House of Commons Hansard Debates for 25 Apr 1991

Mr. MacGregor : It is not necessary to have a debate, because my hon. Friend has made the point clearly himself. To make it clear yet again, I point out that we have, as my hon. Friend knows, issued a consultation document on restructuring, and there will be consultation over the summer on that. The intention is that there will be legislation on that issue. As my hon. Friend rightly says, the restructuring cannot take place until that is done. He is right to say that it is not an immediate issue in the forthcoming local elections. What is far more important in those elections is which councils are more likely to deliver the best services at the best value for money, and therefore at the lowest cost to the community charge payer.

Mr. Greville Janner (Leicester, West) : Following the happy and successful visit to this country of President Lech Walesa of Poland, may we have a debate on the help that not only Poland but other eastern European countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the Soviet Union need from us? Bearing in mind the fact that a group of Members of Parliament will shortly go to Poland to visit, among other places, Auschwitz, and that they are very concerned about the growth of anti- semitism in those countries, will the right hon. Gentleman ask his colleagues who deal with those countries to emphasise to them that it is important to the House that, if they want that help, they should look to human rights in their own countries and not least to the rights of the Jewish communities?

Mr. MacGregor : I shall have the pleasure of being with the President this evening. I am sure that the point is frequently made that the United Kingdom has given considerable aid to Poland. That includes the cancelation of a large element of the debt that Poland has incurred, which is an important contribution in itself and is well recognised. However, I cannot promise the hon. and learned Gentleman an early debate on the matter, for the reason that I have already given.

Mr. Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) : Will the Leader of the House arrange for an urgent statement next week on the progress that has been made into the claims of the nuclear test veterans? He will know that I have raised the case of John Hall, a constituent of mine, on a number of occasions. We have tabled an early-day motion and I met the Prime Minister to discuss the case. I had a call today from the royal infirmary in Leicester to say that Mr. Hall's condition has deteriorated rapidly. We are in a race against time. Will the Leader of the House please arrange for a statement next week, and will he bring my comments to the attention of the Prime Minister?

Mr. MacGregor : I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands that I cannot comment on the merits of the individual case, although I am very sorry to hear the information that he has just given to the House. I cannot

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make any promises about a statement next week, but I will, in the normal way, draw the attention of my appropriate right hon. Friend to his comments.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington) : May we have a debate on the first report of the Select Committee on Members' Interests on the question of Committee chairmanships? May we have an assurance that we shall have a debate before the end of the Session?

Mr. MacGregor : I would not wish to give an absolute assurance because of the pressures on the timetable. As I hope is clear from the two debates on one day which we shall have next week, I am anxious to find time for debates on parliamentary matters. Next week's debate on broadcasting is the urgent one because we need to get on with the arrangements for the permanent televising of the House ; that is why that debate is first. I know of the other Select Committee report and I am in the process of studying it. However, I cannot be sure when we will debate it.

Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton) : May we have an urgent debate on the housing crisis that continues unabated, especially in London? Because of the Government's policies, council rents have gone up by three times the level of inflation. The Government allocation for repairs and decorations in my borough has been cut by 30 per cent. this year, virtually no new homes are being built, and people who have huge numbers of points are still stuck on the council waiting list and cannot get a home. Ministers are well housed ; why do they not care about those who are not?

Mr. MacGregor : For reasons I have already given, I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman that there will be an opportunity for a debate on those matters, but there are plenty of opportunities to question Ministers on housing policies generally, and we have very good and robust responses on them.

Mr. David Clelland (Tyne Bridge) : Will the Leader of the House confirm that the Cabinet has discussed the replacement for the Chieftain tank, and that the Challenger 2 tank will be the preferred replacement? Will there be an announcement on that next week, or is he going to tell us that, as Leader of the House, he does not know?

Mr. MacGregor : I cannot add to what I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) a few moments ago.

Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann) : We welcome the provision for a debate on the omsbudsman next week, but can the Leader of the House confirm that that debate will also include the Northern Ireland ombudsman and the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Complaints, who is responsible for complaints?

Is the Leader of the House in a position to respond to the report of the Procedure Committee on Select Committees? Is he in a position to provide for Select Committees for all the Government Departments? Does he agree that it is quite wrong for the internal procedures of the House not to be considered on their merits but to be left open to the influence of political horse-trading elsewhere involving foreign countries?

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Mr. MacGregor : On the first point, I shall have to check, but obviously we want the debate on the ombudsman, since it is an important debate, to range over as many ombudsman issues as possible. If I may, I shall check exactly what motion we will put down and let the hon. Gentleman know.

On the second point, I hope shortly to give the response of the Procedure Committee's report on Select Committees.

Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) : May I press the Leader of the House again for a debate on the deepening recession all over the country, not least in the west midlands, where hardly a day goes by without news of further redundancies and, in some cases, closures? How many more people must suffer as a result of Government policies--policies which, to use the phrase of a certain store owner, may well be described as crap?

Mr. MacGregor : There is to be a full day's debate on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill next week, and as the Bill contains a number of tax measures of great importance and help to companies, it will be possible to raise economic issues in that debate.

Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West) : Before the debate on community charges next week, will the right hon. Gentleman direct the Government's attention to the perverse effect of the so-called council tax on one Welsh council where, according to the preliminary figures, virtually half the bills will go up substantially? Detailed analysis has proved that, in Monmouth, bills will go up by a ferocious amount. Monmouth constituents will be the worst hit in Wales as a result of the Government's proposed changes. Will the right hon. Gentleman consider that as a matter of urgency?

Mr. MacGregor : I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will make clear responses on that matter. I hope to be visiting Monmouth shortly, and I shall do the same.

Mr. William O'Brien (Normanton) : Will the Leader of the House allow time for a serious and urgent discussion on the provision of a heart research centre in the Leeds area to serve the Yorkshire and south Humberside region? Eight months ago, a fund was started to raise money for the heart research centre, but it has now been scrapped. The future of services at Killingbeck hospital hangs in the balance because of the attitude of the Yorkshire regional health authority. This is a serious and urgent matter and the campaign that has been announced by the Secretary of State for Health makes it more urgent. May we have a debate on the provision of a research centre, which is needed in the Yorkshire and Humberside region?

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Mr. MacGregor : From what the hon. Gentleman says, that is primarily a matter for the regional health authority. I simply cannot say that there will be time for a debate in Government time. The hon. Gentleman will know that there are opportunities for Members to raise in other ways in the House issues which cause them concern.

Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow) : Is it part of the Leader of the House's thinking to have a debate on the extremely well written report by the Select Committee on rain forest destruction? Is there any possibility next week of a statement in response to the moving report by the Quakers from Baghdad which foreshadows hepatitis, meningitis, cholera, diphtheria and typhoid and in particular, the moving statement of a Karbala doctor who needed water. He said : "To get water I need electricity. To get electricity I need a generator. To work the generator I need fuel. To get fuel I need a tanker. There are no tankers."

We are facing a health disaster. May we debate it?

Mr. MacGregor : On the latter point, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we have had a statement recently on some of the subjects that he has raised. I will draw his comments to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. On the Select Committee report, the hon. Gentleman will recognise from the many pressures on me for debates in the House on many different subjects, including matters dealt with by other Select Committees, that it simply is not possible to accommodate them all in the near future.

Mr. Dalyell : On the Consolidated Fund?

Mr. MacGregor : If the matter can be debated in a Consolidated Fund debate, it certainly will not be the Consolidated Fund debate that we shall have on Tuesday week. That relates to the motion that we shall debate on Tuesday evening. Perhaps this is an opportunity to say that the Consolidated Fund debate in the following week will follow from that motion and will be mainly automatic. It is not possible to debate the Select Committee report.

I have noted the hon. Gentleman's request for a debate on the Select Committee report to which he referred.

BILL PRESENTED

Social Security (Contributions)

Mr. Secretary Newton, supported by Mr. Secretary Baker, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Heseltine, Mr. Secretary Rifkind, Mr. Secretary Hunt, Mr. Secretary Lang, Mr. Nicholas Scott and Miss Ann Widdecombe, presented a Bill to introduce contributions under the Social Security Act 1975 in respect of cars made available for private use and car fuel : And the same was read the First time ; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 145.]

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Natural Heritage (Scotland) Bill [Lords]

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

New Clause 1

Powers of SNH with regard to storage of radioactive waste

(1) It shall be an offence for any person to store radioactive waste under the land without first informing SNH of their intention to do so.

(2) Where SNH are of the opinion that any such dumping could result in damage to the natural heritage they shall serve notice of that fact on the person proposing the storage.

(3) Where such notice has been served it shall be an offence to commence or continue with the storage without the permission of the Secretary of State for Scotland.

(4) The Secretary of State shall not give such permission without first consulting SNH.

(5) For the purposes of this Act "radioactive waste" has the meaning assigned to it by section 18 of the Radioactive Substances Act 1960. "Land" includes land covered by water and the definition of land in section 21 of this Act shall not apply for the purposes of this section.'.-- [Mr. Wilson.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

4.11 pm

Mr. Brian Wilson (Cunninghame, North) : I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I am glad that we have begun the debate early. The Opposition certainly do not intend to prolong the proceedings unnecessarily. However, in the spirit of our proceedings in Committee, I hope that we can have a series of fairly short but substantial debates before we come to Third Reading.

New clause 1 is of tremendous importance to the Scottish environment and will attract a great deal of interest in Scotland. I hope that at the end of the debate, we shall hear from the Minister something of substance about the Government's attitude towards adopting Dounreay as a site for nuclear dumping. There is no doubt that there is overwhelming opposition in Scotland to that proposal. It would be no bad thing if the Government, who this week have made some efforts to get on the right side of public opinion, came out and said that they, in common with every other party represented in the House, will have no truck with the proposal.

It may be worth pointing out at the start of the debate what a lonely figure the Minister poses. This may be the only Scottish debate in which the Minister replying to the debate is the only Scottish Tory Member in the House of Commons. I do not know where the other Scottish Tory Members are. The mind boggles about where they might be. As our discussions proceed, I hope that there will be some evidence that they exist and have some interest in these matters. We are discussing a matter that may be peculiarly of interest to the Highlands but is also of great interest to all parts of Scotland, including several of the constituencies represented by Conservative Members. I know that one has to trail around a little to find any Scottish Tory Members, but in this matter the Perthshire constituencies at least are directly affected by the transport issues. We shall be watching closely for the presence of those hon. Members as our discussions continue.

This is an important debate, with four purposes. The first is simply to give an airing on the Floor of the House of Commons to the prospect of using Dounreay or perhaps Caithness for deep nuclear storage. I think that it is overdue and I am pleased that, by tabling the new clause,

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the Labour party has succeeded in having a debate that will be noted by all parties and people interested in the issue.

4.15 pm

The second reason for having the debate is to flush out the Government's views on deep storage at Dounreay and in particular to force them to defend their apparent willingness to trample upon local democracy. In particular, I should be grateful if the Minister would tell us today whether it is the Secretary of State's intention to overrule the planning authority on the latest application by Nirex for 6,000 test bores in the same way that he overruled that authority on the issues of both the structure plan and the initial test bores. It would be helpful for guidance if the Minister told us whether it is once again the intention of the Secretary of State to thwart local democracy and to overrule the planning authority.

A frisson of excitement has run through the House as a second Conservative Member has entered. We all know of the interest in these matters of the hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro), so we are not surprised to see him.

The third reason for having the debate is to state unequivocally that the possibility of Dounreay being used as a nuclear dump will immediately vanish with the election of a Labour Government. The fourth reason for having it, particularly appropriate in the context of this Bill, is to encourage--I hope that the Minister will join in this encouragement--the new Scottish Natural Heritage to express a view on this and other enormously important environmental issues, rather than steer clear of them, as has sometimes been the practice of the Nature Conservancy Council, for fear of offending its political masters. It was remarked at a meeting that we had with the Highland regional council yesterday, when some people were down from Caithness, that it was deemed very odd in Caithness that the Nature Conservancy Council is prepared to tell people where they can and cannot cut peat but at the same time desists from taking or expressing a view on the desirability of having a nuclear dump on their doorsteps.

The transport issue is also important, apart from the immediate impact within Caithness. This is where the whole of Scotland becomes directly involved, because part of the price that would be paid, if by any chance this were allowed to go ahead, would be that nuclear loads would be passing through Scotland on an extremely regular basis. There is no need to take my word for this ; I have a letter from Nirex which was sent to Mr. Mervyn Rolfe, the excellent Labour candidate for Perth and Kinross. Mr. Rolfe had asked Nirex how many trainloads would be passing through Perth in the event of deep underground repositories being established at Dounreay.

I am sorry that the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Sir N. Fairbairn) is not present to hear this information, but Mr. McInerney, the managing director of Nirex, was nothing if not frank. He said :

"Consultants acting for Nirex are carrying out assessments of the transport implications of moving radioactive wastes to Dounreay or Sellafield. Should the repository be sited at Dounreay, we estimate that about 15 trains a week would pass through Perth. Road transport would be used infrequently to Dounreay Should the repository be sited at Sellafield, only waste generated at Dounreay would pass through Perth. This would amount to around one small train load per week."

Mr. McInerney went on to say :

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"the likelihood of an accident involving a train carrying radioactive waste of sufficient severity for the release of radioactivity from a waste container is extremely remote." It is only fair for me to place that caveat on the record. I should have thought that the great majority of the constituents represented by the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross, and those in all points north and south who are threatened with the prospect of 15 trainloads per week of radioactive nuclear cargoes passing through their communities, would, to say the least, be disturbed by that prospect. It is not a regular trade that Scotland wishes to see. In addition to the security and safety problems that would immediately be created in Caithness itself, monumental problems of security along the route would be created. We have it on the authority not of any political scaremonger but of Nirex itself that that is the volume of cargo that would be involved if Dounreay were selected and approved by the Government for this purpose. I was astonished to read in the Glasgow Herald of 23 January 1991 the headline

"Nuclear dump safety cannot be guaranteed' ".

Once again, it might be supposed that this was scaremongering by some vested interest opposed to the selection of Dounreay. Not so. With your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, I shall quote a little of the report. It states :

"The nuclear waste agency Nirex will not be able to guarantee that Britain's first national nuclear waste repository will be completely safe until after it has been built.

This was confirmed yesterday"--

not by a scaremonger--

"by a Nirex spokesman at the agency's headquarters at Didcot in Oxfordshire. The admission astonished Highland region, the planning authority which would have to consider any planning application for a nuclear waste repository at Dounreay."

I have no doubt that it will astonish hon. Members who are hearing it today.

The report continues :

"The Nirex spokesman said the company would select Dounreay or Sellafield as its preferred site for a national repository for low and intermediate waste some time between November and the beginning of 1992.

After that we would submit a planning application'."

In this remarkable statement, according to the Glasgow Herald the spokesman went on to say

"the regulatory authorities, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and HM Inspectorate of Pollution, would be able to form a provisional view of the acceptability of the repository, but Nirex would not be able to present its full safety case."

The newspaper goes on to quote the Nirex spokesman directly : "We will only be in a position to do that once the repository is actually built and we have managed to established quite conclusively if there are any problems with the geology of the site.

Only then would the regulatory authorities be in a position to inspect everything before granting an operating licence." I have no need to embellish or embroider, because the case is here in black and white from the Nirex spokesman. He continued : "With the present schedule that might not be until the year 2003 or 2004, and we"--

that is, Nirex--

"might have spent up to £500 million constructing the repository but we could still end up walking away from it. That's the risk." The report continues :

"Highland regions vice-convenor, Councillor Peter Peacock, said yesterday :

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It beggars belief that Nirex could suggest going forward to a planning enquiry without considering fully the safety case, probably the most worrying aspect to the public.'"

Hon. Members on both sides of the House would be astonished if the proposition were that any Secretary of State should give planning approval, in any shape or form, for Nirex to go ahead at Dounreay on such a basis.

I was most interested to read in The Daily Telegraph of 11 March 1991 a report under the heading

"Nuclear chief attacks lack of information on dump's safety". Once again, I am pleased to quote the source. Here too, it is not some over-enthusiastic anti-nuclear person, but Professor John Knill, chairman of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee. I quote from The Daily Telegraph report by Mr. Roger Highfield, the newspaper's science editor :

"The failure of British Nuclear Fuels to have a full safety assessment of £2.7 billion national nuclear waste dump ready in time for a public inquiry has been attacked by the Government's most senior adviser on the industry.

The BNF argument that safety at the site is a matter for experts rather than for the public has been branded as unsatisfactory by Professor Knill .

Government nuclear waste advisers wanted a public discussion at the inquiry of the technical case for the safety of the repository, the location of which was expected to be announced later this year." But by the time of the inquiry, according to Mr. Christopher Harding, chairman of BNFL, one of the principal shareholders of NIREX,

"we won't have the full safety case. There's a huge amount of work involved . We believe it is desperately important to get on. This may be seen by the public as the industry trying to pressurise it through . That would worry me."

If it worries Mr. Harding that BNFL and Nirex are seen as trying to pressurise the development through on that basis, it must be worrying to the people of Caithness and all who are living on the doorstep of the proposed development and along the transport route.

Mr. Bill Walker (Tayside, North) : The hon. Gentleman may be interested to know that I was late arriving because I was involved in discussions concerning the naval base at Rosyth, where we have an interest in nuclear capability. He will know that a number of his hon. Friends, my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) and I have today been trying to see what can be done to keep the base open.

Mr. Wilson : That is one of the most convincing notes to the teacher that I have heard for some time.

Dr. John Reid (Motherwell, North) : My hon. Friend will not object to my intervening, since I have listened to all his speech. He is to be thanked for the revelations that he has produced, particularly the revelation that not only will the events he has been describing take place without guarantees about safety but that, in one case, Nirex has admitted that £500 million may be spent before the safety issue has been analysed. Did my hon. Friend go on to say that at that stage Nirex would be prepared to walk away from it? Can my hon. Friend think of any other example of an enterprise, private or public--with the exception of the poll tax--where hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent and the concern involved has walked away from that enterprise?

Mr. Walker : Ground nuts.

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Mr. Wilson : The hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) suggests a strange analogy.

At least Nirex might have the grace to apologise and admit that it has done a great public disservice. It is astonishing to think that it is intending to spend £500 million on a £2.7 billion development without knowing whether the geological conditions are right and the safety conditions can be met. It would be absurd beyond belief if, while all of that was going on, the new agency set up to be concerned with all aspects of the Scottish environment was the one organisation not charged with having responsibility to comment on what was going on.

Creating the repository in Caithness--even if, at the end of the day, Nirex were to walk away from it and decided that £500 million could be written off to experience--would have an immense effect on the Caithness environment. Even more serious is the prospect of Nirex going on, after the expenditure of £500 million, to spend the entire £2.7 billion in creating the facility. Then the trains would roll and Dounreay would be identified with the nuclear dumping capital of Europe. That, ultimately, is unacceptable.

Yesterday, some of my hon. Friends and I--I should say representatives of the three opposition parties ; as is predictable in these matters, no representative of the Government was present--met representatives of Highland regional council, who came to London to brief Scottish Members on the case against nuclear dumping at Dounreay.

Councillor Jim Fry, a member of that delegation, worked, until he retired, at Dounreay and by no stretch of the imagination can he be described as anti-nuclear. He said that the Caithness people had been, and remained, loyal to the nuclear industry but knew that Nirex was trying to exploit that loyalty to an end that was unacceptable to the Caithness people.

They know that Nirex is not interested in Caithness because of its geological suitability. Nirex has not gone round the country in good faith looking for the area that is most suitable geologically. When it did so, it came up with a site somewhere in the Tory heartland of middle England. We remember that, in the week the general election was declared in 1987, the Government told Nirex that it could not go there because some marginal Tory seats were involved. That was the outcome of the geological examination. A political decision was taken to tell Nirex that it could not go ahead with its choice of site. 4.30 pm

We know that Nirex has not arrived at Dounreay because of its unique geological suitabilty, which for this project above all others should be the one factor that matters. What Nirex knows is that Dounreay and Caithness have a long history of involvement in the nuclear industry. As Councillor Fry said, they have been loyal to the nuclear industry and have been good neighbours to it, as indeed the nuclear industry has been to them in the view of most people in that part of the world.

Nirex saw the difficulty of Caithness as its opportunity. It saw vulnerability in Caithness because jobs were to be lost. The place had a nuclear background. When other places said that they did not want anything to do with Nirex and deep storage, Nirex decided that, if it moved into Caithness while it was vulnerable, the people might swallow the proposition. That was the crude thinking behind Nirex's proposal for deep storage at Dounreay.

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As Councillor Fry also said, the people of Caithness and, indeed, of Scotland are capable of making the distinction. There is no overwhelming hostility to the civil nuclear industry in Scotland. Certainly there is none in my constituency where a nuclear power station is the biggest employer, or in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson). We live with civil nuclear power. Whatever the rights and wrongs of its emphasis in our energy programme, they are not being debated today. The people of Caithness can differentiate between playing a positive and mutually rewarding part in the British civil nuclear programme and being used as a dump simply because unemployment looms and because they have a background in the industry. They have made that distinction successfully.

Mrs. Margaret Ewing (Moray) : Does not the hon. Gentleman also agree that the people of Caithness have, through a referendum, shown everyone how overwhelming is the opposition of the community to the use of Dounreay as a site for the disposal of nuclear waste? Is he aware that in other areas of Scotland where referendums have been conducted there has always been overwhelming democratic opposition? Is not that a strange contrast to the effect of four Conservative voices that were raised in 1987 when there was a threat to Huntingdonshire and other places in England?

Mr. Wilson : I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and I agree entirely with the point that she has made. At the briefing which we both attended yesterday, Highland regional council stressed the outcome of the referendum in Caithness. Propaganda had suggested that there was majority support for the proposal in Caithness and only voluble minority opposition. That was put to the test in a local referendum and was shown clearly to be untrue there, as in other parts of Scotland. No doubt Nirex was taken aback by the result of the referendum, because it almost certainly thought that Caithness was one of the few places in Britain where it would get a warm welcome. I do not want to introduce inter-party dissent among Opposition parties, but I suspect that Lord Thurso might not have been completely dissociated from encouraging that belief.

Caithness does not want Dounreay to be the repository for nuclear waste for Britain or Europe. Scotland does not want it to be there. The Labour party says that the proposal will not go ahead when we are in office. Only the Government are ambivalent about the idea. The new clause is perfectly clear. It states :

"It shall be an offence for any person to store radioactive waste under the land without first informing SNH of their intention to do so."

To say that it is an offence for any person perhaps draws it a little widely because the average citizen would not do that. We mean Nirex. We are using the Bill as a vehicle for a debate on this issue but it is right to stress that there is an environmental interest and that many industries in the highlands and islands depend on the image of a clean and healthy environment, which would be fatally tarnished by the presence of a nuclear dump at Dounreay. I hope that the Minister will join me in encouraging Scottish National Heritage to express views on the matter.

I do not expect the Minister to say that he will write the new clause into the Bill. However, I draw a parallel with similar debates in Committee on fish farming, shipping in the Minch, forestry and other environmental interests in

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Scotland, when the Minister's response was that there was no need to write into the Bill specific responsibility to make

representations on those issues because the terms of Scottish National Heritage are drawn so widely that it can and will be expected to do so.

If the Minister says today that he is prepared to encourage Scottish National Heritage to come forward with views on this matter, it will be a great step forward and will embolden and strengthen the new agency from the outset. However, we stress the environmental, economic and wider national interests. To say that Nirex will provide jobs is a false bait : for every job that is gained in the short term, two or three will be lost in the long term because of damage done to the image and environmental purity of the highlands and islands. I shall not prolong the debate, as we have made our point. We are delighted to have the opportunity to debate this subject and I hope that the Minister will take on board the strength of feeling on this subject which will be expressed in the debate and which exists throughout Scotland.

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