fell by a staggering 42 per cent., the perversity of the system docked £280,000 from Lancashire fire authority's SSA. Lancashire was penalised for being successful.

The cost of retirement and pensions is eating away at the funds that the county has to spend on delivering the fire service. At the beginning of the decade, Lancashire fire authority's pension bill was 8.8 per cent. of the fire service budget; in the current year it is 12 per cent., and no element in the SSA reflects that. I should say that, in fact, there is such an element but no additional money. The money has to come from the pot that has to be used to provide the fire service that people need today.

There has been a progressive reduction in the county's capital allocation, from £1.6 million in 1992 to £996,000 this year. That means that the fire stations we need, such as the one in Accrington, cannot open, and that vital fire appliances and equipment that firefighters need cannot be bought. If equipment can be leased, as has happened in Lancashire, the revenue costs of leasing are not recognised by the Government. Lancashire therefore loses yet again as a result of ensuring that its firefighters have the up-to-date equipment they need.

Not all fire authorities in the country take the same view. In their fact sheet, the local authority associations say that, throughout the country, the purchase of essential fire equipment is being deferred and that current spending levels are not being maintained. Vacancies in fire brigades are being frozen and there has been

"a 25 per cent. reduction in training by the Fire Service College."

The associations conclude that, all across Britain,

"service provision is being reduced to meet only minimum Home Office standards."

As I have explained, that is not happening in Lancashire. There, the county council is topping up from its own resources the cash that our firefighters need, but the council clearly needs help.

After a recent committee meeting, the fire authority wrote to Baroness Blatch asking for a meeting in which it could press its case. I hope that the Minister will give an assurance that he and his colleagues will meet councillors and the professional officers of the brigade as soon as possible. We also need an early commitment to a review of the antiquated minimum standards, which lie at the root of the crisis.

Blackpool and Blackburn are being wrenched front Lancashire county council following the local government review and, from April 1998, there will be a new combined fire authority. In the past, Lancashire fire authority has managed to get by because the county council has religiously topped up from its own resources the funding that the fire authority needs, but that might not continue after 1998. I want the Minister to give consideration to what is happening, not only in. Lancashire, but in other parts of the country where new fire authorities are being created.

12.48 pm

I congratulate the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) on securing this debate on the fire service in Lancashire. We share his high regard for the fire service, for its professionalism, for the bravery of its firefighters and for the quality of the service it provides. The quality of this country's fire service is universally acknowledged.

The service was commended last year by the Audit Commission in its value for money study; and, in a report in April, the commission stated, in respect of the performance of the fire brigades in the year to that date:

"the fire service is one of the most consistently high-performing services in local government, with almost all brigades achieving national standards for at least nine out of ten fire calls."

Lancashire is one of those high-performing brigades. I would like to be able to say that I am a fellow Lancashire Member, but it is an historical fact that Bolton disappeared into something called Greater Manchester some years ago. I am nevertheless aware of the quality of the fire brigade in our neighbouring county, Lancashire, and I am aware that it has met the required response times to fire calls on 92 per cent. of occasions recently, which is a splendid achievement.

In its latest report on Lancashire, published in March, Her Majesty's fire service inspectorate commended the authority's continued commitment to the development of the brigade and the positive manner in which the brigade is led by the chief fire officer and his team. The report noted:

"It is clear that the service provided by the brigade is highly regarded by the public, with personnel at all levels having a marked and justifiable pride in their contribution to the Lancashire fire brigade."

I am aware that an extensive review of fire cover was completed by the brigade, and the results were circulated recently for public comment. Fire authorities necessarily review their fire cover arrangements periodically to keep them up to date. I understand that the recommendations of the review could, if implemented, have implications for the constituency of the hon. Member for Pendle. One implication may be that proposals will be made to remove one of the pumping appliances from Barnoldswick and from Colne fire stations.

Under section 19 of the Fire Services Act 1947, the Home Secretary's approval is required before any fire authority reduces the number of its fire stations, fire appliances and fire fighting posts. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has a specific and limited role in considering applications under section 19. He grants approval where the following conditions are satisfied. First, the proposals must have been sufficiently widely publicised, in sufficient detail and with adequate time to enable any interested party to make representations. Secondly, the representations must have been considered by the authority. Thirdly, after taking advice from Her Majesty's inspectorate, my right hon. and learned Friend must be satisfied that the national recommended standards of fire cover will be maintained.

To date, we have not received any application from the fire authority to reduce the operational capability of its brigade in consequence of its fire cover review. I assure the hon. Member for Pendle that, should the county council make such an application to reduce fire cover in any part of the county, my right hon. and learned Friend will take account of any representations he receives in reaching his decisions.

I certainly agree that those who seek to cause panic and extreme distress among local residents, by causing them to fear that fire cover may become inadequate, should be ashamed of themselves. Anyone who indulges in such activity for political reasons should examine their conscience closely.

The Fire Services Act 1947 does not define the test of an effective and efficient fire service that a fire authority must provide, but it is longstanding practice to interpret that by reference to the national recommended standards of fire cover. Those standards dictate the initial response to a fire in weight and speed of attack. They rest on four main standards of service, according to the risk category in which an area has been placed. The system of risk is based on the characteristics of the buildings and property in an area, and assumes for each category that a predetermined number of firefighting appliances should attend in a certain time.

The standards are not only nationally recommended. They are nationally agreed in the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council. They were also extensively reviewed by the Joint Committee on Standards of Fire Cover in 1985 for the central fire brigades advisory councils for England and Wales and for Scotland. The standards enable all concerned to know where they stand regarding the minimum level of service that they should deliver.

I hear what the hon. Member for Pendle says about the standards, but I have to tell him that we consider that the standards have served us well. That is not to say that we regard them as immutable. The Audit Commission's report recommended that there should be another fundamental review of levels of fire cover. It recognised, however, that no fundamental change should be considered without very careful research. A review of fire cover standards is being taken forward by the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council, but these are complex issues, as I hope the hon. Gentleman would agree, and much work will be needed before we make any changes.

The fire service is a local authority service, funded, like other local authority services, through the revenue support grant, national non-domestic rates and the council tax. Statutory responsibility for providing an effective and efficient fire service to meet all normal requirements rests with the local "fire authority".

It may be helpful for the debate if I say something about the national framework. For 1996–97, central Government support for local authorities in England increased by £966 million. Total standard spending in England for the year was set at £44.9 billion—an increase of 3.3 per cent. on the previous year. The total fire service element of standard spending assessments in England was increased by £17 million—1.5 per cent.,—from £1.168 million to £1.185. That comprised £14 million for the additional costs of firefighters' pensions and £3 million for training.

It is true that the fire service is being asked to make efficiency savings, but so is virtually any public service. It is essential that the taxpayer gets the best value for money. After the Audit Commission considered the service, its report, published last year, highlighted specific areas in which it believed that efficiencies could be made, including reducing sickness rates and management costs to the level of performance achieved by the most efficient brigades.

I remind the hon. Member for Pendle that there were and are considerable variations in all sorts of efficiency indicators between one service and another, and there is plenty of evidence that, if all services came up to the standards of the best, further considerable savings could be made.

Has the Minister not already conceded that Lancashire is one of the most efficient fire authorities in the country?

But that is not to say that there cannot be further efficiencies. At the start of my speech, I praised the fire service in Lancashire. I recall that I used the words:

"one of the most consistently high-performing"

brigades. That is true, but that is not to say that efficiencies cannot be made in Lancashire and elsewhere. All that the Audit Commission has said is that considerable savings could be made if all services came up to the level of the best. That is not to say that considerable further savings could not be made if the very admirable efforts made by many brigades in finding new efficiencies were maintained.

The fire service element of the SSA is, of course, distributed by a formula, which takes account of many factors. It is kept under constant review. Although not everyone will agree with the way in which the formula works for them, we believe that at present that formula provides the fairest allocation of funds.

A shire county such as Lancashire is not limited in its spending on the fire brigade by the fire service share of the standard spending assessment. What matters is the overall SSA for the county. It is for the county council to decide its priorities for spending between all its services, bearing in mind its statutory and other responsibilities. I remind the House that, as in most counties, spending on the fire service represents a very small proportion of overall county expenditure—in the case of Lancashire, of the order of 4 per cent.—and any decisions about inability to spend further above the SSA must be taken in the light of that.

I commend the hon. Gentleman's wise and moderate approach, and condemn those who say that there is a crisis in the making. Lancashire receives an extremely good fire service, in great measure due to the commitment of those involved in delivering that service. I pay tribute to the Lancashire fire service, and reiterate the Government's commitment to ensuring adequate resourcing for all fire services.

Paper (Ecolabelling)

12.59 pm

I welcome the opportunity to introduce this short debate on the ecolabelling of copying paper, a subject in which I have a strong constituency interest because Arjo-Wiggins, the papermaker, is based in Basingstoke. Among other things, the firm, formerly Wiggins Teape, provides all the House of Commons stationery.

I put on record my thanks to the Paper Federation of Great Britain for the advice and help that it willingly provided at short notice.

My argument is straightforward and direct. There is nothing wrong in theory, and in many cases in practice, with the concept of ecolabelling, but the ecolabelling of copying paper is an ecolabel too far. Lessons should be learned from the wretched saga.

The ecolabelling of copying paper is a mistake, which is compounded by the fact that the criteria are seriously flawed. If we must have ecolabelling of copying paper, at least we should get the criteria right. To make matters worse, the ecolabelling of copying paper especially disadvantages the United Kingdom paper industry.

It is indisputable that the industry takes its environmental responsibilities seriously. Unfortunately, its experiences and warnings seem to have received insufficient attention. In a letter dated 17 September, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State assured me that the industry's views had been taken on board, but that can scarcely be the case, as the industry's view is that the ecolabelling of copying paper should not have been introduced.

The main European paper producers, through their national and international trade associations, advised the European Union that it was not practical to define an ecolabel for paper because of the substantial variations in raw materials and manufacturing processes among the European Union countries. However, the industry strongly believes in eco-management systems and their continual improvement through annual targets. EMS environmental improvement standards are tough and take into account the whole site—what goes in and what goes out—energy consumption, raw materials, discharges into water, air and the ground, and much else.

In contrast, the criteria of the ecolabel have been brought together in a muddled and hasty manner. In reply to my barrage of letters, my hon. Friend referred to the lengthy consultations that preceded the finalising of the ecolabelling criteria. We should clarify what happened. The proposals were produced in April this year and were rejected by the Paper Federation of Great Britain. During the development of the proposals, there was communication between the president of the federation and the Secretary of State, as well as between the federation and the UK Ecolabelling Board, but no one should have been in doubt that the entire British paper industry was opposed to the developing and finally published proposals.

In the period between mid-April and 30 May, the proposals were changed and made more stringent. The changes were introduced without consultation with the Paper Federation of Great Britain and for one purpose: to change the voting preference of one member state of the European Union, Finland, so that the measure could be passed on qualified majority voting.

My hon. Friend has emphasised that the scheme is voluntary and that no company is under any obligation to obtain the ecolabel. I regret that in that regard the experience and insight of the industry have received too little attention. The industry predicts that in due course Governments will make a company's possession of the label a precondition of their own purchasing. That will have a dire effect. Already noises to that effect are emerging from local government—specifically, from the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. That is hardly surprising, as the declared objectives of ecolabelling include creating peer pressure so that the label brings commercial advantage. The system will have failed if that is not the case. In the light of those realities, I suggest that my hon. Friend should modify or qualify his use of the word "voluntary" in respect of the scheme.

I have argued so far that ecolabelling is the wrong approach for the paper industry; environmental management systems are the way to proceed; too little attention has been paid to the industry's warnings and advice; and the idea that the ecolabelling scheme is voluntary is unrealistic.

If we must have the ecolabelling of copying paper, let us get the criteria as accurate as possible. The criteria do not relate to environmental impact or life cycle assessment in any significant way, and they therefore fail the basic requirement of the enabling EU regulation. I arbitrarily select a few points by way of illustration.

First, the criteria include a carbon dioxide factor. But as everyone knows, or ought to know, the papermaking process is carbon dioxide neutral. New planting of trees balances the harmful emissions from the use of energy. The Government have acknowledged that in other contexts. The inclusion of the ecolabelling criterion for carbon dioxide in the production of copying paper is simply wrong.

Secondly, the UK Environment Agency recognises that adsorbable organo-halogens—AOX—should be disregarded below a level of 1.5, because at that level AOX have no adverse environmental impact. However, a lower level than 1.5 is one of the criteria for the copying paper ecolabel. One of the Government's own agencies therefore rejects the position adopted by the Government in drawing up the scheme.

Thirdly, the chemical oxygen demand—COD—which governs the discharge of effluent into the watercourse to prevent pollution is lower—that means more stringent—for pulp and papermaking together than is generally achievable in pulp-making alone. That is absurd. The required COD is 30 kg per tonne, but that is not commercially feasible. The criterion also disregards existing international agreements. My hon. Friend will know that of the 109 pulp mills worldwide on which we have data, only 12 are sufficiently low in COD to enable UK papermakers to achieve the ecolabel chemical oxygen demand. I shall return to that point shortly. The ecolabel system will fundamentally distort world trade and it is not surprising that the Governments of the United States, Canada, Brazil and others are angry about it.

Fourthly, the ecolabel requirements for copier paper are more demanding than those for tissue products. There is no sense in that. The environmental impact of the two production processes is virtually identical. The same pulp is used and there is no significant difference in energy consumption or discharges. My point is not only that we should not have ecolabelling for copier paper, but that the system with which we have landed ourselves is fundamentally flawed.

To crown it all, the criteria disadvantage UK papermakers in particular. In the opinion of the federation, no UK company, with the possible exception of one that has unique practices in respect of energy acquisition, can currently meet the requirements. The criteria favour the integrated producer, the manufacturer who carries out the whole process from basic raw material to finished product, and disadvantage the non-integrated producer who buys in pulp and turns it into paper. There are no UK integrated papermakers. UK companies are therefore immediately disadvantaged.

I have already referred to the ecolabel's chemical oxygen demand criterion, which favours integrated manufacturers and correspondingly disadvantages UK companies that produce copier paper from purchased pulp. When the COD for papermaking is added, the limit will be unduly stringent for non-integrated operators and will favour the integrated operators of Scandinavia.

The disadvantage that UK companies experience is even more apparent from the energy criteria, which are described by the industry as "oblique and poorly defined". A mill that has invested in its own power plant—virtually all UK mills have done so—is penalised for emissions while generating energy, but the company that buys in its energy is not penalised for the emissions from the generating of that energy elsewhere. Moreover, the added consumption of energy is often and increasingly associated with greater environmental protection, because it is used to treat effluent and residues prior to discharge. That point is not reflected in the criteria.

In the opinion of the Paper Federation of Great Britain, the simple definition of energy use

"shows demonstrably that the concept is naive and not written by anyone with an understanding of the paper industry."

The UK paper industry exports 1 million tonnes of paper a year, which brings more than £1 billion a year to this country. The industry employs 25,000 people, and the total forest products chain contributes 6 per cent. of our gross domestic product. The interests of that important industry have been neither protected nor promoted by this piece of euro-nonsense. In the words of a senior executive of the Paper Federation of Great Britain:

"This is a rotten, lousy measure."

Environmental protection is best achieved in the industry by the ecomanagement system approach, but if we must have ecolabelling, we should at least have got it right. To compound matters, the measure disadvantages the UK industry. It is, I submit, a sorry story.

1.13 pm

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) for allowing me a couple of minutes in this important debate, and I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke on his mastery of the subject, on securing this Adjournment debate and on his forceful speech to the House. To his constituents and to mine, this is, indeed, a matter of great importance. I should at this stage declare my interest as parliamentary adviser to the Paper Federation of Great Britain. However, my concern today is principally for the paper mills in my constituency, in particular UK Paper plc, a company that only recently opened one of the most advanced plants in the world for the production of quality paper, particularly copier paper, essentially all of it from de-inked recycled paper.

This country should take pride in the fact that the paper industry leads the world in recycling technology, and is investing massively and contributing more than most other industries to environmental improvement. The industry is totally committed to continuous improvement through environmental management systems. Few industries have done or are doing so much to ensure that we have sustainable industrial development, and the industry's commitment to environmental improvement and to ecological standards is higher than that of almost any other industry. That is why its voice should be taken seriously and that is why I and others fear that the vote in Brussels on 29 May could inflict serious damage on our British industry—damage that will not confer any environmental gain on consumers.

My hon. Friend made the point that the proposed ecolabelling system is described as voluntary both for those who take part and for those who decide whether to purchase the materials. However, my hon. Friend also made the point that papermakers in his constituency supply paper to the House of Commons. It is possible that the House of Commons, the British Government and local authorities will say that they will buy only paper with an ecolabel. The system that we are talking about could ensure that the only ecolabelled copier paper would come from Scandinavia, because of the extraordinary criteria that have been adopted for the proposed ecolabels.

My hon. Friend has clearly described why the criteria are unacceptable, and why they are described as muddled, unsatisfactory and idiosyncratic. It cannot be right that such criteria should be adopted when they will inflict such damage, actual or potential, on this important British industry.

When one reads about how the qualified majority vote was secured, one begins to worry about the whole process whereby at the last moment, to secure one extra vote, an extra criterion that was not properly debated was suddenly introduced. The majority was then secured and the rules changed. That is a very unsatisfactory way in which to proceed. On 19 January 1994, the matter was raised in the House. I said then to the Minister:

"Is it not more important to get ecolabelling right than to be rushed into premature judgments? Will my hon. Friend take particularly seriously the representations of the paper industry to ensure that any system of ecolabelling does not work to the disadvantage of British producers of what is an environmentally friendly and eminently recyclable product?"

The Minister for the Environment and Countryside replied:

"What my hon. Friend says is right. It is essential that we have a standard that is applicable throughout the European Union. In those circumstances, it is better to take time and get it right".—[Official Report, 19 January 1994; Vol. 235, c. 878.]

What has happened is that we have taken time and are now in serious danger of getting it wrong. A vote was taken on 29 May, which has caused serious concern to the British industry. I do not know what scope there is under the Brussels procedures to revise the criteria or to try to ensure that the regulations are not imposed in this country in this way.

I ask my hon. Friend the Minister please, please to do everything he can to ensure that the voice of the British paper industry in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and in my own is listened to and taken seriously, and I ask him to do everything he can to ensure that we get it right for the industry, for our constituents and for the British consumer who is, rightly, concerned about choosing environmentally friendly products which are, essentially, what the British industry is producing.

1.18 pm

I welcome the opportunity to respond to this important debate, in which my hon. Friends the Members for Basingstoke (Mr. Hunter) and for Faversham (Sir R. Moate) raised some important points. Both spoke forcefully on behalf of important constituency interests—business concerns that are, no doubt, employing many of their constituents. My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke gave me cause for thought as, at the beginning of the debate, I realised that my stationery could have been manufactured by Arjo-Wiggins in his constituency.

My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham spoke forcefully on behalf of UK Paper plc and other important interests in his constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke spoke about the wider concerns of the paper industry. In my response to the debate, I do not want to be guilty of failing to acknowledge the efforts that have been made by the paper industry, to which my hon. Friends referred, in managing its process in keeping with recognised environmental management systems, as specified under the eco-management and audit scheme and other important industry standards, such as British standard 7750.

Ecolabelling is important in its own way. It is appropriate for me to begin by putting the scheme and the concerns of the paper industry in the wider context of ecolabelling. Environmental protection cannot be dealt with solely by legislation and regulation. Ordinary people need to play a part by being more aware of the consequences of their actions for the environment, and by doing something about it, even if only in a modest way. In aggregate, such efforts count.

The Government therefore encourage initiatives that go beyond what is required by law, so that businesses and consumers at an individual level can make a contribution to sustainable development. A great deal can be achieved by voluntary action, and by harnessing the power of the market as an instrument of change.

As people become more aware of the environmental challenge, their attitudes to pollution, waste and recycling change. In many households there is a greater readiness to make the effort to use resources more economically, to avoid or minimise waste and to reduce pollution.

Increasingly, the more far-sighted companies recognise the advantages of better environmental management of their production processes in the framework of the ecomanagement and audit scheme or BS 7750. As purchasers, companies and individuals can show their preference for more sustainable consumption by seeking out products that do less damage to the environment. The difficulty for consumers is knowing which "green" products really are the genuine article.

The Government see a clear role for reliable information about the environmental impact of products to encourage markets to operate in ways that promote the aim of sustainable development. It is important to bear in mind the fact that Government, while they can try to steer developments in environmental information, can rarely expect to control them. Much depends on the views and actions of the market and of our constitutional partners in the European Union. The Government's policy is therefore about how to influence the development of environmental information, in the market and within a European framework, along coherent lines that can serve the overall aim of sustainable development.

The European Union ecolabelling scheme should be seen in that context. The purpose of the scheme is to identify products that are less harmful to the environment than equivalent brands across their whole life cycle. The aim is to encourage the design, production and use of such products, and so achieve a real environmental gain.

Under the scheme, which is voluntary—I note the comments by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham on voluntariness in this context—manufacturers may apply to display the European ecolabel on their products if they meet the criteria. For consumers, the label identifies products that have satisfied stringent environmental criteria. Having a single Europewide scheme, backed by a Community regulation, ensures consistency in application, and offers real advantages for the industry in the United Kingdom.

The ecolabel currently appears on three groups of products in the United Kingdom—washing machines, paints and household tissue paper. The first ecolabel to be awarded in Europe was for a range of British-manufactured washing machines. In agreement with other member states, criteria for labelling have been developed for further groups of products, including soil improvers, kitchen paper, toilet rolls, laundry detergents, light bulbs, varnishes, tee-shirts, bed linen, refrigerators and copying paper.

In keeping with the requirements of the regulation, we established the UK Ecolabelling Board back in 1992 as the independent body to administer the scheme in the United Kingdom. The board also advises Ministers on the various operational aspects of the scheme. As well as being responsible for awarding the ecolabels to UK manufacturers, the board is closely involved at the European level in the development of the criteria for awarding labels to the different groups of products.

To that end, members of the board are appointed by my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for the Environment and for Trade and Industry, and the membership draws together experts from a wide range of relevant backgrounds. We feel that the board provides the necessary competence, independence and objectivity to ensure fair play in effecting a proper balance between the interests of manufacturers, consumers and the environment.

On the particular criteria for copying paper, the process of life-cycle assessment used by the scheme revealed that the main environmental impacts of that group of products resulted from the production processes involved in the manufacture of the pulp and paper. Those impacts are notably in the use of energy and chemicals, and the consequences for pollution of air and water.

The environmental criteria therefore aim to promote the reduction of toxic and otherwise polluting discharges. Limits have been set: to reduce water pollution from chemical discharges from the pulping and papermaking processes, and in particular from toxic chlorinated chemicals, and to minimise the environmental damage related to energy use from global warming and acidification, by setting limits on energy consumption and a limit on sulphur emissions from the production processes. The criteria also provide for the application of good management principles to forests from which fibres originate, thus promoting the sustainable use of those resources.

Those criteria were developed over a long period of wide consultation with all interested parties, including producers from outside Europe. During that time, the Commission and the UK Ecolabelling Board, and the ecolabelling bodies in other member states, actively sought the views of the paper industry and other interested parties. In agreeing the criteria, the Commission and the member states were satisfied that the measures chosen allowed for fair and justified opportunities both for European and for foreign copying-paper products.

A Europewide scheme necessarily entails reaching the best compromise to reflect the differing interests involved. That can and does entail some fine-tuning of certain elements to enable final agreement to be reached. I emphasise, however, that considerable care has been taken in arriving at the different elements of the criteria, and in setting the thresholds.

That process has drawn on current best practice among producers across the European market, combined with intelligence about the ability of producers to meet the criteria. By its very nature, the ecolabel is meant to be a reward for those whose performance is at the upper end of the spectrum. The key aim of ecolabelling criteria is, after all, to achieve an environmental gain.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke referred to the criticisms of the criteria for copying paper that have been brought to his attention. I feel, however, that some of those criticisms spring from a context of more general opposition to the ecolabelling scheme itself. The Government support the scheme. As I explained, it provides an important opportunity for consumers to make an active contribution, through their purchasing decisions, to more sustainable development. The scheme provides market recognition for manufacturers who rise to meet the environmental challenge. In certain product areas, UK manufacturers have already risen to the challenge, and I applaud them for doing so.

In the case of copying paper, the UK Ecolabelling Board consulted interested parties widely by circulating drafts of the emerging criteria during their lengthy period of development—in 1994 and 1995, and in the first part of this year. However, during that process, the British paper industry, acting through the Paper Federation of Great Britain, decided that it would take no further part in the development of the criteria. That decision is a matter for the industry, but we feel that it is generally better for the industry to take part in the consultative process.

Accusations have be made that the scheme is subjective rather than scientifically sound, and that it inhibits innovation. It has also been said that the criteria are not based on science, because they have been changed during their development.

Those criticisms do not recognise the painstaking work involved in examining the scientific and technical factors involved precisely in order to develop criteria that are soundly based and justifiable in terms of the environmental concerns identified. As for making changes in developing the criteria, surely the very nature of arriving at well-considered criteria must reflect discussions and representations on the complex range of factors involved. As my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke said, the matter involves some technical complexity, which he mastered with great skill and ingenuity.

In the case of copying paper, as I said, it has taken the best part of three years to develop and agree the criteria. Once in place, however, the resulting ecolabel has the potential to stimulate innovation by providing an incentive to improve the environmental performance related to those paper products, through the use of better technologies and sound environmental management. That is the overall purpose of the scheme. It is an important purpose that will, in its own way, allow consumers and the market to make a contribution to the important cause of sustainable development.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke raised some important issues, some of which are of a technical nature. I shall, of course, examine carefully the concerns expressed by my hon. Friends in this short debate.

Higher Education (Scotland)

1.29 pm

I certainly welcome this opportunity to raise the issue of higher education in Scotland. It follows the successful debates that were held earlier this year on scottish education: on general scottish education, initiated by the hon. Member for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh), and on further education in Scotland, initiated by the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan).

This debate is being held at an opportune time and gives me an opportunity to welcome the progress that has been made at the university of the Highland and Islands—especially after the recent announcement of millennium funding. Progress has been made at the university since I first raised the issue in the Scottish Grand Committee in February, and I willingly acknowledge the personal interest and helpful support shown by the Secretary of State for Scotland in the project, which has helped to make progress.

This debate also occurs at an opportune moment because it is being held a week after the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council published its "Analysis of Financing Forecasts for Scotland's Higher Education Institutions for the Period 1996–99", which somewhat ominously concluded that

"the sector's financial health is weakening over the forecast period."

The analysis went on to state that the forecast surpluses

"leave little scope for the sector to generate the resources necessary to maintain and replace fixed assets or to implement strategies for future development."

As the Minister will know, this debate is being held at a time when he and his colleagues are considering the share-out of the Scottish Office block funding. Last year, during one Question Time, the distribution caused the Minister to express his disappointment that higher education did not receive a bigger share of funding.

This debate also takes place against a background of both success and crisis. We are all aware and proud of Scotland's excellent educational heritage, but, in recent times, there has been no question of Scotland's higher education institutions resting on their laurels. Student numbers have risen in Scotland, so that, by 1994–95, it was estimated that 42.7 per cent. of young Scots under 24 had entered full-time higher education courses, which is 10 per cent. higher than the average for Great Britain overall.

The record of Scotland's universities in research is outstanding. The commercialisation inquiry conducted by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and by Scottish Enterprise found that Scotland's publication performance in peer-review journals confirmed Scotland's international status in many subjects, and that, on a per capita basis, Scotland ranked third in the world—well ahead of both the United States and England.

The Scottish higher education system has managed to retain its distinctiveness. We still have our four-year honours degree, which perhaps explains why the Minister was able to claim, at Question Time on 3 July 1996, that Scottish students are funded 31 per cent. more per student than are students in England and Wales. The fact that courses are 33 per cent. longer for many Scottish students may be an important contributory factor in the funding difference.

It is important that we have the four-year degree course—although the popularity of the three-year degree is increasing again—and the flexibility that they allow in postponing until a late stage the decision to specialise. It is also important that our higher education institutions retain the ethos and approach demonstrated at earlier stages of education, which enables the breadth and depth of the Scottish educational system.

Quality has been identified as an important part of Scotland's international marketing strategy, and the latest "Survey of Scottish Service Sector Exports" states that Scottish higher education is leading the services sector as a top export market performer. Moreover, the McNicoll report on the "Impact on the Scottish Higher Education Sector on the Economy of Scotland" evaluated the very significant contribution that the higher education sector makes, directly and indirectly, to the Scottish economy in jobs and added value.

Scotland has established a background of success, and it is important that that success is sustained if Scotland is to compete effectively in global marketplaces by developing the skills and talents of Scotland's young people. Sustaining the success of Scotland's universities is important not only for Scotland's young people, however, because a great many students from the firth down—from England, and even from European countries and from Africa and the Pacific rim—take up study at Scottish universities because of the quality of education they provide.

The fact, however, is that higher education in Scotland is facing a financial crisis of dramatic proportions—a crisis that many people fear might threaten to undermine the achievements that I have mentioned. The downward trend in funding, with the year-on-year efficiency savings, was made worse last year by the Secretary of State's decision to impose a further 4.5 per cent. cut in funding for this financial year and by the additional cuts that are expected to amount to more than 10 per cent. in the three ensuing years.

The impact of the cuts is likely to be profound. The Committee of Scottish Higher Education Principals believes that institutions are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain quality. The joint working group on higher education expenditure—which was established through the collaboration of the Scottish Office, the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council and the Committee of Scottish Higher Education Principals, and which is under the chairmanship of a senior official in the Scottish Office—noted the upward trend in the student-staff ratio, and concluded that it

"is having a damaging effect on staff morale and effectiveness. The pressures on staff in terms of uncertainty about the future, reductions in technical and clerical support and rationalisation of numbers of staff were beginning to take their toll.

COSHEP provisionally estimates that, without any relief from the funding cuts that are either taking place or are in train, approximately 1,100 full-time jobs will be lost in Scotland's universities between now and 1999. Almost half of those job losses will be suffered by academic staff. COSHEP stated that the job cuts may mean the loss of specialists, who can be very difficult to replace.

The cuts are having an effect on capital estate and equipment. There is a growing and significant backlog of repair and maintenance to buildings. The Scottish Higher Education Funding Council has had to provide £26 million over a three-year period—almost as emergency aid—to deal with items on the backlog which pose a threat to health and safety. The £26 million sum is modest compared to the £700 million that is thought to be required for investment in the capital estate over a 10-year period. I am not speaking only about buildings, but about furniture, computers, microscopes, other laboratory equipment and all the items that are essential if Scotland's universities are to maintain and enhance the level of quality that has been their hallmark for generations.

The impact of the cuts has not been only on buildings and staff but also on students. Students are obliged to use over-crowded and understocked libraries. They do not have the same opportunities as they had previously for laboratory work, and they face a reduction in quality learning time and face-to-face time with their tutors. Those are only some examples of the likely consequences that have been clearly described in many reports, none of which bode well for the future of Scottish higher education.

I do not think that it is an exaggeration to describe an educational sector that is in financial crisis. What has been the Government's response? They have implicitly realised the degree of the crisis, which has been caused to some extent by the threat of the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals to impose top-up fees. Because of the pressure, the Government appointed an inquiry, under the chairmanship of Sir Ron Dearing—which also has a Scottish committee, under the chairmanship of Sir Ron Garrick. The concern that has been expressed in many quarters of higher education, however, is that those committees' report will not be made available until next summer at the earliest. The conclusions, if accepted, would be unlikely to be implemented for some time after that.

The message from university principals, lecturers, students or anyone connected with higher education that Scotland's higher educational institutions cannot wait for Dearing's committee to report, let alone implement its recommendations. Preferably, we should start by restoring some of the funding that has been cut in the past year. At the very least, there should be a moratorium on further efficiency gains pending the outcome of the Dearing inquiry. That plea has been made forcibly by COSHEP in its submission on the 1996 public expenditure survey and was supported by the recently published report of the Commission on Scottish Education.

In recognition of the growing concern within the educational sector, the Government have also set up a joint working group on expenditure in publicly funded higher education institutions. Not only did it note many of the concerns to which I have referred, but it reached a sceptical view on the extent to which the private finance initiative could meet the needs for much-needed capital investment. It concluded that PEI is

"likely to be applicable in relatively few circumstances".

Yet the Scottish Office publication "Serving Scotland's Needs" of March this year places much emphasis and reliance on access to private sources of capital to meet the shortfall in funding from the public sector. Even a committee with a significant input from the Government Department and the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council—a public body—questioned the efficacy of the PFI in relation to funding capital needs in the higher education sector.

The other dimension of the funding crisis is that faced by our students. They now have the prospect of leaving university with a degree and a debt of several thousand pounds. Some do not leave with a degree, as is shown by the drop-out rate. Recent research by the Association of University Teachers in Scotland found increasing incidence of students taking evening and weekend work and lecturers reporting students falling asleep in class because of the strain of trying to combine work with full-time study. Worse still, students were missing lectures altogether because they had to be at work.

Surely that cannot be allowed to continue. My party voted against the tax cuts in last year's Budget.

Hear, hear.

So did the hon. Lady's party. We did so because we believed that there was no scope for income tax cuts when vital sectors to the country's future such as higher education were being forced into crisis. Moreover, we are on record as having expressed a willingness to increase tax by a penny in the pound to fund further investment in education, including a commitment to lifelong learning in the tertiary sector.

That will not be enough, however. We were the first party to propose individual learning accounts which students could debit while they were at university and pay back at an affordable rate once they had reached a fixed earnings threshold using the national insurance contributions system. The Government would still cover fees and contribute to maintenance and there would be a partnership between Government, employers and students. Individual learning accounts would allow individuals to build up entitlements so that they could access what they had banked to take opportunities for reskilling and retraining later in adult life. The scheme has the advantage of securing additional funding for tertiary education and helping to alleviate student poverty.

That is not a particularly easy answer—indeed, there are none—but I hope that the Minister is prepared to take a step forward by acknowledging the scale and immediacy of the problem that has been highlighted by so many involved in higher education and let us know how he and his colleagues propose to address it.

1.43 pm

I congratulate the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) on securing today's debate. As he said, it follows some useful debates we had last session on school education and further education. I note that the hon. Member for Angus, East (Mr. Welsh), who initiated one of those debates, is in his place. I find it alarming that no Opposition Front-Bench Members felt that it was a sufficiently important topic to warrant attending the debate.

Before I respond to the specific points that the hon. Gentleman raised, let me make a few general remarks about higher education in Scotland. During the past decade and a half, the Government have given high arid increasing levels of support to the higher education sector. We have done so through the grants made by the University Grants Committee, the Universities Funding Council and the funding councils, and through research councils and the fees element of student awards.

Total public expenditure on higher education in Scotland, including student maintenance awards, increased by some 25 per cent. in real terms between 1991–92 and 1995–96. The current figure is approximately £1 billion. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that that is a huge sum of money. As he said, the support is more generous than it is in England. The annual public expenditure on teaching an undergraduate student in a higher education institute is 10 per cent. higher in Scotland than in England. That support has funded a revolution in higher education, a spectacular increase in student numbers, a massive increase in the range, size and diversity of organisations and ever-widening access.

It is appropriate to refer to some of the measures of our achievement. The participation rate of our young people has broken through the 40 per cent. barrier—a level of attainment that we did not expect to reach until at least the year 2000. The number of people over 21 entering full-time higher education has increased by more than 200 per cent. since 1984–85. That represents a massive increase in opportunities for Scots of all ages. It is also good news for the economy, as the hon. Gentleman said.

The proportion of the total work force holding higher education qualifications has doubled in the past decade to 20 per cent. We can safely say that Scotland has a world-class system of higher education and research. If that is measured by the number of published papers, Scotland ranks an astonishing 16th in the world. On a per capita basis, it ranks third in the world. Its reputation for quality and excellence continues to attract large numbers of overseas students. The number has grown by 100 per cent. since 1984–85, and I am sure that it has helped to attract inward investment to Scotland.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about the exciting university of the highlands and islands project. It is a revolutionary educational concept and I thank the hon. Gentleman for acknowledging the wholehearted support that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has given the project. The UHI will extend access to higher education for many people for whom opportunities are presently limited. It is also an important element in our strategy to restore prosperity to the highlands and islands. The region stands to receive an important economic boost as the project gathers momentum over the next few years. Three colleges in the hon. Gentleman's constituency will participate: Orkney college, Shetland college and the North Atlantic Fisheries college, which I was fortunate enough to visit last month.

The Government are giving concrete support to the project in numerous ways. We have provided resources to upgrade video-conferencing links and to support curriculum and staff development in the colleges. We have allowed expansion of higher education provision in the network colleges in the current academic year and beyond and we have approved a first degree specifically developed by the colleges in the UHI project at Lewis Castle college in Stornoway. The Scottish Office is ready to consider what further support can be given.

The project is pursuing a wide range of funding possibilities, including PFI. The decision of the Millennium Commission to meet half the capital costs was an important and significant vote of confidence in the project. We look forward to the UHI project developing in close partnership with the rest of the higher education sector in Scotland, and the existing universities that already provide services for the highlands and islands have much to offer in assisting the developers of the project.

The Minister said that Lewis college had already been given provision for a degree. Does he expect that other degrees will be accredited by the Scottish Office in the next year?

We are willing to consider them as and when they come to us. The fact that one has been accredited does not mean that that will be the end of it. I hope that more will come on stream in the next academic year. That is a matter for the institutions, but we would do nothing to prevent it.

The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland mentioned the committee of inquiry into higher education. The Government's decision to establish an independent inquiry showed the value that we attach to higher education. Throughout the western world, the ever-increasing demand for higher education has raised fundamental questions about its future size, shape and, most importantly, funding. We wanted Sir Ron Dearing to take a long, impartial look at those issue to try to chart a way forward for the next 20 years.

We are determined that the distinctive contribution of Scottish higher education should not be overlooked by the committee of inquiry. That is why we were determined to establish a Scottish standing committee. We were delighted that Sir Ron Garrick agreed to chair it. I understand that the Dearing inquiry is making good progress. The Government are assisting by providing factual briefing material to inform the debate. The Scottish Office is providing material to the Scottish standing committee.

I do not want to pre-empt the inquiry's conclusions, but I must put firmly on the record the fact that the Government believe that there is no need to make students contribute top-up fees for the cost of tuition and we have no plans to introduce such a system. Such fees would put students from less well off families at a disadvantage. Scotland's track record of encouraging those from less well off backgrounds into higher and further education is second to none. We shall do nothing to change that. It is up to individual institutions to consider such options in the light of their circumstances. The terms of reference of the committee of inquiry cover funding, and it would be premature to speculate on what recommendations it might make.

Will the Minister clarify what he means when he says that it is up to individual institutions to consider such options? We support his categorical opposition to top-up fees. Does his reference to "such options" mean fees?

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the institutions are autonomous bodies. They are entitled to pursue that course of action, but the Government do not believe that the financial pressures are such that any institution in Scotland need do so and we would deplore such a decision. I am delighted that COSHEP has publicly distanced itself from the concept of top-up fees.

Since 1992, the Government have had no direct role in determining pay in higher education. Pay negotiations for all academics are in the hands of the Universities and Colleges Employers Association. Universities are autonomous institutions and the Government do not intervene in their internal affairs. It is for them to consider what is necessary and affordable to recruit and retain academic staff. We believe that a pay review body for higher education would fetter institutions by imposing externally determined settlements on their biggest single cost—salaries.

The Dearing committee will consider the principle that higher education institutions should be able to recruit, retain and motivate staff of the appropriate calibre. The committee may therefore consider the arguments for and against a pay review body. The Government will consider any recommendations carefully.

The Government have presided over a massive increase in opportunities for Scots of all ages to enter higher education. More Scots than ever are now studying in our universities and colleges. Two statistics highlight the growth in opportunities. First, the number of students entering full-time higher education has more than doubled since 1980–81—a remarkable 43 per cent. of young Scots entered higher education in 1994–95, compared with a participation rate of only 17 per cent. in 1980–81. Our expenditure plans will allow those record numbers of higher education students to be maintained.

Secondly, lifelong learning is becoming more and more of a reality in modem Scotland. Between 1984–5 and 1993–94, the number of over 21-year-olds entering full-time undergraduate courses increased by 215 per cent. Our institutions are now more responsive than ever to students' needs. Flexibility and adaptability are their watchwords. The number of part-time students entering higher education grew by 21 per cent. between 1984 and 1995.

Scottish institutions are at the forefront of the information revolution. The broad bands for highway links now in place in Scotland will transform the delivery of higher education and extend access, particularly in remote areas.

The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland mentioned our success in attracting overseas students. I am sure that he agrees that Scottish higher education is a magnet for students from all over the world. The number of overseas students on full-time higher education courses in Scottish institutions has grown by more than 100 per cent. since 1984–85.

Scottish higher education institutions are also generating real wealth for Scotland in other ways. Their international export earnings totalled £140 million in 1993–94. They lead the field with 20 per cent. of export market share, according to the Scottish Council for Development in Industry/Scottish Trade International 1996 survey.

Higher education is vital for the skills and flexibility that Scotland will need to compete successfully in the 21st century. It is therefore pleasing that Scotland has maintained its traditional strength in the key areas of science, engineering and technology. The number of full-time equivalent students on such courses in our higher education institutions has increased by more than 50 per cent. during the past decade. It is also vital for the economy that universities and industry co-operate in many areas. That message is now well understood. The total income from external research grants has more than trebled in real terms since 1980.

The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland made representations about this year's public expenditure survey. He has been in the House longer than me and he cannot expect me to give anything away at this stage. We have listened carefully to his representations and to those of COSHEP, the CVCP and the Association of University Teachers. I met representatives of the AUT during the summer, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will receive further representations this week. No doubt all those bodies will put the same case as the hon. Gentleman. It is only normal at this time of year that all those concerned with the outcome of the public expenditure survey make representations. We have listened to those representations. Later this month, the hon. Gentleman's expectations will be either fulfilled or dashed. It would be wrong to give anything away.

I am well aware of the views of many in the higher education community on resourcing and other issues. I give the hon. Gentleman a commitment that we shall listen carefully to all the representations made over the next few weeks. The Government believe that we should keep public expenditure and taxation levels as low as possible. We have set firm limits on overall public expenditure levels within which our decisions on priorities are made.

At least the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and his party are honest about the issue. They have said that they would increase taxation specifically for education. That is an honest position, unlike that of the Labour party.

Priorities have to take account of important demographic and other changes, particularly the needs of an increasingly elderly and dependent population, which makes particular demands on health care, social work and social security services. If more is to be spent on higher education, we must look at all possible sources of funding. We believe that it is desirable to find new ways of funding higher education if there is to be continued expansion and change. I mentioned the private finance initiative earlier, and ways of encouraging private funding of research.

There is a widespread view that we have reached an important crossroads in higher education. We need to consider the role and purpose of higher education, how it should be delivered and how it should be funded. That is what the Dearing inquiry and Sir Ron Garrick's Scottish committee are all about.

Will the Minister address the fact that several bodies, including those on which his officials have sat, have expressed great scepticism about the usefulness of the private finance initiative for some of the capital investment that higher education institutions require?

Of course I acknowledge that. I have told various institutions that we consider the private finance initiative as the first option when possible, but in some cases it will not, for whatever reason, be an option. In such cases, more traditional funding is required. The Government have acknowledged that, and I am happy to acknowledge it to the hon. Gentleman.

The Scottish Office is proud of the achievements of our universities and colleges. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall continue to do everything that we can to help them to maintain their international standing.

It being one minute to Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Sitting suspended, pursuant to Standing Order No. 10 (Wednesday sittings), till half-past Two o'clock.

Private Business

City Of Edinburgh Council Order Confirmation Bill

Edinburgh Merchant Company Order Confirmation Bill

Read the Third time, and passed.

Oral Answers To Questions

Trade And Industry

Firework Injuries

To ask the President of the Board of Trade what recent discussions he has had with his officials about the latest firework injury statistics. [522]

I discussed the 1995 firework injury statistics with my officials when formulating this year's extensive firework safety campaign.

I hope that it is in order for me to extend my condolences to the families of those killed and injured during the firework season. Nothing that I say can redeem those tragedies, and I will not trespass further on private grief.

Does the Minister now accept that the folly of deregulating the import controls on dangerous fireworks in 1993 has led to the doubling of firework injuries in the past few years, the serious injury of a man last night and the deaths of Steven Timcke and David Hattersley, a private primary school head teacher? Will the Minister now turn his condolences into action and ban those lethal bombs immediately?

The import licensing regime was replaced in 1993, but the Health and Safety Executive has said that the single authorisation scheme that was put in its place in no way weakens safety controls. We have been running a thorough-going review of firework regulations since July, and nothing will be excluded from the consultation and analysis of the responses that we receive. If any constructive observations come from Opposition Members, I shall take them into account also.

I thank the Minister for expressing his condolences—especially for one of my constituents, Dale Mitchell, a 10-year-old boy who died because of the misuse of fireworks—but consultation was no substitute for action in Dale's case. Will the Minister now take concrete action to ensure that only people aged over 18 are allowed to buy dangerous fireworks?

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments, and for their tone. At risk of saying this twice, our review is thorough-going and extensive; nothing will be excluded from it. The review has been running since 31 July, and we will get it right.

May I express the condolences of the whole House to the relatives of those who have suffered death from fireworks? Is the Minister aware that the Health and Safety Executive got it wrong, and that aerial shell fireworks have killed three people since it expressed those views; that he was wrong to reject Labour's call in the House on 17 July to tackle those deadly items; that the Government's abolition of import controls on dangerous fireworks has been a deregulation disaster; and that action was needed before bonfire night, not after? Will the Minister now co-operate with Labour to speed legislation through the House to reinstate proper controls and reverse the disastrous deregulation?

It is worth pointing out that we have run probably the most extensive safety campaign on record this year, with 5 million leaflets, 5,000 poster sites and more media communications than we could count. The system of authorisation that is operated by the Health and Safety Executive applies both to home-manufactured fireworks and to imports. Importers who do not seek authorisation, and who do not demonstrate that quality control systems are in place, break the law. That is a criminal offence. Trading standards officers, meanwhile, concentrate on wholesalers and retailers. We have a good system in operation, but we are prepared to review it root and branch.

Business Link

To ask the President of the Board of Trade what level of financial support business link will receive this year. [523]

My Department has made available a total of £130 million to business link this financial year, £81 million for business support services and £49 million for business link pump-priming.

Is my hon. Friend aware how valuable the services of business links are to many small and medium-sized businesses, especially in rural areas? Given the success of their services, will my hon. Friend assure the House that he is satisfied that the money expended is well spent?

Without doubt, the creation of business link has provided a step change in the quality of support for the small business man and woman. Across the country, business links are helping to create many jobs, and I expect greater things from them in the future. With any success story, there are bound to be some setbacks, and I was disturbed to hear of the recent difficulties of Wirral business link. The board of directors recently identified evidence that indicated that there had been irregularities involving sums in the order of £600,000. The board has dismissed its managing director, begun civil proceedings to recover the money and appointed a major firm of independent accountants to conduct a thorough investigation.

Will the Government reconsider their policy of cutting public funding for business links after three years? Cannot the Government see the obvious danger that business link will suffer badly if funding is taken away just as it is up and running and beginning to fulfil its potential? While the Government may be right that some private sector funding will be available, what evidence have they that it will be enough? Why, in principle, should not the public sector continue to contribute to that work?

I do not wish to upset the hon. Gentleman, but the Government have no intention of cutting off funding for business link. As I said in my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Spring), some £81 million will be provided for business support services. The pump-priming will come to an end after three years, but the business support services will remain. Business links will therefore have a firm base from which to carry out the rest of their operations, which will include charging for some of their services.

Will my hon. Friend send his good wishes to the south Gloucestershire business link, which is being launched tomorrow by the south Gloucestershire chamber of commerce of which I am the honorary president, because it will further extend the number of businesses that can benefit from that excellent service?

As my right hon. Friend would expect, I do extend my best wishes to that latest addition to business link. Already the statistics emerging from business link are most encouraging. More than a million businesses are registered, and we are helping 8,000 to 9,000 businesses every week. The numbers are growing and the success is starting to show. I am now telling business link that the figures are good, but I want output figures and I want to see how profitable are the companies that it is helping, how many jobs have been created and the companies' export figures. I am looking for hard and practical results from business link.

We all support the principle of the one-stop shop that lies behind business link—indeed, it was in our 1992 manifesto—but how can the Minister and the Government escape responsibility in connection with Wirral business link, when it was one of only three business links in the country accredited by a DTI-appointed board for systems, including its own financial accounting systems? The British taxpayer has lost £600,000. Does not that show that the DTI's internal auditors were right to criticise the Deputy Prime Minister for exposing both business link and the Department to financial embarrassment?

I share the hon. Lady's concern about any business link that does not operate to the highest possible standards, but unlike her I shall not shoot from the hip until a full independent inquiry has taken place and I have the facts to hand. May I help her to understand how the accreditation process works? It is designed to ensure that the quality of service to the customer is up to standard and to examine financial procedures within the business link—but it is not an audit of those finances. There is a fundamental difference between the two.

Business Support (Cornwall)

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the provision of financial support to businesses in Cornwall. [524]

More than £4.4 million of financial support has been offered so far in the current financial year to businesses in Cornwall, generating more than £26 million of investment and 538 jobs, and supporting research and development.

It is some years since the West Country development corporation sponsored work by Coopers and Lybrand highlighting the differential financing as between Devon and Cornwall, and areas of Wales and Scotland with lower unemployment and higher wages. For example, DTI development area funding for such areas works out at £46 per head in Scotland and £65 per head in Wales, but only £21 per head in Cornwall and Devon. Does the Minister justify such a differential, especially in view of the great problems of people in Cornwall and Devon?

The hon. Gentleman's point is not as meaningful as he thinks. It is not possible to make meaningful comparisons between areas because a range of conditions determines whether a company wants to invest in a particular area. They usually include the availability of a skilled work force and a suitable site. What I can tell the hon. Gentleman is that the assisted area of Cornwall has a higher level of regional selective assistance offers per capita of working population than does Great Britain as a whole.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment as a Minister and thus on ending his silence of several years as a Whip. I also welcome his answer. Does he agree that grants are not the beginning and end of everything, and that what industry in Cornwall would fear, probably above all else, is the imposition of the social chapter and the minimum wage—policies advocated by the Liberal Democrats?

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind remarks. He is, of course, absolutely right. That is why Great Britain is No. 1 for inward investment. Indeed, only three weeks or so ago I announced a DTI grant that triggered £5.1 million of investment in Cornwall. An American company, Continental Sprayers, decided that it wanted to invest there.

European Committee For Electrotechnical Standardisation

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement about the recently announced decision of CENELEC. [526]

CENELEC, which is the European electrical standards body, has voted for the second time in two years to reject proposals to harmonise electrical plugs and sockets in Europe.

Was it not always crazy to try to create a standardised European plug, as some people advocated? Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that what happened was a massive victory for common sense? Is it not rather disquieting that the officials who attended the meeting that made the recommendation were enjoined not to talk about their discussions? Should not such decisions be made in a way that enables us to approve of or criticise them openly?

As my hon. Friend says, this is a victory for common sense. Although the idea of harmonising plugs on electric appliances so that people can plug in their Hoover in Calais as well as in Dover seems to offer some advantages, the costs of achieving such a vast benefit outweigh it. I congratulate CENELEC on reaching its decision.

CENELEC decided that it would not publish the reasons and records behind its votes, but I can indicate to the House that there was a fairly massive majority against introducing any form of harmonisation.

The Minister's reply shows the extent to which he lives in a cocooned world. Any business person who travels to Europe tries to plug in his laptop, recharge his mobile phone and perhaps send a fax, and has to take many different plugs for the various sockets. I am not for one, giant Euro-plug, although I am pro-European, but the Government would clearly like to pull the plug on Europe altogether. There is a serious point, however. We want to allow our businesses to work in Europe; they should be allowed to plug into Europe.

Although I realise that the hon. Gentleman is a rather elderly jet-setting yuppie, I must tell him that the cost of converting some 20 million homes to a harmonised plug and socket regime is a little more than he might calculate.

Will my hon. Friend remind the pseudo-yuppies on the Opposition Benches that, if they insist on taking their mobile computers with them, they can buy an adaptor that will fit any plug in the world? The question asked by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) was as ill informed as most Labour party policy.

My hon. Friend brings practicality to the political claptrap. If the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) takes my hon. Friend's advice, he will get on a lot better in this world.

Does the Minister realise that it is enough to make a cat laugh to hear the Tories talking about what is happening in the Common Market? The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Sir M. Lennox-Boyd) is one of the people who dragged us into the Common Market. The Tories voted for it in 1971. The Tory Government, under Lady Thatcher, took us through the Single European Act in the 1980s. This Government passed the Bill on Maastricht; Labour voted solidly against it. I am very pleased to hear the sounds coming from my hon. Friends on the Front Bench and others, who are beginning to speak out against the single currency. The Minister wants to be careful when he talks about Labour because, when it comes to the election, it will once again be Labour that will be standing up for British working-class interests.

I would like to get this absolutely clear: was that official Labour party policy, or just old Labour alive and well and kicking in Bolsover?

Electricity Regulator

To ask the President of the Board of Trade what proposals his Department has to strengthen the powers of the electricity regulator. [527]

I have no such plans.

Given that the electricity companies have made combined profits of more than £14 billion since privatisation, that the pay of their fat cats has doubled and that they are reputedly submitting takeover bids for virtually all cash machines, is it not time that we said enough is enough for Tory-style regulation, and that we had a Government who put the interests of the consumer first?

The hon. Gentleman got the last part right—we have put the interests of the consumer first. Since privatisation, under the regulator, the cost to the private home owner has fallen by some 10 per cent., excluding VAT, in real terms, and the cost to industry has fallen by 14.7 per cent., excluding VAT, in real terms—the lowest figures since records began in 1970. The consumer is first. The hon. Gentleman must not muddle large sums of money with return on capital. If he did that when running a business, he would soon find that it ran into trouble and chaos.

Will my hon. Friend confirm that, apart from the massive reduction in electricity prices in real terms, there has been a massive increase in productivity since privatisation? Does that not demonstrate how irresponsible it was of the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) to lead the opposition to privatisation?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and there have been many other advantages. Since privatisation, disconnections are down by a massive 98 per cent. I endorse what my hon. Friend says. My only advice to the Opposition is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Disconnections are down only because most people have self-disconnection meters. Is it not the case that, since privatisation, eight out of the 12 electricity companies in England and Wales have been or are being taken over, for a total of £11.5 billion? Does not that show that, in this brave new world of takeovers and mergers, consumers increasingly are, and feel that they are, an afterthought in the face of high profits and redundancies? A Labour Government will positively put consumer interests first. Why do not the Government toughen up regulation to put consumer interests first now?

I cannot square what the hon. Gentleman is saying with his party's willingness to have a windfall tax that would undoubtedly impact on prices for the consumer; it is double-talk. This country has the best inward investment record, and allowing our electrical industries to be owned by companies from other countries does not alter the fact that prices for the consumer have dropped. That has happened through privatisation, brought about by a Conservative Government.

Does my hon. Friend agree that key proof of the success of privatisation of the electricity industry and of the role of the regulator is that consumers have benefited substantially from the reduction in prices in real terms, in contrast with what happened when it was nationalised and prices went up month in, month out? Does he share my concern that the proposals for a windfall tax on profits will put that success at risk and ensure higher prices for the consumer, who should beware the crazy proposals of the Labour party?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I should like to think that the Labour party would listen to and learn from his wise words. In addition to what has already been achieved, there has been the £50 bonus from the flotation of National Grid. Further reductions will come through from the tightening of transmission price controls, which will help the consumer even more. All that has happened under a Conservative Government.

Manufactured Goods

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list the years since 1979 in which the United Kingdom recorded a deficit in manufactured goods. [529]

The President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry

(Mr. Ian Lang)

The United Kingdom has recorded a deficit on trade in manufactured goods in each year since 1983, but since 1979 the volume of manufactured exports has doubled.

Is not the record of deficit after deficit, year after year, an appalling indictment of the Government? Contrary to what the Government would like the public to believe, is it not true that the Conservative party is neither the party of trade nor, as the record shows, the party of industry?

The hon. Lady is talking nonsense. The United Kingdom's capacity to trade successfully internationally has been transformed in recent years. It is the fifth largest trading nation on the face of the earth. The volume of manufactured exports has doubled since 1979, and we export more per head than either Japan or the United States. That is the product of the increased competitiveness achieved by the Government.

In assessing the United Kingdom's manufacturing performance since 1979, is not it important to take into consideration the fact that the industrial base that we inherited from the last Labour Government had perhaps 30 or 40 per cent. obsolete capacity? Is not our economic and industrial performance the envy of our European partners, and is not that put at risk by the prospect of a Labour Government?

My hon. Friend is right. The great tragedy is that, during the 1960s and 1970s, under socialist Governments, Britain became so uncompetitive that we failed to prepare for the emerging manufacturing nations. The problems that were ignored in those days, such as nationalised industries being propped up by massive subsidies, overmanning, demarcation disputes and appalling industrial relations that brought the country to a halt, ended up putting us in the hands of the International Monetary Fund. They were at the root of the difficulties that this Government had to clear up in the early 1980s. We are now out there competing successfully and winning new markets all over the world.

I agree that the record of British companies and of Britain has been transformed under the Government's stewardship, but how can the Secretary of State complacently compare it with the record of the previous Government when he has just acknowledged that trade in manufactured goods was then in surplus, while under this Government it has been in deficit every year for 13 years? As to whether our partners in the European Union should envy that record as a sign of greater competitiveness, we are 15th out of 15 in export growth since 1979, and 13th out of 15 in trade results for 1995. We also have a trade deficit with the rest of the European Union of £4 billion. How can he call that a record of success?

The hon. Lady overlooks the facts that our current account for the second quarter of this year was in surplus by the largest amount for nine years; that our services produced a surplus last year of £6 billion; that the revenue from our overseas investment produces a surplus of £9.5 billion; that our exports are up by a third to record levels since the recovery began; that, since 1981, our exports have grown faster than those of France and Germany; and that, since 1979, when the Labour party was last in office, the volume of our exports has doubled. That has been achieved by the competitiveness that the Government have attained, reversing the decline of decades to which the Labour party so substantially contributed.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is remarkable that some 40 per cent. of all inward investment in Europe comes to Britain? Does he accept that that is not an accident but because of the environment that the Government have created, which encourages manufacturing, and that it could easily be thrown away if a different Government were elected?

My hon. Friend is right. That is one of the reasons why employment in manufacturing has risen by some 150,000 over the past three years. That is a rate of about 1,000 new manufacturing jobs per week on average. The success of our inward investment is the world's verdict on the competitiveness of the United Kingdom. That is reflected in the fact that more than 400 new inward investment projects came to this country last year. They come because the Government have transformed Britain into the enterprise centre of Europe, able to compete with any country in the world.

Regional Policy

To ask the President of the Board of Trade what proposals he has for the further review of regional policy and industrial incentives. [531]

There are no plans at present to review regional policy and industrial incentives.

Ministers know that the designation of assisted area status is directly linked to the level of unemployment as shown in the statistics. I do not believe the official published statistics for unemployment in my constituency. I believe that they are fiddled, false and untrue, and that they grossly misrepresent the situation in Workington. Will Ministers sponsor a house-to-house survey in my constituency to establish precisely the real level of unemployment so that, the next time there is a review of assisted area status, real data can be taken into account?

The hon. Gentleman is being ridiculously downbeat about the situation in his constituency. West Cumbria has objective 2 area status, which means that it is eligible for investment funds for business support measures. [HON. MEMBERS: "Reading."] I am not reading. On house-to-house surveys, I suggest that he does some canvassing. He will find that many of his constituents have seen the improvement in our economy, the continuing fall in unemployment and continuing inward investment.

Is not the greatest industrial incentive a sound economy such as the Government have created here, and the absence of the social chapter which the Opposition would impose on this economy?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One reason why we are not reviewing this policy is that it has been and is a great success.

Is the Minister aware that regions such as Baden-WÖCrttemberg in Germany and Emilia Romagna in Italy, whose manufacturing sectors compete directly with those in the west midlands, enjoy living standards that are, on average, 40 per cent. higher than those in that region? When will the Government instigate a real regional policy and provide the amount of industrial support that our competitors enjoy?

The other day, I saw a reference to a German report that praised the British economy and said that its strength explained why we were winning the lion's share of inward investment—not just in the west midlands but in the east midlands and other areas, too.

Is my hon. Friend aware that the north-west region, where my constituency is, is doing extremely well in terms of the incentives that it offers to the rest of the world? That is why, for instance, that great Japanese company, Isuzu, decided to build trucks at Leyland in my constituency—it was the most profitable option on offer compared with anywhere else in the world. Does that not confirm the view that the President and my hon. Friend have expressed, that the only incentive needed is a continuation of a Conservative Government?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The motor industry is a good example. In the 1960s and 1970s, companies such as General Motors were looking to get out of Britain. Today, they are increasing their investment here. Only three weeks ago, Vauxhall announced a new £200 million investment in Ellesmere Port. General Motors is moving investment into Britain under our current arrangements.

Manufactured Goods

To ask the President of the Board of Trade when he expects the United Kingdom trade in manufactured goods next to be in surplus. [532]

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will set out his latest estimate of the balance of trade in manufactured goods in his "Financial Statement and Budget Report" on 26 November.

The deficit on trade in manufactured goods in the last three months reduced by £250 million from the previous three months.

I am not asking about the past three months. My question is about what progress we are making. The Government have been in power for nearly 18 years, yet it is always jam tomorrow. We want to know where all the hundreds of millions of pounds from North sea oil have gone, while the deficit continues. Does that not prove that this Government do not know how to manage trade?

Unemployment in the hon. Gentleman's constituency has fallen by 9.4 per cent. in the past year, and Siemens Measurements Ltd. has made an inward investment there. He should welcome that success. We should celebrate the strength of manufacturing industry, the way it is adapting to new technologies and challenging suppliers all over the world, and the way it is penetrating new markets with a rapid rate of growth. In every year under the Conservative Government, annual growth rates in manufacturing output, investment and productivity have been higher than under the Labour Government.

Royal Mail

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the future of the Royal Mail. [533]

The Government's plan for the future of the Post Office, including Royal Mail, remains as set out in a statement on 11 May 1995 by my right hon. Friend the then President of the Board of Trade.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the public do not understand the recent strikes which have caused such disruption to their mail and that they certainly would not understand any disruption of their Christmas mail—or its complete stoppage? May I have his assurance that he will take all necessary steps to guarantee the smooth delivery of Christmas mail, bearing in mind how much that means to people in this country and all over the world?

To the extent that that is in my gift, of course the answer is yes. I do not believe that there is any need for further industrial unrest or strikes by the postal unions. It is quite clear from the ballot which was held that less than half the membership voted for the strike; 75,000 members did not vote to strike, which does not constitute a mandate. I invite the Labour party to join me in calling on the postal unions not to disrupt the Christmas mail, with all the hardship and misery that that would bring to the public.

Does the President of the Board of Trade realise that he has succeeded in uniting the unions and the Post Office on one thing—their condemnation of his increase in the external funding limits, which is crippling the investment programme of the Post Office? In the long term, that is more likely to jeopardise industrial relations and the harmony that should exist in that company than anything on which the unions and the management are failing to agree now.

The hon. Gentleman is talking absolute nonsense. Since May 1995, the Post Office has had a new corporate planning process. We have abolished the restrictions on capital expenditure and we have granted the Post Office significant end-year flexibility. The important thing is that the Post Office uses that flexibility and its capacity to manage its own organisation for the benefit of the Post Office.

Research Establishments

10.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on the future of the public sector research establishments. [534]

The Government are determined to achieve the greatest possible benefit from the substantial resources devoted to the public sector research establishments. Discussions on the future of each establishment are taken on a case-by-case basis.

Will the Minister give an undertaking that the pensions cost of privatising those research establishments will not be borne by the research budget?

In each of the cases of a prior options reviewed establishment that we are considering, pensions crystallisation will need to be taken into account. I am determined to maintain the strength of the science base, and obviously we would need to take into account the impact of not only pensions crystallisation but redundancies on the science budget or the public sector borrowing requirement. That would be a matter of negotiation with any party if a research establishment were to pass into the private sector.

I think that the Minister is dodging the very question asked of him. Why does he not accept that this Gadarene rush to privatisation of those important research facilities not only demoralises the tens of thousands of scientists who work in those laboratories but has no support within many sectors of industry or the wider scientific community? According to the Royal Society, it could lead to a serious erosion of the United Kingdom research base. May I ask the Minister again whether he will give an unqualified assurance that the already overstretched science budget will not be further raided to pay for redundancies, pension transfer costs or generous sweeteners for the purchasers of the laboratories? A simple yes or no answer will do.

The hon. Gentleman clearly does not understand the complexity of the research establishments and the fact that they differ one from another, or he would not ask such a naive question.

It is impossible to know what the impact of the liabilities of a pension scheme will be until we look at it in the context of each department. The liabilities for pensions exist currently; they are not suddenly plucked out of the air. They are only crystallised if they are transferred out of the pay-as-you-go system in the public sector to the funded system of the private sector. That would need to be taken into account if there were to be a transfer, but I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to decisions that have already been made. In certain cases, a prior options reviewed establishment has gone into a Government agency; in other cases, it has gone into the private sector; and on other occasions, it has stayed in the public sector. There is no dogmatic precondition to the review process.

I challenge the hon. Gentleman's completely negative policy in his so-called manifesto, which states that Labour would not enter into prior options reviews. That is nonsense, when the civil research establishment's cost base accounts for 10 per cent. of total Government expenditure on research and development.

Visible Trade

11.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade in which quarter the United Kingdom last recorded[a surplus in the visible trade balance. [536]

The United Kingdom last recorded a surplus on visible trade in the fourth quarter of 1982. [Interruption.] Taking the current account as a whole, which one should, the House should know that the second quarter of 1996 produced the largest current account surplus for more than nine years.

How can we have that much-vaunted Conservative economic miracle when, according to their own figures, the Government are forecasting a £13.5 billion deficit on trade in goods this year alone? Will the Minister now get up, be honest and tell us when that figure will be in surplus?

There have been only six years since 1946 in which there has been a surplus in visible trade. Those years were 1956, 1958, 1971, 1980, 1981 and 1982—all years of a Conservative Government.

Will my hon. Friend confirm that, notwithstanding the figures on the balance of trade, the United Kingdom's share of world markets has increased every year for the past few years, whereas Germany's, for example, has declined?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding me of those matters. He is absolutely right, and the House should be aware of them.

The Minister knows the real truth—that the heart of the problems afflicting our economy, which has been so badly managed by this Government, is that our industrial base has shrunk and shrunk, year after year after year. When our manufacturing base is down to less than 20 per cent. of gross domestic product, compared to 25 and 26 per cent., we are getting close to a minimum level of viability as a manufacturing nation.

I think that the hon. Gentleman is looking down the wrong end of his telescope. In the three months to August, exports of goods were at record levels and were 7 per cent. higher than they were a year earlier. Since 1979, the volume of both manufactured goods and total goods exported has doubled.

Inward Investment

12.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to encourage inward investment. [537]

The Department's Invest in Britain Bureau will continue to promote the attractions of the United Kingdom for mobile international investment to consolidate our position as the No. 1 location in Europe for such investment, especially from countries such as Japan, the United States and Korea.

Is it not the case that almost 40 per cent. of the inward investment into the European Union comes to the United Kingdom? Is it not also true that, since 1979, inward investment has helped to create or safeguard almost 1 million jobs? Has not that tremendous success been achieved because, thanks to this Conservative Government, we have economic stability, moderate taxation and a willing and skilled work force and we have not signed up to those job destroyers, the social chapter and the minimum wage?

My hon. Friend is certainly right to say that 1995–96 has been the best year yet for record inward investment.

Does the Minister recognise that little of that mobile industrial investment goes to the traditional industrial areas of this country or into research and development, which is absolutely crucial to the future? Will he ensure that such investment is made according to those essential criteria?

I am sorry, but do not accept the premise of the hon. Gentleman's question. Indeed, on my way to the Chamber today, I happened to see the television set in the Library switched to Ceefax, on which the Department of the Environment had announced a £1 billion regeneration programme that would create 55,000 new jobs in areas of former coal mines in the north-east, north-west, Yorkshire and the midlands.

I add my congratulations to the right hon. Gentleman on reaching the exalted rank of Minister. We had a period of silence from him when he was in the Whips Office and, given the Government's programme, I can see that that will continue until the general election.

Is it not strange that all that inward investment pours into our country, year in and year out, despite four years of Labour party opinion polls showing that we have a 25 to 30 per cent. lead? Is it not a fact that the question of the social chapter and the national minimum wage holds no fear for those inward investors? Should not the Minister come to the Dispatch Box now, in deference to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), and tell us what studies his Department has done into the question of inward investment if we were to have a single currency?

First, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind opening remarks, although I am not sure that everyone who has served in the Whips Office would necessarily regard my position as a promotion.

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman should widen his reading and that, instead of merely picking off articles from the Walworth road approved list, he should speak to business men and the Institute of Directors and also read the IOD's annual reports. He will see that one of the major factors in inward investment is that we have lower production costs—not that we have lower wages, but that we do not have the job-destroying minimum wage or the social chapter. That is, indeed, a factor in many of those decisions.

National Prosperity

13.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on trends in the United Kingdom's position relative to other world economies in respect of prosperity since 1979. [538]

The Government have halted a relative decline in Britain's gross domestic product per head, which had taken place over several decades. That has been achieved through our policies of free enterprise and encouraging competition.

Is the Secretary of State not a little complacent about our achievements? We have fallen from 13th to 18th in the world prosperity league, we are ninth in the European prosperity league, and a large and increasing number of people live in poverty. Surely that should concern the Government. They should not be complacent about economic progress.

Is it not time that the Government, instead of reciting the litany of success that they claim, sought to make this country a real enterprise country and to improve our economic prosperity? I should have thought that the Minister would not be so complacent.

The hon. Gentleman is wrong. Between 1970 and 1979, the United Kingdom fell from 11th to 15th place in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on the basis of GDP per head. Some further fall took place immediately after that as the Conservative Government cleared up the mess that we inherited from the Labour party, but over the last international cycle, from 1982 to 1993, only Japan among G7 countries outpaced the United Kingdom in terms of GDP per capita growth. The United Kingdom significantly outpaced France, Italy, Canada and the EU average. I think that the hon. Gentleman should be less complacent.

Ferry Services (Merger)

14.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade what role his Department is undertaking in respect of the impact on the Dover and Deal area in relation to the proposed merger of P and 0 and Stena Sealink's ferry services. [540]

The proposed merger between P and O and Stena is still under examination by the competition authorities. Meanwhile, on 31 October, I hosted a meeting of local public and private sector organisations and companies to discuss effective co-operation to tackle the economic challenges facing the Dover area.

I thank my hon. Friend for the meeting that he hosted last week; it was enormously helpful to those of us from Dover and Deal who attended. We felt that he had really addressed the issues. The message which he was able to give, that retraining can begin immediately, will be of enormous help to the people of Dover and Deal.

May I also say to my hon. Friend that it will be extremely helpful if he has anything further to say on the point about English Partnerships coming in to help in Dover and Deal? Several other matters were discussed that will affect my constituency, for which I am extremely grateful to him.

Order. I think that, if one wants to give thanks, perhaps one should do so in an Adjournment debate, when they can be reciprocated, but I have not yet really heard a question from the hon. Gentleman.

Madam Speaker, I was hoping to get out the point that my hon. Friend the Minister made several other suggestions that were enormously helpful to Dover and Deal, and I was going to ask if he could make any further comments on those suggestions now.

Madam Speaker, I recognise our mutual role in trying to restrain the natural enthusiasm of my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Shaw) on behalf of his constituents; he fights very hard on their behalf.

I can confirm that the local training and enterprise council will declare Dover and Deal to be an area of large-scale unemployment, which will give immediate access to training courses rather than the usual six-month wait. I have asked English Partnerships to look very closely at the sites in Dover to discover whether further progress may be made. The Ministry of Defence is moving rapidly; it has issued invitations to tender on some seven sites that it has there.

We well understand the worries in the local community about a merger. I cannot comment on that, because of competition implications, but I can, as south coast sponsor Minister, study the implications carefully.

Currency Exchange Charges

15.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will undertake an interdepartmental investigation with Her Majesty's Treasury on the charges levied for exchanging currencies on consumers using exchange bureaux and banks. [542]

I have no plans to initiate such an investigation.

Will my hon. Friend please look at that again? When I complained about an effective commission rate of nearly 10 per cent. at the monopoly currency exchange service at Heathrow airport when I exchanged French francs back into sterling in September, I was told by the service provider that the currency exchange service was just charging the rates that the high street banks do, and in fact was slightly cheaper. Would it not be right for the Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry to look into that matter to stop that outrageous rip-off of customers at foreign currency exchanges, and does that not also show that the single currency in future will be not only for the central banking elites but for ordinary members of the public, avoiding such unnecessary charges and making greater deregulation possible?

I should be surprised if there was a monopoly in bureaux de change at Heathrow. I thought that there was more than one outlet for exchanging foreign currency at Heathrow; but if there is any evidence of anti-competitive behaviour or breach of competition law, it should be referred to the Director General of Fair Trading, who has the responsibility to keep the operation of markets under review, and powers to act where he believes that to be necessary.

Fireworks

16.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade what is the balance of payments position in the fireworks industry. [543]

The crude deficit with all countries for 1995 was £11.6 million.

Does my hon. Friend accept that Britain is exporting an increasing number of fireworks that are safe and reliable products, but importing an increasing number that turn out not to be safe and reliable? Notwithstanding the safety checks about which my hon. Friend spoke in answer to an earlier question, will he consider increasing the sanctions against importing companies that do not satisfy themselves adequately about the quality of the products that they import?

In the spirit of the root-and-branch review that I am conducting, the answer to my hon. Friend's question is yes.

Trade Surplus

17.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade when UK trade in goods is to be in surplus on current trends. [544]

My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will set out his latest estimate of the balance of trade in goods in his financial statement on 26 November. The latest data show the trend deficit narrowing.

Although we welcome the recent short-lived improvement, the Government's own forecasts show that the UK is in deficit by £13.5 billion in its goods exports for this year. That is £2.5 billion more than last year and £3 billion more than the year before. Do not those figures—as opposed to the Government's propaganda—prove the Government's record of economic mismanagement over the past few years?

They prove nothing of the sort. They show the vibrancy of British manufacturers in an expanding global trade position. The deficit is merely a netting off of imports and exports across the board. Look at how exports have been doubling. Look at how we have penetrated markets more successfully than the French and Germans in competition with us. Look at how new technologies have been applied by British industries. Look at how we have attracted inward investment, because of our high skills base. Those are all extremely positive developments. The Confederation of British Industry predicts a 4 per cent. increase in manufacturing output next year and a 7.5 per cent. increase in manufacturing investment.

Industrial Support

18.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will carry out an examination of the relative cost-effectiveness of Government support for indigenous and inward investment in industry. [545]

In 1993, the Department of Trade and Industry, in conjunction with the Scottish and Welsh Offices, published a report of an evaluation of regional selective assistance. The three Departments will shortly be commissioning further work to evaluate the continuing cost-effectiveness of the scheme.

I am grateful for that answer. Of course we all welcome inward investment by companies such as Toyota, Chunghwa and Lucky Goldstar from Japan, Korea and Taiwan. That raises an interesting question, however. Why can British companies no longer manufacture cars, picture tubes and electronics for the European market? Is that because of some deficiency in British industry, or because there is a bias in the Department of Trade and Industry in favour of inward investment and against indigenous industries?

The hon. Gentleman is working under a misapprehension. The availability of regional selective assistance does not depend on the ownership of the company; it is available to British companies, as well as to foreign companies.

When the Minister is further considering regional assistance for inward investment, will he make representations to the Secretaries of State for Scotland and for Northern Ireland with respect to increasing investment in the A75 in Scotland and the A8 in Northern Ireland, thereby increasing the free flow of passengers and freight and the success of tourism in those areas?

I will certainly pass on those comments to my right hon. Friends.

Business Links

20.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of business links. [547]

The Government have an on-going programme of assessing the effectiveness of business links. This includes regular monitoring returns, measuring the awareness, perceptions, and use of business links by businesses through biannual surveys, and assessing the quality of information and services received by businesses through a mystery shopper exercise. In addition, a series of evaluation projects are being carried out by independent consultants.

On the basis of the evidence provided by these studies, I am satisfied that business links are highly effective in providing integrated, high-quality, business support systems which lead to improved performance by assisted businesses.

Does my hon. Friend agree that businesses are often too busy trying to sell their goods and services to be able to scurry around to different organisations to seek advice and that they therefore greatly value the one-stop service provided by business links? Does my hon. Friend share my concern at the recent Select Committee report, which said that, while recognising that business links concentrated on firms with more than 10 employees, more attention should be paid to ensuring that firms with fewer than 10 employees were pointed in the right direction?

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that the one-stop shop—the one doorway through which business men and women can go—is the most effective way in which to provide support. In the past, a number of partner organisations tried to do a good job, but they were competing with each other, overlapping in the services they provided and presenting a confused picture to small business men and women.

With business link, we now have one focus, and it is interesting to note that in the short time it has been going, more than 100,000 businesses have used it. The use of business link has doubled since last year and more than 8,200 businesses are using it every single week. It is a success story and it is going the right way.

I am disturbed to hear that the impression has been given that we are not there to help all businesses irrespective of size. My clear message is that business link is there to help any business man or woman, irrespective of the size of company, because from little acorns grow the big oak trees.

Inward Investment

21.

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will list the figures for inward investment into (a) the United Kingdom, (b) Germany and (c) France for the period since 1991. [549]

The most recent information from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows that inward investment flows into the United Kingdom in the period from 1991 to 1995 totalled $87.7 billion, compared with $62.3 billion into France and $13.2 billion into Germany.

Is it not clear that Britain not only receives the lion's share of inward investment from Japan, Korea and the United States, but is increasingly getting inward investment from France and Germany as well? Is it not the clearest sign that the Government have got their policies right on the economy, on social costs and on trade union reform when even French and German business men vote with their feet and come to Britain?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the period from 1991 to 1993, Germany invested £2.3 billion in the United Kingdom and France invested £2.1 billion.

Is the Minister aware that the American utilities are working with some local government departments to attract inward investment? Georgia Power, for example, working with some of the departments of the state government, attracted 32,000 jobs into the state in 12 months. Will the Minister undertake to look at some of those schemes to see what lessons might be learned for the United Kingdom?

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, and I am certainly prepared to look at any information he pushes my way. We are not doing too badly, are we, with 4,500 US firms located in the United Kingdom, including 99 of the top 100?

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is not just a question of investment? From analysing the figures my right hon. Friend has just given, one sees that jobs are being exported from Germany and France to Great Britain, to the benefit of the British people who are getting extra jobs.

My hon. Friend makes his point well. The figures also show that, in Britain, we have a skilled, flexible and positive work force.

Should not the Minister come clean about aggregate investment in those three economies and admit that Britain is seriously lagging behind? Should he not disaggregate the figures for inward investment in Britain between mere share churning, takeovers and genuine new money investment? Should he not also tell us the extent of external investment from this country? In 1994–95, it was running at £40 billion, which is more than three times the amount of inward investment.

That last comment sums up what is wrong with the Labour party. Britain is a trading nation, and we will always be a trading nation. We will be a successful trading nation so long as we have a Conservative Government.

Points Of Order

3.30 pm

On a point of order, Madam Speaker. May I ask whether you have received a request from the Scottish Office for a Minister to make a statement to the House this afternoon about the severe gales that have affected central Scotland? The gales of 80 mph—in one place they were 95 mph—have left thousands of homes in central Scotland without electricity. Remarkably, Glasgow and Edinburgh airports were closed, as were roads across central Scotland. Substantial damage has been caused, and ferries have been stopped. Buildings have been damaged from Oban to Prestonpans, including in my area.

A Scottish Office Minister has visited two of those locations. Will Ministers come to the House to explain what is happening about damage caused by this natural disaster? Will sympathetic consideration be given by the Scottish Office to those who have been affected personally or whose buildings have been damaged? Will the Government do anything in the short term?

I have not been informed that any Minister is seeking to make a statement on that issue today. A Minister from the Scottish Office is sitting on the Government Front Bench, and I am sure that he has taken the hon. Gentleman's point of order to heart.

On a point of order, Madam Speaker. As you will be aware, new photocopying paper has been provided in the House that bears the portcullis watermark to prevent an abuse of that stationery. I was concerned, therefore, when I received a copy of a letter printed on that paper, which is headed "North London Young Labour" and says:

"What does Labour mean for us?"

It advertises a partisan Labour party meeting, for which the contact is Jake Sumner, who is in the office of the hon. Member for Barking (Ms Hodge), to whom I have written about this matter.

I seek your advice on two counts. First, should not the hon. Lady be representing her constituents, who are in east London and not in a north London borough where she was formerly the leader? Secondly, is not the use of this paper the type of abuse of House of Commons stationery that you are seeking to end?

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will let the Serjeant at Arms see the notepaper to which he refers. As to his first question, I am not clear about the boundaries, but the hon. Gentleman has obviously made the point to the hon. Member for Barking in the letter that he has written to her. If he would let the Serjeant at Arms have the copy, I am sure that he will clear up the matter. If there is an abuse, it will have to be paid for: there is no doubt about that.

On a point of order, Madam Speaker. You will recall that last week I asked a question about the Leader of the Opposition's agent, who had been sending out Labour party literature in paid envelopes. As this disgraceful venture occurred at a high level, can you tell me how much money will be paid by the right hon. Gentleman, and how many of those leaflets were sent?

That is not a matter for me. I recall very well the hon. Gentleman raising that matter with me last week, and I gave him the right advice. Not only the stationery but the postage will have to be paid for. The Serjeant at Arms will calculate that when he has made his inquiries.

Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), Madam Speaker.

Order. I cannot take further points of order on that matter. I realise that the hon. Gentleman represents a Scottish constituency, and he is no doubt concerned about the matter raised by the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson). We cannot go on with such points of order. The hon. Member for Hamilton leads for the Opposition on Scotland, and he has made his point to the House, so we must leave it there. I cannot force a Scottish Minister to come to the Dispatch Box and make a statement now.

Why not?

Order. I do not have that authority, and the House knows it.

I am grateful to you, Madam Speaker. Although a Scottish Office Minister is visiting the scene of devastation in my constituency, another Scottish Office Minister is in the Chamber. Would it not be helpful if he could take this opportunity to explain whether the Scottish Office will do anything about the situation?

Order. Points of order are directed to me, not to Ministers. The hon. Gentleman is asking a question of the Minister, and that is not the procedure that we follow here. When Scottish Office Ministers answer questions, the questions are listed on the Order Paper. Points of order are directed to me.

rose—

I can see that the Scottish Office Minister wishes to be helpful to the House.

Madam Speaker, perhaps Opposition Members are totally unaware of normal emergency procedures. In fact, the emergency planning department in the Scottish Office has been in contact with all the local authorities, and Lord Lindsay has, on the instructions of the Secretary of State for Scotland, visited the areas. We continue to monitor the situation.

On a point of order, Madam Speaker. I wonder whether you have received any notification from the Secretary of State for Wales that he will make a statement about today's announcement that the Gulf oil refinery in my constituency will close in the summer, with the loss of 350 direct jobs and the loss of a similar number of jobs in the wider community? As you know, my constituency is one of the areas of the United Kingdom with the highest levels of unemployment and the lowest pay. I merely wonder whether the Secretary of State has recognised the seriousness of the announcement and told you that he will make a statement?

I have not been informed that a statement will be made, but, of course, the hon. Gentleman will have every opportunity in coming weeks to raise the issue in an Adjournment debate or in parliamentary questions directed to the Secretary of State for Wales.

Orders Of The Day

Local Government And Rating Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

3.36 pm

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

When we published our rural White Paper last year, we made clear our continuing commitment to a living, working and thriving countryside. We said that we were not interested in a museum countryside, but in a workaday countryside, in which people could live, work and make their money from the countryside. We said that it was as important for the countryside to thrive between Monday and Friday as it was over the weekend. We therefore said that we should avoid prescriptive, inflexible policies imposed from outside, and that we needed complementary action by all levels of government in order to achieve our overriding objective of securing a sustainable future for our countryside.

The Local Government and Rating Bill represents the first fruit of the Government's endeavour on the rural White Paper, and is manifest proof of the Government's commitment to rural life, rural businesses and rural government. It extends subsidiarity and will mean a welcome boost for rural businesses through a rate-relief scheme. It will mean new powers for parish councils on crime prevention and transport, and better consultation between principal authorities and local councils.

When discussions were held about local government reorganisation, many county and district councils promised that, in future, they would take much more notice of parish councils. They promised all types of participation, partnership, devolution and subsidiarity. Some of the councils have delivered on the promises they made, in their desire to maintain their position, but other councils have been less assiduous in doing so. In the Bill, we seek to ensure that the participation and subsidiarity that are so much a part of a sensible local government system shall be continued.

To deal with the problems of rural England, however, we start with the village shops. If villages are to flourish in a living, working countryside, they require shops in which people can buy a range of daily necessities. That requirement is particularly true for older people, for the young and for those who cannot afford a vehicle or who do not have contact with someone who has one.

The problem in England and Wales is that, for some time, the nature of communities has meant that more people have chosen to shop elsewhere, so fewer people use the village shop. That has increased pressure on the village shop. The Bill will provide much-needed financial help to those businesses by reducing their non-domestic rates bills.

The Minister put his opening remarks about rural post offices in the specific context of rural England. Will he clarify exactly where the Bill stands, not only in regard to post offices but generally? There seem to be contradictions running through it. The preparatory notes state:

"Part II applies to local authorities in England."

However, clause 35 states:

"Sections … 9 to 31 extend to England and Wales."

Those two statements are contradictory. The title of clause 25 is

"Application of Part II to England only",

yet some clauses in part III are dependent on part II, which should apply to Wales. The Bill appears confused, to say the least.

The hon. Gentleman is right about the confusion. We are trying to meet concerns that should interest him in particular, as they involve the difference between the Principality and England. I am particularly keen to ensure that those differences remain, so parts of the Bill refer to England and Wales. Other parts of the Bill clearly refer to Wales.

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will raise any particular concerns, but the explanatory notes to the Bill make it perfectly clear which part refers to which. He will find that some parts of my speech—particularly when I am referring to the English White Paper on rural matters as that was my responsibility—will differ from others when I am referring to the Welsh White Paper, which was the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales. I shall try to make sure that it is clear, at least in my speech. If the hon. Gentleman requires further explanation that goes beyond what is already in the Bill, I shall be happy to assist him.

In both England and Wales, the village shop has a particular role to play that is not restricted simply to providing the necessities of life, although that is important. It also provides a centre where it is noticed if someone has not collected their pension or if someone has not been seen for a couple of days. The village shop is the centre of a web of information that should not be lost.

The rating causes real problems, because the village shopkeeper is unable to diminish the cost. He may be able to deal with other overheads, perhaps with careful husbandry, but he cannot affect the rates. That is why we sought to do something about what is often the most onerous part of the overheads.

I am delighted that my right hon. Friend is dealing with village shops, about which we have corresponded for many years. May I press him a little further on schedule 1? Schedule I refers to the hereditament which benefits the local community. Few amenities are of more benefit to the local community than a really good local garage. I have one in my constituency, and this morning I received a letter from a constituent saying:

"Lambs of Hornby is more to this valley than just a garage. It is a community centre and an information bureau."

I know that because, if I want to know the time of a funeral or if someone is ill or any other information, I have only to ring Lambs of Hornby. I very much hope that it will be eligible for the discretionary rate reduction under the Bill.

I can assure my hon. Friend that the village garage to which she rightly refers can be helped by the discretionary rates scheme that we are proposing today. Those village garages that double as the village shop, selling a significant quantity of groceries and the like, may well qualify for mandatory rate relief. [Laughter.]

Those Opposition Members who find the subject amusing clearly do not understand how central it is to rural life. I understand that some Opposition Members do not have rural communities in their constituencies. One or two of them do, and I have noticed how they have given cross-party support to our proposals. I hope that they will ensure that those of their hon. Friends who are not so interested might at least let us talk about those issues on which we are agreed. There are many other issues about which we can argue.

Happily, we have been able to ensure that the mandatory rate relief of which we have been talking extends not only to England and Wales, but also to Scotland.

Why is Northern Ireland to be excluded from the benefits that will arise from the Bill?

The Bill relates in large part to England and Wales, with some provisions covering Scotland. We pay particular attention to hon. Members from Northern Ireland on issues relating to local government in Northern Ireland. I have no doubt that, if they wanted the measures extended to Northern Ireland, my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland would be happy to consider it.

I believe the proposals to be beneficial. The hon. Gentleman may want to talk to my right hon. and learned Friend, who I know is apprised of his concern. I have talked to my right hon. and learned Friend about the measures, and he may want to extend them to the rest of the United Kingdom, as the hon. Gentleman proposes.

While my right hon. Friend is on that point, may I ask a related question? I live in a village with neither a post office nor a village shop. However, it has a village pub, around which everything circulates. The pub has struggled to stay in existence, mainly because of the changes in people's drinking habits, but it is a vital part of the community. Is there some way to facilitate the continued existence of village pubs as well as the vital post offices and village shops?

I remind my hon. Friend that one of the best ways of ensuring that the village pub stays in business is to take into account the well-known phrase, "Use it or lose it." I hope that my hon. Friend will ensure that the pub has continued support from his own patronage and that of his friends.

I assure him that village pubs will have the chance to be involved in the discretionary scheme. That is helpful, and will enable local authorities, with considerable help from the Exchequer, to give support to village pubs, which are often important community centres.

My hon. Friend made the important point that the great advantage of our rural scene is variety. Different villages operate in different ways. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) mentioned a village garage. In that valley, the garage is the centre of village life, and it will be up to the local authority to consider the opportunity of supporting it. In some villages in my constituency, the village pub performs that role, but in others—the majority—it is the post office and the village store. I hope that the Bill is flexible enough to cope with that variety.

The real problem for small village shops in the north-east of England is the oppressively high level of rates levied on them by local Labour councils. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that the Bill contains no proposal for a further oppressively expensive local authority in the form of any kind of regional government run from Newcastle?

My hon. Friend is right to say that many areas suffered considerably when their local authority controlled the business rate. For example, before the Government changed the rules, a shop in Newcastle could pay three times as much in rates as a similar store in Oxford street. Labour councils drove shops out of the centre of Newcastle by charging them three times the rate charged in Conservative-controlled Westminster. Happily, as a result of the change in the business rates, that is no longer a problem.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin) is right to suggest that the problem would return if a regional system of government were introduced. Such a regional government would then impose an extra tax—one of the so-called "advantages" of an extra tier of government—to do what it is difficult to imagine needs to be done. My hon. Friend is perfectly right—[Interruption.]

The laughter from Opposition Members shows their uneasiness about their devolution proposals. They know perfectly well that regional government is a cover-up, and that what they want is to give a degree of independence to Scotland and Wales, without losing the votes of Scottish and Welsh Members in this House. We know what the Opposition are about. They are as uneasy in general as the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford)—who sits with a permanent smile on his face—is uneasy in particular. I assure my hon. Friend that we shall certainly stand against regional government.

General stores have particular problems, and that is why we provided a mandatory reduction in rates. The non-domestic rates are a disproportionate burden of the costs on a small business, and the Bill will automatically halve the rates bills of the only general store and the only post office in a village. That will reduce the rates bills of some 6,000 shops by an average of £500 a year, and, as a result, will transfer from the rates bill to the profits of a small business a significant sum of money. Very often, that money will provide the difference between a company continuing and going out of business, and that is of great importance.

Can the measures be extended to include village pubs, many of which are extremely vulnerable—particularly in the rural areas that I represent—and can be isolated and under severe financial pressure?

As I explained to my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Sir J. Lester), there are two ways to help village pubs. One is to adopt the "use it or lose it" attitude, while the other is to accept that discretionary rate relief will be provided for village pubs in particular circumstance. My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow will be pleased to know that a pub that is the only available community facility in a village will be eligible in some circumstances to receive the discretionary rate relief of up to 50 per cent.

The discretionary power will help local authorities to give assistance where it is necessary. At the moment, the only way in which a local authority can reduce the rates bills of such businesses is if the ratepayer is able to prove hardship, which inevitably means that help goes only to those in particularly serious financial difficulties. One of the things we discovered during our discussions on the rural White Paper—both in advance of its publication and afterwards—was that many businesses could not be saved if they reached the point of having to seek hardship relief. We need to give businesses help before they reach that point, and the change in the discretionary arrangements makes that possible.

In recognition of the importance to the community of such businesses, we are seeking to allow local authorities to provide help in time. Instead of being a safety net, the measure will be a means of helping businesses to flourish. In all, we anticipate that the measure will help up to 30,000 businesses in England and Wales by reducing their rates bills by some £20 million. The full cost of the mandatory scheme will be met by the Exchequer, with some £3 million going to the 6,000 or so general stores and post offices, and 75 per cent. of the cost of discretionary relief will be met by the Exchequer, giving more than £12 million for other rural shops and businesses.

Therefore, for both the mandatory scheme and the discretionary scheme, the Treasury will pick up most of the bill, so that people in the locality will be able to make decisions on the discretionary scheme without concerns about the weight that might be placed on other local businesses. But the local authorities will have to make sufficient contribution to ensure that they are sensible and choose appropriate businesses for the necessary support.

Will the discretionary relief be available in cases in which the hardship has been caused by the councils themselves? For instance, both Lancashire borough council and Wyre borough council are imposing car parking charges and voucher schemes that are driving people out of towns such as Garstaing and Poulton-le-Fylde, which is causing hardship to local small business men and putting them out of business. People are driven to shop in out-of-town shopping centres and to support national chains rather than local shops.

My hon. Friend is right to point out that, although our proposals will be important to shops of all kinds in villages, other factors contribute to their ability to survive. One is the provision of proper car parking to enable people to use village shops in the way in which they use out-of-town shopping centres.

I know that the Labour party has made it clear to the newspapers that it would, were it ever elected, reverse the policy on out-of-town shopping centres, so I hope that Opposition Members will listen to my next point, which is important. One reason why it is important to get local authorities to support our plans is that, without proper parking, people—especially women with children, who constitute a high proportion of shoppers—find it impossible to bring their cars close to the shops.

Will the Secretary of State give way?

In one second.

The discretionary relief will not depend on hardship, and the shopkeeper will not have to prove hardship. That is an important change, which I am sure will be welcomed on both sides of the House.

rose—

I shall give way to the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel), because I promised to do so earlier.

Will the Secretary of State clarify a point about which businesses will come within the scope of the legislation? He has talked of businesses that are, in some senses, the centre of the local community. I fully understand that, and everyone appreciates their importance, but the Bill states that those businesses must be of benefit to the local community.

That provision could have a much wider scope, in that many local businesses may provide, for example, employment for the local community, and that could bring in many more businesses than the Secretary of State has so far identified. Will businesses be included if their benefit to the local community lies in providing employment?

The proposition is to deal with those businesses that provide the kind of services that are of benefit to the community, especially those members of it who are older, younger or less well-off, and for whom the motor car is not available. The scheme is designed to help the village shop that acts as a post office or general store. The discretionary part of the scheme will enable it to be extended to such businesses as garages or pubs.

Of course, the businesses must be in communities of fewer than 3,000 people, and must also be the only such business. It would be unfair to provide mandatory rate relief for a shop that was competing with another shop but was not doing as well because it was not as good as the other one.

rose—

On that point—

I give way to my hon. Friend.

I am most grateful—

I am sorry, but I had better give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Day).

Although I welcome the provisions of the Bill, I am disappointed that they do not apply to metropolitan districts. My right hon. Friend will appreciate that there are villages within those, and within the former metropolitan counties. That applies to my area. He has been to Cheadle and knows that, in Cheadle Hulme and Bramhall, village centres are struggling because of out-of-town shopping developments. I hope that he will not forget that traders in such areas need help, too.

My hon. Friend is right to point that out. My problem is that, when we propose measures such as those in the Bill, the immediate reaction of people who would stop one doing anything—I am afraid that there are still some of them around—is, "If you propose this, people will ask," as my hon. Friend has done, "why it does not extend to their area." The fact is that we must try to target the help as well as we can.

I hope that, if I am not interrupted too much more, I shall soon reach another part of the Bill that will please my hon. Friend. We hope both to be able to extend the powers to parish councils and to enable parish councils to be formed more easily than hitherto. There are many urban parish councils, and I should like to see more.

I enjoyed my visit to Cheadle, with its attractive village atmosphere. The traders seemed to be doing extremely well in building up their reputation and gaining adherents who had previously used out-of-town shopping centres beyond the area. I am sure that my hon. Friend's battles on their behalf are part of the reason for that success.

rose—

If I am to get anywhere near the end of my speech, I must make some progress. Then I shall certainly give way both to my hon. Friends and to some Opposition Members.

rose—

I shall not forget the hon. Gentleman. He is unforgettable, so I shall not miss him, and shall be happy to give way to him later.

The new discretionary powers mean that local authorities will be able to reduce or waive the rate bills of businesses before they get into financial difficulty. In case anyone is worried about the prospect, I stress that there will remain the right to do that on hardship grounds, as well as the ability to extend it. That is an important difference.

The Bill contains several other measures important for rural life. For example, it will end the anomaly whereby sporting rights—fowling, shooting, taking or killing game or rabbits, and fishing—are rated in England and Wales but not in Scotland. [Interruption.]

rose—

I am interested in the fact that the hon. Member for Camden—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman wants, I shall refer to him as the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), so that the whole world will know who I mean when I say that he giggles as soon as one mentions sporting rights.

For many of our constituents, those rights are the difference between having a business and not having a business. The fact that the hon. Gentleman laughs shows how little interest the Labour party has in rural England. He really should contain himself when we talk about that subject. He is now falling about with laughter, because he does not understand what it means in rural England when people manage—[interruption.]

Of course the hon. Gentleman would like me not to make this point, because it is so embarrassing for Labour candidates throughout the country to realise how little interest the Labour party has in rural England. I hope that his Back Benchers understand that, from the perspective of Holborn and St. Pancras, it is difficult to know about the very limited means on which people operate in the country. For those people, the measure will make a significant difference.

As a result of the measures to be introduced in the Bill, sporting rights in England and Wales will become exempt from rates, and their value will be disregarded in assessing the rateable value of the land over which they are exercised. In our rural White Paper, we made clear our support for country sports. We believe that they contribute significantly to the landscape and the economy of the countryside.

We also believe that decisions on country sports should be made by country people, not imposed from outside. Conservatives remain committed to that principle.

As the Secretary of State knows, I represent a large rural constituency, so I take a particular interest in the subject. The Bill says:

"Such an exemption already exists in Scotland."

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, that exemption came about under the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. In April 1994, while serving on the Standing Committee on that Bill, I raised the issue because it was of concern to my constituents.

The then Minister, the right hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro), who I see is with us today, said that the step was being taken to bring Scottish practice into line with that in England and Wales. That just does not make sense. Was I being misled by the right hon. Member for Dumfries? Should he apologise? What has gone wrong? This is very strange. Could the Minister explain?

The hon. Gentleman may rest assured that both England and Wales and Scotland will now be in the same position. The manner in which we have achieved this miraculous circumstance may lie in the mists of history—I think that we can manage to get by without being too precise about it. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro), who no doubt extended to the hon. Gentleman the full information that was available to him at the time, would now extend to him rather different information, that information being fuller.

The matter is not entirely humorous. If the Secretary of State is now telling the truth, it could not possibly have been told on 19 April 1994 in the First Scottish Standing Committee considering the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Bill, when virtually the sole justification for the change in law in Scotland was to bring it into line with the law in England. That turns out not be true, and, bizarrely, the Government are now saying that we have to bring the law in England into line with the law in Scotland. Either way, it is bunging money at their rich friends.

All those who live in the country will now know what the hon. Gentleman thinks about helping the countryside. He knows so little about it that he can make that comment. Any of us who represent country constituencies know perfectly well that the rights are owned not only by rich people but by all sorts of different people.

The last time that the hon. Gentleman went into the countryside must have been on a Sunday school outing, and he must have had his eyes closed at the time. He has a Milly Molly Mandy view of the countryside; he got it from children's books. It is about time he visited the countryside. I would be happy to take him. If he would like to come for the weekend, I shall spend a weekend with him. Greater love hath no man in offering to give up one of my weekends for the hon. Gentleman in order that he may understand—

Get on with the Bill.

Get on with it.

Of course Opposition Members want me to get on with it, because they do not like what the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) has said. The hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz), who is a great countryman and knows a great deal about the matter, wants me to get on with the Bill because he does not want the House to know that the official Labour party spokesman does not think that the measure is necessary.

indicated assent.

He does not; that is very good. I shall ensure that that is made very clear in my constituency, and that my Labour party opponent will have to say whether he takes the same view.

On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Would you advise the Secretary of State?

That is a point of frustration rather than a point of order. I was rather enjoying the exchange.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.

I ought to address the serious point made by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, for the following reason. If, in the course of previous discussions in this House, anyone has inadvertently said something that was other than exactly right, of course I and my right hon. Friend will look at the record and ensure that the House is made fully aware.

I am not introducing this measure merely because it brings England and Wales into line with Scotland: I am introducing it because I think that it is necessary for the health of the countryside. It is something that we have insisted would be valuable. It will not cost the taxpayer a great deal, but it will remove an enormous amount of frustration and some pretty difficult arrangements that have to be made in order to follow up matters. It will recognise—it seems—an important matter for the countryside.

I should like to clear up this minimal issue that the Opposition have raised. If they knew anything about sporting rating, they would know the difference between rating in Scotland, which was extremely high before we made the change, and the infinitesimal level in England. Naturally, we brought the Scottish level down to what it ought to be—which was nil. I am so glad that my right hon. Friend has made such a positive statement about country sports in the United Kingdom.

I thank my right hon. Friend, but I will ensure that any scintilla of difference is ironed out. I hope that the House has noticed that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras was more interested in trying to trip up my right hon. Friend for something that he may or may not have said some time ago than in welcoming an advantageous measure for the country community. We are faced with an Opposition who neither know about nor are interested in the environment, and we now know that they have the same attitude to the countryside.

rose—

I think that I ought to give way first to the hon. Member for Renfrew, West and Inverclyde (Mr. Graham), but I shall not forget the hon. Member for York (Mr. Bayley).

I am most grateful to the Secretary of State.

I represent an area with many rural communities, but I also travel the length and breadth of Scotland—I even have a holiday home in Scotland—and see many rural communities suffering because petrol stations are closed most of the time in the winter and businesses cannot compete.

I welcome a measure that will help those communities, but it has taken far too long for the Government to respond to the needs of rural villages. I am delighted that something is being done for Scotland, but how much will it cost local authorities? Will they need to employ people to discuss the discretionary rates; will there be more bureaucracy to deal with; will the Government simply allow everything to rumble on and cost us all a fortune; or will there be genuine help for local communities?

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support. However, he criticises the timing of a measure that his party has never even suggested; I have been under no pressure whatever from that quarter. One can see why, when the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras does not even know about the countryside. I sense anger from the Opposition Benches, perhaps because I am striking home.

On local authorities, even in the case of the discretionary grant, 75 per cent. will be paid for centrally from the Treasury, and the mandatory grant will be wholly centrally paid for. At this rate, I may never get to the part of my speech dealing with parish councils, but I hope that they will play a part in England and Wales in deciding on which occasions it would be sensible to have a discretionary grant; they will put their point of view to the district councils, which can then decide.

I shall now give way to the hon. Member for York, after which I must make some progress.

I am most grateful to the Secretary of State.

I want to raise an issue concerning shooting rights in Hagg wood in Dunnington, a village just outside my constituency, which is a wood that my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) knows extremely well, because he was born and grew up in the village and lived there much of his life; it is quite wrong for the Secretary of State to suggest that he does not understand rural life.

Hagg wood is owned by the Church Commissioners, but the Forestry Commission has a 999-year lease on it. For many years past, my constituents and residents in Dunnington have been able to walk and ride in the wood and to use it for recreation. Now, because the Forestry Commission is selling the land, the Church Commissioners feel that they can no longer extend open access, as they want to exploit the shooting rights. Instead of being able to ride in safety in a wood, children will have to ride on the roads, and people will no longer have access.

Has the Secretary of State considered the effect that this provision in the Bill will have in closing access to countryside and woodland to the general public, and will he ask the Secretary of State for Scotland to ask the Forestry Commission to delay the sale, so that the matter of shooting rights and access can be sorted out, and access can continue should the wood be sold?

Of course I shall be happy to talk to my right hon. Friend, but the provisions in the Bill make no difference to the circumstance to which the hon. Gentleman refers, because the shooting rights are there in any case; the question is whether rates are paid on them, and that is a matter that must be marginal to a decision of the Church Commissioners. However, the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, and I shall investigate the matter and ensure that my right hon. Friend does so, too.

The Bill has an important provision on Crown exemption, which will bring Crown property, such as the buildings of Government Departments, within the rating system. That is a very important change. I do not think that the Government should be protected against the normal effects of the cost of running a business. Such buildings are technically exempt from rates, although, since the late 19th century, the occupiers of Crown property have paid a contribution in lieu of rates. That is a different sort of contribution. It does not mean that they have the same reaction to the rating system as normal businesses. It is necessary that they should. The Bill ends that exemption.

The House recognises that parish councils come in all shapes and sizes. There are very small ones, such as Snape in my constituency, but the parish council of Felixstowe, which is called the town council, covers an area containing more than 20,000 people. It is a much different business from the village of Snape. Between them are towns of other sizes, such as Aldeburgh or Woodbridge, all of which have what are technically parish councils.

Many urban areas have parish councils. The question is how to provide for them to play a better part in the community. Many would like to do something more. I do not expect that to happen in Stone parish in the borough of Swale in Kent, because it has no population. That is one end of the scale. Parish councils with more than 20,000 people may want to do much more than they do now.

At present, such parish councils are significantly restricted. I am not seeking to give them duties that they must carry out but to offer them opportunities to choose to carry out things that they feel that they could do. For that reason, and because we found in the response to the rural White Paper that many parish councils want new powers, the idea is that the powers will be permissive. The powers will not be forced upon the parish councils; they will choose.

The powers will give additional opportunities in respect of five matters: first, to establish and support a car-sharing scheme; secondly, to pay revenue grants for a community or voluntary group running a bus for the benefit of elderly or disabled people; thirdly, to grant taxi fare concessions for people in the categories covered by local authority concessionary fare schemes; fourthly, to investigate transport needs and publicise public transport services; and fifthly, to fund traffic calming works to be carried out by the highways authorities.

Those five powers are necessary for many local parish councils to be able to things from which they are currently prohibited by law. I believe that the House will generally welcome that.

Can the Secretary of State explain why the Bill would allow parish councils, no matter how small, to raise a precept for extra public expenditure while his colleague the Secretary of State for Scotland is utterly opposed to a Scottish Parliament raising extra funds for its expenditure? Do not Cabinet members talk to each other?

The hon. Lady has totally different views. We are talking about local councils close to people, and about people who know the people who are running the council. They know perfectly well whether they are prepared to pay. The hon. Lady is putting forward a fictitious and fake proposition: that there should be a Parliament for Scotland that would raise money but would not contribute to the wealth or economic advancement of Scotland. It would drive people out of Scotland, because they would be much more likely to site their businesses where they did not have to pay the tartan tax.

The Opposition are attempting a sleight-of-hand by making sure that Scottish Members of Parliament are different from English Members of Parliament. Scottish Members, under the hon. Lady's proposals, would have votes on English matters in the House of Commons, whereas English Members would have no votes on Scottish matters. That is unacceptable to my constituents and to all English constituents.

What is more, the hon. Lady's ideas would take away from this country its enormous advantage in the world of being a United Kingdom, able to fight for its position collectively, not just in the European Union but in the councils of the world. The hon. Lady would not just damage Scotland; she would charge the Scots for the damage she does. Her policies are unpopular in the United Kingdom in any event.[Interruption.]

It is interesting to see how many Opposition Members feel uncomfortable about the devolution proposals, and to note how many Scottish Labour Members are beginning to worry about the extra taxation that would be involved. They know that taxes will be higher under a Labour Government anyway. The hon. Lady's constituents do not want her to be a half Member of Parliament, which is what she would be if her party came to power.

Some parish and community councils already do many of these things. However, parish spending on transport and crime prevention—matters of tremendous importance to many villages—is currently limited to £3.50 per elector—the sum that parishes can raise for general purpose spending. The new powers will give parishes the freedom to increase their precept beyond that limit to cover the costs of new community transport initiatives.

The same is true of crime prevention. Crime and the fear of crime are highly relevant to rural areas, just as they are to the inner cities. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) might like to listen to this, even though he does not represent a rural area. It would be nice to find him caring about rural issues, since the principal Opposition spokesman on these matters has clearly forgotten whatever youthful touch he may have had.

We have taken the opportunity here to give parish and community councils in England and Wales a new power to help the police and support local crime prevention efforts. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for North-West Durham (Ms Armstrong) has not been listening to what I am saying. We are increasing the £3.50 expenditure limit, so other parts of general spending are not excluded. The hon. Lady should listen and not talk so much. She continually tries to help out the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, because she, unlike him, has some rural interests.

The new provision will give parishes a new and separate statutory power to raise money so as to be able to help police authorities in their fight against crime. In so doing, parishes will be able to set conditions governing what their money is spent on, subject to the agreement of the chief police officer in the area concerned.

We have not been prescriptive. We want parishes to choose, but consultation will be important. I said at the beginning that one of the problems attending recent discussions of local government reorganisation was the number of promises made by larger councils to consult smaller ones. Some of those promises appear not to have been fulfilled. It is hard to see, for instance, how Lancashire county council has carried the promise through. But we have a list of the promises that have been made. I intend to insist that consultations continue. That is why, in the Bill, we are taking powers to enforce consultation between tiers of government when people refuse it.

In this context, planning is significant. Parish councils have an important part to play in planning. They can make recommendations to the district council, but it is, of course, for the district council to decide. The problem is that the latter usually does not tell the parish council why it has chosen to disregard its advice. If the district council has to explain its reasons, it is more likely that a consensus on planning matters will emerge. I know that the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) would agree with me here, and I also see the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) nodding in agreement.

All the measures that my right hon. Friend has spoken about so far give the lie to all those who rather sniffily said that there would be no flesh on or money devoted to the White Paper on rural areas.

On the specific powers of parish councils, could he be more positive about the ability of those parishes that raise extra money for a special parish constable to employ that person in their area, such as Exmoor in my constituency, instead of him being hived off to Bristol? Secondly, on planning powers, and going back to our discussion about garages and village shops, will parishes have the power to stop garages opening up as a shop as well, which would then compete with and possibly have a destructive effect on the village shop, as recently happened at Wheddon Cross in my constituency?

The second part of my hon. Friend's question does not relate so much to the village garage, but to chains of garages which are increasingly seeking to offer retail provisions as well as to sell petrol. I am watching that pattern carefully. I do not think, however, that it is a matter for parish councils.

Oh!

It is about time the hon. Gentleman came clean with the House. He appears to be going round the country giving comfort to various large retailers by saying that, if there were a Labour Government, there would be no problems about restrictions on out-of-town shopping centres. That is widely reported, and it does not appear to be as widely denied. That is interesting.

Wait and see.

I do not have to wait, because those circumstances will not arise. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I shall not change my views after the election, when I shall continue to be in a position to make sure that such developments do not happen.

As for the other question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson), the contract for the parish constable will be a local one. A parish constable is different from a special constable, who is at the beck and call of the chief constable. In my area, that special constable often finds himself policing the Ipswich Town football match at Portman road rather than patrolling the small village that he had hoped to look after.

That local contract will enable someone to opt for the real village policing that we are particularly keen to support. The envisaged arrangements make it possible for that to happen.

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

I must get on—

Just for half a minute.

Order.

I rather think that you, Madam Speaker, would wish me to draw my remarks to a conclusion soon.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett Bowman) and I are as one on the issues. I want to make progress, because the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras has spent a lot of time asking me to get on because I have said some rather uncomfortable things about him, which I notice he has not so far denied.

There are some real problems about parish councils, because at the moment they cannot easily be formed.

Whose fault is that?

Many people would like to have a parish, but the system is arcane and out of date. Although there are already 10,000 parishes in England, of which 8,000 have parish councils, there are areas without parishes where local feelings strongly favour the creation of a parish council to reflect the clear local identity and sense of community. That is natural where a community is well established and settled. The hon. Member for North-West Durham (Ms Armstrong) might listen to what I intend to do to help to make that possible.

Demographic changes over the decades mean that some existing parishes no longer properly reflect the shape of the local community or local identities. Such areas want not a new parish but a different, specific area to be included in that parish. We therefore want a flexible system to deal with parish reviews.

Under the current system, even the smallest amendment to a parish area requires the full weight of the Local Government Commission's consideration. Here I might find common cause with the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, because that commission is perhaps not always the organisation to which so small a matter should be referred. We have included provisions in the Bill to make it much easier to react to local demand for new parishes and alterations to existing ones.

The Bill enables district councils to review parish arrangements and to recommend new parishes or parish boundary changes directly to the Secretary of State. In addition, electors will be able to start a process leading to a new parish for an unparished area by means of a public petition. We must, of course, be sure that such a petition represents broad measure of support for a new parish. Under the terms of the Bill, as long as a petition is signed by 250 people, or 10 per cent. of the electors for the proposed parish, whichever is the greater, that will set the ball rolling.

There is also provision in the Bill to enable me to direct the Local Government Commission to conduct a review of parishing arrangements only. At present, I cannot do that, and such a review has to be part of a much bigger exercise. We shall shortly issue draft guidance for consultation to explain what the basis for a new parish should be.

The measures in the Bill will mean that it will be far easier to respond to local opinion where there is demand for a new parish or changes to existing arrangements. The Bill enables us to direct help to the very parts of the rural world where help is most needed.

In the preparation of the rural White Paper, which has been widely welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House, we consulted widely. Since its publication, an enormous number of meetings have taken place all over the United Kingdom to discuss those issues, with the result that we now know even more about people's concerns. I recently published the first anniversary report to set out what we had done to fulfil our promises in the rural White Paper. Part of that report refers to the Bill.

The Bill makes sure that we can help the rural post office, village shop, garage or local pub. It enables us to give parish councils greater powers, and makes sure that those who are dependent on the life and the livelihood of country sports will not find themselves rated. It ensures that parish councils can be set up because people want them, and not after an enormously complicated and arcane process. Above all, it is designed to ensure that the parish council plays a much more important role in British society than it has until now.

I believe in subsidiarity—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—but I notice that most people think that subsidiarity is all right when it means taking power from people on a superior rung of the system, but they are not terribly good at pushing the power down to people on lower rungs. I notice that district councils are keen to take county council or Government powers, but less eager to hand them on to school governors, hospital trusts or, indeed, parish councils. The Bill is designed to ensure that parish councils play a more important role in our lives. That is right, and I commend the Bill to the House.

4.31 pm

The Bill covers mainly local government and rating in rural areas, as the Secretary of State has been at infinite pains to point out. It was introduced to put right things that are wrong in rural areas, and there are certainly many things that need to be put right. Over the past 17 years, little attention has been paid to the problems faced by people living in rural areas. Many of those problems have got much worse, some are getting worse and some are a direct result of Government policies.

Just look at the record. Crime has more than doubled in rural areas. Unemployment has risen more sharply in rural areas than elsewhere. Homelessness has doubled in rural England and rural Wales; in rural Scotland, it has trebled—yet still the Government stop councils building houses. Deregulation has deprived hundreds of villages of any bus service at all. Village schools have disappeared because the Government forced local education authorities to get rid of surplus places. Small local hospitals and cottage hospitals have been swept away and village shops have closed.

The Local Government and Rating Bill is a belated recognition that those things have gone wrong. It has been described by some as a confession of failure, because it highlights the Government's failures. If the Bill is a confession, it is a signed confession. It carries the names of the guilty on the back page: the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Home Secretary, the Secretary of State for the Environment, the Secretary of State for Transport, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Secretary of State for Wales have all had to sign the confession. For some curious reason, however, this Bill dealing with rural areas does not carry the name of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It has been suggested by one of my less pleasant hon. Friends that another confession of failure on his part would probably be the final straw.

If the Secretary of State does not like my calling his Bill a confession of failure, it might be more pleasing to his ecclesiastical habit of mind if I were to call it a deathbed conversion. The Government have been in power for 910 weeks and now, with a maximum of 26 weeks to go before the election, they have seen the light, recognised the harm that they are doing to our green and pleasant land and, belatedly, started to put things right.

The Bill is both a confession of failure and a deathbed conversion, but I believe that it is intended to be something different—an attempted plea bargain by the Government. They hope that, if they plead guilty and promise to start making restitution, voters in rural areas will not punish them at the general election. Apparently, the Conservatives intend to fight the next election on the slogan "Better late than never".

This belated Bill will not save the Tory party from the consequences of action and inaction, which have left rural communities in their present state. The Bill provides much too little, far too late. It does not relate to many of the problems that afflict local communities. Its proposals will not be enough to solve the problems to which it relates, and it will force local people to pay for most of the improvements that it intends to make.

In the Bill, the Government are not making restitution for what has gone wrong. The Bill proposes to change the law so that the victims of the Government's rural policies will be permitted to spend their own money, to put right the things that the Government have got wrong. The Government are telling local communities, "If you have a problem, put it on the parish rate."

For 17 years, the Conservatives have said that market forces can solve everything and have claimed to be the low-taxation party, but in the Bill they acknowledge that market forces cannot meet all the needs of rural communities, and propose instead a new local tax that local people must pay for putting things right in their area. It is the Government's 23rd new tax since the previous general election.

The Bill provides that, through parish councils, local people can, at their own expense, promote crime prevention and local transport services. We favour the idea of local communities being able to take such initiatives, but we need to consider the scale of what is proposed against the scale of the problems.

A tidal wave of crime has engulfed many rural areas in the past few years. Places where local people were proud to be able to leave doors unlocked, or even open, are increasingly besieged by thieves. Villages are robbed and burgled. Organised gangs knock off huge truckloads of livestock, chicken's eggs, or—as will happen in a month or two—Christmas trees.

In rural areas, the increases in crime are enormous. In Gloucestershire, crime has more than trebled, with violent crime up by 260 per cent.

Has it not occurred to the hon. Gentleman that much of the crime that he alleges occurs in rural areas is displaced crime from the urban areas that he represents?

It is a fair stride for a knock-off merchant in Kentish Town to get to Gloucestershire to do a robbery, but it may happen. I am saying—the hon. Gentleman makes my point entirely—that what the Government propose today will not stop the long-distance professional criminal. We need a national crackdown on such people. The problem cannot be solved locally.

In Shropshire and in Hereford and Worcester, crime has more than doubled. In Lincolnshire, it has increased by 170 per cent. In Leicestershire, crime has trebled and violent crime has quadrupled. In Cambridgeshire, represented by the Prime Minister and the chairman of the Tory party, violent crimes have doubled, but I do not blame them for all of them.

Those are the official figures. They do not give the full picture.

Will the hon. Gentleman explain to the House why the Labour party has voted consistently against every crime measure presented by the Government? Why has the Labour party always been soft on the criminal and hard on the victim? Why will it not change its views?

I shall treat the Secretary of State's intervention with the contempt that it deserves. What he said is simply not true, and it is no good him burbling on about it.

The reality is: drug squads in every police force in rural areas, lager louts in many a country town and old people's lives dominated by crime and the fear of crime. Hon. Members who represent rural seats know that what I say is true.

Although rural communities should be given the power to protect themselves, that alone will not solve the problem. We need a nationwide drive against crime, a nationwide—indeed, international—drive against drugs and a commitment to tackle the causes of crime. Labour is committed to those policies.

The Bill will empower parish councils to promote local transport. That is to be welcomed. It follows the example set all over the country by Labour councils that have used their powers to improve bus and train services—for example, the initiative taken by Lancashire county council and district councils in the county, in conjunction with parish councils, to improve local railway services and stations, so encouraging more people to use the local railway service. That initiative was ritually denounced by the Secretary of State a few minutes ago.

Is it not possible that a problem could arise if parish councils were allowed to raise more in their precepts? If district and county councils that already provided services such as those that my hon. Friend describes were capped and strapped for cash, they could say to the parish councils, "You can raise the brass; get on and do it," and the service might deteriorate, rather than improve.

Nothing in this world is all gain: there are advantages and disadvantages. Unless great care is taken, the situation described by my hon. Friend might arise.

The Government now recognise that a local effort is necessary, but it is a struggle in the face of the Government's overall transport policies, and above all their policy of bus deregulation. Clauses 26 to 30 have had to be introduced to give the parishes powers to offset the harmful impact of bus deregulation. The Government are giving with one hand the power to deal with the lack of the service that they have taken away with the other.

As a result of bus deregulation, the number of passengers going by bus in shire counties has fallen by 20 per cent. Less than one third of rural parishes have any bus service at all, and many others have no bus service after dark. Yet people in villages have to travel much further for vital services than people who live in towns. Fewer than one in five villages have a permanent GP, half do not have a school, fewer than half have a shop and one third do not even have a pub.

The measures proposed by the Government will help, but much more is needed, starting with the reregulation of the buses, as Labour proposes. In exchange for the right to run services on the most popular routes at the most popular times of day, bus companies will be required to run buses on less popular routes at less popular times of day. That is how the system worked before, when there were many more bus services than there are now.

Housing is one rural problem that is not addressed at all in the Bill. The sale of council houses and the failure to build more to replace them has contributed to the record levels of homelessness in rural areas. Many young people have had to leave the village where they grew up, in order to find somewhere decent to live. It is often forgotten that, when the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), now the Deputy Prime Minister, introduced the sale of council houses, it was intended that the takings should be used to build more. Except for one short lucid spell, that has not happened. Recently Ministers have taken to denouncing the whole idea; I do not know whether they have cleared that with the Deputy Prime Minister.

Labour will encourage councils to invest the takings from the sale of council houses to build new houses and rehabilitate old ones. That will be phased to give councils and the building industry the benefit of steady expansion. Such a programme offers real hope to many people, especially young people in rural areas, that they will be able to afford somewhere decent to live in the village where they grew up. That is vital to local communities so that they do not become devoid of young people, and to ensure that there are people to provide vital services such as the post and the milk round.

Will the hon. Gentleman give a guarantee that the same amount of money for spending on capital matters would be provided at the same time, or would the spending of capital receipts replace that?

Furthermore, will he give a guarantee that only the capital receipts held by the authority concerned would be spent, and that no capital receipts would be transferred to other, less careful authorities?

We intend that the capital receipts from the sale of council houses should be released in phases to enable councils to get on with building houses. We have no intention of compulsorily transferring any such assets from one council to another, which we must have said a dozen tunes. I think that the Secretary of State is losing his marbles.

Will the hon. Gentleman be kind enough to answer the other question? Would the same amount be given to local authorities for spending on capital matters, and what is the difference between the phased release that the hon. Gentleman talks about and the fact that local authorities are already, in most cases, able to spend much of their capital receipts on enabling housing associations to build houses?

Again, the Secretary of State is in danger of misleading the House. There are severe restrictions on what councils can do with the takings from the right to buy, whether in relation to housing associations or not. What I am saying—I have said it before and I shall say it again—is that we shall release the takings from the right to buy. That proposal is welcomed by every housing association and by everybody committed to providing housing. The only person who apparently cannot understand it is the Secretary of State. As he cannot understand it after I have explained it to him twice, I do not propose to give him a third opportunity.

I asked the hon. Gentleman a direct question. Will he guarantee that, alongside his proposal, the money provided for councils by the Government for capital expenditure will not be reduced?

The object is to increase the amount of housing being built. These questions are from a man who sits in a Cabinet that will not even guarantee money next year for any hospital in the country, yet he is asking me to dish out guarantees. What I am saying—I shall repeat it yet again, in case the Secretary of State still fails to understand—is that, as a result of our policies, there will be more money for the house-building programme. We have made that clear, and that is why even Tory building companies welcome the proposition.

Following the hon. Gentleman's earlier remark, will there be more money for buses? He told us that there would be a new system of bus regulation, which would require bus operators to operate services other than those they operate at present. Presumably that means more financial support and a return to the old transport commissioners. Can the hon. Gentleman tell us more about that?

That does not follow at all. With bus deregulation and, in some cases, privatisation, we have seen a massive increase of semi-private monopolies all over the country. They are rolling in money, and, under the regulatory system, they will be expected to provide services on the less popular routes at less popular times of day in exchange for the right to operate at popular times of day on the popular routes. They will not get subsidies to help them.

I give one example of a dire housing situation. In the Forest of Dean, the number of applications for housing by homeless families has almost doubled in three years, from 185 in the whole of 1993–94 to 164 in the first six months of this year. The council expects a further escalation in youth homelessness as a result of the lack of new house building and the changes in social security rules. The young single homeless project run by Gloucestershire county council and Shelter is also threatened by the change in housing benefit regulations. Last year, the project dealt with more than 200 young people in the Forest of Dean. Having nowhere to live leaves those young people especially vulnerable to drug pushers and other criminals, whose presence in the Forest of Dean has been growing.

Most disturbing of all are recent reports that some of the drug barons have been buying up houses which they then let to young homeless people, a move calculated to entrap the young people, to increase the evil profits of the drug pushers and to terrify local families and the local police. All that is happening in Gloucestershire, which has already seen the biggest rise in crime in any part of England—a rise that the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill), who has now left the Chamber, attributed to outsiders. The provisions in the Bill that will allow parish councils to put some of their own money into crime prevention are welcome, but they will not counter developments such as those that I have described in the Forest of Dean.

The proposal in the Bill that has attracted the most attention is rate relief for village shops and other village businesses. It is certainly true that local shops have taken a pounding under the Government, who, until recently, actively promoted out-of-town shopping developments, which undermined village shops as well as high street shopping centres. When they changed their policy, vve welcomed their belated recognition of the damage that the planning policy was inflicting on existing retailers, both rural and urban.

We welcome the Government's adoption of a policy based on a presumption against such developments. We continue to believe that town centres should be the preferred location for major retail developments, although we recognise that some out-of-town developments may be justified in particular local circumstances. If the Secretary of State wants to rely on rumours and lies in the papers instead of on what I have just said, that is entirely up to him.

Although help for rural shops is welcome, it should not be overestimated. By the Government's calculation, the saving from the mandatory rate reduction will average f500 a shop. When the shop is rented, it is not clear front the Bill whether that saving will go to the shopkeeper: it may go to the landlord, who is not required to pass it on. As drafted, the Bill leaves many questions about definitions unanswered. The concession is for rural settlements, but what is a rural settlement? Will the concession apply to rural settlements in a city, metropolitan or unitary district? There are many sensible definitions of a rural settlement.

Why have local pharmacies not been singled out to receive the concession, as recommended by the Select Committee on the Environment? I raise that point because of the new threat to local pharmacies: the proposed abolition of resale price maintenance on non-prescription medicines. That has raised fears all over the country that local chemists will be forced to close, reducing the service available to people living in small towns and villages. For example, in Colne valley hundreds of people signed petitions about the threat to pharmacies in Linthwaite, Slaithwaite, Milnesbridge and Golcar. The Bill does not address the new threat to local services.

The proposal to help local shops raises a matter of principle. Why does the concession apply only to villages? Why does it not apply to other areas where there are one or two shops that can hardly make ends meet? There are plenty of large estates, both council and private, on the edge of towns whose residents will feel that they equally deserve such financial support. Some such shops may be even more badly placed than village shops because of high insurance and security costs, on top of the fact that many of their customers are out of work or on low incomes.

Shops on the Matson estate on the edge of Gloucester have closed. The situation is so bad that a small shop selling basic groceries has had to be provided in the voluntary neighbourhood centre. That centre pays no rates except on the shop premises. People living on that and similar estates will want to know why the concession does not apply to their local shops.

Another example is the Lumbertubs estate on the edge of Northampton, where the general store is threatened with closure. If it closes, residents without their own transport will be isolated. On top of the usual problems, that shop has been repeatedly broken into. Local people want closed circuit television in such areas, because they have seen its benefits in the town centre. CCTV was pioneered by Northampton borough council without Government help, and still nothing is forthcoming.

The Bill proposes a number of sensible changes to help and expedite the setting up of parish councils: indeed, it returns the law to what it was before the Government made a mess of it by changing it. It increases the entitlement of parish councils to be involved in the decision-making processes of their district and county councils. The Secretary of State again referred scathingly to Lancashire county. When I last met representatives of parish councils in Lancashire, they had no word of criticism of the county council about consultation.

All those developments are a welcome acceptance by the Government of the merits of the policies that we have advocated for a long time. Unfortunately, the sensible aspects are marred by what appears at first sight to be the highly prescriptive nature of the Government's proposals, which look as if they will require the Secretary of State literally to lay down the law to individual parish councils. It seems that the Government cannot break the habits of a lifetime. Fortunately, however, that lifetime is rapidly drawing to a close.

Planning is a major responsibility of local government, and it should have been included in the Bill. Opencast mining is a major planning aspect, and it should have been dealt with in the Bill—but that has not happened. It is the rural blight that the Tories always forget. It has not been dealt with in the Bill; it was not mentioned in last month's White Paper on rural England; and it was not mentioned last year in the Government's rural White Paper. Opencast mining is the biggest, ugliest and most environmentally damaging activity in rural England, but the Tories dare not even speak its name.

Opencast mining is ugly, noisy, unhealthy, dangerous and dirty. It threatens rural communities in Gloucestershire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Yorkshire, Northumberland, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire. The Government do nothing and say nothing about it, because they have encouraged it and sold off the rights to private companies that are willing to destroy thousands of acres of countryside for short-term gain.

I shall give one or two examples of the problems faced by people in rural areas. In west Yorkshire, RJB Mining is the owner of most of the 660-acre Windsor site, which straddles the boundaries of Dewsbury, Batley and Spen, Normanton and Morley. It includes woods and watercourses, and it is criss-crossed by rights of way. It is a green lung for the surrounding communities, but it is now under threat.

In Derbyshire, RJB has just emerged as the buyer of an even larger site—the Shilo North site—which extends around Amber valley, Ashfield, Broxtowe and Erewash. In a joint effort with local people, the Labour-controlled Amber Valley and Broxtowe councils—supported by Tory Members of Parliament for the area, who are both Treasury Ministers—tried to buy the site, but they were outbid by RJB. It is another example of Tory profiteering getting the better of local people's interests.

Labour intends to change the rules so that opencast mining will be permitted only where it benefits the local community and environment. We also believe that the law should be changed to protect communities from repeated applications for the same or similar opencast developments. The Bill could have done that, but it does not.

I shall give an example of what is so upsetting for local people. In north-west Leicestershire, in 1993, an application to opencast a 500-acre site was rejected. At that time, the site was called Coalfield West. Now, the villages of Heather, Normanton-le-Heath and Ravenstone are beset by another application to opencast the same site—only this time, it is called Thorntree. As far as the local people are concerned, enough is enough. They want no to mean no. They want the law to be changed, and so do we.

What about the problems that people face when they are ill in rural areas? Their problems are mainly connected with transport, which parishes may wish to try to deal with under the new powers set out in the Bill. The national health service, whose anniversary was yesterday, was founded on the principle that the best health services should be available to all, wherever people live or whatever their circumstances. But that is not so in many rural areas. There, the groups most in need of health care—children, women of childbearing age and people who are poor, disabled or old—have the least access to the NHS. Instead, rural health care is most readily available to the best-off and healthiest people. That cannot be the right priority.

People living in rural areas need treatment even if they do not have enough sick relatives and neighbours nearby to attract a doctor to set up in their village. Similarly, they may need a hospital or an ambulance even if they, their family and their neighbours will not use either as intensively as the residents of a more densely populated suburb or town. They will still need a hospital and an ambulance service.

Unfortunately, most of the changes in the NHS have made matters worse. Countless local hospitals have been closed or have seen the number of beds reduced in the NHS's mad dash for centralisation. Leicestershire presents a good example, because it has experienced the closure or partial closure of Markfield hospital, Zachary Merton home, Ellen Towle home and Groby Road hospital, while services have been concentrated in the city of Leicester.

What about the problem of schools in rural areas? That, too, is very much a question of distance and transport. Hundreds of village primary schools have gone, as local education authorities have been forced to respond to Government and Audit Commission pressure to reduce the number of places. Village schools make a vital contribution to village life. The Government could have included some help in the Bill, but they have not. Instead, they are proposing to make matters worse.

As the Secretary of State for Education and Employment said, where there is only one school, there is no choice. That is true in many rural areas. In many sparsely populated areas, not only is there only one primary school, but only one or, at most, two secondary schools are within reach, usually in or near the local market town. They are usually genuinely comprehensive, taking in pupils of a full range of abilities. They are successful comprehensives, but what would happen if the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Education and Employment got their way and tried to set up a grammar school in every town? That would foul up the whole system—and I am not the only one to say that.

To his credit, the right hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling), who is in his place and knows that I am about to mention what he said, told the House about the two comprehensive schools in Kendal—

"one the old grammar school and the other the former secondary modern school, whose A-level examination results last year showed them to be the 14th best state school in the country and the best comprehensive school in the country."

He then advised the Secretary of State to

"remember the old adage: 'if it works, don't start trying to fix it' ."—[Official Report, 25 June 1996; Vol. 280, c. 162.]

Sadly, many other schools will soon be at risk from the "Gill'll fix it" brigade.

It is not just a matter of Government policies having made country living more difficult in the past. They are still at it, and their most recent policies are likely to prove just as harmful.

Parish councils have powers to protect rights of way and to promote their use by signposting and other means. Unfortunately, neither they nor highway authorities have the power to do anything to counter what is happening to footpaths through woodlands, as a result of the Government forcing the Forestry Commission to sell off individual stretches of woodland.

Figures produced in response to parliamentary questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Mr. Tipping), the vice-president of the Ramblers Association, and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms Ruddock) show that, until April this year, 92 per cent. of those woodlands had been sold without any agreement to retain public access. Of 81 woodlands up for sale in June, only 14 had agreements to safeguard public access.

The Government do not understand the depth of feeling on the subject. Privatisation is restricting ancient rights and customs, producing large gains for the privileged few and a loss of amenity for everyone else. New landlords are telling people that they can no longer go where they have wandered unhindered for generations. I know exactly how they feel.

As my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Bayley) said, the Forestry Commission is to sell off Hagg wood in Dunningham, the village where I was born and grew up, and which I still frequently visit. I have walked over every part of that 100-acre wood since I first went there on my father's shoulders with my grandfather. Later, I went there with my brother and my friends, and in due course I took my own children there, so four generations of my family—and others in the village—have roamed all over the wood. Now, as a result of Government policy, access is to be restricted, partly as a result of the actions of the Forestry Commission and partly by the Church Commissioners, who own the shooting rights. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "church militant".

That is happening all over the country. The rights of access to woodlands should be extended, not restricted, and the Bill could have made the necessary changes, but it does not. We shall be tabling amendments to that effect.

Is my hon. Friend aware that, according to the Register of Members' Interests, the Secretary of State for the Environment used to be an adviser on legal and parliamentary affairs to the Country Landowners Association? Does my hon. Friend agree that the Secretary of State might have made a mistake about the role to take when the Bill was drafted, by proposing a significant tax exemption for landowners on their country estates?

I have made it a general principle that, although the Secretary of State usually devotes about 10 minutes of every speech to personal attacks on me, I do not indulge in personal attacks on him.

Many people remain concerned about other treasured aspects of the rural landscape, including hedgerows. After 17 years of promising protection for hedgerows, the Government are at long last consulting on draft regulations. They spent 17 years drifting before they could start drafting. In the meantime, more than 200,000 km of hedgerows have been rooted out. At the present rate of loss, every existing hedgerow will be gone within 20 years.

Existing measures to protect other landscape features are all too frequently overridden. The privatisation and break-up of the power industry has resulted in an increase in power lines that otherwise would not have occurred. The much contested proposal to build a duplicate line of pylons down the vale of York is just one example.

Although they have done nothing about those matters, the Government have found time and space to include one extraordinary measure in the Bill: the proposal to do away with the business rate on shooting and fishing rights, which have been subject to rates for more than 100 years because they are a valuable asset. That rating is now to be abolished, at a cost of about £5 million. The Government have introduced 22 new taxes on everyone else, but they have now decided to bung £5 million to their friends at the top end of the shooting and fishing market.

I challenge the Government to say whether the concession will benefit ordinary anglers or shooters. Are they really claiming that a fishing licence will cost less? It is a racket. The £5 million concession will bring most benefit to the wealthiest and least benefit to the poorest, so it is a good example of Tory priorities.

The Government have tried to explain that away by saying that the Bill brings England and Wales into line with Scotland, but when they proposed abolishing the tax in Scotland, they said that it was to bring Scotland into line with England and Wales. It is a tax concession for the landed gentry, a backhander for the best-off.

The Government claim that the field sports industry is worth £2,700 million a year. A £2,700 million industry does not need £5 million a year. The measure is intended to help not the industry but a limited number of toffs.

The concession is designed to please the House of Lords. It could be a pay-off to the hereditary peers who turned up to support the Government changing the law to make it more likely that homeless people would have to live in cardboard boxes. They are the stately hypocrites of England.

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the business of sporting rights works both ways? For example, if the owner of Hagg wood let that wood to the Forestry Commission, but did not wish to exercise his shooting rights, he would still have to pay the rates on it. Those who have land that they let and who, for various reasons, do not wish to exercise their sporting rights—of whom there are many—will also be better off under the proposal.

The hon. Gentleman raises two issues. First, it is not clear whether the Church Commissioners pay business rates, although the right hon. Member representing the Church Commissioners, who also represents Hagg wood, might be able to enlighten us.

I do not know whether to catch the hon. Gentleman's eye to respond to some of the points that he raised, or yours, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope that, in due course, I shall successfully catch someone's eye and nail many of the misrepresentations and false points that the hon. Gentleman has made.

Order. If the right hon. Gentleman seeks to intervene, that must be a matter for the hon. Gentleman who has the Floor. If he seeks to catch my eye during the debate, I shall of course bear it in mind.

I am perfectly willing to give way to the right hon. Gentleman, but perhaps it would be better if I dealt with the points raised by the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson).

The fact that somebody pays a tax does not make it a terrible burden. When the tax was abolished in Scotland, my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) spoke against its abolition, pointing out that he was probably the only person in the Chamber who actually paid it, because as a big landowner he had shooting rights on which he paid £100 in tax. As he pointed out, someone with so much property will usually be sufficiently well off not to have to go cringing to the Secretary of State and ask to be let off at the expense of others.

It is marginal and hardly worth collecting.

The Secretary of State told my hon. Friend the Member for York that it would be entirely marginal, but apparently it is so marginal that we can ignore it if we are making that argument, yet the Secretary of State is also trying to tell us that it is crucial to the future of the field sports industry. The Government will have to make up their mind.

I have a great deal of respect for the right hon. Member for Selby (Mr. Alison), but I must tell him that, to the best of my knowledge, I have said nothing about Hagg wood but the truth. I take great care with what I say. Until now, people have been able to use the wood without let or hindrance, going where they like. Even a combination of the Church Commissioners and the Forestry Commission cannot do away with certain rights of way through the wood. However, we have been told that, if the wood is sold, as part of the transaction the Church Commissioners will refuse to allow people the access that they have had before. They will be confined to the rights of way. That greatly diminishes the amenity.

All the hereditary owners of grouse moors and fishing rights will get a tax cut, but there are other sports in this country. Sports clubs that serve hundreds of thousands of less well-connected communities will still have to pay their rates. If the Government are interested in sport, why not pass a measure for all sporting industries rather than just one? It is a measure for the privileged few, with no money for anybody else.

At the very least, the concession should have been made available only to owners who intended to permit genuine public access to the land. If the Government do not support amendments that we shall table to secure such access, they will confirm that they remain the party of the privileged. The Prime Minister may want to go back to the old grouse moor image, although I think that he will have his work cut out.

While the Government have been in power, there has been a big increase in unemployment in rural areas. Many of those working there are badly paid. But for the opposition of the agricultural workers section of the Transport and General Workers Union, ably assisted by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang), even more people in rural areas might have been receiving low wages, because the Government wanted to get rid of the agricultural wages board. They eventually gave up when they finally had to concede that the farmers did not want rid of the board.

No current debate on rural areas can avoid a mention of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which has been extremely damaging. It is probably the biggest catastrophe to hit rural Britain this century—there are only three years left in the century. The Government's handling of the issue has been inept from start to finish. They have lurched from complacency to panic, gone back to complacency and then panicked again. They are still nowhere near resolving the issue. Their crass ineptitude has made life well nigh impossible for farmers and others working in rural-based industries. The Government's handling of the beef crisis has made them the toast of the vegetarian movement.

Despite that, the Secretary of State attempts to portray the Tory party as the party of rural England. He gets upset when Labour Members refer to rural affairs. He is out of date and out of touch. These days, the Labour party represents communities in every part of England, from the centres of the largest cities to the smallest hamlets, through suburbs, market towns and villages. Rural England is not a no-go area for Labour. Throughout England, many predominantly rural areas have elected Labour representatives to parish, district and county councils, to the Westminster Parliament and to the European Parliament. That is one good reason why our policies include practical answers to the day-to-day problems faced by communities throughout rural Britain.

The leader of the Labour party represents Sedgefield— a mainly rural constituency in the north of England. His predecessor, John Smith, grew up in rural Scotland. His predecessor, Neil Kinnock, grew up in and represented a fairly rural part of Wales. There is nothing recent or strange about Labour's commitment to rural areas.

Labour covers the whole country, and our policies, including those on local government and rating, address the problems of the whole country. That must be right, because on planning policy, housing policy, environment policy or rating policy, we cannot separate what happens in towns from what happens in the country. They affect one another and they always will.

Consider the way in which the decline of market towns harms their residents and those from miles around. Leek, in Staffordshire—known as the Queen of the Moorlands—ought to be a prosperous market town, but it is a shadow of its former self. It had its own county court 20 years ago, but it has lost that, along with its Crown post office and its jobcentre. Its tax and benefits office is under threat for the second time. Magistrates courts in Biddulph and Kidsgrove have closed recently, and it is feared that Leek magistrates court will follow suit. Banks are withdrawing from the town, and more and more local people are forced to travel elsewhere for work. The cattle market has been badly hit by the BSE crisis. That is just one of the market towns in trouble under the Tories.

Town and country depend on one another. Their relationship is symbiotic—they live off one another to their mutual advantage. However, the countryside exists not just to serve the needs of towns and townspeople. It is also the place where local people live, die, work, play and have their being.

I am interested in the hon. Gentleman's comments about Leek, because I know the area well, representing a neighbouring constituency. Would he care to contrast the situation in Leek, which is under the Labour-controlled Staffordshire Moorlands council, with that of the neighbouring borough of Macclesfield—a booming market town with a Conservative council?

There are some substantial differences between the two places, including a considerable difference in population. One of those towns has the advantage of being on the west coast main line. That would be a greater advantage if the Government had not allowed the line to run down.

In the first speech that I made as shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, I spelled out the importance to us all of having a sense of place, personal loyalty and concern. People have that sense of place in the Yorkshire village where I was born and lived for the first 19 years of my life. They have it equally in Holborn, Camden Town and Kentish Town—the areas that I represent in Parliament. In government, we want to draw on that sense of place and local loyalty, that personal commitment of individuals and communities, so that we can work in partnership to make the whole country, urban and rural, more prosperous, safe, clean and healthy and make each part of our country more desirable.

To the extent that most of the Bill is a limited move in the right direction, we give it a critical welcome. We shall seek to improve it in Committee. The most necessary changes must await Labour's victory in the coming general election.

5.17 pm

The Bill offers real, positive help to rural communities. It was a pity that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) spent so little time talking about its main purpose, which is to help village shops, and so much time airing his prejudices against those whom he described as "toffs"—a term which shows his lack of understanding of those who live in the countryside—and his prejudices against country sports. However, it is probably better to gloss over the barrage of inaccuracies from the hon. Gentleman and return to the Bill, which is a practical and helpful measure. It may well be possible to improve it in Committee, but it is a good Bill and I warmly welcome it.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred to the parish of Stone, near Faversham, in my constituency. Alas, the boundary commission is removing that parish, for the extraordinary reason that nobody lives there. There is a fine Romano-British Christian church surrounded by a burial ground, but alas, we cannot consult those people. Nevertheless, some of us do not want the parish to be removed.

With regard to parishes without populations, my hon. Friend may be aware that Dallinghoo in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State contained a parish called Dallinghoo Weald, which I represented as a county councillor many years ago, but I am sad to say that my right hon. Friend encouraged its amalgamation and so we lost another such parish.

rose—

For the record, I fought hard against the abolition of Dallinghoo Weald and of Havergate island, but I am afraid that the sensible policies that I intend to implement did not apply at that time. I will ensure that the necessary change in policy is carried through.

We should have liked to keep the parish of Stone, but it is hard to argue the case when there are no residents there.

Under the consultation requirements, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will seek to ensure that planning authorities advise parishes of the reasons why planning applications are rejected or accepted contrary to the wishes of the parish council. That is a matter of some significance, and the news will be warmly welcomed by parish councils which find the way in which the system operates at present to be irksome.

I wish to refer to the main thrust of the Bill—the help for village shops. Like other hon. Members, I have offered my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer my advice on what the Budget should contain, and my main suggestion was that we should try to reduce, and eventually eliminate, the unified business rate. I argued for that because I believe that the removal of that burden would do more than anything else to stimulate the small businesses of this country and to encourage enterprise. Alas, it is a £12 billion tax—a little beyond the probable scope of one Budget, and certainly beyond the scope of the Bill.

Nevertheless, I see the Bill as a £22 million start, as that is the estimated cost of the rural rate relief scheme proposed in it. One of the reasons why I welcome the Bill is that it is the first crack in the structure of the business property tax, which is still based on the totally artificial device of notional rental values. That flawed concept eventually destroyed the old domestic rating system, and I welcome this move as a small step in the right direction.

I also welcome the fact that the Bill is specifically aimed at helping those small shops which are an essential part of the fabric of rural life and of small communities. If we are going to start anywhere, this is probably the right place. A 50 per cent. mandatory reduction in rates will be immensely important to shops in my constituency, the county of Kent and the rest of the United Kingdom. A 100 per cent. discretionary reduction could also be crucial, as it could help shops to survive and also encourage new shops to open. We are all aware of enterprising individuals who are seeking to establish new businesses in rural areas. It is a difficult challenge, and this type of help is important.

The proposals beg more questions than they answer. That is why the Committee stage will be so important. We should not always complain about what we have been given and say that we should have been given more. Inevitably, however, the Bill's provisions lead to crucial questions. I am not clear from the Bill, or from the answers given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State today, why we are applying the concessions only to village general stores and village post offices, as other retail activities in our villages are also important—equally so, in some cases.

The village butcher, for example, is a much treasured retail establishment in many villages and should be supported. Also, small souvenir shops in rural communities, picture framing shops, book shops, pubs—as have been mentioned—and garages should also receive support. One can understand the argument that the general store offers a crucial lifeline for many people, but all those other establishments play a crucial role in the rural economy, and we should try to help them. I hope that we can explore the possibility of a more flexible definition in Committee.

That is an interesting point, which comes back to an intervention that I made on the Secretary of State, who unfortunately did not attempt to answer it. The hon. Member is perhaps mistaken in thinking that the definition needs greater flexibility, as the Bill simply refers to businesses which may "benefit the local community". It is possible to interpret that widely to include businesses which benefit the local community by employing a large part of the local work force. What is needed is a change of mind from the Government on how the Bill could be interpreted, rather than a change in the Bill itself.

The Bill refers specifically to general stores and post offices. The hon. Gentleman will find that the definition is drawn fairly narrowly.

That leads me on to the discretionary 100 per cent. grant. Again, I am not clear how this will operate. Will it operate at the discretion of local authorities for one shop as opposed to another, or will it apply to a broad category of premises or businesses across an area? If it is the latter, the measure may be much more expensive than the Government expect. It will be difficult to exercise a judgment in favour of one business against another, particularly if it is not being done on the basis of need or following means testing. It is a good principle to give local authorities the power to help small businesses, but we must get it right. This is a marvellous opportunity: we must build on it and explore how the system will work.

My next question has been touched upon already and concerns the rural area itself. What is a rural settlement? The definition, we are told, is a rural settlement with a population of 3,000. But is that a parish boundary? Is it a large village, or a small town? It is hard to define the terms. I fully understand the Government's saying that this is a difficult matter and that it is preferable to do something than to do nothing, but there are large villages in every area with populations of more than 3,000 whose village stores are just as much in need of support as those with populations under 3,000. It will be hard to give grants to a small village while another village further away gets no grant at all.

During the consultation in Wales, the Secretary of State for Wales at one stage referred to the density of the population in relation to the definition. I do not know whether that was referred to during the consultation in England or whether it is irrelevant. Does the hon. Gentleman have any thoughts on that? Could such an approach deal with the question of where those 3,000 people can live?

I am not aware of any such consultation; nor do I want it to be thought that I am suggesting that this is a simple matter when it is not.

Perhaps I can help my hon. Friend. The definitions of rurality are different in the Principality from those applied in England. In Wales, a concept of population density is used which draws on an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development definition. In England, we use the concept of a settlement, a well known Rural Development Commission definition of rurality.

When we introduced the housing legislation, questions were raised about the right to buy in rural settlements. Those settlements were drawn up on the RDC definition, and we published detailed maps and explanations of the areas concerned. We did not want to be stuck with the concept of a parish or a village as that was often a less generous definition of a settlement than the one that we had.

I shall be happy to try to expand on the matter when I wind up the debate. If my hon. Friend wishes to explore it further, I have no doubt that conversations will take place in Committee about definition problems.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, because he has confirmed that the Government will seek to interpret the definition generously and flexibly, whether or not it meets people's requirements. That is the right spirit and I hope that the legislation will eventually reflect that sensible and helpful objective.

The definitions are important if we are to make the legislation work well for villages and create good will rather than animosity and jealousy. We desperately want to get them right because this is a splendid Bill which will be helpful and provide genuine assistance to the rural community.

That point leads me to the bigger issue which prompted me to write to my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and urge that the burden of the business rate eventually be lifted altogether. The problems facing market towns and high streets have already been mentioned. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras is an amiable chap, but some of his comments were nonsense. We all know that enormous changes have taken place in the retail world and that tremendous social pressures have created great problems in many of our communities. Supermarkets, whether in the heart of town or out of town—we all have many examples in our constituencies—have had a tremendous impact on our market towns and high streets. We have to face that fact rather than make the kind of nonsensical accusations in which the hon. Member indulged.

In my area—I am sure that others have the same problems—the small high streets are fighting the battle for survival, not because of politics and the performance of the economy, but because of the changing pattern of shopping. Many of those shops will struggle to survive and the greatest help that we could give them is relief from the unified business rate.

Is my hon. Friend suggesting that we should give business rate relief to the high street shop but not to the out-of-town superstore? If we do away with business rates for every shop, that will not advantage the high street stores.

I believe that we must, and will, eventually get rid of the system of business rating completely. It is an anomalous and outdated system. I welcome the Bill, because it creates exemptions from business rates, and we have not had many exemptions in the past. Once we pull out one brick, the whole edifice will start to crumble.

We must build on the propositions in the Bill. The business rate is not an efficient or sensible system of taxation although, alas, it raises a lot of revenue now and will not be easy to abolish. It is not a local tax, which was its original concept, and the fact that it is based on property values and notional rental values means that it is fundamentally nonsense. All the evidence shows that it is an unfair tax, and I have figures to show that it hurts smaller businesses much more than bigger ones. My figures suggest that less than 6 per cent. of total rateable value is accounted for by properties with a rateable value of less than £1,000, which suggests that we could lighten the burden on those business without losing too much revenue. I have other figures which show that, in terms of profit and turnover, a small business pays 10 times as much, on average, in business rate as the largest of firms.

If we consider the impact of rates as a percentage of overheads, we see that the unified business rate bill for small businesses is 13.7 per cent. of overheads, but for large businesses the figure is 3 per cent. of overheads. By reducing or eliminating the business rate, we would give disproportionate help to smaller companies. Clearly, it would help larger companies if we eliminated business rates, but in practice the price war between the big stores would probably mean that much of any saving that they made would be passed on in concessions to their customers. However, high street businesses would receive major help.

That is why I hope that the Government will consider any suggestions for reducing the burden of business rates on the retail sector and replacing it, ultimately, with much fairer systems of corporate tax, which are more acceptable to the general public and to business. The Bill is only the beginning, but I welcome it for that reason. If it is well handled, the proposal for rate relief will help my constituents and those of most other hon. Members.

Other proposals in the Bill will strengthen the role of parish councils. In some respects, the proposals amend the Local Government Act 1972. I served on the Committee stage of that legislation, which went on for many months. I have no nostalgia for that, but I look back with some pride on the battle that I and other hon. Members fought then to strengthen the roles of successor parishes and community councils. It was not generally accepted by the Government at the time, but I believe that parish councils are a crucial part of local government because they represent the local community in a way that other councils cannot.

Some of the proposals in the Bill, albeit relatively small, will be important to those who control our parish councils, especially the right to levy greater rates and more powers on transport, roads and crime prevention. Of course, it is one thing to give people powers and another to find the resources. That is a problem at any level of government. Nevertheless, the Bill will be a catalyst and will provide extra power for parish councils, so that, in co-operation with local authorities and other institutions, they will be able to tackle challenges that they cannot tackle now.

Because I believe in parish councils, I especially welcome the proposals in the Bill to facilitate the creation of new parishes, which is currently a cumbersome procedure. Most of us know areas in our constituencies which do not have parish councils, but the current procedures to create them are difficult. The Bill will make it easier to create parish councils, and I welcome that. Those small measures are all important and, in years to come, all will be seen to have contributed significantly to the strength of rural communities and the rural economy.

I conclude with a more general point. The Bill, the White Paper and the speeches that we have heard have emphasised time and again our belief in the countryside and the rural economy, but those of us who live in or represent rural areas—my constituency is both heavily industrial and heavily rural, so I have a bit of everything—worry when we see the inexorable demands placed on the countryside by the housing growth figures endorsed by central Government.

Unless we get the planning guidance right, there is little point in defending the countryside. Despite all the fine words about building on brown land and reclaimed land, we see the inexorable threat of more developments around our villages, orchards and farmlands. The planners tell us that, in the next 20 years, some 4.4 million new households will be required; I forget the exact figure, but somehow those planners have become family planners and have gained powers of infallibility in the process. I do not understand why we accept those assertions as though they were written on tablets of stone.

We are also told by the planning guidelines, which have already been mentioned, that 45 to 50 per cent. of the new housing has to be built on reclaimed land, but there is no reclaimable land in many rural areas. If those high target figures for housing are accepted as gospel truth and the houses have to be built on reclaimed land when in fact we have no reclaimable land, in the end they will be built on agricultural land. The Ministry of Agriculture sometimes enters objections, but those objections seem to melt away like the snow and disappear. The result is continuous and unacceptable growth.

I want the Secretary of State and his Department to provide in the planning process more entrenched protections against encroachment into the countryside. If that is not done and encroachment is too easy, there will be no pressure to use derelict and reclaimable land and no initiatives for new planning policy in urban areas.

I welcome the whole package in the Bill as a real effort to improve our countryside. I want to strengthen the defences of the countryside, because we all want to see the rural economy prosper. We hope during the progress of the Bill to make it even better, but it is already a good start.

5.39 pm

I hope that the Bill will be the last piece of local government legislation that the Government bring before the House. The Library tells me that there have been more than 200 pieces of legislation affecting local government since the Tories took office in 1979. Those have left a once proud system of local democracy in a shambles, so let us all hope that this will be the last of them.

The Bill is narrowly focused, closely directed at parliamentary seats in which Tories are defecting in droves and putting Tory majorities at risk. It is a fairly blatant last-ditch attempt to win votes in marginal seats. That is a shame, because much in the Bill is worthy of support. The drawback stems from the motive that has driven it on to the Government's last legislative agenda.

There are two principal problems. First, the Bill's effect will be marginalised, because it is out of line with the drift of mainstream Government policies. The thrust of those policies, whether on jobs, transport, housing, industry or even agriculture—the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis has significantly added to poverty among small farmers—has damaged rural and urban economies and communities alike.

The second principal problem is that, without any new resources, other than an apparently unlimited parish precept—all new tax—and with a lack of clarity about the cost-effectiveness and the arrangements for establishing an additional layer of bureaucracy, it is doubtful whether the Bill's worthy ambitions of greater community participation and public good will be realised.

We live on a crowded island, and urban decay and rural communities are close neighbours. I am not sure that the measures in the Bill will not serve to exacerbate existing tensions and help to set urban areas against rural areas in a negative way, rather than producing a positive result. For example, the decision to put crime prevention policies in place could be driven by the feeling, "Let's keep the townies out of our little area," rather than being a valuable attempt to build more satisfactory social cohesion. Could that measure be seen, as I read in the Local Government Chronicle this week, as little more than a

"subsidy for the middle classes"?

When the Environment Select Committee read the White Paper, we were delighted that the Government had acknowledged—

I am genuinely puzzled by what the hon. Lady says. In a typical village, the people who use the store are not middle class; everybody uses it. Why does the hon. Lady think that helping a village shop to survive is help for the middle classes?

The hon. Gentleman should wait for me to continue my speech. I was citing the concerns expressed by a wide range of local authorities in the Local Government Chronicle. I believe that they could be right about one of the effects of the Bill, and I shall explain how and why.

Unemployment in rural communities has wide effects throughout the country. If more Conservative Members represented urban areas, they would realise that the problems of rural unemployment are mirrored and multiplied by unemployment in the urban areas that Labour Members tend to represent. Indeed, as a result of Government policies, the effects of unemployment and poverty are spreading like a disease to every part of the country.

For example, the town of Stocksbridge in my constituency is nearly 10 miles from Sheffield, yet, as part of the Government's programme of cuts and part of the so-called benefit change programme, it is proposed to close both the jobcentre and the Benefits Agency office from 1 January. That will affect people living in all the rural communities around Stocksbridge. They will have to pay £1.40 there and £1.40 back on the bus even to go and look for a job, and the same to go for an interview about their benefit. That will not promote the health and welfare of rural areas, yet there is nothing about it in the Bill.

There is nothing to help with housing, either. When the Select Committee considered housing need, we made strong, well-supported, cross-party recommendations about the need for more affordable housing in rural areas. It is a pity that there is nothing in the Bill to address that continuing problem.

The same applies to education, which my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) mentioned. My constituency was faced with a proposal to put three rural schools on the closure list because of Government pressure to close schools with surplus places. Only after an enormous effort and a campaign by people in the rural communities dependent on the schools were the Government persuaded to allow the local authority to keep two of the three schools open.

Those are the Government policies that people in the rural areas of my constituency will remember; although they will welcome what is in the Bill, they will be aware of the wider issues, and the fact that wider Government policy is doing them no good.

I shall now be a bit more positive, in that I welcome the proposal to help shops, post offices and other businesses in rural areas with their business rates to enable them to survive. I should like an assurance today from the Minister that such measures will be allowed where villages and rural communities are part of a metropolitan area. I was concerned to hear an exchange between the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mr. Day) which implied that that might not happen.

The residents of Bolsterstone, Dungworth, Bradfield and Wharncliffe Side—all villages with fewer than 3,000 inhabitants and one general store—will be extremely angry if the proposal does not extend to them and to their shops and communities, simply because they are on the rural fringe of a large urban area. That would be extremely unsatisfactory. Many of the seats that the Government intend the proposals in the Bill to protect are part of rural areas on the edges of major urban areas. Unless the Government understand the essential link between urban and rural, which is now so close, the drive behind the Bill will not be fulfilled.

To be positive, I should like to believe that the proposals on transport are a long-overdue recognition that bus deregulation has been an unmitigated disaster in rural areas. Three quarters of all rural parishes now have no bus service. Where services run on a commercial basis, they can be restricted, changed or cut altogether at short notice. That happened recently in Colne valley, for example, where the Blue Bus company suddenly and without consultation withdrew its services from Slaithewaite Hill Top through Wellhouse and Milnesbridge to Huddersfield, affecting 1,000 people and their bus journeys.

Only because of a concerted campaign by the local community, backed by Labour, was another bus company persuaded to fill the gap—but for how long? When will the next company withdraw the service without consultation? Similar things have happened in my constituency in connection with the Bradfield school and its bus services. There is absolute chaos, because of the lack of certainty that bus deregulation has meant for rural areas.

I welcome the possibility that the drive, advice and guidelines aimed at extending community transport schemes and local bus-sharing initiatives, which may well be promoted by parish councils, will be beneficial to people in rural areas. I am sure that the Opposition would support that.

I turn to the other main drawback. I agree with the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir R. Moate) that there is a lack of clarity about the role and nature of the devolution of such services to parish councils and its effect. I agree with the thrust of the proposals that parish councils should provide a chance for local action. They provide an opportunity for voluntary work and a strengthening of the sort of community activity that is effective in preventing crime and promoting the rich variety of cultural life enjoyed by many villages.

I should like to place on record the excellent efforts of Bradfield, one of my parish councils, which looks after all 200 miles of footpaths in my constituency and has been partly responsible for South Yorkshire coming top of the footpath league in the recent Countryside Commission report on the state of rights of way. It is at such a local level that women in the community can play a very active role in developing community initiatives.

My worries about lack of clarity, however, are founded on the fact that other community and voluntary-based groups also undertake excellent work—possibly on a wider basis than the parishes—such as the Sheffield community transport scheme. The group operates services in rural areas and throughout the city. It has an excellent partnership arrangement, funded by the city council, to which parishes contribute, but it is an independent, voluntary group. I could mention other groups, and I am sure that other hon. Members could cite similar examples.

What concerns me is that, in Sheffield's experience, it has been easier to build sound partnerships between the local authority and such independent development trusts or groups, with some support from parish councils, than it has been to build them between authorities—higher tier with lower tier. It concerns me that putting too much emphasis on the parish council undertaking this work will mean that the drive towards partnership that allows two authorities to work together will he lost.

There is no question—we in the House know—but that much of the time of an elected authority at any level can be spent in moaning, groaning and criticising the higher tier rather than getting on with implementing the positive policies. Authorities may have their own political agendas, and may even find it more appropriate to that agenda to carry on their lobbying roles rather than getting on with implementing the very useful proposals in the Bill. That is relevant not just to developing a two-tier system within a relatively urban rural area; such activity in parish councils in more rural district local authority or county areas could be a recipe for conflict rather than positive progress.

It is important, therefore, that, where a parish council decides to take on new work and responsibility, it is prepared to carry the can for failure as well as for success. I assume that the district audit service will have to assume an additional role in monitoring the spending of parish councils where they take on extra work. There is still not enough clarity about where the functions will begin and end, how those functions will be financed and what limitations will be placed on them.

For example, if a parish decides to raise its precept—even double it—to take on road safety and traffic-calming measures, how will that affect the district allocation for road safety? Do the Government expect that allocation to remain more or less the same, or will it be reduced as the parish precept is increased? If the latter happens, there would be a serious danger of skewing the overall authority's priorities. If one area on the fringe of the authority wants to implement traffic-calming measures, therefore, will it take away the possibility of the wider authority introducing the same measures in a wider area?

An enormous number of complications will need to be addressed and sorted out in Committee to ensure that extra money is provided for these proposals. In his winding-up speech, will the Minister address the point made in an intervention by one of my hon. Friends about whether increased spending as a result of an increased precept by a parish council or a number of them in a larger area will affect the overall spending allocation that is taken on board where capping criteria are set? We need an absolute guarantee that, pound for pound, the proposals will not affect what the umbrella authority will be able to spend.

Such issues are extremely important, since a wider authority may end up failing the majority of its citizens because of the activity of one or two fringe areas. The Bill's lack of clarity on such financial issues will produce endless wrangles rather than productive projects, many of which are already under way.

I wish the Bill well in principle. I am sorry that it has been presented at a time and in a way that looks as if it is window dressing for targeted areas of the country. I do not believe that voters will be fooled, because the wider issues that affect the economy and people's standard of living are not restricted to either rural or urban areas. Such problems face both types of area and we badly need a Government who begin to legislate for the whole nation.

5.58 pm

I give a general welcome to the Bill, which is timely. It is right that the House should have the opportunity to consider some of the problems that face rural communities. I agree with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson) when she says that there is much work to be done on the detail of the Bill, and some of my remarks will concern details that are as yet a little unclear. The rural White Paper set out the direction in which the Government intended to go, and the Bill contains the first set of measures that were adumbrated in that White Paper.

I represent two thirds of the borough of Thamesdown in Wiltshire, which is a mixture of urban and rural communities. It was formed in 1973 by bringing together the town of Swindon with several smaller towns and villages in what was then the Highworth rural district council. There was some unease at that time, some of which still remains.

However, whereas in those days the name Swindon was not acceptable to everyone in the new borough—which is why the name Thamesdown was concocted, from the River Thames to the north and the Marlborough downs to the south—as the authority moves towards unitary status next year, it appears to be satisfactory to the majority of the population for the name Swindon to be brought back into use. For those hon. Members who have had some difficulty with the concept of Thamesdown, and assumed that it was somewhere down the river from here, the confusion will be removed.

The combination of urban and rural creates a sense of uncertainty and fear in the villages, some of which are near enough to the urban mass of Swindon to feel threatened by creeping expansion, but distant enough to be extremely independent-minded.

The rate relief scheme, which is in my view the principal proposal in the Bill, is welcome in principle, but there are some questions that the Government must address. For example, the upper limit has been set at about 3,000 people, but should there be a lower limit? Could a settlement be so small that it would not be possible to justify expenditure as set out in the Bill to ensure the continuation of a small shop or post office? I hope that the answer is no, but I would appreciate a reassurance from the Government that such a consideration would not enter their mind.

I think, for example, of the village of Hinton Parva in Thamesdown, the mere name of which will tell Latin scholars in the House that it is a small settlement—it has about 200 inhabitants. The post office operates part time and is run from their garage by John and Margaret Cook of Hollytree house, which, ironically, is next door to a house called The Old Post Office. Hon. Members will be able to guess what happened to the old post office. It is an example of people trying to maintain postal services in a village.

Will a part-time post office in a garage qualify for the relief that is designed to help rural post offices? I seek reassurance from my right hon. Friend the Minister on that point, because that is what the village of Hinton Parva has been reduced to, and I am sure that all the inhabitants are anxious to ensure that their access to postal services is reduced no further.

What about villages that have already lost their local shop or post office? Will the relief be available immediately to any individual seeking to provide those services afresh? Can we look to the Government, or to the local authority as it will be, to offer that relief?

What about settlements that are too large to qualify? I am thinking of the smallish town of Wroughton, near Swindon, which is extremely anxious to find a bank willing to provide a branch in the town; none of the high street banks has been interested in offering banking services there. It is unreasonable to expect bank branches to be established in settlements with a population as low as 3,000, but would the Government consider setting a different size for different activities, so that a town such as Wroughton could get some help with its rates for payments to bank branches?

Such possibilities are raised by contemplation of what is in the Bill. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) ranged widely over many issues that are not in the Bill, so I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will forgive me for ranging on a much narrower scale and for enticing him to embrace the possibility that help could be given in other ways than the rather limited ones set out in the Bill.

What about village halls and schools? Could any help be given to promote the idea that village schools should be more widely used for community purposes, to extract the maximum value from buildings that might in future combine the two functions?

What about relief for a limited number of new dwellings in villages? More and more villages are finding it difficult to provide enough accommodation to enable young people to stay and keep the villages alive, while the growth of dormitory living—people living in villages and working in neighbouring towns—becomes ever more apparent. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras raised the matter in a rather gruff way, but it is reasonable that we should discuss it, perhaps at a later stage m the progress of the Bill.

Local rural transport is dealt with in part III of the Bill. We should pay tribute to the way in which post buses, provided by the Post Office, have over the years filled part of the gap in the needs of rural transport, but they do not operate in the evenings. Those who live in rural communities and do not have access to a car have a right to go into towns, and it would be good if the Bill encouraged parishes to promote rural transport more than they do at present.

The rate relief proposed is of two kinds: mandatory and discretionary. Experience teaches that discretionary relief is not always effective as a means of implementing Government policy. I am thinking of the discretion given to local authorities to reduce the level of community charge on second homes. The Government clearly thought that there was a case for doing that, and the local authorities clearly did not.

Hear, hear.

The hon. Gentleman's interjection does not entirely surprise me, but I am not talking about the rightness or wrongness of what the Government did; the point is that, if the Government want to do something, it is probably best for them to do it themselves and not leave it to others who might well decide not to do it. That could be the case with discretionary relief, because it is estimated that the cost to local authorities even of their 25 per cent. share will be £4 million. I am not altogether inclined to blame authorities that say that they would rather not part with any of the money to which they are entitled. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider that.

Until recently, Thamesdown borough council did not allow the disregard on war pensions. The amount in question was only about £20,000, but for years several of my elderly constituents, with some help from me, fought a campaign to persuade the local authority to give a complete disregard on housing benefit for war pensions. I am glad to say that in the end the authority agreed, and that that is now being done. This is a good opportunity for me to congratulate Mr. Patrick Bourke, who led that campaign to its successful conclusion.

The campaign took a long time and cost many people a great deal of money. The Government were happy with the concept of discretion but were not inclined to do anything to promote it. I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister to think carefully about the concept of discretionary grants. If the Government want to achieve something in this direction, as they do, we need to consider whether local authorities are willing to support the policy.

I welcome the proposed new parish council powers on transport and crime prevention. I have already mentioned evening bus services to rural communities, which will clearly require co-operation with bus companies and with district and county councils if they are to be an effective additional measure. I also welcome the involvement of parishes in traffic calming, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Hillsborough. She is not now in her place, but I wanted to say again that I agree with her. I am sorry that she had to leave so precipitately.

Traffic calming gives local people much assurance. I was recently approached by residents of Kite hill and Rotten row in the village of Wanborough just outside the main urban area of Swindon with a request for traffic calming. Unfortunately, many cars had found a rat run and were making their way down a steep hill. Some negotiated the right-hand bend; others went straight into the field, once knocking down the gate. All of them cause the risk of death or injury to the many children who live there.

Mr. Lawrence Trout of Rotten row raised the matter with me. I automatically wrote to the local authority, Thamesdown borough council. Like the hon. Member for Hillsborough, I want to be clear about what the position will be. Should hon. Members write to the parish council or to the district council? What will be the balance of responsibility in a matter as important—and sometimes emotional—as traffic calming?

I do not want to delay the House. Much of what I was going to say has been covered by other hon. Members. I welcome this first tranche of measures to revitalise the countryside. They are designed to help country dwellers to help themselves. No matter what we may seek to do in the House to assist them, it is important that they understand their responsibilities.

One of those was eloquently expressed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State when he said that people who wanted to keep the village pub should be encouraged to drink there, although not to excess and not if they propose to drive. Happily, the rural areas of Thamesdown have so many pubs, so closely packed together, that the inhabitants will have no difficulty m walking a short distance to and from them to keep them alive. I look forward to supporting the further measures that were mentioned in the rural White Paper, which I am sure will be introduced by the Conservative Government elected some time next year.

6.12 pm

Like other hon. Members, I welcome the Bill in principle. It has many good things in it. There are some things that we do not like so much and, unfortunately, many things have been left out that should be in it. I shall not take up too much time, because much of the detail will be better dealt with in Committee.

The flavour of the Bill demonstrates the Government's rather colonial attitude to local authorities and their visible anxiety about the extent to which they are prepared to let go and devolve power downwards. The Secretary of State several times said that he believes in subsidiarity and wishes that district and county councils would demonstrate a greater fervour for it in devolving their power down to parish, town and community councils. I, too, want that to happen but I also wish that our national authority would devolve more power to lower levels.

I shall take the Bill part by part and start, logically, with part I, which concerns non-domestic rates and the changes to relief, which are, on the whole, welcome. Rural and village shops provide an essential service and are not simply businesses. It is welcome that more rate relief is being provided. The speech by the hon. Member for Faversham (Sir R. Moate) could easily have been made from our Bench. Perhaps that is a sign of things to come, given what has happened over the past few months. I welcomed the emphasis that he gave to the need to get rid of the uniform business rate altogether in the longer term. It has penalised small shops and businesses and favoured larger ones.

No doubt the Government have seen great benefits in favouring the larger businesses that provide a large part of their party's money. That is not a good reason for supporting that method of taxing businesses. I hope that we will ultimately abolish the UBR. I wish that the hon. Member for Faversham was here so that I could tell him that the fact that the Government are making small changes around the edges suggests that they have no real intention of abolishing the UBR in the near future, if at all.

If the hon. Gentleman's party is committed to abolishing the UBR at a cost of £12 billion a year, what proposals has it to raise the revenue?

I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman has paid so little attention to the alternatives that he does not know that we propose to introduce site value rating.

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

No, I have dealt with the point.

One of the ways in which the Government are failing to treat subsidiarity with the respect that it deserves—

I am sorry to trouble the hon. Gentleman, but is he really proposing that a small business performing an essential service on a site that happens to be expensive will be driven out of business, whereas a large one on a small site will be privileged? Surely he realises that site value rating would be a disaster for the countryside. He ought to know that.

It is the oldest trick in the book. The hon. Gentleman talks about site value rating, thinks that no one understands and hopes that he can get away with it. The only party in the known world that thinks that site value rating is a good idea, particularly in the countryside, is the Liberal party. I thought that it had given that up when it changed its name.

It is clear from his comments that the Secretary of State himself does not understand site value rating. If he examined it in more detail, he would understand its benefits.

Explain them to us.

We are here to discuss the Bill, not site value rating. If hon. Members do not know about it, they should examine it. Perhaps that is why they have not accepted it as their policy.

We should consider whether the scheme should be mandatory or discretionary, because there is some illogicality there. The Government propose that part of the scheme should be mandatory and part discretionary. If they really wanted subsidiarity and to devolve power, they could afford to say that the whole scheme should be discretionary, which would be better. For example, under a mandatory scheme, it would be difficult to decide which businesses should get the mandatory benefit.

What about a village with two shops where one is part general store, part post office, and the other only a general store? As I understand it, in such a village, the shop that was part post office would get the mandatory benefit because it was the only post office in the area, while the other shop would not. That creates unfairness. Of course, if it has any sense, the local authority may use its discretionary powers to help the second shop, but there does not seem to be any logic behind making one part mandatory and the other discretionary.

Perhaps it is simply that the Government are looking for a way of bribing some small business men in some of their more marginal rural constituencies, but it may also be that they are worried about whether local authorities would use the discretionary power as they think appropriate. As the Liberal Democrats are now the leading party in the local authorities of rural areas—across the south of England and elsewhere—I can assure the Government that we do see the value of using rating relief, and would certainly use it in the sort of cases that they are examining. We understand the value of helping village centres to thrive.

Despite what the hon. Gentleman says, does he accept that, in the nine years that I have been in the House, the Liberal Democrats have always controlled local government on the Isle of Wight, yet despite my many urgings to use the existing relief, they have never done so once?

I cannot speak for the Isle of Wight, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that many Liberal Democrat authorities use the relief. My authority in Newbury was one of the first to do so successfully.

There is also some difficulty in determining which communities will qualify for the rate relief. The difficulty is in deciding on the boundaries. Given the phrasing in the Bill, there will be a temptation for some local authorities to exclude certain surrounding areas so as to bring the population below the 3,000 threshold and ensure that the mandatory part of the relief is given. In that way they would hope to get more money out of the Government for their areas.

One can imagine considerable difficulties in calculating whether the threshold is met. While I am all in favour of the Government's plan to create a list of communities that meet the requirements—chopping and changing from year to year poses all sorts of difficulties for businesses trying to plan ahead—the Bill will still create certain definitional problems in this respect.

It is also important to specify in the Bill whether we are talking about communities that have only one shop and have only ever had one or communities that may have two shops, of which only one is currently functioning. The difficulties may arise if a second shop comes into being during a given year.

Another difficulty concerns how widely discretion is given to local authorities. I hope that the Minister will make the Government's real intentions somewhat clearer on that. The Bill allows a great deal of discretion to local authorities to give relief to local businesses of all sorts which are of benefit to the local community. If the Government intend to restrict the discretionary relief to shops, pubs, garages and post offices, the Bill will have to make that clear—because as it stands, it goes a lot wider. I want it to go wider, but I do not think that the Government really have that in mind.

I want to make two important points about the financing of the new relief. The discretionary power envisaged by the Government will be useless unless the additional financial burden on local authorities is taken into account in determining standard spending assessments and capping limits. If the Government do not give way on this point, they will in practice be asking local authorities to cut other vital services—schoolteachers, home helps or other social services—in order to pay for the discretionary rate relief being offered.

On 30 November last year, the Secretary of State made it clear that it was his intention to remove discretionary relief given on hardship grounds from the scope of capping. That was encouraging, but we need a clear commitment from the Secretary of State that this new relief will be exempted from capping in exactly the same way.

Seventy-five per cent. of the discretionary relief will be paid by the central Exchequer—that is quite clear.

I have taken some trouble to check that I was right about site value rating. It means that the village shop would be taxed on the basis of what its site might be worth if it were not a village shop. So if it had a high value as something else, the village shop would be crushed by the rating burden. That is why the last known person to be enthusiastic about the system was the founder of the Social Credit Union.

I do not know where the Secretary of State gets his information. The whole point about our system is that the site would be valued for the purpose for which it was intended, so a village shop would be valued as such. The right hon. Gentleman's point is therefore irrelevant.

If it is of any help to the hon. Gentleman, I might point out in fairness that, at the time Henry George was advocating the system, Winston Churchill supported it.

In practice I believe that we have now finished the point about site valuation; we are not debating it today, and it is a pity to waste the House's time any further on it. We need to discuss the Bill.

I should welcome an intervention from the Minister of State or the Secretary of State to answer my last important point—that, last year, the Secretary of State said that the amount of discretionary relief that local authorities would have to pay would not be included in the current capping limits. Is that true of this new relief as well?

The hon. Gentleman will be happy to know that it is true. I might add that the Liberal Democrat policy on site valuation rating is whatever a particular Liberal Democrat's constituent wants to hear. That is how all Liberal Democrat policies are put across to the public.

That was not worth responding to.

I am glad to have the Secretary of State's commitment on my point about capping; he did not give it in his initial remarks, and it has been worrying some local authorities.

How will the changes be paid for? The Government estimate that the changes under the Bill will cost about £22 million across the three countries. Where will that money come from? It presumably means that the amount collected in the form of the UBR will fall; hence the amount passed to local authorities from the UBR will fall to the same extent. Will the Government therefore increase the revenue support grant by £22 million to make up the difference? That will be critical to local authorities. I should like a ministerial assurance on that point, because it is important to know where the money is to come from.

The Government have said that they want to offer relief to rural communities without penalising local authorities in general, but until we have an assurance that the money will not come from local authorities' own resources, we cannot make a serious judgment whether the Government's commitment not to penalise them holds true.

As for parish reviews, dealt with in part II, I want to make a quick point about clause 20, which deals with unitary counties and which I assume was introduced chiefly for the sake of the Isle of Wight.

Hear, hear.

I am glad to see the hon. Gentleman in his place; I expect he will have more to say later.

Sit down and shut up, then.

Perhaps, if the hon. Gentleman stops intervening, he will get a chance to speak.

Although the provision seems to answer the problem with differing timings of parish and other elections in the English counties, it does not meet the point about unitary districts, which face a similar problem. I hope that the Secretary of State will use the powers given him in the Local Government Finance Act 1992 to end the problem of parish and unitary district elections that are not synchronised, thereby saving possible expense.

The trouble with the way parishing is carried out is that it takes far too long, and that the system itself includes a presumption against parishing.

The Government now seem to recognise the important role of community councils, which is good news, but the Bill does not go far enough. There should be a presumption in the Bill in favour of parishing. District councils should be under a duty to review parish council arrangements cyclically, perhaps every four years. There has been a resistance to parishing by some councillors and officers.

Perhaps they are concerned to retain their own power. The Secretary of State referred to subsidiarity, so I hope that he agrees that it is important to try to ensure that parishing takes place wherever possible, and that we should devolve power downwards to the parishes that are then created. The Liberal Democrats have frequently made proposals to that effect, only to find ourselves firmly opposed, often by Labour and Conservative councillors.

There is a question about whether the Secretary of State should be the final authority, and he will know that the Lords have recently recommended that there should be some type of Standing Committee of the House to deal with such issues of local affairs. The Secretary of State should certainly review that recommendation as a serious possibility.

Perhaps the most important criticism of this part of the Bill is what it leaves out—all those living in metropolitan areas and London boroughs, who do not currently benefit from the decentralisation of power. Those living in the cities have just as much need of community leadership as those living in rural areas. It seems that the Government have left them out and are unconcerned about local democracy in urban Britain. Although I welcome the increase in consultation between the layers of local government that the Secretary of State has promised us, it would also be welcome to see some increase in consultation between central Government and local authorities.

In part III, the Government refer to what powers local authorities should exercise—always a difficult subject. To allow parishes simply to set the time on the public clocks is obviously not sufficient, and does not amount to democratic responsiveness. The Bill is a classic example of legislation from a party that has a centralising tendency and is desperately struggling with the need to find out how it can devolve some powers under the principles of subsidiarity. I welcome, however, the signs of positive thinking. The proposed role of parish councils in relation to transport, traffic calming and particularly crime prevention is welcome.

The real question about part III is why the Government need to give parishes such powers now. It is, of course, because of the legal position of local authorities. Councils have to seek out the right to carry out duties of that sort each time that they come up with a good idea as to what they should be able to handle. My party believes that local councils should be accountable simply to their local population, not to the Secretary of State and not at all, except in the most exceptional circumstances, to Parliament.

In order to overcome the problem about what powers should be devolved downwards we need a proper Bill that gives back to local government the power of general competence, which it badly needs and deserves. If we were to replace this half-hearted effort at subsidiarity with a Bill that went full-heartedly for subsidiarity and gave local authorities the power of general competence, it would be a great improvement. I am happy to note that the Government are now thinking about a possible power of general competence and are willing to consult about it. They should, however, be moving much faster, and it is a great pity that they have missed their opportunity today.

6.32 pm

It is one of the unexpected charms of our debates that occasionally they offer an opportunity to stray from the often rather boring highways of principle and generality, and suddenly focus on a good old solid object, something readily identifiable, something even photogenic. Such is the case in our debate for there has swum into our ken a magical piece of woodland in my constituency known as Hagg Wood, near the village of Dunnington, which is close to York.

Hagg Wood has acquired even greater significance, even notoriety, from the revelation by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) that not only was he born and bred in the village of Dunnington, which is close to Hagg Wood, but that, since an early age, he has often wandered freely up and down its charming highways and byways, its footpaths and bridleways.

It is greatly to the credit of the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras that he was born and bred in that delightful village of Dunnington. In the spirit of bipartisan good will, it is very much to the credit of the village of Dunnington, which is very small, that it should have borne and bred a well-known national public figure. I hope that honours are even, in that context at any rate.

The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras and the hon. Member for York (Mr. Bayley) are deeply concerned that the rights of access enjoyed by them, myself and many others in the locality are about to be disallowed or overridden. Let me try to reassure them and my hon. Friends about that.

I should make it clear that the Church Commission should never be thought of as an object of suspicion or derision in the House, because it is a creature of Parliament. It is the repository of the charitable funds of the Church of England. It was set up by Parliament, and Madam Speaker is a prominent Church Commissioner. The Church Commission, with its distinguished basis and pedigree, is the owner of the freehold of the woodland, which is let on a 999-year lease to the Forestry Commission.

I hasten to reassure the hon. Members for Holborn and St. Pancras and for York, although that reassurance may be only temporary, that the woodland is not on the market, although the Forestry Commission had earlier considered the sale of its lease, and may do so again in the future. Even if the lease was sold—the Church Commissioners would derive no profit or advantage from that, because it would merely mean a transfer of the leaseholder—the public footpaths and bridleways that go through Hagg Wood would be fully protected. I can identify at least three of them on the map of it that I have before me. The hon. Members for Holborn and St. Pancras and for York would be able, whatever the sale and to whomever it was made, to exercise their right to walk on that land.

The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras asked a specific question about the benefit that the Church Commissioners might derive from the remission of rent and rate liabilities, which is a feature of the Bill. The Church Commissioners invariably require the licensee or leaseholder to meet the usual outgoings, including rates, rents and so on, as part of the licence or lease they offer. We therefore do not stand to be in prospect of any particular advantage. It would accrue to a licence holder, who would have to pay those rents and rates normally.

Having sketched in the background, and attempted to reassure the hon. Members for York and for Holborn and St. Pancras, I must point out that Hagg Wood is not and never has been subject to a so-called open access agreement under the terms of the leasehold held by the Forestry Commission. In principle, such an agreement means the complete and unregulated freedom to roam and ramble over field and forest, anywhere and everywhere, whenever and wherever any individual might choose so to ramble or roam.

Open access is not an appropriate form of freedom where productive enterprises—whether agriculture and farming or cultivating and growing timber—are carried on. Many of the Church Commissioners' woodlands are located in the middle of agricultural holdings, and access to those woods has to be gained across tenanted productive farm land. The reasonable interests, both agricultural and sporting, of our tenants must be protected and we have some weighty allies in our approach to that issue.

For example, the Council for the Protection of Rural England writes:

"We do not support the principle of unqualified right to roam … We recognise the value of securing provision for access and recreation through voluntary agreements where appropriate."

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors goes even further, saying:

"Many areas of the countryside are too sensitive to allow 'right to roam' to operate unconstrained. Reasons why public access is inappropriate include: crop damage, livestock disturbance, sporting activities, health and safety, protection of wildlife and landscape features."

I believe that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, thinking back on his experiences in Hagg wood, would understand the reasonableness of the provisos and caveats that people familiar with the countryside would want to make so as to protect many countryside features.

Generally speaking, I understand what the right hon. Gentleman is saying about the need to protect crops, livestock, areas of particular interest and sporting interests, and that there have to be constraints. However, in more than 50 years of going to the wood, I have never heard of any constraint on anyone going anywhere. I remember someone posing as a gamekeeper once, but I think that that was just to cover up poaching activities.

No restriction has ever been placed on anyone going anywhere in Hagg wood, except when planting has taken place. In that case, the area would have fencing around it, and, anyway, no one in their right mind would try to walk between trees that were planted only two or three years previously, because the area is all grown over. However, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that, apart from such areas, there has always been free, untrammelled access throughout the wood.

I am well aware of that, and I do not want to dodge the implications of the hon. Gentleman's experience of this charming wood, but I feel bound not to surrender the fact that Hagg wood is not strictly subject to an open access agreement. The hon. Gentleman has described a practice that has grown up by custom. That is a grey area—what the legal rights might be of those who have established a customary use has yet to be tested.

I have a further point—one that the hon. Gentleman might understand and appreciate. I shall quote a member of the Country Landowners Association:

"Wildlife in woods is not disturbed by regular and consistent use of a particular route as animals get used to people and even machinery. Disturbance results from occasional straying off regularly used routes, thus the need for management."

The sort of wandering and rambling in Hagg wood that the hon. Gentleman describes probably does not harm wildlife—its very regularity is part of the protection required by animals. However, if we are talking about throwing open places like Hagg wood and the surrounding countryside to a much more specifically authorised freedom to roam, real harm is in prospect.

The customary use of the highways and byways of Hagg wood is not damaging the wildlife there, and it certainly does not interrupt the enjoyment of proper sporting rights. I see no likelihood that anything that now obtains will change, but I do not know who the purchaser—if any—might be. If it is someone who proposes to seed and plant a lot of new woodland, the hon. Gentleman's point will come into force—the area would have be fenced and protected. Similarly, if the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds decided to buy a piece of Hagg wood in order to breed rare species of birds, access would have to be limited.

I cannot absolutely guarantee that there will be no changes in future, but I can assure the hon. Members for Holborn and St. Pancras and for York that the Church Commissioners have no intention, and, indeed, no power, to vary the existing rights of access via established footpaths and bridleways, so the customary use is likely to persist, even though it might not be strictly within the terms of the lease.

I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman's close interest in this issue, both in his role as the constituency Member of Parliament and as the spokesman in the House for the Church Commissioners.

He mentioned that, when the Church Commissioners own some land surrounded by farmland that is also held under their freehold, the commissioners are often unable to provide formal open access or allow public use through a voluntary agreement, because of the damage that access might cause to the farmland. However, as the right hon. Gentleman well knows, access to Hagg wood is obtained via a road to the wood, so that impediment is not relevant in that case.

I was extremely pleased to hear that the Forestry Commission has, for the time being, suspended its negotiations for the sale of the land. In his role as the spokesman for the Church Commissioners, can the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that, during this period, the commissioners will discuss with the local authority and the Forestry Commission the circumstances in which it might be possible to agree a voluntary access agreement with a specified new owner, were the sale to go ahead?

I shall consider the hon. Gentleman's request, but I have a feeling—I suspect that I might be able to carry the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras with me on this—that something that is well known and familiarly used is, in some ways, best left alone, without too much probing to establish precise legal, statutory or other agreed rights. It might be better to leave customary and statutory rights operating and not to consider how those might be changed, until a specific purchaser emerges and the nature and trade of the purchaser is established. Meanwhile, I do not reject the hon. Gentleman's proposal, and I shall think constructively about it.

I hope that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras does not feel that we have ridden roughshod over his heritage and the experiences and pleasures of his youth, which others will continue to enjoy long after both he and I are treading happier and brighter shores.

6.48 pm

I agree with the hon. Members who have cautiously welcomed the proposals in the Bill. In that context, it was a pity that the Secretary of State, introducing those proposals, continually implied that, if an hon. Member did not represent a rural area, he or she had no interest, or, by some formula, was debarred from saying anything.

That implication was patronising, and reflected dual standards. I wonder how far we would get if we were to apply the Secretary of State's continual implication in that regard to the present Secretary of State for Wales, who I understand represents a seat in Yorkshire. What would happen if we took that logic to its conclusion? I well remember the day when Conservative Members went into the Lobby to vote to close the last pit in my constituency; many of them had not been near a pit in their lives. By that patronising and duplicitous implication, the Secretary of State demeaned the arguments that he advanced on very serious issues.

I have cautiously welcomed the proposals. I shall place them in context, and raise one or two important issues that emanate from them.

I would describe the proposals, albeit welcome, as a reaction, not a strategy. I believe that they are a reaction to the very serious situation affecting rural areas, but I do not detect an embryonic strategy behind those proposals, let alone a comprehensive one, which is what is needed. The cynics may say that we are following a well-worn Government track. One creates the problems, presides over them, makes proposals such as those we are considering, and claims that one is tackling the issues, when in fact the proposals, albeit welcome, are a limited response to fundamental problems.

I shall put the proposals in context by describing the scale of the problems as they affect a county that I know extremely well—my home county of Staffordshire. The proposals are designed to improve the position in rural areas, and I repeat that, to that extent, they are welcome. The cost is about £20 million, according to the Bill. About £15 million of that is attributed to mandatory and discretionary business rate relief; that is welcome.

However, as I understand it, that £15 million will come from the national non-domestic rate pool. As that is the very pool of money that is redistributed back to local authorities, is there not a danger that the £15 million that comes out of that pool will reduce the pool and so reduce the amount to be distributed, so that local authorities will indirectly find themselves funding that welcome business rate relief—not the Exchequer, as we have been led to believe? That must be qualified.

I wish to illustrate the seriousness of the problems in two rural areas in Staffordshire. One is north-east Staffordshire, Staffordshire Moorlands, an area of wonderful beauty. My family, including myself and my grandchildren, visit it often. It has the Peak park within its boundaries, and we are extremely lucky in Stoke-on-Trent to have such a wonderful facility nearby.

That area is suffering badly. Extremely important facilities in that rural area have been closed. British Gas closed its facility. The former Midlands Electricity Board, now Midlands Electricity plc, closed its facility after privatisation. There have been closures of the driving test centre, the Benefits Agency office, the ambulance station, rural post offices in Calton and Rushton and the Biddulph and Cheadle court—as my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) said.

There are further closures in the pipeline—the tax office at Leek, the Staffordshire Moorlands office of Crossroads Care and Cheadle health centre, all very near where I live.

If the Government were serious about stopping the haemorrhage taking place in our rural communities, they would not only take the action proposed in the Bill but multiply the beneficial effects of those measures by intervening to prevent such proposed closures. I suspect that the closures that I have mentioned are being multiplied the length and breadth of the rural areas of England and Wales. Further facilities, such as the fire station, are under threat.

The Secretary of State rightly spoke about the seriousness of crime and the failure of the Government's law and order policies. Cheadle police station is under threat. He might want to do something to remove that threat. If the Government are serious about rural crime, and about helping parish and rural councils and councils in rural areas to tackle it, it beggars belief that they would sit back and allow an extremely important police presence in a rural area to be threatened with closure. That threat is mirrored throughout the country.

The BSE crisis was mentioned. In north-east Staffordshire, a large area heavily dependent on agriculture, in which there are 75,000 animals, there are serious problems because of the Government's inability to come to grips effectively with the BSE problem. Not only primary producers but many in ancillary industries are hit. There is justified fear about the future of those businesses and people who work in them.

I have seen at first hand the reduction in general stores and post offices in those rural areas. I need not travel too far to be in those areas. I am very fortunate in where I live. I am a few hundred yards from the boundary of Staffordshire, Moorlands, and my family, my friends and I are grateful for the opportunity to enjoy the countryside. We have a deep interest in these rural areas.

I have noticed that, in some villages that I visit, post offices and village shops have disappeared—a very important factor in the general decline of rural areas, as of urban areas. I shall have an interesting time explaining to proprietors of small businesses in my urban constituency why they cannot obtain any mandatory relief, whereas it will be made available to businesses elsewhere.

I am not saying that such relief is bad or should be stopped, but it will be interesting to discuss the issue with proprietors of small businesses that are clinging on to their lifeline by their fingertips and cannot obtain relief because they happen to be based in a specific area.

I welcome the Government's business rate proposals, but I have serious doubts whether they will have more than a marginal effect on the viability of rural areas and villages.

I said that I would refer to two areas of Staffordshire that I know especially well, and discuss the proposals in that context. Rural east Staffordshire is heavily dependent on various industries, one of which is gypsum mining. Gypsum is used particularly in the production of plaster and cement. Need I tell hon. Members what has happened to the construction industry over the past 10 years or so? It has been decimated, and industries situated in rural areas have suffered from the continuing slump in the industry. If the Government are serious about revitalising rural areas, I suggest that they address those issues, too.

Between 1991 and 1995, the number of VAT-registered businesses in rural east Staffordshire fell by almost 500. Before any hon. Member rises to intervene, I accept that some of those would be accounted for by the increase in the threshold, but my researchers suggest that the vast majority of those businesses went under before the threshold was increased. The area experienced an employment loss of 6 per cent. between 1991 and 1993, largely in villages such as Tutbury, Hanbury, Branston and Churnet. I know those villages well, and have seen the effects.

It is true that the registered claimant unemployment count has improved slightly since, but any improvement is relative. The employment guts were ripped out of those village areas over those years. Such figures put into context the serious problems that rural areas are facing and the effect that the Government's proposals are likely to have. Welcome though they are, they will have a marginal effect at best.

The transport proposals are also welcome. If parish councils can raise more money to stimulate transport provision, all well and good. The danger, however, is that, although parish councils may have the power to do that in whatever way they consider appropriate, the grant to county councils such as Staffordshire is being cut year on year, and its ability to maintain vital passenger services in rural areas is being reduced significantly year on year.

Unless the Government are prepared to grasp the nettle, we face the prospect that, when parish councils have the power, they may decide to spend more money on providing transport facilities for their area, but, because of Government cuts, county councils may be forced to remove their support for public transport. Although there may be a transfer of responsibility, the net effect could be no improvement whatever. We shall have spent another £15 million on trying to achieve that. That is not just carping criticism. Local authorities and parish councils will face difficulties, which the Government must address with greater clarity.

People in rural areas will no doubt greet the proposals with one and a bit cheers. If the Government are expecting three cheers, they have a long way to go yet. There will be a cautious welcome, but people in rural areas who have suffered over the past 15 years from Government complacency and ruinous policies will see the proposals, as I do, not as a strategy but as a reaction—a welcome reaction, but one that is likely to be short-lived.

7.5 pm

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on bringing the Bill before the House. The Government outlined their commitment to rural communities in the White Paper, and the Bill is the first tangible measure resulting from it.

I shall deal first with the rural ride on which we were taken by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). He presented a view of rural England that I do not recognise. Many people in the village of Dunnington, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, would be rather puzzled by it as well. He took us on a tour of England, stopping off at several Labour target seats—the Forest of Dean and other places—and spoke of rural England as being drug-ridden and suffering from despair, homelessness, joblessness and all the evils of society. That is not a picture of rural England that I know or that most of my hon. Friends who represent rural seats would know.

The problem of rural England—I accept that it is not all rosy—is largely a question of prosperity, not poverty. One of the reasons why rural shops and businesses suffer is the changing nature of rural communities. People are not put off from going to rural communities. They want to live there—the quality of life is high, not as the hon. Gentleman suggests—they want to retire there and they want to work from home there.

The problems of rural communities stem from increased demand as a result of rising house prices and the fact that car ownership has increased enormously in villages. As a consequence, people often prefer to do their shopping in supermarkets, which are cheaper, and not in the rural shops. That is what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State seeks to address.

The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras spoke about the closure of rural schools. The only body in my constituency in Northumberland that wanted to close down rural schools was the Labour county council. It targeted 15 schools on the ground that there were too many surplus places. The surplus places were not in rural schools, but in schools in urban areas. Instead of dealing with that, the county council forced rural children to move into towns for their education.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned closed surgeries. Most of us who represent rural constituencies see new surgeries and medical facilities being developed all the time. I have some splendid facilities in my constituency. We do not have problems with ambulances: we have a new air ambulance, and four-wheel-drive ambulances are being introduced by the Northumbria ambulance service.

We do not have a closed countryside, with closed footpaths and no access. We have increasing access to the countryside through various Government schemes, such as the countryside stewardship scheme.

The hon. Gentleman painted an entirely false picture of rural life. In many respects, rural life is prospering. Energy prices are falling and the availability of the Internet and cheaper telephones makes it possible for people to set up businesses and run them in the country.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health intends to introduce measures to boost rural medicine and to reintroduce a service similar to that provided by the old cottage hospitals. I believe that the false picture of rural England and Wales painted by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras was totally misleading. Of course there are problems in former coal mining villages, but the Government are seeking to address those problems.

The real importance of the Bill lies behind its clauses and schedules; it is the return of power to small towns and villages by strengthening the role of parishes and by giving district councils a bigger say in shaping the economy of their areas through the rate relief scheme.

In my Northumbrian constituency, which is one of the largest in England, rural shops are vital. In Northumberland, one cannot simply jump into a car and drive to a local supermarket to shop. For many of my constituents, that would mean a journey of more than 50 miles, and many more than that in some cases. Such journeys would require not only time, but two or three gallons of petrol. We need our local shops; fortunately, in most of the larger rural villages covered by the scheme, our shops remain. However, some of them are in a parlous state, and the Bill will be of great benefit to them.

Bellingham, for example, in the north Tyne valley, with a population of more than 800 people, still has two banks and a number of shops, including two butchers. It is a valuable local facility for shopping. Allendale Town in Allendale also supports a good shopping centre, which includes the Allendale Co-operative Society. It is the only one-branch co-operative society in the country. It is very well regarded by the local people. Allendale has a population of 740.

However, an air of uncertainty hangs over the shops because of the problems to which I referred. Rural newsagents, who often double up as the general store and post office, have particular problems. They have seen diminishing sales of newspapers, and they face increased charges from wholesalers while trying to keep in touch with the prices charged in supermarkets. They have a struggle.

If some of the sterling people who work in rural shops worked out what they earned per hour for all the hours they worked, they would find that it was very little. The people who run the shops deserve our congratulations because they do, thank goodness, provide a valued service. Reducing the burden of business rates will be a small but useful contribution to cutting the shopkeepers' overheads, and I believe that the community as a whole will appreciate that.

We have heard about pubs. It is important that local authorities like the two in my constituency, Tynedale and Castle Morpeth, use the discretionary scheme to the maximum. Naturally, they will have to draw up criteria about who should benefit, but they should not concentrate purely on the rural post office and the rural general store. They should look further afield. The village in which I live, with a population of 64, still boasts a pub and a post office. I am glad to say that the pub is extremely well used. It would be a tragic loss to the village and the community if that pub had to close.

Can the hon. Gentleman confirm my assumption that, if the standard spending assessment is not increased in line with the amount of discretionary relief granted by the local authorities, his proposal that the local authorities should all use their discretionary relief to the greatest extent is guaranteed to lead to considerable increases in council tax next year?

I cannot confirm that point, because it is a detail of which I am not aware at this stage. Clearly, those are issues that we shall examine in Committee. As I understand the Bill, the larger portion of the discretionary relief will still be met out of Exchequer funds. The value that district councils put on local facilities, such as pubs and post offices, will help them to decide whether they enter the scheme. I am encouraging my local authority to do so, and I am also encouraging it to include pubs. No doubt someone will accuse me of supporting boozing on the rates.

Local garages are also important. In many respects, they serve petrol almost as a favour for their customers these days. The price that they have to charge is the price at which they have to buy their petrol, which makes them extremely uncompetitive. However, in the rural areas of Northumberland, it is impossible for many people to go to a supermarket to fill up their car. They have to have petrol on the doorstep, and the garages provide an extremely valuable service. Most of them also make money by running a garage with car mechanics, or with a general store attached to it. They should also be very much considered by the local authorities when they are deciding whom they should use their discretionary powers to help.

Part II, which proposes the revival of the parish council, is extremely welcome. The parish council has been a vital part of rural life for many years. It is sad that since the war, its powers have been slowly transferred upwards, leaving it with little to look after bar the odd war memorial and one or two other things. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's proposals are extremely good and will help to reinvigorate parish councils. That will then solve the other problem of persuading people to serve on parish councils. If we give parish councils a better and more important role, people will wish to serve on them.

At the moment, parish councils sit at the bottom of a heap. In my constituency, where we have a national park, the parish council sits below a national park authority, which has many planning powers, the district council and the county council. If the Opposition get their way, those councils will no doubt sit under a Labour assembly for the north of England, which would be yet another administrative burden. I hope that that will not come about.

Parish councils, as we have heard, are regularly consulted by district councils. They make their views known, but too often they feel that those views are totally ignored. It is important that district councils are sensitive about parish councils' views on matters, especially planning matters. Local people are, for example, more likely to be sympathetic to somebody who wants to build a property for somebody in the locality to live in than they are to be to a developer who comes in to build a number of houses. That difference should be reflected by district councils when they decide whether to grant planning permission.

The extra powers will be welcome, and I have no doubt that parish councils will make use of them, especially for transport. The post bus service, which was mentioned by one of my hon. Friends, has been extremely successful. However, the problem of buses in rural areas is the one that I mentioned earlier. There is a problem because more and more rural people have motor cars, so fewer and fewer people use buses. We cannot turn the clock back; that is the situation with which we have to live.

I am glad that parish councils are to have powers over traffic and traffic-calming measures. Undoubtedly, one of the greatest concerns of people living in villages is the speed of the traffic going through their village. If, as I believe, they have an opportunity of making a contribution towards slowing that traffic down, that is another good reason why somebody would want to serve on a parish council for the benefit of his or her community.

Northumberland is well served by its parishes, but, as I said earlier, it is increasingly difficult to find people to serve on the parish councils. Now that the district council has so many powers, one of the dangers that some parishes face is that they might be amalgamated. One parish in my constituency, Hartleyburn, does not have a single parish councillor because no one has volunteered to serve on the council in recent times. I fear that under the Government's proposals, unless the parishioners of Hartleyburn take a greater interest in their parish council, they will be at risk of a shotgun marriage to their neighbours.

I very much welcome my right hon. Friend's decision to abolish sporting rates. In my constituency, field sports and shooting are enormously important. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras said that abolishing sporting rates would mean giving money to the rich. I point out to him that grouse shooting and pheasant shooting provide an enormous amount of work in my constituency and I suspect that that is true for the constituents of the hon. Member for North-West Durham (Ms Armstrong). I am sure that many of her constituents earn money on the grouse moors from the shooting parties and that the additional help for that important rural activity will be much welcomed.

The hon. Gentleman misunderstands the point that we sought to make. That rural activity provides work for those involved in beating, raising the pheasants and related activities. However, it is the landowner and not those people who will benefit from the rate relief. We want to encourage the creation of more jobs in those areas, and ensure that everyone who is able to makes a contribution to that.

I appreciate the hon. Lady's knowledge of grouse shooting, because many of her hon. Friends are utterly ignorant of that activity. But sadly her knowledge does not extend to the basic laws of economics. If money is put into a community—whether it is given to a landowner or anyone else—that money trickles down. [Interruption.] Of course it does. If the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, who laughs into his beard, were to listen to the shadow spokesman on agriculture, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Dr. Strang), he would realise that I was right.

His hon. Friend and I agree that, if farmers had higher incomes, they would spend more money in their local economy—they would buy things and employ more people. The same applies to the shooting business. If it is more profitable, it spends more money improving the shoot, upgrading its facilities and employing more people. That is one of the basic laws of economics.

The hon. Gentleman gives the impression that field sports are on their beam ends. According to the Government, they are worth £2,700 million a year. If my maths is correct, the £5 million contribution is 0.2 per cent. of that. The hon. Gentleman said earlier that that figure was extremely marginal. If it is so marginal, why do the Government choose to give that tax reduction to a small group of, generally speaking, wealthy people, whereas they bunged 22 tax increases on everyone else?

I do not think that I said that it was marginal. For many people, it will be a significant amount. I reiterate the point that I made earlier. The anomaly of that form of rating—it always was an anomaly—works both ways. An institution—or an individual—may own land and let it to a tenant farmer, but reserve the shooting rights to itself because it does not want them to be used. It may not want its tenant farmers to shoot over the land for particular purposes. It is nevertheless vulnerable and liable to pay rates on the sporting rights that it does not use. The proposal helps people involved in one form of land management. and it helps those involved in running a shooting business.

I welcome the Bill. It has been criticised by hon. Members on both sides of the House for possibly not going far enough, but it has to be limited, and it is right that the Bill is targeted at those providing rural services—rural shops, pubs and post offices—and other important parts of the rural infrastructure. I look forward to the Bill being enacted in time for rebates to be given as from next April.

7.22 pm

I thank the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) for his typical Welsh generosity in allowing me to speak ahead of him.

I do not come from a rural constituency. There is one farmer in my constituency, and for that I endure—that is not the right word; for that I am given—a National Farmers Union briefing once every six months. I know all about his farm, that is for sure. I am a small town boy: I lived in Ipswich for 30 years, but I come from a small town. I love the villages and small towns of Suffolk, as does my neighbour, the Secretary of State. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) was a county councillor in Suffolk before he got his present job.

I know the importance to villagers of their shop, their post office, their church, their school and their put). However, I represent an urban constituency. I welcome the proposals in part I, clause 1 and schedule 1 to reduce the rates of general stores and post offices in rural communities. I have nothing but praise for the proposals. I do not propose to go into any other part of the Bill.

There are two reasons for the reductions in the rates of general stores and post offices in rural areas. First, superstores have opened across the country, usually centred on trunk routes and junctions of trunk routes. In Ipswich, we have been particularly unlucky. We have four on the western periphery of the town, and two on the east. Permission for almost all those superstores was granted on appeal by the late Lord Ridley against the wishes of the local authorities. They have had a pernicious effect on the town centre of Ipswich, especially on the food trade, and on the small towns and villages that the Secretary of State represents.

Secondly, in 1992 many small shops were uprated for the new business rate. That increased their costs. At the time, the Government rightly introduced transitional arrangements to delay the blow to small businesses, but those arrangements have now worked their way through and out of the system. The pernicious effect of the superstores and of the increase in business rates on historically low-costed properties has resulted in problems for small business men in rural areas, and in areas such as the one that I represent. Butchers, newsagents, bakers and grocers are increasingly going out of business as more and more trade is concentrated in larger and larger shop units. They may not necessarily be superstore size: Mace shops are putting newsagents out of business. And so it goes on.

We should concentrate on not only helping rural shopkeepers to compete against superstores, but helping small post offices and small shopkeepers in general. It is not the location of the small business that is the problem; it is its size compared with the Sainsburys and Tescos of this world. It is proving increasingly difficult for small shops to cope.

If it is right—I think it is—mandatorily to reduce the rates of small shops in Woodbridge, Framlingham and in other small towns and villages across the county of Suffolk and across the country, it should be right to do the same for small businesses and small shops in my constituency. They are suffering from the same pressures.

In Committee, I should like the categories referred to in clause 1 to be altered to enable all shops of a given size to be viable. Incidentally, I have been unable to find in the Bill a description of a given size of small shop.

I have a few queries. If those shops are charged less in rates, there will be less income. The Bill refers to a figure of approximately £20 million. That does not sound too much, but I should like to know where it will come from. If it will come from a reduction in the pooled national business rates, my people in Ipswich will be paying more so that rural shops of an equivalent size can pay less. That cannot possibly be right. I invite hon. Members to think about that effect on businesses in their own constituencies.

If rates are not the same for shops inside my constituency as they are for businesses just outside it, people will be incensed. I shall use the example of my road. I live within a hundred yards of the Ipswich boundary. Just outside the boundary is a village called Kesgrave, which clearly would come within the limitations set out by the Bill. The Government are seriously mistaken if they think that they would receive popular approval by halving the rates of a little general store that is a hundred yards outside my constituency while leaving unaltered the rates paid by the little general store that is a hundred yards within my constituency. That would be utterly unfair.

Small shops compete against superstores, but they also compete against each other. What is sauce for one should be sauce for the other, but the Bill does not recognise that.

My town has a population of 145,000, whereas there are 120.000 people within the boundary of the billing authority, as described in the Bill. On the east side of the authority, for example, there are 2,500 people who live in Ipswich. They are not in the Ipswich billing authority, however, but in the Suffolk Coastal billing authority—in the area represented by the Secretary of State for the Environment. Do those 2,500 people—who form a group that is below the 3,000-person limit set by the Secretary of State—who live on the edge of town form a rural community or settlement? I argue that they do.

I appreciate what the Secretary of State has proposed, but I urge him to ensure that he is aware of all the anomalies that will arise from that provision. That is a classic example of what will happen. People will come to him and to me to ask, "Why am I not in a rural settlement? I live on the edge of town. There are fewer than 3,000 of us in the billing authority, but we aren't included." Many unresolved issues must be dealt with in the Bill. I hope that it can be amended in Committee, so that it is acceptable to hon. Members who represent constituencies such as mine.

Yesterday, I asked the main spokesman for post office owners in my area about that issue, because post offices are—quite rightly—specifically mentioned in the Bill. He made the point, with which I agree, that the important factor is not so much a post office's location—whether it is in Framlingham, Yoxford or Ipswich—as its size. I am not sure that the Bill states what hon. Members know to be right: that we seek to protect small businesses, not their location.

The Bill is flawed in its drafting, but it could be amended in Committee. If the Bill is to pass through the House without causing antipathy between town and country—I hope that it will not—it is essential not only that my arguments are accepted but that the financial impact is fully considered. If townspeople discover that rural shops are being subsidised at the expense of town shops, there will—quite rightly—be all sorts of trouble.

The hon. Member for Hexham will remember the Ipswich Evening Star. It carried a front-page story about 28 headmasters

"from Ipswich to Felixstowe … Stowmarket to Woodbridge"

who were complaining about expected education cuts. They will be extremely upset if £20 million leaves local government and is not replaced by the Government.

7.34 pm

It is extraordinary that the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) should be happy enough to tell us that his party wants to abolish the uniform business rate at a cost of £12,000 million, and also, in response to my intervention, that he wants to introduce site value taxation, but then to decide that he did not wish to discuss the matter. I am not surprised that he did not want to discuss it, as I have obtained a copy of a document published by the Liberal party in 1990 entitled the "Small Business Charter".

It may amuse the House to hear that the third paragraph of the document states:

"We plan to become Members of the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System."

I do not suppose that that is still their policy, but introducing land value taxation apparently is. The document continues:

"We propose Land Value Taxation with exemptions for agriculture and domestic properties. With these exemptions Land Value Taxation will be a fairer, more equitable tax, simpler to administrate and decentralist. It will specifically help small businesses because it removes the fear that improving land and property will increase rates."

That means that tax will be based initially on the land's full potential value, which is why no account will be taken of any improvements.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I have your ruling on the relevance to the Bill of the views of the Liberal Democrats on site valuation?

So far, the speech of the Hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) is quite in order.

I am most grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

I was about to say that the Liberal party's proposals will hit hardest the very properties mentioned in the Bill, which the Government are seeking to help. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment said in an intervention on the speech of the hon. Member for Newbury, the Liberal Democrat proposals would have precisely that effect. I find it incredible that the hon. Gentleman mentioned those proposals but was then not prepared to defend them.

I believe that the uniform business rate has worked rather well in practice. Of course we would prefer not to have a £12,000 million tax on property, but if we must have a business property tax, it is far better to have one which allows businesses to be sure precisely what they will have to pay in the next year, as any increase; are linked to increases in the retail price index. That situation is far better for businesses than the previous situation, in which there were arbitrary increases. I recall that about 10 or 11 years ago the business rate in Buckinghamshire increased by 31 per cent. in one year. Such a situation cannot happen again.

I was very surprised to learn that the Labour party proposes to abolish the uniform business rate and to return to the previous practice, whereby local councils set business rates.

I will explain the position when I reply to the debate.

I hope so, because I have documents which suggest that the Labour party wants to do precisely that.

The hon. Gentleman is getting rather excited. Perhaps he needs to examine some of the work done by the Minister, and some of the work done by the deregulation group which was headed by a former Minister, Francis Maude, who recommended that the uniform business rate had had its day and that it should go. Our policy is that the uniform business rate has had its day and that it should go, although we shall not return to exactly the same earlier methodology. We shall have a new methodology, but we believe that the uniform business rate should go.

That is not good enough. Businesses should be told. It is not good enough simply to say, "We shall abolish the uniform business rate." Businesses need certainty. The advantage of the present system is that they can budget with certainty for the following year.

A Labour party document entitled "Renewing Democracy, Rebuilding Communities" says that the party is

"committed to returning the business rate to local control".

Local control means a return to the position whereby it was possible for high-spending Labour councils to drive businesses that employ many people away from the most deprived areas. That is precisely what happened before, and I cannot believe that the hon. Lady wishes to return to that state of affairs. I hope that she will spell out Labour's proposals with rather more certainty, as I believe that the current system has worked quite well in practice. Of course there is no perfect system of business rates, but the current system has the advantage of certainty for businesses.

I found the speech by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) rather reassuring. It was old Labour with an element of déjà vu, based on the politics of envy, with attacks on wealthy people who happen to own sporting rights in the countryside.

The hon. Gentleman proposed an entire new set of spending commitments. On housing, for example, he complained about the present position and said that more money should be spent on housing. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State suggested that, if we were to allow more of the surpluses from the sale of council houses to be spent, there might be a quid pro quo in terms of reducing the capital allocation, the hon. Gentleman disagreed, and insisted that more money should be spent on housing.

One can hardly think of a less attractive way of going about the matter. The surpluses are not necessarily located in areas with the highest housing need, yet the hon. Gentleman would not redirect those resources. It is self-evident that the surpluses are in precisely the wrong areas. They are probably in places, such as my constituency, which have the most attractive council property and the largest number of council house sales, but the need is elsewhere. What a crazy proposal it was. If we want to allocate more money to housing, we should do so through the Housing Corporation, which can determine the areas of greatest need.

The hon. Gentleman's attack on deregulation was as surprising as his proposals on housing. Bus services have been in decline for the past 50 years under both systems of support for bus services. The only advantage of bus deregulation is that at least we now have a clear idea where the subsidies are going. The subsidies are focused, and the taxpayer is getting better value for money. The hon. Gentleman's scheme certainly would not succeed. He would not be able to persuade bus operators to take on loss-making routes without provided bigger subsidies. The only way to increase rural bus services is by providing larger subsidies to operators. We need to find a more flexible solution. The post buses have been mentioned. I also welcome the provisions in the Bill to allow parish councils to get involved in rural transport, as they are best equipped and qualified to judge immediate local needs.

I particularly welcome two other elements in the Bill. The first relates to the power of parish councils. When I first became familiar with parish councils, I was a little doubtful of their value: I thought that they were just talking shops and did not perform any useful function. As I have got to know them better, however—because my entire constituency is parished—I have reached the conclusion that they are well placed to identify genuinely local concerns.

Parish councils are the local authorities nearest to the people they serve. They serve a useful purpose as a sounding board, and I welcome the fact that they will be allowed to carry out more functions if they choose to do so and wish to provide the finance. That will be most welcome in respect of transport and crime prevention. For example, they may want to provide closed-circuit television in a small shopping centre.

I was pleased to hear what my right hon. Friend said about planning, which is one of the biggest issues in my constituency. There is widespread misunderstanding of how the planning process works. Many people think that parish councils make planning decisions, as they often have planning committees which decide whether to support any particular proposal and pass on that view to the district council which makes the final decision. District councils should pay more attention to the views of parish councils on planning matters. Local views on planning decisions are extremely important. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State told the House that district councils would be required not only to give their reasons for a planning decision, but to respond specifically to the arguments advanced by the parish council for or against a particular proposal. That is extremely important, as it means that they will engage in constructive debate and there will be more communication between the two tiers of local government. That is an extremely welcome provision.

I also welcome the help to be given to shops in villages. That highly targeted assistance represents £15 million out of a total unified business rate bill of £12,000 million, but it is focused on particular circumstances with which we are all familiar whereby village shops are close to non-viability and many have been lost.

There is a tendency to exaggerate both the extent to which the Government of the day are responsible for the problems that have been caused and the extent to which they can provide a solution. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) said, by and large the problems have been created by success and increased prosperity in rural areas. I can identify two factors: the pattern of employment, which has changed hugely over the years, and the huge increase in car ownership. The fact that so many families now have a car is a welcome development. Cars bring people enormous individual freedom, but the car has changed the patterns of retailing and employment.

For example, until recently the school in Little Marlow, a village that will become part of my constituency after the next election, was threatened with closure. That school is now flourishing, not because it is attended by children from Little Marlow but because parents from High Wycombe drive to the village so that their children can take advantage of village education. That is marvellous. The fact that they have that choice has made the school viable. We are discussing the problems of success, not failure, brought about by the increase in car ownership.

Hon. Members welcome the assistance given to rural shops, and the hon. Gentleman has made a splendid case, but does he accept that urban shopping centres also have considerable problems? The closure of one shop often leads to other closures due to the continual failure of urban renewal policies. Although we welcome the assistance provided to rural shops, does the hon. Gentleman accept that there is also a strong case for reducing the liabilities of small shops and shopping parades in urban areas, as so many of those shops are under great pressure?

Of course I accept that there are problems in urban areas. That is undeniable. However, they are the problems of success. We have had huge success in retailing. British retailing is among the best in the world. In food retailing, for example, the consumer has benefited hugely from the quality now available from our superstores. Many retailers, such as Marks and Spencer, which published its results yesterday, are developing outstanding retailing all over the world. The difficulty is that people drive to those shops because they get good value for money. Small shops in urban and rural areas suffer the consequences of that huge change in the pattern of retailing and we must consider the extent to which it is right to ask the taxpayer to support such shops.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson) said that, according to the Local Government Chronicle, trying to keep the village shop open would somehow be supporting the middle classes. That is clearly not the case. The people who cannot get to other shops are those who do not have cars—the old, the young and the unemployed. They will clearly benefit from the measure. I welcome that, because it is sensible to intervene to help those who have not been able to benefit from the changes that I have described. However, we must limit such help or we shall start to interfere with the operation of the market. We are limiting that help to £15 million of highly targeted relief, which will help people who are greatly in need. That is why I welcome the Bill.

7.51 pm

I, too, welcome the Bill as far as it goes and to the extent that it is comprehensible. It is supposed to be the fruit of the rural White Papers for England, for Scotland and for Wales. The Bill was trailed in that context in the Queen's Speech. There has been no debate in Parliament on the White Paper for Wales, and we are moving forward to some parts of the legislation without identifying the priorities. Many important provisions in the rural White Papers are not covered by the Bill and need to be addressed.

The White Paper "A Working Countryside for Wales" referred to rural housing, rural schools, rural youth services, the health service in rural areas, employment problems in rural areas, tourism in rural areas and the range of environmental action that is needed. Considerable attention has rightly been paid in response to the White Paper to the need to help small farmers by providing considerable assistance for agriculture in these difficult times. Agriculture is the backbone of rural life. Most of our farmers work on small farms in Wales and are often on the breadline. If they collapse under the strains they currently face, the whole rural fabric will go down with them.

We need a new all-Wales agri-environmental scheme, but there is no provision for that in the Bill. I hope that other Bills will be introduced to deal with the other aspects of the White Papers that are not covered by this Bill.

The Bill's scope is restricted. It deals with village shops and post offices, which are certainly important. There are 93 villages in my constituency and, goodness only knows, I understand the importance of sustaining the village shop and post office.

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can settle a point which is worrying me. I have read the Bill carefully, particularly schedule 1, which refers to "settlements". What is a settlement? Is it a village? Is it a street of houses? Is it a groupage?

The hon. Gentleman is right to ask that. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have been

probing for an answer. Clearly a settlement does not refer just to a community council or parish area. In my community of Llanwnda, there are the discrete villages of Rhosgadfan, Rhostryfan, Dinas and Llanwnda. There are shops in those different areas. One would not expect villagers from Rhosgadfan, up the hillside, to have to come down to Llanwnda every time that they want a stamp or their pension. One imagines that the community will have to be split into discrete areas; otherwise, the rule that only one post office or general store will be sustained in any community will cause immense difficulties. We shall undoubtedly return to that problem in Committee.

The Bill also deals with the strengthening of community councils, which we definitely support. It provides for car-sharing schemes, bus services for elderly and disabled people, concessionary transport schemes and traffic-calming schemes—an issue on which my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Dafis) has been pressing hard for a long time.

All those provisions are worth while, as are the much-needed provisions on crime prevention, but they are only a small part of the rural agenda. I regret that the long title of the Bill is restrictive. We shall not be able to move amendments in Committee to address the many matters that have been left out.

I welcome the Bill as a small step in the right direction and I am grateful to the Secretary of State for responding positively to my representations on the application of the Bill to my constituency, but I am a little disturbed that there are no Welsh Office Ministers present today. We have not seen one, apart from for a brief period during the opening speech. When I raise technical questions about Wales, I hope that the Ministers present can respond in detail, because the House has a right to such answers.

The problem with the Bill is that the devil is in the detail. Numerous difficulties arise in implementation. The first problem, which I raised with the Secretary of State earlier, concerns the applicability of the Bill, particularly part II—clauses 9 to 25. Clause 35(2) says: "Sections I to 4. 9 to 31 and Schedule 1 extend to England and Wales."

That must be a misprint. I should be glad of some clarification. Clause 25 says that part II applies to England only. Presumably something has gone wrong.

I imagine that some of part II must be already applicable in Wales through the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994. Clause 21 seems to reflect a considerable amount of section 14 of the 1994 Act, but the words are different, so it is questionable whether some of the provisions in part II will apply to Wales.

I suspect that the provisions in clauses 9 to 25 not covered by the 1994 Act will not apply to Wales. What is the Government's rationale in establishing those measures for England but not necessarily for Wales? We have a right to an answer. I do not know whether the Minister wants to intervene now. I suspect that he would rather a colleague came back to it in the closing speech—I understand that, in the circumstances. I hope thax they can dig out a Welsh Office Minister in the meantime to give them a lead. The issues of applicability are vital. We need to know which provisions in the Bill apply to Wales. We should be glad of an answer.

I welcome the measures on the relief of business rates for rural shops and post offices in Wales. There is immense pressure on rural shops in Wales, as in other parts of these islands. We have seen closure after closure over the past few years as patterns change and the viability of businesses is hit by falling demand. Obviously, that has a bad effect on those members of the community who cannot drive to supermarkets. The elderly, those who do not drive and disabled people will be harmed, as will the tourism industry. The base population of a village may not be able to sustain a shop in winter, although it may be necessary in summer to provide for tourists.

The burden of the uniform business rate falls not just on general stores and post offices, but on other rural businesses, such as village butcher's shops, hairdressing salons, cafes, chip shops, pharmacies and garages. It is not good enough to give discretionary powers to local government when we know full well that the squeeze on the financial resources of local government in the coming year means that local authorities will not have a brass farthing to spend in this way. As a result, many businesses that should receive assistance will not get it.

Secondly, in recent years, shops and small businesses have gone under not only in rural areas but in small towns and, as has been said, in urban areas. In the three towns in my constituency—Caernarfon, Pwllheli and Porthmadog—there are numerous empty shops and, to a significant extent, that is a direct result of the impact of the uniform business rate.

My hon. Friends the Members for Ceredigion arid Pembroke, North and for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) have pointed out in the Chamber that our policy as a party is that we want to do away with the UBR. Conservative Members have challenged the Liberal Democrats on this matter, but we have gone into it in some detail and we want to see a local income tax. That was the evidence that we gave to the Layfield commission in 1976 and, incidentally, was recommended by the commission. Even then, it was thought possible and practical to have a local income tax system.

I believe that, if businesses had to pay a local income tax—or, if they were incorporated, an added element to their corporation tax—as the means of funding local government, it would not become a burden or an overhead that might pull them down when their turnover was falling. It is variable—if a business is doing well, it pays more; but if it is doing poorly, it pays less. That makes it easier for businesses to survive when there are factors undermining their viability.

The existing provisions in law for relief for businesses going through difficult periods are applied so unevenly that it is difficult to see the basis on which they are applied. A couple of years ago, some £2 million of relief was given in England but only £900 in Wales. I have no doubt that there are many deserving businesses in Wales, and I know that some Welsh councils, such as Taff Ely—which no longer exists—applied the relief, while others will not contemplate it, and that causes a problem. There must be a rethink on local government finance, particularly on the uniform business rate.

There are real problems of definition which must be addressed in Committee, and I wish to flag up some so that we start to think about them. First, what is a rural area? We are told that it is a settlement with fewer than

3,000 people, but that is an inadequate definition, as it does not relate to density. The Minister of State told us that he recognised that a different formula applied in Wales, but nothing in the Bill refers to that formula. Apparently there are two ways of defining a rural area, neither of which is mentioned in detail in the Bill. We will have to deal with that in Committee, or the Bill will be open to challenges in the courts and elsewhere. There is also the question of one community covering more than one settlement, which I have raised.

Secondly, what is a business? The Bill allows the Secretary of State to include any shop or business by order, but how will the order be used? We must discuss whether there should be a limiting factor with regard to the size of a business. During the consultation in Wales, such a limiting figure was given—£5,000 of rateable value—but that seems to have dropped out of the Bill. Or has it? Perhaps we do not know it yet, and it will be covered by orders which have not yet been clarified.

What is the definition of a general store? For example, does a cafe that sells soap qualify as a general store, as it sells food as well as household items? I do not believe that the definition we have is watertight, and it will be inoperable. What is the qualification for a post office? Would a post office counter in an out-of-town supermarket—more and more supermarkets are trying to get such counters—qualify automatically for relief from the rates for the entire business? These matters have not been thought through, and more thought is needed.

I wish to refer to the powers of community councils, which are vital. I have 28 community councils in my constituency, and I try to visit them all on a rota basis. I have never been to a single community council meeting where I have not learnt something. These councils are valuable, but they have precious few powers and it is right to give them more. I am not satisfied that the powers to strengthen community councils in the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994 are adequate. My hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy tabled amendments to that legislation in Committee, but we did not get the result we wanted. Commitments were given that guidelines would be issued by the Welsh Office, but they have not been adequate. The Government may be relying on the effectiveness of the words in the 1994 Act as a basis for the application of the scheme in England, but that has not happened in Wales as yet. I want more powers to go down to community councils than do currently.

Several aspects of the Bill need to be clarified. For example, does any legal liability fall on community councils for car-sharing schemes or traffic-calming works? Frankly, community councils do not have the expertise to be handling questions if there is legal liability. Are community councils to be allowed to build bus shelters, given that the Bill restricts them from doing anything of a capital nature with regard to bus services?

The Bill states that community councils

"may, for the detection or prevention of crime in their area—

(a) install…any equipment."

What does that mean? Will community councils be allowed to put the stocks on the village greens? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I hear "Hear, hear" from Conservative Members. That may well be what the Government have in mind, and I would be interested to hear that spelled out. My local authority has considered installing closed circuit television. Although it can face the capital costs, there will be immense revenue implications if it is to monitor everything on the CCTV systems.

On taxi fares, clause 28 allows community councils to enter arrangements for fare concessions for

"some or all of the persons"

in the council's area. That sounds discriminatory—councils can choose who to help, and may not do so on an objective basis. There are specific provisions in legislation on water rates to prevent discrimination, but it appears that we are deliberately providing for it in the Bill. That needs clarification.

I should like to touch on omissions relating to the working of town and country planning law, particularly in rural areas. I have plenty of examples of nonsense in town and county planning law and how they impact on communities. My area has an old planning permission that dates back to 1965. It has been kept alive by way of a few yards of tarmac that were put down for betterment levy purposes in the late 1960s, but that has meant that the planning permission is alive in perpetuity for 800 holiday homes in the village of Morfa Bychan. It is a site of special scientific interest and needs protection. Planning law should be changed to deal with such nonsense. We have heard of opencast schemes that would desecrate rural areas, but existing provisions to cope with such problems are inadequate.

I should be glad if the Government would clarify whether a new rural business class use will be added to the planning process, as was mentioned on page 35 of the English White Paper. Consultation is proceeding on this matter and we need to know whether it will move forward, because it is important for the operation of our community councils and for planning to protect our rural areas. Small developments can proliferate, because the size threshold enables them to avoid the development control procedures.

As other hon. Members have said, we give two cheers for the Bill. We need to strengthen and clarify it in Committee and we need other Bills to cover the rural matters that have not been covered. More than anything, we need a coherent strategy towards rural Wales and that has not, as yet, been developed. The White Paper tried to move in that direction, but it was not adequate. Financing and the way in which grant formulae for local government deal with the sparsity of population and the additional costs that it causes have not yet been addressed. I hope that the Government are aware that rural areas have many needs and that they will be willing to accept amendments tabled in Committee. I also hope that we will hear more in the winding-up speeches. It is vital to get such legislation right and to make it applicable to, and effective for, our rural areas.

8.12 pm

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) who made a characteristically constructive speech. Some of the matters that he raised are already addressed satisfactorily in the Bill. For example, schedule 1 will provide billing authorities with much flexibility to interpret what is meant by "a rural settlement". I understood what the hon. Member was talking about, because I spent my summer holiday this year in his constituency and that of his hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd). I thought that he talked down Porthmadog a little, because it is a vibrant shopping centre and my wife and daughter greatly enjoyed our shopping trips there, although I could see the damage that has been done to areas of his constituency by the attractions of Safeway in Caernarfon and the new Tesco store further along the coast at Bangor. They have had an impact on village shops.

The two cheers from the Welsh nationalists must be encouraging for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Minister who will reply to the debate tonight. The Opposition parties seem to agree that the Bill is at least a small step forward, so we are entitled to believe that it is a big one indeed.

As we have heard in the debate, the Bill is about rural communities, and it is good to have an opportunity to debate that subject. I think back to the fuss that arose when the Church of England published its report, 'Faith in the City", and the huge row that erupted. Someone even used the word "Marxist" to describe the report. A few years later, the Church of England produced a parallel report called "Faith in the Countryside" which. I am sad to say, sank without trace. It was a fine report and an example of the Church making a useful contribution to the debate about rural communities.

We are debating today the very institutions that bind together those rural communities. Many of them are important—the church, the shop, the pub. the parish council, the school and so on. Those are the "little platoons" of village life. That phrase was used by Edmund Burke in 1790, when he said:

"To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love of our country and to mankind."

So our debate tonight has a long and honourable tradition.

Those institutions, those little platoons, empower people—they help people make a difference to the community in which they live—and they do not just include the formal institutions, because the family is a little platoon, as are sports clubs, hunts and voluntary groups. All those little platoons bind together the fabric of rural life. Some, such as the Church, do so by providing spiritual help; the shop provides practical help, as a centre of information for the village; the pub provides a social opportunity; the parish council provides a democratic one; and the school provides an educational one. They are the foundations on which our rural communities are built, and I congratulate the Government on the Bill, which will deal with many aspects of rural institutional life—those little platoons.

There is little for schools in the Bill, but it is not an education Bill and is not the place for that. There is little for the Church, but it has something to tell us about the importance of little platoons and subsidiarity. I mean, in this case, the Church of which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is a member, rather than my Church. Subsidiarity lies at the heart of what we are debating tonight because giving power to parish councils, as the Bill will, is what subsidiarity is all about. It was defined by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical "Quadrigesimo Anno" in the following terms:

"Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater or higher association what lesser and subordinate organisations can do."

He continued:

"those in power"

he must have been thinking of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—

"should be sure that the more perfectly a graduated order is kept among the various associations, in observance of the principle of subsidiary function, the stronger social authority and effectiveness will be, the happier and more prosperous the condition of the State".

That definition was quoted in the document "The Common Good", which was produced by the Catholic bishops recently and widely, and I think wrongly, interpreted as an incentive to vote Labour. That interpretation was sadly misguided on the part of mischievous media.

In the document, the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church stated:

"It will be seen that the principle of subsidiarity is no ally of those who favour the maximisation of State power, or centralisation of the State at the expense of more local institutions. It supports a dispersal of authority as close to the grass roots as good government allows, and it prefers local over central decision-making."

That is what the Bill sets out to do and that is why we should give it three not two cheers.

The principle of empowering parish councils must be right and we will give them powers that they may choose to exercise or not, depending on local circumstances. Conservatives are frequently criticised for seeking to centralise power, but I cannot understand that criticism. Our proposals for grant-maintained schools involve a decentralisation of power. They give power back to local communities and I am delighted that, in Flyford Flavell first school, I have the first grant-maintained primary school in a rural area in my constituency. That is empowering for the local community. We see decentralisation in health authorities, because we are giving power to general practitioners to take decisions.

We oppose Labour plans to create regional assemblies which would undermine the role of all local authorities, especially parish councils. We want to take power out to the people and that is what the Bill sets out to do.

Parish councils are, as everybody in the House agrees, crucial local institutions. I seek invitations to go to them as regularly as I can and a summons to one is a three-line whip to me. On the Bill's proposals for parish councils,. I have two questions, two welcomes and two caveats to enter. I am delighted that the Bill will make it easier to establish parish councils, and that it will give local communities the power to petition for their creation. I am also delighted by the new powers the Bill will provide on community transport and crime prevention, but I wish to ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary a question about clause 16. As I read it, the clause seems to create a presumption in favour of parishing. It seems to oblige district councils to parish where appropriate.

I think that I know the answer to the question, but does the clause also apply to parishes in urban areas, for example in Worcester city? I ask because my city council fought the creation of parish councils. The Labour party, which controls Worcester city, did not welcome rival centres of power in the city. They were wrong to fight them and it was undemocratic and unduly centralising of them. I am glad to say that the parish councils now exist and are making a valid contribution to the life of my city. In other cities, where Labour administrations might take a similarly unenlightened attitude, will they find it more difficult to resist the creation of parish councils?

I have a second question, about clause 21 and consultation with parish councils, which may already have been answered when I was temporarily out of the Chamber. I understand that it is primarily intended to deal with planning matters, about which several hon. Members have already spoken in detail.

Many parish councils in Worcestershire feel that they are not taken sufficiently seriously on planning matters. Only yesterday a parish council chairman told me that they feel that they are regularly presented with a series of faits accomplis. For exactly the reasons that many hon. Members have explained, I would like parish councils to be fundamentally involved in the planning process. They are in touch with grass-roots local opinion, and they know, often better than district or county councils, what is good for their communities.

Parish councils could also be given a role in the enforcement process. Often, when planning permissions have been granted, they are not properly followed, and sometimes the parish is better placed to judge whether a planning permission has been properly adhered to.

Frequently parish councils are not adequately informed during the local plan process. That has been an issue in the village of Tibberton, Worcestershire, which is currently suffering the imposition of an unwelcome housing development because the parish council was not properly informed about it. No one broke the rules, but there are no rules obliging anyone to inform the parish about a change in the application of the plan to its village. As a result, Tibberton is finding it difficult to resist the imposition of that unwelcome housing.

In the early stages of the local plan, the parish council thought that it had made its representations effectively, but then found that it was not required to be informed of a change. I do not think that at this stage the village can avoid the building of the unwelcome houses.

Parish councils have a crucial role to play in the planning process, and we should seek to reinforce that role wherever we can. The 1972 legislation simply required all planning applications to be notified to parish councils. I believe that that those councils' views should carry much more weight, and I hope that that is what the relevant clause seeks to achieve.

I extend two specific welcomes, one of which is for the wide range of powers on community transport and on traffic measures such as traffic calming. I especially welcome the emphasis on imaginative, innovative, creative use of existing facilities, such as sharing cars and taxi arrangements. Sadly, the days of the village bus cannot come back for most rural communities. Too many people own cars, which traps the poorest and most underprivileged members of our society in the villages, unable to leave them to work, to shop or for recreational purposes. The new proposals are welcome, as they seek to correct a trend that cannot otherwise be addressed.

I welcome the powers on crime prevention. Several parishes in my area are already adopting certain measures, such as giving remuneration to neighbourhood watch co-ordinators, which may or may not be legal at present. I am sure that they will welcome the provisions in the Bill. The installation of closed circuit television cameras may be a bit much to ask in small village communities, considering not only the capital costs but the running costs. But larger town councils will welcome the powers that the Bill will enable them to take.

I have two caveats. First, not all parish councils will take up the new powers. It is not the Government's intention that they should. The powers are discretionary, and councils can decide whether to use them. However, if a significant number of parishes decided to use the powers, parish council expenditure would increase sharply.

Wychavon district council area, which covers the rural parts of my constituency, is fully parished. We have three significant town councils, and the total budget of the parish councils there is about £750,000. I therefore repeat what some Opposition Members have said about not bringing parish precepts within district and county capping arrangements. That would be a harmful development, and I hope that the Minister will assure me that the Government do not intend it to happen.

My second caveat concerns the new responsibilities of parish councils. They will require a great deal more skill and expertise than some councils now have. Many parishes may be reluctant to take up the powers because they feel that they lack the necessary expertise.

Let us consider some of the issues that my local parish councils are confronting now. Whittington is fighting a battle with the Highways Agency about noise, and a great deal of expertise has been built up there. People in Bishampton and Throckmorton have fought an entirely inappropriate planning permission for a chicken farm, and have had to deal with complex laws on environmental impact assessments, as well as European Union involvement in such matters.

I have already talked about Tibberton, and the detailed work that has been done there on the planning process covering housing. Inkberrow fought the Boundary Commission in an attempt to prevent its transfer to the new Redditch parliamentary constituency. In Wyre Piddle, people need to know the details of transport policy, as they fight for their bypass.

Those matters are all time-consuming for parish councils, and if they are to take advantage of the new powers in the Bill the clerks, especially, would benefit from further training. Perhaps the Rural Development Commission could consider the idea; indeed, I believe that it is already doing so. Overall, I welcome what the Bill will do for parish councils. It recognises subsidiarity, decentralisation and the strength of the little platoons.

That thought leads me to that other little platoon dealt with by the Bill—the village shop. Many such shops in and near my constituency are struggling against all the odds. In my eyes, the proprietors of village shops are the real heroes of rural life, providing a crucial service and a social facility that we cannot afford to lose.

Several Opposition Members have said that the relief that we propose for village shops should go to urban shops too. I understand that wish, because there are struggling urban shops in my constituency, too. However, the point is that the rate relief will be a subsidy not to the village shop proprietor but to the community, to keep that crucial community facility alive. That is the distinction.

Ultimately, the Government have to draw the line somewhere. There are all kinds of things that we would like to do if resources were unlimited, but as they are not, I believe that the Government are striking the right balance. The rate relief proposal will often make a real difference to village shops.

Some people have underplayed the significance of rate relief to those shops. The Association of Metropolitan Authorities, for example, seems to think that it does not matter. I disagree. Some shops in my constituency are still awaiting the phasing out of transitional UBR relief, and at present the prospect for them is one of increasing business rates. The Bill will wipe out that prospect, which will be greatly welcomed by the shops.

Figures are missing from the Bill, but I understand that the Government intend to set the rateable value limit below £5,000 and to provide for mandatory 50 per cent. relief for such businesses. The discretionary scheme for a 50 per cent. top-up for local authorities must be welcome. I also notice that, whichever way we put it, only 25 per cent. of the 50 per cent.—that is, 12.5 per cent. of the total—will fall to local authorities, the rest being borne by the rate fund or by the Exchequer, depending on which interpretation one prefers.

I welcome all that, and I sincerely hope that the village shops in my constituency will benefit from both halves of the equation, the mandatory and the discretionary. The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats on such matters, praised the record of councils run by his party in that regard. The Lib-Lab pact that runs Wychavon council does not have an especially good record on hardship relief. Only a tiny handful of shops get help.

Wychavon is a cash-rich district, because of the wise policies of the Government, especially the policy for the transfer of council housing to local housing associations, which were pursued by the previous Conservative Administration. The council has enough money to give the relief, so I sincerely hope that, when the Bill becomes an Act, it will make a rapid commitment to use its resources to provide the tiny additional sum to increase the limit to 100 per cent.

Despite my welcome for the Bill, I accept what many hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Caernarfon, have.said: it is not a panacea, and does not solve all the problems of village shops.

I am a great admirer of Tesco, Sainsbury and Safeway. As one of my hon. Friends said, those companies have transformed British retailing; they are among the finest retailers in the world. But at the end of the day they are the enemies of the village shop. We cannot duck that fact.

For example, I wrote to Tesco when the company started running a bus service from a village in my constituency to its new store at Evesham. That stuck a dagger in the heart of the village shop in Peopleton. Tesco found it incomprehensible that I could be worried about the village shop, but I was, because the bus service was limited and inadequate, yet it would take away that extra bit of turnover from the village shop, thus endangering its future.

I opposed Sunday opening for similar reasons. I am sure that that, too, has damaged village shops and small urban shops. I am also concerned about the policy of some of the big supermarkets on "known value items". For a village shop it is difficult to buy many branded goods even as cheaply as the price at which they are sold off the supermarket shelves. The supermarkets stop the manufacturers and wholesalers selling goods at a price that would enable the village shop to compete with them.

That is a scandal, and I hope that the Minister can have a word with the Office of Fair Trading to see whether that body could have a little look at the problem.

Another matter that hon. Members could have mentioned is the new business improvement grant scheme for village shops. Taken together with the relief on business rates, it is a very important development. In fact, the chairman of the Rural Development Commission said in a press release last week:

"The village shop provides an essential service, particularly for those without ready access to transport, but is under threat…This new scheme will complement both our existing advisory service for village shops and the proposed rate relief scheme for which the Government has just introduced a Bill. We believe that the combined effect of these measures will provide the best chance of halting the decline in the number of village shops which we have had for many years."

Combined with the measures in the Bill, the new business improvement grant scheme, which was announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on 28 October, offers more than a ray of hope for many struggling village shops.

Of course, village shops face other threats, too. If, Heaven forfend, there were to be a Labour Administration sometime in the future which proposed the introduction of a minimum wage, what effect it would have on many marginal shops that can at present afford to employ one assistant at a relatively low rate of pay I shudder to think. The implications of a minimum wage for village shops could be very serious.

The National Farmers Union wants clarification on some issues. It has asked how my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State proposes to designate areas as rural for the purposes of the scheme. I am sure that we shall explore that in Committee, although I think that schedule 1 provides the flexibility that those rural communities need. It also asked what might be the position of some farm shops, which act as general stores but are not necessarily located within the boundaries of a designated rural settlement. That is an interesting point.

There is another point on which I would be interested in hearing my hon. Friend the Minister comment. Some of the shops have to pay not only business rates but large sums to have rubbish taken away by district councils. The cost of collecting cardboard cartons has an additional charge over and above the business rate. Perhaps that is another matter to be considered.

Finally, and briefly, I turn to pubs. It is right that we should emphasise them as a crucial component of village life. I attended a reception yesterday that was organised by CAMRA at which that point was made to me very forcibly. It is looking for a mandatory 100 per cent. relief scheme for village pubs, which is a trifle ambitious, to say the least. Pubs play a crucial social and economic role in villages. They provide a cheap and self-financing meeting place for many local groups where, for example, a village hall does not exist, and they are vital to social cohesion. I am told that, at present, business rates account for 6p per pint sold in the average village pub, and that the total tax per pint is around 54p when one takes account of excise duty, VAT and business rates. Perhaps that is another little platoon that demands a little more support in the Bill.

Nevertheless, the Bill is a good one, it has been introduced by a good Secretary of State and it deserves to make good progress. I certainly have no hesitation in recommending it to the House.

8.32 pm

I shall address clauses 5 to 8 and schedule 2, which deal with the rate relief scheme for village shops, and are the only parts that affect Scotland. Like most hon. Members, I give the scheme a cautious welcome. It is, of course, but a drop in the ocean in terms of the community, economic and development needs of rural Scotland, but it is very welcome. I know that it will be welcomed by many of the small shops and post offices that will benefit from it.

The local authority in my constituency estimates that about 75 shops and post offices and another 50 sub-post offices in the Western Isles will be eligible for rate relief under this scheme. That gives the House some impression of the nature of the constituency and the importance of the scheme to helping those shops. They are essential to maintaining community life in what are very remote villages and districts by any standard—even European standards. Any moves that help to prop up the existence of such shops is to be welcomed.

I hope that the scheme will also be of assistance to mobile shops. They are not referred to in the Bill, and I am not quite sure how the scheme would apply to them, since by their very nature they travel from village to village and district to district, but they are just as essential to the lifeblood of remote and rural communities as resident shops. They not only supply produce of various kinds to the different villages they visit, but act as bearers of news, gossip and information from village to village, and help to tie many villages and districts together.

I know that, to people who find it difficult to move out of their villages, because they are elderly, on particularly low incomes or disabled, or face some other difficulty, mobile shops are a welcome sight when they come over the hill. If the Bill can help mobile shops as well, it would be very worth while. I hope that that is a point that we can explore in Committee.

I should like to make a couple of suggestions about how the rate relief scheme might be further improved. Like many others, I believe that the scheme ought to be extended beyond simply ordinary shops or general stores. Pubs have been mentioned. Petrol retail outlets in rural areas also need to be assisted by the scheme.

There is no doubt whatever that local petrol outlets are hugely important in rural areas because, by their nature, such areas do not have a developed public transport network. People rely more heavily on their cars to get around for essential day-to-day living than they do in urban areas, where there is access to tubes, buses, trains and other kinds of public transport. In rural areas, the car is essential to get about, which is why it is important that there is access to petrol—and nearby, so that they do not have to drive large distances to fill their tanks with petrol.

Rural petrol retail outlets are under increasing pressure. The Minister will know that the Trade and Industry Committee studied petrol retailing in its sixth report in the previous Session. One of the issues on which it focused was that great pressure, which is due to rural outlets having to bear increasing costs as a result of new environmental standards and the need to introduce new equipment. That is particularly onerous for people who have a very low turnover.

There is also the problem that the outlets usually have to pay a higher price for wholesale petrol. Those two things together mean that the consumer has to pay a much greater price than that paid in urban areas. I know that that is true throughout the country and not only in Scotland, but it is perhaps particularly true in the highlands and islands.

The gap between rural and urban prices in the highlands and islands is staggering. Last year, for example, the average gap between the price of petrol in the Western Isles and the price on the mainland of Scotland was about 8p per litre—about 36p per gallon. People in rural areas have to pay a great deal more for their petrol. In the Western isles, for example, people have to pay £1 million more a year than they would have to pay for the equivalent amount of petrol in urban areas.

Great pressures and problems bear down on retail petrol outlets in rural areas, especially in the highlands and islands, but to a greater or lesser degree throughout the country. We need to offer those outlets some support, and I hope that that can be done through the Bill.

Recommendation No. 9 in the Trade and Industry Select Committee report suggests that the Government should consider ways in which the taxation levied on petrol could be adjusted to ensure that petrol retailers in rural areas were not disadvantaged. That could be done in different ways: a rebate on the value added tax or duty that the retailers pay would be one method, and giving them access to the rate relief scheme would be another. I hope that we can consider that carefully in Committee, and extend the scope of the scheme in what I believe would be a sensible way.

The balance of the way in which local authorities and central Government pay for the scheme could be adjusted. If the scheme is taken up and both the mandatory and the discretionary elements are employed to the full, the balance would be about 75 per cent. from central Government and 25 per cent. from local authorities. For charities, the balance is slightly better—80 per cent. and 20 per cent. It would make sense to have a similar split in the scheme for rural businesses.

Clause 2 is not a Scottish clause, but I must make some comment on it. It concerns the abolition of sporting rates in England and Wales, and I was baffled by the Government's explanation that it was needed to bring England into line with Scotland. I well remember the Government arguing that the equivalent measure in the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994, which abolished sporting rates in Scotland, was needed to bring the Scottish position in line with the English, so their justification for the current measure seems bizarre.

It is a gross waste of money to provide a blanket exemption for sporting estates, and I warn English and Welsh hon. Members against going down that route. The exemption would account for a quarter of the total cost of the scheme—£5 million out of £20 million—and there is no justification for it on economic, social or community grounds.

Since sporting rates were abolished in Scotland, there has been no evidence whatever of any benefit to rural communities, or that it has helped, as was argued during the passage of the 1994 Act, in the management of the estates. All that has happened is that money has disappeared into the pockets of those who own and control sporting estates—by definition, extremely wealthy people. I hope that the Committee will consider that carefully, and reject the provision.

Clauses 6 to 8, which contain provisions dealing with Crown property, affect Scotland and appear to be sensible in principle, but we shall have to look at the detail and to consider how they bear upon the operations of the Crown Estates Commissioners. I look forward to hearing more about that in Committee.

The Bill represents a small drop in the ocean in terms of the support that rural communities need, but it is a welcome drop.

8.45 pm

My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Mrs. Lait), the first lady member of the Government Whips Office, asked me whether I would speak in tonight's debate. No lady is ever to be denied in my life, but one who has such an interesting array of Whips at her disposal certainly commands my riveted attention.

I apologise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to colleagues on both Front Benches, for the fact that I was not here for the opening speeches. I was attending upon one of Her Majesty's Treasury Ministers with the leader and two officers of the Isle of Wight council to discuss the minting of the Isle of Wight ecu, for the illegal sale of which the council is facing prosecution.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned, the Bill is all about subsidiarity. The Isle of Wight council recently spent nearly £15,000 on a MORI poll asking people on the island whether they would like a referendum on independence and how they would vote in such a referendum. On the first question, 71 per cent. said yes; on the second, 44 per cent. said that they would be against the independence of the Isle of Wight, 33 per cent. said that they would be in favour, 17 per cent. said that they did not know enough about it and 1 per cent. said that they would not vote.

It seems not untypical of the Liberal Democrats that the council now wishes to have an Act of Parliament allowing a referendum on independence, which would cost about £120,000, in order to pose a question to which it already has the answer, because a large majority have already said that they do not want independence. Indeed, the Liberal Democrats' prospective parliamentary candidate accused the leader and deputy leader of the council of forming a breakaway party that had not been authorised by Cowley street. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will therefore realise that subsidiarity is high on the agenda on the Isle of Wight at the moment.

Rating is at the heart of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) gave an excellent exposition of the merits of the business rate as it stands. He left out only one important point, a point that, if I may say so, is often missed by the Government. The fashion of the day when I came into the House—it was parroted throughout the country and not only in political circles—was to ask what the Government were doing for our manufacturing industry, yet so many people forget that the legislation setting up the business rate favoured, and still favours, manufacturing premises. I have not found a single manufacturer on the Isle of Wight who wants to do away with the business rate.

I can explain that to the House and give ample illustrations: the rates on the Isle of Wight were uncompetitive, we could not get people to invest in the island and set up factories there, and many of the large multiples and international companies were considering moving away to their spare capacity in other parts of the country.

Today, the Isle of Wight's business rates are pari passu—four square—with those of the rest of the nation, which is very helpful. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield also said, that gives businesses the opportunity to plan their budgets in advance. That is to say nothing of the extraordinary increases in the old business rate when the Liberal Democrat council had the matter all to itself.

The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel)—or is it Papworth, I can never remember which it is, but I know that it is something to do with bypasses—mentioned that Liberal Democrat councils were used to giving rate relief. When he generously gave way, I pointed out that I had never known the Isle of Wight council to use that facility.

When I was elected to the House, the Liberal Democrats suddenly started asking about the village shops that were shutting, and asked why I was not doing something about it. I pointed out to my local councillors that they already had the power to do something if they wished. There is nothing Liberal Democrats hate more than being given a solution that bursts the balloon of their protest and takes away the oxygen they need to shout about such matters. They have never used that facility to assist village shops. I have been able on rare occasions to negotiate with the council on behalf of businesses for time for them to pay in exceptional circumstances.

As of tonight, I have a new policy for winning the next general election. It is to be nice to Department of the Environment Ministers. There is no Department I have spent more time kicking, screaming and shouting at since I came into the House. If there is one outstanding reform that the nation needs, it is an end to the annual junket that runs from local authorities to Marsham street and back. Year in, year out it costs the nation millions of pounds and is ineffective.

When my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) put through the House the order that created the Isle of Wight unitary council, he ran from the Chamber with my protestations about the problems of the electoral cycle of the unitary council and the parish councils ringing in his ears. Such was my angst, I even offered him a free demonstration of one of my company's products. I should at this point declare my interest in both beer and burials.

Parish councils bring Government nearer to the people. They have never been capped, because they act responsibly. In many parts of the country, they are unpolitical. In my constituency, there is a strong tradition of not standing for parish and town councils on a political ticket, even when candidates are already elected party political representatives of local councils. It gives a much better standard of decision-making at the grass roots when people hang their political hats up outside the door on parish councils. My constituency much appreciates that.

Clause 20 more or less restores the position that existed before we passed the legislation that created the Local Government Commission and the unitary authorities. I welcome that. It is rare for a Member to have a Government Bill that is almost entirely and exclusively dedicated to his constituency, but that is the case with the alignment of the electoral cycle in the Bill.

Clause 11 allows a petition by the community to set up a parish council. It is unclear whether a time scale is involved, though some of the wording suggests that, where a community has already made a petition, it will suffice. Is a time scale involved? My hon. Friend the Minister knows, because of my representations, that East Cowes has made a petition. We all support its having a parish or town council. Will it have to go through the exercise afresh?

My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff) talked about planning and parish councils. When I was elected for the Isle of Wight, I met our chief planning officer and pointed out that, if he required people seeking planning permission to bring an extra set of plans when they made their applications, it could be distributed to parish councils, which would involve them much more in the process. He said that he did not believe that it could be done, because it was ultra vires and outside the law. I pointed out that, when I had been a district councillor, we had required it.

Most people who wanted planning permission would not baulk at the legality of what was involved and would provide the extra set. Since we adopted that on the Isle of Wight at my suggestion, I have not heard of any developer or architect who has baulked at supplying additional plans for the parish council, so that it can be fully consulted in the planning process.

Clause 20, as the hon. Member for Newbury said, exclusively affects the Isle of Wight. It might be thought that there would be other cases, but we are the only unitary authority where the electoral cycles do not match. I welcome the fact that the Bill deals with that. On the Isle of Wight, we have many tiny parish councils whose precept comes to less than would their election costs if they had to have stand-alone elections. That is nonsense.

I should have been on the island tonight with the deputy chief constable for a first meeting about some neighbourhood watch arrangements. I know how much the Bill's anti-crime measures, such as closed circuit television and the appointment of parish constables, will be welcomed. Hon. Members with mixed rural and urban constituencies such as mine will have had representations from the community, generally speaking, about anti-social behaviour and vandalism rather than serious crime. The parish council can play a useful role in that respect.

We must guard against the district councils walking away from their responsibilities, and leaving it by default to the parish councils to get on with some of these duties. That would be wrong.

Rating relief for shops is welcome. Several hon. Members have asked about the pubs. In some cases, the pub has a dual role as village shop. I hope that that will not preclude them from this welcome rate relief.

Finally, clause 3 activates the Government's long-standing policy of abolishing Crown immunity and Crown exemption. I welcome that, for a number of reasons. On the Isle of Wight, the Home Office owns the Albany, Camp Hill and Parkhurst residential estates, including roads and street lighting. Now the Home Office is trying to hand over the ownership to local residents.

I welcome the abolition of Crown exemption because of the major problem that arose when I entered the House in 1987, when I was landed with the difficulty that rating valuation officers had misjudged the rates on what were in the main residential properties for prison officers. The mistake amounted to several pounds per head of the population of the Isle of Wight.

I went to see Nick Ridley, who told me that the problem had nothing to do with him: I should go and see the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I went to see Nigel Lawson, who told me that it was nothing to do with him: I should go and see Nick Ridley. I am sometimes asked why I still languish on the Back Benches. It is because I shuttled endlessly between those two gentlemen and made myself extremely unpopular with them, which killed my prospects of advancement.

Eventually I was told that there was no legislative mechanism to put this major problem right. What was more, it had never occurred before. In desperation, I got in touch with the Cabinet Secretary. I felt that my constituents were getting a raw deal, and that no one wanted to help me out with it. In the end a solution was found; I was never allowed to be privy to what it was, but the debt was written off. That explains why I welcome the abolition of Crown exemption.

No speech of mine mentioning parish councils would be complete without paying tribute to Lord Mottistone, who has been an ardent champion of the cause of parish councils. He was chairman of the Parish and Town Council Association of the Isle of Wight, and his family enjoyed a long association with the councils as well. He tried to promote a private Member's Bill in the other place with the intention of marrying up these election dates. In no small measure, clause 20 is a tribute to his efforts.

This Bill is about a way of life and a form of government which are for ever England. It will ensure the continuation of that way of life on the Isle of Wight and in the other English shire counties.

9.1 pm

I do not know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether you were in the Chamber earlier this afternoon when I raised a point of order about the closure of the Gulf refinery in my constituency, which was announced this morning. It is planned to close it by the summer of 1997, with the loss of 350 direct jobs and a similar number of indirect jobs.

My constituency, a peripheral part of the United Kingdom, has over the past five years suffered defence cuts that have meant 1,050 job losses in defence establishments both in the constituency and in neighbouring ones. There have also been job losses in the energy sector, another pillar of the local economy, totalling 400 over the past five years. In the food production and processing sector, the third pillar of our local economy, we suffered the closure of the Whitland creamery, in 1994, and we are now suffering the effects of the BSE crisis.

The fourth pillar is tourism, which this year was hit by the Sea Empress spillage. Cardiff business school calculates that that resulted in a loss to the local economy of between £21 million and £30 million this year, with the consequential loss of between 1,100 and 1,400 jobs in the holiday season.

The cumulative effects of all that have been catastrophic, particularly for unemployment. In September this year, male unemployment in Milford Haven on a narrow base rate was 26 per cent., in Fishguard it was 20 per cent., in Pembroke Dock it was 20 per cent., and in Tenby, 22 per cent. The report produced by Cardiff business school and the Institute of Rural Studies in Aberystwyth also shows that, before the Sea Empress disaster, average income per head in rural west Wales was 72 per cent. of the European average, making it as poor as many parts of Portugal—which, along with Greece, is the poorest country in the European Union.

I represent a rural seat, because all the jobcentres that I have quoted in my constituency cover rural areas as well as the urban areas of particular towns, so I welcome anything that could alleviate some of the problems that my constituents face.

I am disappointed with the Bill, not precisely because of what it does, but because of what it does not do. It does not take on any of the major issues identified by the Government in their rural White Paper, nor in the responses from various rural organisations in England and those received in response to the Welsh Office rural White Paper. The scope of the Bill is extremely limited, and it does not get to grips with some of the fundamental problems that Wales in particular faces.

I was somewhat amused by the comments of the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith), who said that the problems faced by those in the rural areas of his constituency were caused by success. He said that, because people could afford a car, they could travel to the supermarket 10 miles away, thus depriving the local community shop of income. That is certainly not the case in my constituency.

The sad fact is that, two years ago, the Employment Service conducted a survey on behalf of the local leading pressure group, South Pembrokeshire Action for Rural Communities, in which it identified the fact that lack of transport was one of the main reasons why people remained unemployed or were unable to upgrade their skills on training schemes. It discovered that people could not get to a job even if one was available, and that they could not attend a training scheme even if one was offered to them, because of the Government's failure to ensure that we have reasonable transport services throughout our rural communities.

A survey carried out by Cardiff business school discovered that those on low incomes remained so poor because, even though they had a job, they had to pay car insurance, car tax and the high price of petrol for a car that they could not really afford, but which they kept because, without it, they could not get to work. Many of those people were going without to keep their car on the road. That is the reality for many in rural areas, particularly in Wales.

I welcome the limited proposals in the Bill, although. I have certain concerns about some of the details. Bearing in mind the limited amount of cash that will be available under the mandatory scheme, it is surprising that it will not be more closely targeted. It is quite possible that a successful shop in a village, which makes a reasonable turnover, will receive rate relief under the mandatory scheme because it is the only shopping outlet in that village. Unless we start targeting that limited resource. I am afraid that other, perhaps more deserving, shops and garages might go without. In Committee, we shall have to examine closely whether it is right to offer relief according to a blanket definition which means that, if a shop is the sole outlet in a community with a population of less than 3,000, it is automatically entitled to that rate relief.

As many hon. Members said, there are serious problems in areas that people from a city would regard as rural, but which the relevant local authority might regard as urban. Today, I asked my staff to carry out a small survey in two towns in my constituency, Pembroke Dock and Milford Haven. I asked them to count how many shops were boarded up, how many had "To Let" signs up and how many were unoccupied.

In Pembroke Dock this afternoon, 39 shops were either to let, boarded up or unoccupied and a further 16 units in a small shopping mall were also vacant. In Milford Haven, 15 shops were unoccupied or boarded up. That shows that we are examining the problems not only of purely rural areas, but of those not especially large towns where people from rural areas shop. The Government should address the crisis in the retail sector in many of our small towns. It is rather unfair that successful shops outside so-called urban areas will receive rate relief, whereas those suffering real problems in small towns will get no help at all.

I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald) has returned, because my next point relates to what he said about garages. If certain bypass schemes go ahead, some villages in my constituency in which the village garage is also the village shop will face problems, because their garage-cum-shop will be bypassed along with the rest of the village. Obviously, a significant part of such outlets' income derives from passing trade, and when that traffic has gone, because the trunk road will go round and not through the village, they will face real difficulties. The Committee should examine that issue because there is a deliberate policy on trunk roads that affects such village shops, especially those that also serve as garages.

As I explained, Whitland was a thriving town until November 1994. It had a large creamery that employed 156 people, and most of those people lived in the town. As a result of the deregulation of the milk market, that creamery was closed by Dairy Crest, and 156 people lost their jobs. Earlier this year, the town was bypassed and now, instead of going through the centre of the town, the A14 passes to the north. From an environmental point of view, that is undoubtedly a benefit; it is also an economic benefit, because it speeds up traffic between the far west of Pembrokeshire and the M4 corridor. However, the impact on the town centre—its shops, pubs, takeaways and garages—has been catastrophic.

The irony is that, under the present arrangements, the creamery, which is still owned by Dairy Crest and which the company refuses to sell, lease or otherwise put on the market, has received rate relief; whereas the poor shops, garages, takeaways and other outlets have received no help whatever. That is another matter which the Committee should seriously examine.

I recently asked the Post Office how many post offices had closed in rural west Wales, and I was told that six had closed this year alone—in Rhyd Lewis, Aberaeron, Freshwater East, Tufton, Bosherston and Fron Deg Terrace. I do not think that anything in the Bill will encourage anyone to take on those franchises, reopen those post offices and provide a vital service to people in those villages. Another opportunity has been missed to establish essential services. Elderly people and those on benefit need a local post office that is operational.

I shall now discuss community councils, as we call them in Wales. Wales is completely covered by community and town councils. I served on the Committee on the Local Government (Wales) Bill, which addressed many of the issues that are addressed in, I think, part III of the Bill, which relates purely to England. I am a great supporter of community councils, and I welcome some of the moves in the Bill towards increased responsibilities and powers for community councils, but we must be realistic.

Many of the new powers relate to improving transport facilities. Castlemartin community council in my constituency has 121 electors. It has serious transport problems; almost its only remaining public transport is a post bus. Those 121 electors would not be too happy with their community council if it suddenly started levying a rate to provide a vital service. They would appreciate that service, but those 121 people would not like the bill that they would have to pick up.

In that case, the issue is too great for a community council, and can be tackled only by the county council, but its hands are tied because it is in effect capped by the Welsh Office. It cannot expend the money necessary to provide that community with a reasonable transport service.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the worries about the extra powers that the Bill would give to parish councils is that, although parish councils are not capped, the money that they spend counts against the capping limit for the higher-level council, so any money that those poor 121 electors might be asked to spend will have to be deducted from the spending of the higher-level council?

I was going to make that point, and I can illustrate it. In 1994, Pembroke Dock town council was levying a rate that was higher than the district council rate for various purposes. As the hon. Gentleman says, we run the risk that, although the Bill would give those extra powers and allow community councils to levy a rate, it would have a knock-on effect on the upper tier of the local authority.

In Committee on the Local Government (Wales) Bill, I was worried—I still am—about the cost of democracy in community councils and town councils. If a member resigns or dies and there is a contest, the election can cost about £1,000. In Castlemartin, with 121 electors, if people decide that they want to hold an election, because everyone is concerned about a local issue and there are two points of view, that election almost bankrupts the community council. People are therefore reluctant to engage in local democracy because they are advised, "Do you realise that, if you do contest this seat and we hold an election, it will cost £1,000?" That problem must be tackled if we are to have vital local government at all levels.

The Bill presented a great opportunity—which has been lost—to tackle many of the profound problems that directly affect rural areas, especially in relation to economic activity. Why is there no rate relief for small business units, which would be a way to create and sustain jobs in rural communities? Why is there no rate relief for conversion of redundant farm buildings? Why has the Welsh Office systematically cut grants to village halls, which are often the only place where young people, the elderly, toddler groups and so on can meet? Although there is a token gesture towards education in rural areas through our small rural schools, why are local authorities constantly told that they must cut surplus places? That is the biggest threat of all to the small rural schools.

There have been cuts in support for the Leader groups, which are doing excellent work throughout rural England and Wales and addressing issues at the grass roots. In many cases, they are creating excellent training opportunities and in some cases good jobs as well. In 1995–96, £4 million was cut from support for rural initiatives in Wales. As a direct result, European money could not come into rural Wales. That is a travesty.

Although I welcome some of the measures in the Bill, I feel that an enormous opportunity has been lost.

9.20 pm

We have had an interesting debate. I originally thought that the Committee stage would be short, but as almost all Members who have spoken, on both sides of the House, have said that there are serious problems of definition in the Bill and flaws that will have to be worked out in Committee, I am beginning to wonder whether the short time between now and the election will be sufficient to sort it all out. Some of us hope that the Government will see sense and call an early election. It is interesting that all hon. Members who have spoken referred to the shortcomings of the Bill. They recognised that, although it is acceptable to Members in all parts of the House, it is a narrow measure.

I do not have a pecuniary interest, but I always like to make it clear to the House where I am coming from, so to speak, so I should state that I am vice-president of the National Association of Local Councils and president of the Durham branch of the Association of Parish and Town Councils.

Where is the hon. Lady's chain of office?

We do not go in for that sort of thing in Durham, but I hope that I have made clear my commitment to local and parish councils.

The Secretary of State was mistaken when he said that some people did not understand rural areas and were not concerned. He almost implied that only Conservative Members were competent to speak about rural areas. The debate has shown that there is considerable knowledge, experience and commitment to a living, thriving rural environment. That is evident on both sides of the House. Members from Scotland and Wales as well as from England have stated their determination that rural life in their constituencies should thrive and develop, but they recognised that the measures in the Bill were minuscule relative to the needs of rural areas in the 21st century.

Interestingly, the debate has highlighted the differences in our experience of rural life. That inevitably means that we have different ideas of what needs to be done to enable the community to flourish in the next century. I was particularly struck by the comments by the hon. Members for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) and for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith), who described a type of rural life which certainly exists but which is not the only form of rural life and which in my experience is not the predominant form of rural life for many people living in villages. If it were, we would face a difficult future, because both hon. Members described many people who lived in rural areas but who were making their living outside those areas and commuted to work.

The very high use of cars is leading to problems in rural areas. In the Weardale are a of my constituency, there is one road. There is a railway line, but it is now unused; that is another story and another tragedy. There Is one road, and the increased use of that road is leading to enormous difficulties, both for the industries in the dale and for the people living there. If we have the idea that rural life in Britain can prosper only by people making their living and doing the main things that sustain their lives, such as shopping, outside the rural area, we shall make rural areas intolerable places in which to live. The people who live there now will move back to the towns because they do not want such a quality of life. My belief, and that of many hon. Members on both sides of the House, is that that is far too simplistic a view of what is going on in rural Britain today.

The Rural Development Commission carried out a survey in 1994 which cautioned all of us not to be glib about the nature of rural life. The survey shows that it is much more complex, that different patterns are emerging and that we as decision-makers need to think about the kind of communities that we shall encourage by the measures that we take. The Bill should have been approached in that way, but I am not sure that that has been the major motivation behind it.

The Rural Development Commission's survey makes it clear that many of the new incomers to rural areas are people on low incomes. That suggests that many of them are elderly people on fixed incomes who are moving back to their home areas or to the area where they have had a caravan. That is the common theme in Weardale. Sometimes they come to the area with an over-rosy picture of what life will be like there in their declining years. As they have low incomes, they desperately need resources and services in their locality. Many of them do not have cars or, if they do, the cars are on their last legs—or wheels. As those people get older, they are less capable of maintaining the car and they get to the stage when they cannot use it.

I was horrified to hear the hon. Member for Hexham say that the lack of a car did not matter in his constituency, because his constituents now had the air ambulance. The head of the Northumberland ambulance service tried to endear a public meeting in my constituency to the idea that his ambulance, service would do a much better job if it took over Durham's ambulance service. He talked about the air ambulance, and one person in the audience said that the only reason people would need an air ambulance would be if all the amenities were closed and they were not able to get to them.

The closure of the local accident and emergency unit at Shotley Bridge hospital has led to many problems and the people in the top end of the Tyne valley whom I represent have enormous difficulties because of it. If they are taken by ambulance to the accident and emergency service, they are then left to find their own way home. I have a letter from one constituent who was charged £14 to travel 15 miles in the middle of the night because he had ended up in hospital after an accident and there was no ambulance to take him home.

It is not true to say that people in my region do riot face problems because of the distances involved and do not feel isolated. Those problems exist. What is happening in the health service in my region is no different from what is happening in other regions. The closure of health care units adds to the difficulties of local people, but health is not the only issue to which those problems relate.

My experience of living in a rural area is different from the picture painted by Conservative Members, but it is not all bleak: many people enjoy living in rural areas and want to be able to continue to do so. We should address the issues dealt with by the Bill on that basis.

If we are to have a rural life that is sustainable, and if we are to manage the environment and the land effectively, we must have a working life. The number of small businesses and village shops that have had to close in recent years is staggering. The measures to save small village shops are welcome but, my goodness, we have had to wait until so many of them have closed. We must now consider not only how to save those village shops, but how to make them viable and able to meet the needs of rural communities in the next century. I am disappointed by the approach taken in the Bill. It does not look forward and consider how most effectively to support village shops and businesses to ensure that they can play their role not only for the present generation but for the next.

The Government should have thought more about a partnership approach, and should have developed their proposals in that context. In some areas of the country, local authorities together with local people are already working hard on imaginative and innovative schemes, especially schemes involving small businesses. Measures are being taken to encourage young people to get jobs. If we cannot create opportunities for young people, our rural areas will become the preserve of older people and those who are getting older. If young people are unable to find work and opportunities, they will leave. I know how many people have left my area in the relatively short time that I have been in the House. I know how many young people have been driven out of my constituency because of the decline of industrial development in the dales, in the rural areas around Consett and in Consett itself.

We have heard far too little from the Government about the work of local authorities in finding ways to encourage new industry and small businesses. Given the importance of small businesses, and given the critical importance of economic regeneration to small businesses, I am amazed that the Government have come forward with so little. Small businesses in rural areas will be encouraged not only by the presence of village shops but by the overall rural environment.

However, as I have said, village shops can develop to meet the challenges of the future. In Hertfordshire, for example, centres have been established in village shops and in "telecottages" through the collaborative initiative of all local government tiers—district, county and parish—showing what can be accomplished by adapting a village shop or community facility to the changing needs and demands of a new century. Such initiatives prove that rural businesses can thrive. Perhaps there will be information centres and other facilities in village shops that will involve not only village shop owners but others in offering new opportunities in rural areas.

The Government have taken so many actions that have frustrated the efforts of so many people. Many of my constituents have been unable to pursue training or other schemes to get them back into work because of the Government's benefits rules, which have proved a major disincentive, especially for those who wish to undertake part-time training.

The Government have failed to tackle other issues in reducing unemployment. They have made it increasingly difficult for farmers' wives in my constituency, for example, who have come to see me anxious about whether their children of school-leaving age will have any work opportunities in the dale. Those women know that there must be support for initiatives to ensure that the dales and other rural areas can survive and grow.

I am also very disappointed about the Government's work on parish councils—which I support, as I have already made clear. I find it incredible that it is necessary for the Bill to state that Parliament will allow parish councils to organise car-sharing schemes or to take initiatives to tackle rural crime. Rural crime is a desperately important issue. In my area, we have worked with the police and with parish and district councils to establish a rural crime watch.

In Burnhope—I assume that this is one of the examples used by Ministers—we have a parish bobby who is paid by the parish council. Burnhope is an old, very isolated mining village, with incredibly high levels of poverty and deprivation. The situation is much worse there than in many other villages in my constituency, which itself has the lowest income per household of any constituency in England.

There is poverty and deprivation in rural areas, but people want to live and work in the areas in which they grew up. Our job is to provide the framework so that they can do that. Only when we deliver that framework will we be able to ensure that we look after the land—the green and pleasant land in which we live—so that it is maintained for future generations. The Government have missed many opportunities in the Bill, but the Opposition will table amendments in Committee to ensure that the Government consider those opportunities.

I hope that the Government will also examine other proposals affecting rural areas, such as the nursery voucher scheme, which is creating havoc in the rural areas of Norfolk and will create havoc across the country. There are enormous opportunities to make child care available, which will greatly assist rural women who want to end their children's isolation so that they can have a proper start in life.

The Government must examine their policies so that they encourage a thriving existence for everyone in rural areas, not just those with cars. Many rural areas have low car ownership and people living in those areas have as much right to our attention as anyone else. If we are to provide them with real opportunities, we need a Government who will take a more serious approach to those difficulties than that taken in the Bill. I suspect that the present Government will not do that, and I look forward to being a member of a Government who will find a solution.

9.39 pm

It may assist the House if I begin by trying to answer some of the questions of fact and interpretation that have been raised in the debate.

The hon. Member for East Antrim (Mr. Beggs) asked why the measure did not embrace Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland does not have a system of parishes analogous to that in the rest of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland is currently undergoing a rating revaluation, so it would not be easy to graft such a Bill on to the existing structure of legislation in Northern Ireland. No doubt the hon. Gentleman may wish to discuss with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland his interest in measures that would have a similar effect to the Bill.

The hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) asked which parts of England, Scotland and Wales were covered by the Bill. The complicated answer involves the way in which Bills are drafted in order to observe legal technicalities. I could give him a detailed explanation which would leave him better informed, but possibly none the wiser. Perhaps it would be easier for me simply to list the parts of the Bill and the areas to which they apply. I can do that with certainty.

The village shop rate relief applies to England, Wales and Scotland. The abolition of duty on sporting rights applies to England and Wales, as there is already a similar measure for Scotland. The abolition of Crown exemption applies to England, Wales and Scotland, as does the retention of the exemption for visiting forces. The creation and review of parish arrangements is confined to England, as is the consultation framework for parishes, but the transport and crime prevention powers for parishes apply to England and Wales.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is satisfied with an exhaustive topographical explanation of the Bill. I counsel him not to seek a detailed explanation. He can have one if he wants, but he will find it truly helpful only if he is deeply insomniac.

It may also be helpful if I cover some of the basic elements of the Bill, as I can provide clarifications and explanations that may save us time elsewhere. The village shop relief applies to the only shop that is a general store, selling food, hardware and household goods, or a post office. It will get a 50 per cent. mandatory relief. If there is a post office that is a general store and there is another general store in the village, the relief will apply to the post office, although the local authority will have the discretion to apply it to the second store as well.

Discretionary relief can be used to increase the 50 per cent. mandatory relief to the designated store.

I seek clarification on that point. If a joint village store and post office is the only post office in the village, is the rate relief given only on the post office element of the store or on the total value of the property?

Rate relief is given on the total value of the property, as I shall explain in more detail.

I am genuinely trying to be helpful. Will the Minister consider a problem that may arise when the proposals in the Bill are put through by local councils? At the moment, auditors interpret any advocacy by a councillor of action to be taken in the ward or district that they represent as disqualifiable interest. Councillors from particular villages may well wish to advocate some of the proposals that have been put forward today. Under current auditor's rulings, they would not be allowed to advocate them or be present at a meeting at which they were discussed, still less vote on them.

The hon. Gentleman has raised a serious point. As he knows, the Nolan committee is considering local government issues. The Government's submission to that committee will be published shortly. I shall undertake to consider what the hon. Gentleman has said—his point covers many issues—in the light of the discussions that are taking place.

Other stores can qualify for discretionary relief, not just the pub, the garage or the pharmacist. The power is deliberately widely drawn to give the local authority discretion. Any business can be included if it is important to the local community—the butcher, the baker or, for the sake of argument, the sawmill rather than the candlestick maker.

In our consultation, we suggested a ceiling of £5,000 in rateable value for the mandatory element and £10,000 for discretionary relief. The consultation showed a general agreement with those figures. In the light of the broad consensus that they achieved, I suspect that my right hon. Friend will probably settle on them.

The hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald) asked about mobile shops. They are almost certainly not rated at the moment, although a central storage element, if they have one, may be. I am happy to consider that more closely and write to the hon. Gentleman if I need to qualify what I have said.

We think that some 30,000 businesses will benefit from the two schemes.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, because I have been persistent on some points today. Will he confirm that it is possible to have several settlements—the term used in schedule 1—in one parish or community? If there are post offices in several villages in one community, will they all qualify?

I shall come to that. We have defined a rural area. It will be for the local authority to identify the settlements lying within that area. There may be more than one settlement in a defined rural area. The answer is therefore yes.

A local authority can already grant charitable relief, discretionary relief and hardship relief. None of those powers is affected by the new powers.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mrs. Jackson), who is not in her place, asked about settlements in metropolitan areas. Nothing in the Bill prevents a village in a metropolitan area from being deemed eligible. We will follow the definitions produced as a result of consultation under the Housing Act 1996, which lists 30 or so areas in South Yorkshire, for example, designated as rural areas.

Any settlement of no more than 3,000 people within one of those parishes is eligible, each one being eligible separately. I know that that will also interest many of my hon. Friends. I understand that the hon. Member for Hillsborough has explained that she cannot be present now because she is in a Select Committee. It is for the local authority to define the curtilage of a settlement.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Stevenson) asked where the money comes from. I suppose that I had better answer.

The money comes from the pool, which is redistributed. Under the local government financial system—with which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South will be intimately familiar—any cut in the amount available for distribution under the business rates is compensated for under the revenue support grant. The money comes from the Exchequer, and is not a charge upon what is distributed in the pool.

My hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) asked about a lower limit, a part-time post office in a garage, and a newly provided store. The answers are no, yes and yes. He will forgive my shorthand, but I think the answers are satisfactory.

A number of questions were raised on parishing. There are essentially three routes into parishing. First, a district council can undertake a review and make a recommendation to the Secretary of State, who then makes the necessary orders to create the parish. The district council then makes the orders to create the parish council. Secondly, a petition, by either a minimum of 250 electors or 10 per cent. of the electors in the area of the proposed parish, that defines where they want the boundaries to lie, goes to the district council, which can comment. These comments are then sent to the Secretary of State for a decision.

Will my right hon. Friend include metropolitan councils in what he is saying?

Not in all of what I am saying, but I shall refer to metropolitan councils in a moment, when my hon. Friend will be as satisfied with what I have to say as he was with what I have just said.

The third route is for the Secretary of State to direct the Local Government Commission to carry out a parish review from scratch, or where there is some dispute about the need for a parish. In that case, the Local Government Commission can investigate and make a recommendation.

My right hon. Friend has referred to petitions. If a community has already petitioned before the passing of this legislation, will that stand good, or will it have to do it all again?

We would expect a new petition if one had been rejected, and there must be a two-year interval between petitions. Parishes in metropolitan areas are exactly the same as those I have described in the countryside, because, in law, a metropolitan council is a district council. There will be no upper limit to population size, except where the creation of a parish would dominate an entire district.

The parish council can currently precept £3.50 per elector for general purposes, such as recreation or the upkeep of the village hall. It will now be able to precept above that for the reasons specified by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State today. There was a question about traffic calming and the relationship between parish councils and the Highways Authority. The parish council will be able to support traffic calming projects, provided it has the consent of the Highways Authority, which will carry out the work. Other than the parish council opting to lie in the middle of the road, as it were, it will be able to contribute to the work.

It is worth remembering that, in trying to enhance the roles of parish councils, the recent national parks legislation created a route by which people from the national parks and local parish councils could serve on the national park authority. In my local national park in the Yorkshire dales, the new authority that will come into being next spring contains people who have come through a sort of parish electoral college to enhance the views of local people in the national park.

In areas such as that—where planning issues are particularly sensitive—there is great resentment at the feeling that decisions are too often made by people who do not live in the park and who are not closely in touch with people who know the real problems, including the need to earn a livelihood in the park as well as to provide a refuge for visitors.

Is it the Government's intention that planning site visits should be open to parish councillors to put their points of view while district councillors are visiting particular areas within the parish?

Under the consultation proposals, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State intends that parishes should participate fully in planning procedures by means of a voluntary arrangement with the planning authorities. We will consider guidance that will help that process, and if the voluntary system were to fail and people did not apply it with good will, my right hon. Friend would necessarily have to consider using his powers to move towards a more mandatory system. Our intention is that people make a habit of working sensibly together on planning, which is likely to be the most sensitive issue.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State observed earlier—I was not able to intervene in his speech—the problem is that councils such as Lancashire county council totally ignore parish councils. They consult, but they write the parishes' opinions off. Councils in Garstang and Catterall, which have strong views, are totally disregarded by Lancashire county council.

The Bill contains powers to formalise, if necessary, the consultations that are required. We hope that that will not be necessary, and that the Bill will be sufficient to make it clear to local authorities that we expect pragmatic action.

The councils will ignore it.

If they choose to ignore the Bill, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will have the remedies to ensure that it does not continue to be ignored. I am sure that he would not hesitate to use those powers.

The electoral cycle for parishes—the unitary districts—will fall into place once the unitary councils have been established. The normal electoral cycles will come into sync, and I will give the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. Rendel) details in due course.

Will the Minister give way?

I will send details to the hon. Gentleman. I have allowed many interventions, and I have four minutes left to get through three quarters of the Bill, so I hope he will excuse me.

I do not wish to return to site value rating. We mentioned it last week, and the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Jones) cringed visibly. That system considers the development potential and values a site at that potential. It does mean that a village bank and Dorothy's olde tea shoppe next door would pay the same rates and that the latter would suffer as a consequence. The system that the hon. Member for Newbury described is the existing rating system, and he should consider what he means by the policy that his party is supposed to endorse.

There are real dilemmas in the countryside, which none of us can avoid. Planning is difficult, because the countryside is under pressure. People want to preserve it as it is, but the household growth figures will cause real, unavoidable dilemmas. Education will also produce dilemmas. We must not assume that a village school is excellent merely because it is a village school. Many are, but there is a trade-off between the intimacy and community of a village school and the facilities of a slightly larger school. That is self-evident. Access is also not an obvious issue.

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

If my hon. Friend will permit me to say so, she has had one bite at the cherry already.

In my constituency, in the three peaks area, access is wearing the footpaths away, and hardcore has to be helicoptered in to reinforce them. The situation with the use of green lanes by four-wheel drive vehicles is even worse. The green lanes spread and death traps are created, in winter conditions, for livestock.

It is true to say that there is not a single countryside—there are hundreds of countrysides in the United Kingdom; there are half a dozen in my constituency. The difference between the vale of York and Upper Wharfedale is enormous. The Pennine dales, the constituency of the hon. Member for North-West Durham (Ms Armstrong), the maritime constituencies of the south-west and the home county constituencies are different in their working patterns, the social mix, the relationship between rural areas and the towns, and transport characteristics.

It is important to observe that diversity. We must not fall into the trap of talking about diversity between urban and rural areas as if there were no diversity within each or, indeed, within shorter distances.

I sometimes felt that the countryside that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras described was a sort of Tolkienesque fairy story peopled with demons of his own creation. The real countryside is not uniformly rich and lush, either socially or economically. It does not mean a "Miss Marple" village, but nor does it mean the hon. Gentleman's demon landscape of oppressive landlords, cringing peasantry and exploited youngsters.

We must create a living countryside in which people want to live, where they can earn a decent livelihood and take part in decent recreation. The Bill is designed to deliver that. The need is there, the Government have addressed it, and we shall deliver the results. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills)

Local Government And Rating Bill Money

Queen's Recommendation having been signified—

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 50A (1)(a),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Local Government and Rating Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—
(a) any expenses of the Secretary of State incun-ed in consequence of that Act; and
(b) any increase attributable to that Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other enactment.—Mr. Anthony Coombs.]

Local Government And Rating Bill Ways And Means

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 50A(1)(a),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Local Government and Rating Bill, it is expedient to authorise any increase in the sums payable into the Consolidated Fund resulting from the imposition of liability for non-domestic rates on the Crown.—[Mr. Anthony Coombs.]

Delegated Legislation

Special Grant Report

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation).

That the Special Grant Report (No. 22) (House of Commons Paper No. 16), a copy of which was laid before this House on 23rd October, be approved.

Question agreed to.

Investment Companies

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation)

That the draft Open-Ended Investment Companies (Investment Companies with Variable Capital) Regulations 1996, which were laid before this House on 17th July, in the last Session of Parliament, be approved.—[Mr. Anthony Coombs.]

Question agreed to.

Scottish Grand Committee

Ordered,

That the Scottish Grand Committee shall meet at half-past Ten o'clock:
1 in the County Buildings, Cupar, on Monday 25th November to consider a substantive motion for the adjournment of the Committee;
2 in Scotland on Monday 9th December to consider a substantive motion for the adjournment of the Committee;
3 at Westminster on Wednesday 11th December;
4 in the City Chambers, Edinburgh, on Monday 13th January to take Questions for oral answer and to consider a substantive motion for the adjournment of the Committee;
5 in Scotland on Monday 3rd February to consider a substantive motion for the adjournment of the Committee; and
6 in Scotland on Monday 17th February to take Questions for oral answer and to consider a substantive motion for the adjournment of the Committee.—[Mr. Anthony Coombes.]

Petition

Arbroath Infirmary

10 pm

I fully support the petition on the future of services at Arbroath infirmary in the names of Neil Thomson, Yvonne Cargill and Des Nicoll on behalf of the 8,500 citizens of Arbroath and district who signed their names in support, who demand a better deal for the hospital, and improvements across the range of service provision for the largest population centre in Angus:

To the House of Commons the Petition of residents of Arbroath declares that the maximum level of hospital services for Angus should be provided locally.

The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for Scotland to ensure that an end is brought to the cutbacks and downgrading of services at Arbroath Infirmary so that Arbroath Infirmary and Stracathro can jointly provide major hospital services for Angus until the new Angus District General Hospital is built as a matter of urgency.

And the Petitioners remain, etc.

I wish to submit the petition for the people of Arbroath.

To lie upon the Table.

Care Of The Elderly (Hillingdon)

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

10.1 pm

For me, the care of the elderly in Uxbridge and in the borough of Hillingdon as a whole is one of the most important parts of public policy. As president of the Uxbridge Abbeyfield Society, which provides care for many of our senior citizens, I have been able to learn at first hand, and gain valuable insight into, the way in which places are funded and provided in the community.

The recent media coverage of Hillingdon hospital's patient admissions policy has caused unnecessary alarm and distress to my elderly constituents and to the constituents of my hon. Friends the Members for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Wilkinson), for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Dicks) and for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes), whose constituencies, with mine, share the hospital's catchment area.

A headline in The Guardian at the beginning of October, "Hospitals in cash crisis bar many elderly", triggered a mass of reports in the press and on the radio and television to the effect that Hillingdon hospital was no longer admitting people over 75. The facts behind that health scare are very different. That is why I am raising the matter this evening, and why I invite the comments of my hon. Friend the Minister.

It is also why I want the Government to make it clear beyond any shadow of a doubt, first, that there is no cash crisis at Hillingdon hospital; secondly, that at no time were people over 75 who came from the hospital's catchment area refused admission on the ground of their age; and, thirdly, that the responsibility for funding and providing beds for elderly patients is the responsibility of the local agencies concerned—the hospitals, the local health authority, the local social services department and the local medical committee. It is for them to co-operate and co-ordinate the necessary arrangements to ensure that the necessary accommodation is always available to everyone, irrespective of age.

I was first made aware of the pressure on Hillingdon hospital at a meeting that I had with the chairman of the Hillingdon Hospital NHS trust, Mr. William Glyn-Williams. and the chief executive, Mr. Philip Brown, on 1 October. I was told that the hospital faced the possibility of having to refuse accident and emergency admissions for a short period because the number of elderly patients referred by general practitioners, especially from the north of the borough, was resulting in more than 30 additional admissions each day.

There are 600 beds in Hillingdon hospital and I am told that about 300 of them are occupied by elderly patients. The 30 referrals a day, multiplied by the number of days in the month, was equivalent to 900 bed days a month. That was the scale of the problem that Hillingdon hospital was facing.

I was also told that Mount Vernon hospital in Northwood, in the constituency of Ruislip-Northwood, was not admitting as many patients as it might have done because of the case mix in the hospital, and that it would greatly assist if Hillingdon council's social services department could receive into community care as quickly as possible patients who no longer required hospital treatment and needed to be cared for in community homes or, if insufficient places were available, in independent residential care.

I was very concerned to learn of the situation. I advised the chairman to discuss the matter urgently with the chairman of Mount Vernon and Watford Hospitals NHS trust—a former chairman of Hillingdon health authority—the officers of the authority and the social services department and to sort out the problem. I also offered to arrange a meeting with my hon. Friend the Minister if it was thought that that would help to find a quick solution to the problem.

I heard no more until 8 October, when the chief executive of Hillingdon hospital wrote a letter to general medical practitioners in the north of the borough—areas such as Ruislip, Eastcote, Northwood, Harefield and elsewhere on the borders of the north of the borough—advising them that elderly patients over 75 years old should be referred to the most appropriate local hospital, Mount Vernon.

There is great concern in Ruislip and Northwood at the moment because many elderly people do not like the prospect of being referred to Watford general hospital, which principally admits accident and emergency patients, because they feel that Watford is a long way from Northwood and is not easy for people to visit. There is considerable pressure when a patient cannot be admitted to Mount Vernon to send that patient to Hillingdon, to which, of course, the doctors have to respond.

The letter sent by the chief executive of Hillingdon health authority to doctors was leaked to The Guardian and resulted in the highly misleading headlines that I have mentioned and the subsequent alarm that spread throughout my constituency. I have been assured by my hon. Friend the Minister that Hillingdon hospital was not seeking to discriminate on the basis of age but wished to ensure that all patients received safe and effective NHS treatment in the most appropriate location in accordance with their clinical need.

In a programme of public information designed to correct the misleading information that had been given, Hillingdon hospital went to very considerable lengths to reassure the public whom it serves by means of an advertorial in the local press, which appeared for two consecutive weeks. I welcome that initiative, which I hope will go a long way towards dispelling any remaining doubts that elderly people might have about their right to treatment in hospital when they need it, at any time, irrespective of age.

As I have said, I undertook to raise the matter of more community care with the acting director of social services of the borough of Hillingdon and to find out what could be done to place patients in the council's homes and independent homes as quickly as possible. I have done that. The acting director tells me that Hillingdon council has 330 beds in eight homes; in addition, it currently funds 219 permanent residential and nursing placements, has 172 permanent complex home care packages and approximately 100 short-stay residential nursing home care packages. About 70 permanent residential or nursing home care packages are to be made available between the beginning of this month and 31 March next year.

The current community care budget for the elderly is £5 million. and the council intends to allocate another £1.3 million to its community care budget next April. I put on record the accommodation that is available, because it was suggested to me that one of the problems facing Hillingdon hospital in discharging elderly patients into the community was Hillingdon social services' slowness to take some patients. Following my discussions with the acting director of social services only today, I am assured that Social Services will take all necessary steps to speed up admissions and to increase the availability of beds.

I am glad to report that, as a result of all that activity, Hillingdon health authority has taken immediate action to reduce significantly the number of Hillingdon residents—56 at the end of September—waiting in hospitals solely for residential and nursing home placement. It will use six of the 12 care beds that it currently funds at Hayes Cottage nursing home, will agree with Hillingdon council how it can assist with the temporary funding of 30 additional nursing and residential home places at a cost of £90,000 this year, and will continue to work with the council to ensure the effective use of all the in-house residential beds and services that provide care in the community.

For 1997–98, there will be further costs to be met by the council, which will be expected to accept the responsibility for funding. I understand that Hillingdon council estimates that it will have to provide £100,000 to fund 30 beds. It is expected that those proposals will allow 30 people currently waiting for a nursing or residential home to be placed by Christmas.

Another six beds are to be made available immediately at Mount Vernon hospital by reopening beds in existing medical wards, which will make possible about 18 additional admissions a month. There will be joint monitoring to ensure the effective implementation of the health authority's short and medium-term plans.

I greatly welcome the fact that it has been agreed that the chief executives of the health authority and of the two trusts and the director of social services will in future meet on a fortnightly basis to keep the situation under review.

Taken over two years, the proposals will represent a cost to the health authority of £283,000 and will better enable the two local hospitals safely to meet this winter's demand for emergency admissions. That point was raised by the chairman of the Hillingdon medical committee, and I hope that he and his colleagues will be reassured that all the necessary steps have been taken.

As president of the Abbeyfield Society, I declare an interest in asking my hon. Friend the Minister why better use cannot be made of Abbeyfield places to provide additional beds for people being discharged from hospital. I tabled some parliamentary questions on that topic that were answered by my hon. Friend's Department as long ago as July, and I was advised that the elderly people who were in Abbeyfield homes before a certain date were protected there but that, for some reason that I cannot quite follow, they could not go into Abbeyfield places after that date.

It is extraordinary that we are in such a situation when a national charity that is well represented locally has some extra places and could take additional patients discharged from hospital. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be kind enough to look into the matter and find whether further steps can be taken to fund places in Abbeyfield homes for patients who are discharged from hospital.

In passing, because it is too good an opportunity to miss, I mention that the Uxbridge Abbeyfield Society has acquired a site in the Greenway, Uxbridge on which it could build a home for about 35 elderly people to live in very good conditions. It is unable to build the home because it cannot get its bid high enough up in the local authority's bidding list, because the local authority has responsibility for families with children, who come ahead of the elderly in budgetary terms and in bidding generally. I hope my hon. Friend the Minister will consider that matter, because Uxbridge cannot be alone; there must be other towns and cities where people have voluntarily raised considerable sums to buy land and which are ready to build but are unable to do so because of the way in which the system works.

Finally, 36 extra beds have been provided in the borough of Hillingdon. The pressure on Hillingdon hospital has been relieved. The problem has been solved. The headlines in The Guardian and other papers were unjustified. I hope that my elderly constituents and those of my hon. Friends—my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West is in his place tonight—will be greatly reassured. I look forward to hearing my hon. Friend the Minister because I hope that he will be able to give further assurance on these matters.

10.15 pm

I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Sir M. Shersby). I congratulate him on securing a debate on the important topic of care for the elderly in Hillingdon and on the part that he has played in explaining some of the issues more sensibly than would otherwise have been the case. I know that he speaks on behalf of several colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes).

He is also to be congratulated on securing a debate on health care 50 years to the day after Royal Assent to the Act that established the national health service. We shall see in considering health care in Hillingdon that the founding principles of the NHS are very much alive and well there as they are throughout the country.

It is a pity that the letter written by the chief executive of Hillingdon hospital has been taken out of context and used to generate unnecessary concern about hospital care for local elderly residents. I will put the letter into its proper context later, but first I want to make it absolutely clear—this is the most important point for my hon. Friend's constituents—that there was no question at any time of any Hillingdon resident of whatever age not getting from the NHS the care and treatment demanded by that resident's clinical condition. The health authority and local hospital trusts acted promptly to reassure local people of that.

Hillingdon hospital made it clear that it would under no circumstances decline to treat any patient, elderly or otherwise, and that no patient requiring emergency treatment would be turned away from accident and emergency untreated. Those reassurances have been fulfilled. In the four weeks since the chief executive's letter, no patient has been disadvantaged, and everyone who has needed a bed at Hillingdon has got one.

Before discussing the Hillingdon situation in more detail, I should like to reassure the House on the treatment of elderly people generally. It is not and never has been Government policy for NHS treatment to be withheld from anyone on the ground of age. We have always made it clear that, whatever the age of a patient, there are no exceptions to the fundamental principle that the NHS is there to provide services for everybody on the basis of clinical need.

Let me turn to the recent circumstances at Hillingdon. The letter from the chief executive was not a panic measure in the face of a crisis but one part of a complex issue that local health and social services agencies had been working on constructively for some time. As my hon. Friend knows, two excellent hospitals serve Hillingdon residents: Mount Vernon hospital to the north, and Hillingdon hospital to the south. They are run by Mount Vernon and Watford Hospitals NHS trust, and Hillingdon Hospital NHS trust respectively.

Both are extremely good hospitals with good reputations and devoted and caring staff. More particularly, both hospitals provide comprehensive and excellent services for elderly people. The record speaks for itself. Hillingdon hospital provided 34,800 ordinary and day case treatments in 1995–96, and Mount Vernon provided 61,295 treatments—in both cases, some 4 per cent. more than in the previous year. That is a considerable tribute to the doctors, nurses and other staff at both hospitals. Both trusts have been in discussion with Hillingdon health authority about how services can best be provided to meet the needs of residents.

Back in the spring, Hillingdon hospital became concerned about the pressure on beds at the hospital. It already had an acclaimed bed management system which enabled it to use the 630 beds that it has as efficiently as possible. The reasons for the pressure appeared to be twofold. First, the hospital was seeing an increasing number of patients, particularly elderly patients, requiring hospital admission. Secondly, elderly patients were staying in hospital for longer.

The hospital explained its concerns to the health authority and the social services department and in June a working party was set up to examine the issues. Immediate action was also taken, including the provision of additional social work posts in the hospital to ensure prompt assessments of patients' continuing care needs and to assist in the hospital discharge process. Since then, hospital discharge has been kept under close review, and early last month the social services department made additional facilities available to take elderly patients discharged from hospital by re-opening 10 places in a refurbished residential care home, and by the approval of seven extra nursing home places.

It is clearly in everyone's interest to ensure that GPs refer patients to the most appropriate local hospital. It appeared, however, as my hon. Friend says, that in a few situations GPs in the vicinity of Mount Vernon hospital were referring elderly patients to Hillingdon hospital although Mount Vernon was the closest local hospital and could provide the service required.

This was the background to the Hillingdon hospital chief executive's letter to GPs of 3 October. It did not seek to deny treatment to anyone; rather it sought to ensure that patients were treated in the most suitable NHS hospital, and the one most conveniently situated for the patients themselves. The intention behind the letter was to ensure that NHS resources were used to best effect, for the benefit of all patients, whether young or old and wherever they lived in the Hillingdon borough.

When it became clear that the letter had generated anxiety, albeit misplaced, among the elderly of Hillingdon, the hospital promptly explained that under no circumstances did this mean that patients would be turned away. Mount Vernon and Watford Hospital NHS trust also acted to reassure residents, pointing out that, since the merger of Mount Vernon and Watford General hospitals under single trust management, the trust now guarantees admission for the elderly patients of local GPs and has some 90 beds for the elderly across the two sites.

I have already mentioned the working party set up in June to examine the pressures on Hillingdon hospital and to develop an action plan to address these concerns. The working party consisted of representatives from the two hospital trusts, Hillingdon health authority, social services, and Age Concern. The group was tasked with producing an action plan for the health authority meeting of 31 October. I stress that local co-operation between local agencies—health agencies, social services and the voluntary organisations—is essential. I am pleased to say that the group's action plan was duly prepared and endorsed at the health authority meeting last Thursday.

The action plan provides immediately 30 additional places in the community, including six in the independently run Hayes cottage hospital. Those 30 places include the 17 that I mentioned earlier. It also provides six new medical beds at Mount Vernon hospital to provide enhanced services to GPs' patients in the north of the borough. These steps should relieve the pressure on Hillingdon hospital now and into the future.

The health authority has also agreed in principle to provide further investment next year to support hospital discharge procedures at Hillingdon hospital, and to look at innovative approaches to patient care as an alternative to hospital admissions. All parties will be looking to improve working practices to ensure the timely discharge of patients from both trusts.

I should of course also point out that this action is complementary to the plans that Hillingdon and all other health authorities have prepared with trusts during the summer to ensure that the service is best placed to respond to any surges in emergency demand in the coming winter.

My hon. Friend also made the point that the problems in Hillingdon were not due to a lack of funds. That is true. I can tell him that the total personal social services resources available to Hillingdon stand at almost £35 million a year, 8.5 per cent. more in cash terms than last year and more than double the resources available six years ago.

Hillingdon health authority has more resources than ever before. Its revenue allocation for this year is £106.4 million, £3.3 million more in cash terms and more than £500,000 more in real terms than it was the previous year. I therefore agree with my hon. Friend that it is not a problem of lack of resources locally.

My hon. Friend also spoke about Abbeyfield homes. That serious issue needs to be investigated, and I undertake to reflect upon it and correspond with him about it.

As my hon. Friend was pleased to note, Hillingdon hospital is now reporting that although it is busy, the pressure on beds has eased, and it is managing its work load satisfactorily. My hon. Friend will also be pleased to note, as I am, that the founding principle of the national health service to provide health care to all, on the basis of need, regardless of ability to pay, is alive and well in Hillingdon, as it is throughout the country on this day, the 50th anniversary of the Act that established the NHS.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes past Ten o'clock.

Volume 284: debated on Wednesday 6 November 1996

House Of Commons

Prayers

Land Ownership (Scotland)

World Poverty

Fire Services (Lancashire)

Paper (Ecolabelling)

Higher Education (Scotland)

Private Business

City Of Edinburgh Council Order Confirmation Bill

Edinburgh Merchant Company Order Confirmation Bill

Oral Answers To Questions

Trade And Industry

Firework Injuries

Business Link

Business Support (Cornwall)

European Committee For Electrotechnical Standardisation

Electricity Regulator

Manufactured Goods

Regional Policy

Manufactured Goods

Royal Mail

Research Establishments

Visible Trade

Inward Investment

National Prosperity

Ferry Services (Merger)

Currency Exchange Charges

Fireworks

Trade Surplus

Industrial Support

Business Links

Inward Investment

Points Of Order

Orders Of The Day

Local Government And Rating Bill

Local Government And Rating Bill Money

Local Government And Rating Bill Ways And Means

Delegated Legislation

Special Grant Report

Investment Companies

Scottish Grand Committee

Petition

Arbroath Infirmary

Care Of The Elderly (Hillingdon)