House of Commons Hansard Debates for 16 Jan 1991

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meet demand, we shall put ourselves in the hands of foreign competitors. We have been told all the time that that will not happen, because British Coal will eventually be able to compete. I have never accepted that, and I do not accept it now.

The Private Bill Committee, of which the hon. Member for Rochford was Chairman, took evidence and produced a special report on the application of the Associated British Ports to extend the ports at Immingham. Although the Committee accepted the case for the port, it made it clear that the decision was based on certain provisos. What were they? Paragraph 22 states :

"Before the Committee came to make a formal decision on, first, the amendment proposed by the British Coal Corporation, and, secondly, the Preamble itself, we agreed that if the bill were allowed to proceed, this would be subject to conditions set out in paragraphs 25 and 26."

Paragraph 26 states :

"In our view it is the Government's duty to take whatever steps are necessary, in the overall national interest, to protect the indigenous coal -mining industry."

That was finally accepted by the House, but none of the Committee's provisos about the coal industry has been honoured by the Government.

What do we see now? The sponsors of the Bill, Associated British Ports, are not to be the major shareholders in a company which is to be formed. Who are to be the major shareholders? We must believe recent reports. The Financial Times of 15 January tells us that National Power and PowerGen are to form a company along with Associated British Ports, but that the two power companies are to have 80 per cent. control of Associated British Ports. I do not know whether that was known during the passage of the Bill. It will be a cosy little arrangement.

We now see the reason for Mr. John Baker's speech yesterday, which was reported today in the Yorkshire Post and other newspapers. He is supposed to have made the speech at a privatisation briefing to regional newspaper editors. I think that that was the speech to which the hon. Member for Rochford referred. Mr. Baker said that, as far as he was concerned, 50 per cent. of the coal required by National Power and PowerGen would come from imports.

Dr. Michael Clark : Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman by telling him that there was no knowledge in the Committee at that time of any other owner of the establishment or the new jetty. At that time, the Committee had every reason to believe that the people who were applying for permission to extend the jetty would own it for some considerable time. In Committee, we asked about the possibility of sale, but there was no suggestion of that. A Bill parallel to that relating to Immingham, which contained a clause that required the company to have the ability to sell at any time it wanted, was thrown out, not least because it also contained a clause to enable it to sell the installation.

Mr. Lofthouse : I accept that explanation from the hon. Gentleman. Nevertheless, on 15 January it was reported that National Power and PowerGen would take an 80 per cent. stake in Associated British Ports. We then had another report from Mr. Baker, about plans to import 50 per cent. of the fuel necessary to generate electricity. National Power and PowerGen will take over the port that will receive that 50 per cent. of imported coal.

The hon. Member for Romford will be well aware that, just three weeks ago, the Secretary of State told the Select

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Committee on Energy that the only fuel that will be provided for electricity generation in the next decade will be gas. If that is so, the Minister must realise that there will be no future for the coal industry, especially if the ports start to receive imported coal. A few months ago, I told the House that I foresaw a coal industry of 10,000 men by the late 1990s. I was told that I was scaremongering, but I believe that we shall be left with a coal industry that employs 10,000 men at between 10 and 12 pits. I should like that confirmed or denied.

No wonder some of the hierarchy at British Coal--I have a big question mark against their names--were reported on 8 January as saying that British Coal must be privatised. That is what the commercial director of British Coal, Malcolm Edwards, said. I wonder how much effort has been made by some of that hierarchy in the past few years to enable our coal industry to compete with foreign competition. How keen have they been to meet that competition? The same Malcolm Edwards told the Select Committee that he could not wait for the day of privatisation of British Coal. He will have to look sharp, however, because there will be little left of British Coal to privatise.

Once again, I must remind the Minister and his Department of their responsibility to the mining communities. They must prepare the way for other jobs to enable those young men who have previously found employment in the mining industry to be given alternative work. They cannot be left on the scrap heap, as has happened hitherto. 9.23 pm

Mr. Malcolm Moss (Cambridgeshire, North-East) : Time is running out, so I shall be brief.

If one were inclined to believe the Opposition, one would think that the only important thing about the privatisation process is the amount of money that one gets from the sale of the assets. Nothing could be further from the truth. The proceeds from the sale are obviously important for the Treasury, the taxpayer and public spending, but there are many more important consequences. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) kept going on about a half-price sale. He does not seem to understand that, whether one adopts current cost accounting or historical cost accounting, ultimately people will only pay what they think the assets are worth. They are only important to the lender who is lending money against those assets, or to the purchaser who believes that they will generate income or profit. The price to earnings ratio and the price per share are critical in that calculation. One might argue about the price at which the assets of the electrical supply industry were sold, but in future the taxpayer will not be required to spend one penny on replacing plant and generating capacity. The case was made for a site on the Humber estuary at a cost of £1.5 billion, which was discussed on Monday in connection with the Killingholme Generating Stations (Ancillary Powers) Bill. That investment is being made by PowerGen and National Power, and not a penny is coming from the taxpayer. The whole of this country's generating capacity will eventually be replaced by privatised companies investing their profits and reserves.

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Earlier, I tried to assist my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State when he tried to quote a Labour Front Bench spokesman. I believe that he was referring to the remark made by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) in a press release dated 31 October 1987 :

"I make this prediction : this Government will not succeed in privatising electricity before the next election. It is a non-runner."

Labour has said on a number of occasions that privatisation could never occur, yet it has been successful. There is highly motivated management in all 12 electricity companies, and in the two major generating companies.

The president of the New York power authority recently visited Britain, when I had an opportunity to meet him. As the head of one of America's leading power utilities, he came here to see what Britain was doing, and he concluded that we are now the front runners in the world in respect of the new way forward for the electricity supply industry.

Above all, privatisation has introduced competition. Major new projects are planned, involving not only combined cycled gas but combined heat and power projects. That has given a tremendous boost to the renewables industry, such as waste disposal. That would not have been possible without the new structure and the non-fossil fuel obligation.

As to price, industrial consumers have enjoyed fairly substantial decreases, with reductions of 15 per cent. not unheard of. Privatisation has been much attacked, maligned and misrepresented. Most of that has been a knee-jerk reaction to the historically accepted wisdom of the unions and of the coal lobby. Contrary to the predictions of Labour Members, privatisation has proved to be, and will continue to be, a great success for the taxpayer, the industry, its work force, shareholders, and the consumer.

9.27 pm

Dr. Kim Howells (Pontypridd) : It is not for me to suggest to the Government how they should privatise their industries, but I have never seen much sense in creating two massive generating companies where there was one before. Many opportunities existed for fragmenting the generating sector to create real competition, but that did not happen. Instead, we have privatisation proposals that are not so much unimaginative as desperate. That is understandable, given the litany of disaster that has plagued the privatisation process since the Government's plans were first drawn up. Britain's nuclear capacity was hived off because the City panicked in the belief that it could not be sold. The old Central Electricity Generating Board supremo and long-time champion of nuclear energy, Lord Marshall, could not stomach that piece of political revisionism, and he took off for less machiavellian pastures. Mr. Bob Malpas, brought in from that citadel of political acumen, British Petroleum, stayed long enough with PowerGen to take part in the Hanson option travesty, before heading for the hills peppered with arrows from Mr. Ed Wallis's bow.

The Secretary of State is a business man of some repute who, it has been reported, has insisted on staying at his post to see this business through to the bitter end. Few can doubt his capacity for taking punishment. After all, he has had to rescue the privatisation of the electricity

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distributing companies from the shambles that he inherited from his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Parkinson). He may be capable of absorbing further punishment--coming from all sides judging by what I have read in the newspapers--as the privatisation of the generators proceeds.

I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman has the staying power to see that one through, too. He may see it through, but, by any standards, it would be the most curious flotation. Why does the Secretary of State believe that any investor should put money in one of the generating companies rather than the other? When the privatisation was mooted National Power, with its nuclear sector, looked promisingly dominant--there was always the lure that perhaps the rules might be bent in future to allow National Power to acquire substantial chunks of its smaller competitor--but I do not think that that is any longer the case. Both generating companies are now much of a muchness. Where is the lure for the potential investor, and especially for pension fund managers, the big banks and other large institutional investors, none of whom are renowned these days for their adventurism?

Recently a writer in the journal, Power in Europe commented : "That phantom of the early Thatcher years, the new generation of shareholders', still floats around, but has never taken on much substance despite the vast amounts of public money thrown at it. Buy them both, then the Government may say, spread the risk, even if you're not spreading it very far. This, however, makes the competitive ideals of privatisation into so much hot air. Two companies with the same shareholder profile, fighting each other like the two cats of Kilkenny, is not an idea which carries a great deal of conviction."

The sale of the regional electricity companies had a good press. In the Daily Mail on 4 November Michael Walters wrote : "Get greedy. There is still time to clamber aboard the electricity privatisation gravy train if you have already had one go and fear you may not get enough."

The Sun put it even more simply, saying :

"The shares are priced at £2.40, so how come I'm only paying £1?" Obviously hon. Members may provide their own answer to that question. It is not a silly contradiction in terms.

I have no doubt that a similar press reaction may greet the sale of the generators, as the Secretary of State strains every nerve and muscle, cuts every corner and offers every conceivable incentive to offload them. If he is successful in overcoming the difficulties, the right hon. Gentleman will have succeeded not only in reducing the future responsibilities of his Department to the management of the rumps of the nuclear and coal industries, but in sounding the death knells of those industries.

If the generators are to be believed, in 1993 there will be a great increase in coal importation and an unprecedented increase in the amount of natural gas burnt for power generation. I am afraid that the spectre of short-term considerations will displace the best of national energy strategies, such as they were.

To overcome statutes governing emissions into the atmosphere from power stations, premium low-sulphur coal will be imported and that premium fuel, natural gas, will be burnt in increasing quantities. I fear that the new fiscal requirements will promote less rather than more research and development into systems

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of clean energy burn and into the application of the so-called fifth fuel--better building design, better insulation and greater efficiency of energy use. There will be an incentive for the chairmen of the companies to press for more use of electricity, for higher sales and higher profits.

I should like to know where this tendency stands in relation to the Government's much-heralded enthusiasm for a reduction in carbon dioxide and waste emissions into the environment, and to know what is to become of the great expertise and skills enshrined in our coal and nuclear industries.

I do not believe that this is the way to conduct the affairs of a business at the core of our economy. The generation and supply of electricity must be more, in policy terms, than the object of speculation by people seeking to make a fast buck. I have no doubt that the dedication and excellence of many of the staff at National Power and PowerGen will ensure that the lights continue to burn in this country, but I bitterly regret the missed opportunities in the break-up of a state monopoly for which I had no great love. The Government could at the very least have ensured a degree of real competition which might have benefited consumers ; real diversification of ownership and technology ; incentives to seek and explore newer, more benign generating technologies ; and the opportunity for sources of raw energy materials such as coal to have played a real part in the development and use of those technologies. Instead, we are left with a barely separated pair of siamese twins which are more likely to caress each other than compete against each other. I fear that sooner rather than later those caresses will turn to price fixes and we shall be confronted by corporations of awesome power which will repay their creator, the Government--and the electorate whom they purport to represent--with the slaps of monopoly abuse, not the kisses of a dutiful child.

9.36 pm

Mr. Rhodri Morgan (Cardiff, West) : Tonight we have been discussing what has gone wrong with this privatisation. Why has the Secretary of State lost so much of his reputation for financial canniness, why is this privatisation described as farcical in the Financial Times today, and why are relations between the management of National Power and PowerGen and the Department of Energy described as being "at rock bottom" in today's Evening Standard ?

To find out what has gone wrong we must look at the three great untruths of the late 20th century, which hon. Members will have heard before. The first is, "The cheque is in the post ;" the second, "Of course I will still want to privatise you in the morning, or at least 60 per cent. of you ;" and the third, "This flotation has been excellent value for the British taxpayer."

The next stage in this privatisation is the issuing of the pathfinder prospectus on 1 February. The Secretary of State is hopeful about that procedure because the path that he will be hoping to find is the one that he has lost in the past few weeks--it could not have been more aptly named. The trail has gone cold for him and it has been a useful exercise in this Supply day debate to work out exactly what has gone wrong.

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Three things seem to have gone wrong. First, the right hon. Gentleman has now decided to agree with us that, in respect of the distributors' flotation, he was tucked up by the City. He was advised by people whose ability to look after the interests of the taxpayer was not of the first calibre. He took their advice and sold the shares at what must be judged--the briefing given to the press by the Department of Energy agrees with this judgment--to have been a gross undervaluation of the assets that were got rid of. The Secretary of State would like to make that up by means of the generator sales. He believes that by using an entirely different technique he will cut out the lead underwriters. He intends to sell only 60 per cent. so that if the shares subsequently shoot up in value he will still have 40 per cent. left to sell at the higher price.

The Secretary of State missed that opportunity when the distributing companies were floated. He did not listen to our advice or to that of independent commentators in universities or City firms who were not directly involved in the flotation. Furthermore, he did not listen to the advice of those involved in the industry at both management and union level. If the Secretary of State made a mistake when he floated the distribution companies he should not try to cover his tracks when floating the generating companies to get himself back into the good books of the Public Accounts Committee when in a year or so it considers the privatisation of the electricity supply industry. If a mistake was made and the distribution companies were undervalued, it would be better if the Secretary of State came to the House of Commons to plead for forgiveness and said, "Yes, I made a mistake. I had lousy advisers. I did it in a rush. I did not consider the best interests of the taxpayer. I tried to sell the industry as quickly and as cheaply as I could in order to get it out of the way and I hoped that the Government's public relations machine would be able to deal with all the problems that might arise", rather than attempt to correct his mistakes by using an entirely different technique to sell the generating companies.

The Secretary of State has appointed new advisers to assist with the sale of the generating companies. He hopes that they will be able to overcome some of the problems that arose when the distribution companies were sold, due to the embarrassing rise on the first day to a 60p premium in some cases and to the even greater embarrassment of finding that one company that had been privatised only the year before--Welsh Water--immediately leapt in and bought a 10 per cent. predatory stake in South Wales Electricity, a distribution company that had been floated only the day before.

Welsh Water used the same advisers as the Government used for the flotation of the electricity distribution companies. How could it be right for Kleinwort Benson, which had advised the Secretary of State for Energy on the sale of the electricity distribution companies, to advise Welsh Water at the same time on how to acquire a 10 per cent. stake in a company that was being privatised by the Department of Energy? How can it be right for Smith New Court, the Secretary of State's new advisers on the stockbroking side, which has, as a non-executive director, a previous Secretary of State for Energy, to have advised Welsh Water on how to acquire a 10 per cent. stake in South Wales Electricity when it was also the client stockbroker for South Wales Electricity? That is working on both sides of the fence in a way that John le Carre would not dare to put into a spy novel about double

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crossing. That, however, is what is happening and that is the calibre of the people who are used by the Secretary of State. Another reason why privatisation has gone seriously wrong is that people are beginning to appreciate more and more how chaotic is the structure of the industry that has been devised. By 1994, and completely by 1998, generating companies will be able to supply us with electricity as well as to generate it. Distributors of electricity will also be generating it.

That will be unique throughout the civilised world. There will be a dual supply electricity function. We shall not know exactly from whom we should obtain our electricity and we shall not know whose primary function it is to supply electricity. There will not be the simple three-way structure that most people understand--generating companies, a transmission monopoly and distribution companies. There will be double generating companies and double distribution companies. Any company will be able to supply a new housing estate with electricity. Supplies will be obtained from any company or from a middleman and there will be stock market trading. Such a chaotic dual structure is beginning to frighten people. They believe that that is not a sensible structure for what has already been described as the backbone of any civilised industrial and domestic society. Another reason why I think that the Secretary of State will perhaps get only half the number of non-executive directorships when he resigns as it looked as if he might get a year ago--it will only be about 50 now--is that he has lost any idea as to what the privatisation of electricity supply is for. He has tried today to give some of the original reasons for it. He said that it is to promote competition. We know that if he intended to promote competition, he should have been breaking the generating side into far more than two. He should have been selling off power stations to their employees or creating a minimum of four of five companies. The two companies will create a registered duopoly that will cause trouble for time immemorial. That is not the way to promote competition.

The Secretary of State said that it would promote wider share ownership, but we know that even with the distribution companies, contrary to what the hon. Member for Rochford (Dr. Clark) said--I may have misheard him--it looks as if 95 per cent. of British consumers did not apply for shares. Wider share ownership is hardly being achieved by an ojective of reaching 5 per cent. of the British public. I realise that the hon. Member for Rochford said that he bought shares and perhaps his wife and children did too. However, as far as one can tell, roughly 95 per cent. of consuming families did not apply or obtain shares in their local distribution company. I shall be happy if the Under-Secretary of State corrects those figures when he replies.

Conservation is extremely important and the contribution being made by the new structure to the conservation of energy is zero. At the time of yet another major crisis in the middle east that must be at the forefront of our minds.

Mr. Harry Barnes : I want to use this intervention to put the record straight. Earlier the Secretary of State, in replying to an intervention, said that I was not present during a debate on east midlands electricity. In fact, it was my debate during proceedings on the Consolidated Fund.

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I spoke for 34 minutes and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) spoke for 22 minutes and it was the Secretary of State who was not present.

Mr. Morgan : Nobody who was there at 5.30 in the morning will forget that debate. I do not think that I have yet fully recovered from it.

Having established the problems that the Secretary of State has with his credibility following the deterioration in the view that is now being taken of whether this is a feasible exercise, we come to the question of what he should do now. What we are getting is vast doses of creative accountancy. Most of the Conservative contributors to the debate have tried in the patronising way of insurance brokers and accountants--with which the Conservative party is richly stocked--to talk down to Opposition Members as if we know nothing about economics. We are opposed not to economics but to creative accountancy. In explaining why £35 billion worth of assets, as advertised in the prospectus given some years ago to the Conservative party conference by the right hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Parkinson), will raise no more than £10 billion they are saying that that is what the market will bear and that we should understand that. In fact, it shows the fraud of the privatisation process. The Secretary of State is telling us that one is buying not a company, the management or the assets but an artificially created Government-rigged income stream and if that is the income stream, the City advisers will say what should be paid for it. If that is privatisation, it is a fraud on the taxpayer and the purchasers because they are not buying a private company but a form of rigged national savings from the Government.

Mr. Hugo Summerson (Walthamstow) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Morgan : That would be unwise given the instructions of the Government Front Bench.

The Secretary of State and I had a conversation on the night on which the previous Prime Minister resigned. He had been the campaign manager for the previous Prime Minister for all of eight hours. I said to him, "If you can do for electric privatisation what you did for the campaign of the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), I do not think that privatisation of the electricity supply industry will go very far." I did not realise that he would take me at my word.

In a previous life, the Secretary of State was a practitioner in insolvency. He called in the receiver for the campaign of the previous Prime Minister. I suggest that he now calls in the receiver for the privatisation of the electricity supply industry.

9.49 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory) : We have been debating the success of creating a modern and competitive electric supply industry. The flotation of the regional electricity companies last December received massive public endorsement. Quite naturally, that success has left the Opposition in some confusion, because, with millions more small shareholders and millions of new shareholders, millions fewer people will be prepared to tolerate a return

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to centralised, state-owned industries. That is why they said that it would not work and that the sale would not take place. That was denied by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), who has become rather forgetful. In October 1987, his predecessor- -perhaps this is why he is his predecessor--the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott), said :

"The Government's privatisation programme is in tatters ... I make this prediction : this Government will not succeed in privatising electricity before the next election."

Privatisation is taking place, and it does work. It takes the Labour party to describe more than 12 million applications for shares as a failure.

If Labour Members are bad forecasters, they are even worse accountants. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras and his hon. Friends persist in comparing the proceeds of the public sale of the regional electric companies with the replacement cost of the assets sold. There is no excuse for that, because they have been given several accountancy lessons by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. By now, they should know that that is not a fair or valid comparison, but I shall try to illustrate it in language that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras can understand.

Has the hon. Gentleman ever tried to sell his car at replacement cost? If he tried to sell his car outside his home at the price of a new car, he would not have much luck, but he is inviting the Government to put a replacement-cost price tag on the shares for sale. It is a wholly misleading and bogus comparison, but perhaps it gives us a glimpse of what a mess the national accounts would be if the Labour party took office again.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Buchanan -Smith) said, we heard a lot of the wisdom of hindsight from Opposition Members. We were in no position to know that the market would rise after the price was set, and we were not to know what a popular success the flotation would be. We therefore had to devise a way of reducing--

Mr. Morgan rose --

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory : Will the hon. Gentleman forgive me? He pushed me right up against the clock ; and I have some other remarks to make.

We therefore had to find a way of reducing the allocation to institutions and overseas investors, which we did, while continuing to give preference to registered customers, in so far as the rules of the stock exchange allowed. Ninety-seven per cent. of customer applications received shares, and a quarter of all applications were met in full. We have taken another giant step forward in wider share ownership, and Conservative Members take pride in that.

I hope that we will proceed to the flotation of the generating companies over the next two months. The competitive and market positions of those two companies are, of course, very different from those of the 12 regional companies, and there are therefore corresponding differences in the offer structure.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State described why we will retain, for the time being, 40 per cent. of the shares. This will still ensure that the companies are placed firmly in the private sector, and the Government will be able to participate in any future increase in the value of the

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generating companies. It is therefore a mark of confidence in the future of the companies, and in no way a retreat from our belief in private sector ownership and operation.

The hon. Members for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) and for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) mentioned Scotland. The flotation of the Scottish companies is planned for May or June. The details will be decided by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland in the light of market conditions at that time. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland--my hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart)--has listened to hon. Members' detailed points.

The programme of privatisation upon which we have embarked is already achieving a double benefit--substantial proceeds for the taxpayer and wider share ownership, particularly a high degree of employee share ownership. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford (Dr. Clark) reminded the House that some 98 per cent. of eligible employees have taken up shares in the regional companies. The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) was dismissive about the number of shareholders that these companies now have, but we know that it is a far more genuine form of public ownership than having one monolithic state corporation controlled by a handful of politicians and civil servants in Whitehall.

Mr. Morgan rose--

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory : I am answering the hon. Gentleman's points. He also referred to two generating companies, which he described as a duopoly. I remind him that there are three in England alone. The hon. Gentleman perhaps forgot Nuclear Electric plc, as well as the Scottish companies and the growing number of independent generators. The hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) mentioned coal. I respect his comments, as I respect him. The electricity market puts all fuel suppliers under pressure, but I believe that British Coal will continue to win a substantial share of the market if it maintains the productivity improvements that have occurred in recent years.

Energy efficiency was mentioned and forms part of the Opposition's critical motion. It is alleged that energy efficiency is somehow put at risk by the new electricity structure which we have created. The reverse is the case. Instead of electricity costs being buried in state monopolies, we have created a system of open competitive pricing, so that the customer can choose the most price-efficient, most energy-efficient, supply. Exactly the right price signals are now sent to those who are in a position to take energy-saving measures.

So it is with the generators--instead of simply passing through all their costs on the old cost-plus basis, we have now created a structure whereby they will make more money by being more fuel efficient. The clearest possible incentive for energy efficiency is now built into the system.

We have developed a successful formula of public regulation and private operation. This has guided our reforms in the Water Act 1989, the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and the Electricity Act 1989. The Opposition's reaction to these developments is to go back to nationalisation, state control and political

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interference, putting ownership, regulation and control back in the same hands. That is a recipe for stagnation and inefficiency. Mr. Don Dixon (Jarrow) rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to. Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question :--

The House divided : Ayes 226, Noes 297.

Division No. 39] [10.00 pm

AYES

Adams, Mrs. Irene (Paisley, N.)

Allen, Graham

Alton, David

Anderson, Donald

Armstrong, Hilary

Ashton, Joe

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Barron, Kevin

Battle, John

Beckett, Margaret

Beggs, Roy

Beith, A. J.

Bell, Stuart

Bellotti, David

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)

Benton, Joseph

Bermingham, Gerald

Bidwell, Sydney

Blair, Tony

Blunkett, David

Boateng, Paul

Boyes, Roland

Bradley, Keith

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Buckley, George J.

Caborn, Richard

Callaghan, Jim

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Canavan, Dennis

Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Clay, Bob

Clelland, David

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Cohen, Harry

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Corbett, Robin

Cousins, Jim

Cox, Tom

Cryer, Bob

Cummings, John

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Dalyell, Tam

Darling, Alistair

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)

Dewar, Donald

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