House of Commons Hansard Debates for 7 May 1992

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evidence to fit that belief or taking insufficient care when investigating the case to make certain that there is not perhaps another side to the story and those involved are not guilty after all. In such incidents, the police do not investigate the case fully to discover where the truth lies. That is a matter of grave concern and has been, and will continue to be, a cause of miscarriages of justice. But action can be taken to improve the position. No single action could do more to stop such problems than a fundamental reform of the police force. The police are crying out for a national police force. The idea of a police force based on counties is antiquated and absurd. It denies the opportunity for forensic specialties, and denies the various police officers the ability to move between the forces and gain promotion. In addition, it means that the police are stuck within a small locality and police force for a long time, which is not good.

The fact that such practices are not healthy was shown by what happened in the various crime squads set up in the 1970s. We witnessed the effect that different crime squads had on each other when they were working together for a number of years. Malpractices and inefficiencies were not challenged.

The police force should be utterly reformed and a national police force created. All the detailed examinations of every aspect of policing that have been carried out by the Select Committee on Home Affairs and other committees have always concluded that there should be a national police force. We must get away from our prejudices and our fears about a police state. We must consider the many advantages of a national police force, and the fact that it would resolve many of the problems that we are now encountering.

Mr. Peter Viggers (Gosport) : Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Ashby : I shall develop my next point and then give way. It is not good enough simply to have a national police force ; we need something else. The police force is a vast body of men and women ; the problem is how to manage such a body without management expertise. Companies of all sizes have managers and

directors--directors of finance, managing directors, personnel directors : in short, a managerial class. Without them, industry would fail. Everyone ascribes the success of industry first to its work force and secondly to its management. Other bodies of men also include a management class--the Army, the Navy and the Air Force all have such a class--yet the police force has no management class. It is managed, in army terms, by sergeant majors, half of whom have not even been on a command course.

I have inquired into what other police forces do. The best of them all have a management class or an officer class. I remember going to a school in Holland, in Apeldoorn, which trained officers in the Dutch police. I spoke to a young man of about 29 who had been an ordinary policeman and wanted to become an officer. He told me that he was not going to be a good officer because he was already 29 and too set in his ways. He thought that he might make a reasonable officer, but not a good one. To be a good one, he said, he should have gone straight into training at 18, 19 or 20. I could well understand what the young man meant.

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The same applies in most other activities. Why should the police force be exempt from an officer system? We need a management class to manage the time of the police, to make sure that they keep to the rules and to inquire continually into cases in which the rules have been broken. The police force needs managers to manage it ; if it had them it would do much to overcome the problems that have arisen at the police stage in cases that come before the Court of Appeal.

Mr. Viggers : I can see the sense and the force of my hon. Friend's argument for the abolition of the county police forces, and others hold the same view. However, I for one feel that the county police authorities make a significant input to police decision making, and I would be interested to know whether my hon. Friend has formed a view on how, if the county police authorities were abolished, this valuable input would be made.

Mr. Ashby : There is absolutely no reason why such an input should not continue to be made. A national police force would not mean the end of organisation at county or regional level. Indeed, it would be impossible to have a national police force without some sort of managerial breakdown at regional level--but that does not preclude a national police force, or regional police forces having slightly different uniforms, such as they have now.

I offer from my county of Leicestershire an example of the importance of having a national police force. The chief constable applied for and was offered the post of commissioner or chief constable of the transport police. He was delighted, until his police committee told him that he could not take the job because it would mean having to pay more into his pension. So the transport police did not get the man they wanted and the chief constable of Leicestershire had to remain in his position. No doubt he was delighted to do so, and he does a tremendous job, but it must have left some bitterness to discover that he could not advance as he should have done just because of a small-minded approach on the part of the police committee and its unwillingness to pay more into his pension. That leads us to the wider question whether there should be a transport police at all. There are far too many police forces in this country, and we should do away with the transport police, the port police, the atomic energy police and all our other numerous police forces. We should have one police force. This large number of forces has no point any more--they date from an earlier age when we did not have modern communications and modern expertise.

To summarise, there is an urgent need for leasehold reform which will include business premises. It is essential to reform shopping hours, and to reform local government, basing it on small units. We need a fundamental reform of the police to bolster law and order. I make a final plea for one more change in the processes of law and order. Some appeals have been based on identification, and if one thing cries out for reform it is this area. We must implement Lord Devlin's report of 20 years ago. It said that no one should be convicted on identification alone because it is a most unsafe and unfair method. There should be corroboration in some particular of the identification. I notice the hon. Member for Hornsey

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and Wood Green nodding. She is a barrister, and she knows what I am talking about. There is no lawyer who does not feel the utmost unease about convictions resulting from identification alone. One of the most urgently needed reforms of our legal system is to introduce corroboration in some particular to every identification case. To that end we must enact Lord Devlin's recommendation.

The Court of Appeal ducked out of that reform. It had the opportunity to change the law in the case of Turnbull, but it ducked it. It ducked out of insisting on corroboration. The court appears to have ducked the issue in several of the appeals that have come before it, appeals which have been allowed on referral back to the court only after a long interval.

Written confessions are another case in point. I have always been uneasy about them. I well remember the furore in this House when eight service men in the RAF were acquitted at the Central Criminal court of charges of passing information to the then enemy, the Russians. I think that I was the only person who said that that was a great day for British justice. In no other country, and certainly not in Russia, would eight people who had signed confessions be acquitted. It was shown that those confessions contained matters that were totally and utterly wrong and untrue, and the accused always maintained that the confessions were not properly obtained. The jury's verdict showed that they were not properly obtained, and I am loyal to the verdicts of juries.

However, in many confession cases juries have convicted, and in recent cases confessions were found to be invalid and incorrect. Too often the confession is used as a short cut to resolving a case. As in the law relating to identification, the law on confessions should be changed to require the confession to be corroborated by some material particular elsewhere. Urgent reform is required. I am grateful for being allowed the time of the House, and I hope that those urgent reforms are brought in quickly.

6.31 pm

Mr. Hugh Bayley (York) : I am grateful for being called so early in the new Session and I congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on your appointment. I am also grateful to the electors of York for returning me as their Member of Parliament. I pay tribute to my predecessor, with whom I had many sharp disagreements on many issues. However, in one area of policy he made his mark in the House, as I am sure hon. Members will agree. It was child safety and safety in the home. I also pay tribute to his predecessor, Alex Lyon, who is still remembered in York as an exceptional constituency Member of Parliament. That was sharply brought home to me when my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) visited York a few months ago. People came to her in the street to ask about Alex. I know that my maiden speech should not be controversial, but I am provoked into responding to a couple of matters raised by the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West (Mr. Ashby) who spoke about the problems, as he saw them, of local authorities owning property. In York an extremely old city council has owned property for hundreds of years. There are advantages in that. Shambles, one of our city centre streets, which is the finest and, I think, probably the only complete medieval street in Britain, is there because it has been in public

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ownership for hundreds of years. It was taken into public ownership under environmental health legislation. Traditionally, it was the butchers' street in York and taking it into public ownership was a way of providing regulation.

York city council's heritage of owning property in the city centre puts it in the enviable position of being able to levy what I think is the second lowest poll tax in Yorkshire and one of the lowest in the country. It was able to do that because it had the benefit of investment which it built up for the public good over the centuries. I am also provoked to respond to the suggestion of a need for a national police force. In North Yorkshire, my county, crime has risen from 20,000 reported offences a year when Labour left office in 1979 to 50,000 such offences. The North Yorkshire police force has exceptionally good information technology and perfectly adequate means of communicating with other police forces. We need not a national police force but more police officers and more resources for local authorities to put into crime prevention.

Partly because I have digressed to respond to the comments by the hon. Member for Leicestershire, North-West, I shall spare the House the traditional guided constituency tour that occurs in so many maiden speeches. That is because I suspect that many hon. Members have already visited York. I invite those who have not done so to visit it in the near future. I shall use my time in the House as an advocate for my constituency and my constituents. I hope to be involved in debate on the future of the confectionery industry and on the need for the current GATT talks to retain export restitutions so that food manufacturers in the United Kingdom can compete on equal terms with manufacturers from outside the European Community. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, East (Mrs. Prentice) spoke eloquently about the need to improve rail services for London commuters. She spoke about the desperate state of clapped-out Network SouthEast trains that run from her constituency to the centre of London where the majority of her constituents work. There is a need for new trains and a need for them to be built by BREL in York. It recently received a stop-gap order which will keep the works in business for about 12 months, but we need a much longer programme of orders so that this country retains the ability to manufacture modern aluminium-bodied railway carriages.

BREL in York is the only place in Britain that manufactures modern suburban aluminium-bodied railway carriages. We need the work in York and commuters in the London area need modern trains to provide a good service. There is no point in a citizens charter offering penalty payments to London commuters if British Rail does not have the goods to provide the decent service that the charter requires.

I shall deal primarily with the issue of community care raised by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry). In less than a year, the Government will start to transfer resources of about £2,000 million from the social security budget to social services departments to provide community care. That will be done from the social security residential and nursing care support budget. Is that enough? Community care may be a better option for many patients, but it is by no means a cheap option. Social services departments throughout the country--those in North Yorkshire are no exception--have felt the financial

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squeeze of pressure on local government finance and the effects of the poll tax. Will they have the resources to improve not just the quantity but the quality of community care, which was one of the matters stressed in the Gracious Speech? The fact that there is an increasing demand for community care is a tribute to the existence for more than 40 years of a free and demand-led, needs-based national health service.

More people are living to an old age and they need community care in their later years. More children survive infancy. Many of those who would not have survived some years ago are disabled. I have heard many harrowing stories from my constituents about the difficulties that they have in obtaining the community care that they need to enable them to look after their children.

I was approached recently by a family who have a 21-year-old Down's syndrome daughter. The family took the decision to foster a 21-year-old Down's syndrome man. That family will look after their natural child and foster child for as long as they can, but they recognise that at some stage they will no longer be able to care for them. The family hope that the natural child and the foster child will be able to look after each other and provide companionship and security. The family would like to find full- time day care for the two children in the same day centre. North Yorkshire social services department admits that the two children should have that care but it is unable to provide either child with full-time day care. It is certainly unable to provide the two of them with full-time day care at the same day centre.

Had the foster child not been fostered, he would have spent the rest of his life, as he had spent the beginning of it, in an institutional home. He has been given the opportunity to live with a loving family in the community, but without community care support that sort of benefit for those who would otherwise be in institutions is likely to be lost.

I have been dealing also with the case of an extremely severely disabled young woman whose parents are now no longer able to care for her. An argument has developed between the health and social services authorities over who should take responsibility. The young woman is occupying a respite care bed at huge expense to the health authority. There are others who need that bed and she is preventing them from taking it because no long-term provision can be found for her. The family was offered a bed in a home in Skipton, which is many miles from York. If the young woman had moved to Skipton, her family would no longer have been able to visit daily and she would have felt abandoned. Are we to provide community care services that will ensure that people are cared for in the community in which they live and in which their families can provide support, or are they to be shuffled off to wherever a bed is available?

I welcome the commitment in the Queen's Speech to the citizens charter. Coming from York, I could hardly do otherwise, because four years ago the city produced the very first citizens charter. However, merely to have a citizens charter is not good enough if public services are not provided with the funds to deliver the high quality of service that the charter demands.

North Yorkshire county council is examining a proposal to divest itself of 20 old people's homes. That may save the council money in the short term, but only between now and April of next year when the community care budget is transferred from the Benefits Agency to

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local government. The real question is whether the divestment will improve the quality of care that is referred to in the Queen's Speech. Will it improve choice for the residents? Will it improve the opportunity to obtain provision that is local to where people live so that an elderly person who moves into a home is able to retain links and friendships in the community in which she or he lived? Previously I was employed in a professional capacity as a health economist. I undertook a study not long ago into long-term care for the elderly, which included interviews with 1,300 people living in nursing and residential homes. Among other things, they were asked to express their views about the care that they received, the freedom of choice that they had in their homes and the overall quality of care that was available. Those who lived in local authority homes thought, generally speaking, that the quality of care was good. In the private sector, opinions were extremely variable. Some private homes were extremely good and some were unacceptably poor.

If more old people's homes are to be transferred from the public sector to the private sector, it will be necessary to ensure that the quality of care within those homes is retained. According to the 1, 300 residents, the public sector was much better than the private sector when it came to quality control.

The problem with statutory inspection and regulation procedures is that they concentrate on areas that can be measured relatively easily, such as the number of rooms, the number of toilets, staffing and the control of drugs. They do not focus on the key to caring, which is the personal relationship between the carer and the elderly person, the handicapped person or the disabled person. That relationship cannot be measured through the statutory process, but it must be ensured if high-quality care--the sort of care that the citizens charter wishes to ensure--is to be maintained. It is not only North Yorkshire county council that is proposing to divest itself of its old people's homes.

I am concerned about what divestment means in terms of freedom of choice for the residents of old people's homes. Will they have freedom of choice about the life that they lead within the home--for example, whether they can choose when to have a bath, whether they have a choice of different dishes at meal times and whether they can choose the clothes that they buy and wear? All those facets are important, and equally important is whether people retain a choice when it comes to the type of home into which they should move. As I said, I was involved in interviewing 1,300 residents. Only one in 20 of those in local authority homes said that he or she had even considered moving into a private home. Only one person in 30 in private homes said that he or she had even considered moving into a local authority home. These elderly people had extremely firm views about the type of home and the type of regime in which they wanted to live, and that choice must be maintained. The short-term cash benefits for social service departments of divesting themselves of their directly managed homes, which will run out in a matter of months, mean nothing when set against quality of care and choice for residents.

The residents of these homes will live in them for the rest of their lives. As people who are concerned with the

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provision of community care, we have a responsibility to ensure that quality and choice within residential homes are as good as they can possibly be. There should be a granny test : if a home is not acceptable for someone's parents or grandparents, it should not be acceptable to anybody else's.

It is all very well to say that the Benefits Agency now or the social services department in future will pay the fees of those who cannot afford to pay for themselves in private sector homes, but that is not always the outcome. I recently received a call from a couple who were extremely frightened on having received a bill for £2,121.95 in respect of the woman's brother two weeks after he had moved into a private care home. They did not have the means to pay the bill. They also received a demand to sign a form to indemnify the home against the fees if the woman's brother was unable to pay them. In addition, they received what I can only call a pressurising letter from the matron of the home.

Fortunately, I was able to take up the matter and say that that couple had absolutely no responsibility to pay the fees on behalf of the woman's brother--and, sure enough, the social security authority agreed to pay the fees. What would have happened if that couple had not found somebody to shout for them at that critical time? What if they had used their life savings to pay the fees? It is not good enough for the public sector to provide services on contract unless it can guarantee that the proper people, at the proper time, will pay for them.

I welcome the community care approach, but there are 6 million unpaid, informal carers throughout the country, without whose services the community care system would fall apart. Ten thousand of those carers are in my constituency, with about the same number in other constituencies. They need a decent carers' benefit and respite care for those for whom they are caring. They need proper community services, such as home help and laundry services, which are not being provided by social services departments because of the financial squeeze on them. Those informal carers are the biggest army of overworked, unpaid, undervalued heroes and heroines in this country. The whole system could fall apart. The closure programme for long- stay institutions will certainly fall apart if carers do not get the back- up and support from social services departments that they need.

The hon. Member for Wellingborough said that it was unclear how social services departments would finance their responsibilities. That is a disgrace. It is only 11 months from when they will have to meet those responsibilities. It is no wonder that those who care for the elderly, the disabled and those with learning difficulties are scared. It is a great shame that £14 billion has been spent on the failed poll tax when it could have been used for decent funding for social services departments to provide the community care that we all know is needed. It is a public spending responsibility that the House must grapple with and come to terms with, and it must do so quickly so that those who depend on that support can know well in advance of April that they will get the backing that they need.

6.52 pm

Mr. Peter Viggers (Gosport) : I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to make my maiden speech in this Parliament-- although not my

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maiden speech as such, as I made that 18 years ago. I wish that after 18 years I had one part of the skill of the hon. Member for York (Mr. Bayley) in marshalling his arguments and winning the ear of the House. I respect the way that he presented his argument. He obviously has a keen interest in his constituency and in the subject about which he spoke most--the welfare of the elderly and others. I have no doubt that he will be keenly listened to in the House in future, and I congratulate him on an exceptionally good speech. The hon. Gentleman's predecessor, Conal Gregory, was a friend of many in this House, and we very much miss him. I am not sure whether it is his intention to knock out the hon. Gentleman at the next election. If so, Conservative Members will wish him well, despite the praise that I have lavished on the hon. Gentleman. Wherever Conal Gregory is and whatever he plans to do, I am sure that we wish him well and respect the many efforts that he made on behalf of his constituents during the time that he was in this House.

May I say, Madam Deputy Speaker, what a pleasure it is to see you in the Chair? We are all happy that you agreed to accept the position of Deputy Speaker. We have experience of you as a Chairman of Committees, and we know that you are not one from whose path one strays lightly.

The main subject of today's debate is public expenditure. As my constituency contains more service men and women and more service voters than any other, it will be no surprise if I begin with the subject of defence. I regard defence as the first priority of Government and the area upon which they should spend money before they consider anything else.

I am happy that the proposals in the "Options for Change" document produced by the last Conservative Government have been carried out. There were many dire threats about the consequences of the changes and we were told that there would be severe cuts. In fact, the strength of the Navy has diminished only slightly, from about 63,000 to 60,000. Naturally, the Army must bear the brunt of the reductions. It is no longer realistic to imagine that the Warsaw pact's tanks will roll through central Europe. The Warsaw pact has gone, and Russia has even applied to join NATO. We do not need to retain the same level of forces in Germany, so quite realistically the Army is being reduced by about 40,000. The RAF is being reduced from 80,000 to 75,000. The number of civilians employed in the United Kingdom will be reduced from about 140,000 to 120,000.

I regard those reductions in defence spending as realistic, taking account of the reduced threat from our major prospective aggressors, the Warsaw pact countries, which had built up a massive superiority of forces over NATO and the western forces. However, the reductions are not so extreme that they reduce our level of forces below that which takes account of the fact that this is and remains a very dangerous world. Appropriately, it is now proposed that we should make a major contribution to the rapid reaction force, which will be commanded by a British general. That force will be available should there be a crisis in the world that merits such a response. As the world shrinks and communications continually increase, so different tyrants, dictators and prospective aggressors throughout the world may pose a major problem even for this country, thousands of miles away.

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Our defence policy is balanced, and it has taken full account of the "Options for Change" proposals. I am happy that we now have balanced forces.

On the matter of other public expenditure, we must always remember that initiative, enterprise and wealth do not grow in Whitehall. It is our duty to lighten the burden on those who have those qualities of initiative, enterprise and wealth production and to ensure that those qualities are properly liberated. We must take full account of the message from the Pacific basin, and perhaps above all from areas such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore where, because of the light control on industry, it has been able to flourish and produce wealth beyond their and our wildest dreams.

It was said recently that Thatcherism would live on after Mrs. Thatcher. I believe that to be true. I truly believe that our former leader was instrumental in bringing about a watershed of change throughout the world. Those who have had the opportunity, as I am grateful to have had, of travelling widely will know that, even in countries such as China, people are taken by the fact that free enterprise has provided wealth in other parts of the world. At the end of a lunch or banquet, my Chinese hosts would often say, "Mrs. Thatcher, very strong lady."

The message of Thatcherism--that it is possible to reduce the burden of public expenditure and public control--has been taken up around the world. Japan is privatising its railways--a matter of great controversy when I was last there. The message of Thatcherism is being applied successfully around the world.

Since 1979, the Government have returned 46 businesses to the private sector, from which the taxpayer has benefited--I use that word unashamedly- -by £41 billion. In 1979, nationalised industries were costing us £50 million per week, £2.5 billion per year. Those same privatised companies are now paying £2 billion per year in corporation tax. The message of Thatcherism and the return of nationalised industries to the private sector has been effective in management and financial terms.

It is necessary to keep public expenditure and the level of taxation down. One message that the Labour party should have learnt during the election is that no one wins friends by proposing to increase taxation, and not only does one not make friends, one does not increase revenue. The reduction in the highest level of taxation after 1979 led to an increase in the proportion of tax paid by the top 5 per cent. of taxpayers from 25 per cent. to 30 per cent. of all income taxation. That proves that the previous Labour Government had been over-taxing to such an extent that the taxation was becoming inefficient and producing less revenue.

There are areas where the Government have been criticised for holding back on public expenditure but where they have in fact been increasing it-- something which I proudly support. Two examples are the national health service and the education system. Those two areas can be improved in ways other than increasing the amount of money spent on them. Throwing money at a problem is no answer. My wife is a doctor working for the NHS, and she feels keenly that throwing money at the service is not the answer ; it needs better management. I am confident that the separation of the providers and the purchasers of services within the NHS will lead to more efficiency by a reduction in the size of the overall management unit. How can anyone possibly maintain that the NHS, which I

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understand is the second largest single organisation in the world, second only to the Chinese army, and which has existed since 1945, should remain unreformed?

I believe that the reforms in the NHS are working. My constituents are happy with the service that they receive. In the context of a public sector spending debate, it is relevant to note that, since 1979, we have increased spending on the NHS by 56 per cent. in real terms and we that are now spending some £620 a year on health care for every man, woman and child. That is a large amount of money. Our record is extremely good. Every Labour Government have resulted in an increase in waiting lists ; every Conservative Government have resulted in waiting lists being reduced. That is a proud record. Similarly, we have increased spending on education by some 50 per cent. Here, too, I believe that improved management will play an important part. Teachers in my constituency are happy with the local management of schools, which they feel gives them more control over their budgets, and they are happy with the concept of

grant-maintained status. The one school in my constituency which has moved to grant-maintained status is excited about the possibilities that that will give it for spending its own money and providing its own management services. There, too, contrary to the general tenor of my remarks that we would contain public expenditure, we have increased public expenditure, with good results. I believe that there is a high level of satisfaction with the NHS and a growing satisfaction with our education system.

There is one specific area in which there could justifiably be a modest increase in public expenditure and public effort. I refer to one area of trade and industry for which my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) has been given responsibility and which I myself once had some responsibility for. I remember the very few words with which Mrs. Thatcher invited me to take up my office. All I knew was that a reshuffle was in progress. I was called in by the Prime Minister, who said, "Peter, I want you to be responsible for trade and industry--in Northern Ireland." For three years, I had that responsibility, which gave me a chance to compare notes with my counterpart responsible for trade and industry in Great Britain--my noble Friend Lord Young--and to take some account of Britain's export efforts and how they could be improved.

We can learn some lessons from the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry, which co-ordinates trade and industry activities in Japan. I hasten to add that I do not believe in increased control or subsidy of industry within the United Kingdom, but the Government have an opportunity to draw together and co-ordinate the export efforts of some of our largest companies. I was delighted to see the news today that Trafalgar House, in conjunction with a Japanese organisation, has won a major contract for a bridge in Hong Kong, but we are not always so successful. We can learn from the co-ordination of effort which is put behind industry in other countries which send out a flying squad of experts such as accountants, bankers and lawyers but also engineers to ensure that the best companies are selected and work closely together to win major overseas contracts.

Sometimes, two or three British consortia compete for the same contract, whereas other countries, notably Japan,

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manage to narrow their competitors down and throw all their weight behind one consortium. In that narrow area, my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley should be encouraged to bid for slightly higher public expenditure in order to bring that idea to fruition. Elsewhere, I believe that public expenditure should be strictly curtailed. The economy is ready for recovery ; if we hold back on public spending, that recovery will surely come.

7.7 pm

Mr. Llew Smith (Blaenau Gwent) : I have the privilege to follow in the footsteps of Michael Foot and Nye Bevan, and I do not pretend that I can do the job in the way that they did, but I hope that I can do it in a way that is relevant to the communities that they both represented and loved.

Michael Foot is a grand socialist and an inspiration to the Labour movement. As a Member of Parliament he was outspoken, but always in the defence of his constituency. That constituency has a history of struggle, and the past few years have not made much difference to that. In that period, thousands of people have been made redundant because of the rundown of the coal industry, as well as thousands more who were dependent on that industry.

In recent months, many of the jobs which have supposedly replaced those which have been lost have been low-paid, part-time and non-union. Some months ago, I overheard a redundant miner chatting to his friend, expressing pleasure in the fact that he had found alternative employment. But he went on to say that unfortunately, despite having found alternative employment, he was about £100 per week worse off. I suspect that he would have welcomed the introduction of a minimum wage of £3.40 per hour.

The message from my community is that we want jobs. We desperately need jobs, but we do not want jobs at any cost. We want jobs that pay decent wages, which are carried out in decent conditions and which bring dignity to their labour. A higher level of public expenditure would assist our communities, and would begin to create jobs and to defeat the problem of low pay.

I do not want to give the impression that everyone in south Wales is losing out--that the whole population is unemployed or suffering under low pay. In recent years, there have been some winners. For example, John Elfed Jones, chairman of Welsh Water, increased his annual salary from £76,000 in 1990 to £143,000 in 1991. Wynford Evans, chairman of South Wales Electricity, saw his salary increase from £67,000 in 1990 to £120,000 in 1991. Privatisation has obviously worked for some, but not for the majority of my constituents. Low pay and unemployment are not the only problems confronting Blaenau Gwent, great though they are. It also has problems with its housing stock. Many houses are too old, and others desperately need repair. A high level of public investment is needed to overcome those problems. The local authority needs an opportunity to use the money that it raised from the sale of council houses to build new homes and to repair dilapidated property.

A great deal of television publicity has been given to cardboard city in London, but Wales has its own cardboard cities. Shelter estimates that there are 60,000 homeless people in Wales, and another survey suggested that 80,000 families--around 160,000 people--are living in substandard accommodation. In Wales, more than

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200,000 people are either homeless or living in substandard homes. In my opinion, and in the opinion of the community that I represent, that is unacceptable.

Investment is also needed in the national health service. Blaenau Gwent has some of the worst health problems in Wales. The people who make up that community, because of its history, are the real experts when it comes to the health service. They were somewhat surprised some time ago to find that local councillors who cared for and had committed their lives to the NHS were all of a sudden thrown off Gwent health authority, to be replaced mainly by business men. They included a building contractor, a management consultant, a former controller of purchasing and supply for British Gas, a former pharmaceutical industry consultant, and a farmer who specialises in pick-your-own fruit. In fact, I believe that she specialises in strawberries. Perhaps a right hon. or hon. Member could inform me and my community how those skills are relevant to the running of one of the greatest services in the world.

If the national health service is to live up to the dreams of its pioneers, the people running it should be those who have devoted their lives to it, are committed to it, know what is required to improve it, and would be accountable to the people. The NHS was the finest piece of socialist legislation this century. It set out to deal with many of the problems that confront my community, and it will not stand idly by while the health service is devastated. Blaenau Gwent is also the victim of privatisation. When its bus service was privatised, we were told by the Government--as were people throughout the land--that that would result in a cheaper, more efficient, and cleaner service. Instead, the service has gone into receivership. The shopping centre in Tredegar has also gone into receivership, while other shops and places of interest and entertainment have closed because of the recession. Many shops are also confronted by difficulties caused by subsidence that is probably the result of old mine workings.

Tredegar was once a proud town that was boasted about throughout the land. To pass through it today is a sad experience. I have invited the Secretary of State for Wales to visit that community, and I repeat my invitation in the hope that the right hon. Gentleman will visit it in the months and years ahead, to see how he and the Welsh Office can respond to its problems.

I do not want to give the impression either that Tredegar is the only town with a problem. Its problems are seen time and time again throughout Blaenau Gwent. The Prime Minister's only response in his speech yesterday was to announce more privatisation. Before he privatises the coal industry, I ask him to instruct his Ministers to speak to the experts--to those people who have devoted their lives to the coal industry, and who worked in the old private mines. They will describe the conditions that once prevailed, and explain why it would be so wrong to privatise that industry again.

Michael Foot once described himself as an inveterate peacemonger. I tend to follow in that tradition, which is relevant not only to world peace but to my own community. Although we can always find the money to go to war, we rarely find the money to ensure that people can enjoy their dignity in times of peace. If my constituents are to experience that dignity, they need the money that is spent on preparing for war to be used instead to overcome many of the problems that confront them now. If that is

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done, those problems will become part of history, and I will be able to report to the House the progress that has been made. 7.16 pm

Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne) : I add my congratulations and good wishes to those that have already been expressed to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sure that you will have a very enjoyable time, and that we will all try to make your life reasonably simple.

Public expenditure is an all-embracing subject, and there is a great temptation to roam over whatever territory one chooses in a debate such as this. I will resist that temptation and focus on a specific aspect of public expenditure, in drawing the attention of the House to particular problems and possible solutions to them. I refer to central Government spending via local government. I deliberately phrase it in that way, for reasons that I shall explain shortly. [Interruption.] I have rightly been told off by my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn) for failing to congratulate the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Smith) on his maiden speech. I ask the hon. Gentleman to accept my sincere apologies : I should have known better.

I was pleased to be congratulated after my terrifying ordeal of making a maiden speech all that time ago, and I wish that I had acquitted myself as well as did the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent. He began by reminding the House that he was following in the footsteps of Nye Bevan and of Michael Foot, but was unsure of his ability to do so adequately. If all the hon. Gentleman's speeches are as good as that which he made tonight, he will soon be in the same category as his predecessors. I am sure that we can look forward in the years to come to more orations that follow in the footsteps of those two noble parliamentarians.

The hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent said also that his predecessors had served their constituents well and had stood up for their beliefs. Although I do not share the hon. Gentleman's beliefs, I find it easiest to have respect for the opponent who fights hard for his or her constituents and who stands up unashamedly for his or her beliefs. The hon. Gentleman did both tonight, and I am sure that he will continue to do so. If he does, he will gain my respect and that of the whole House. I again ask the hon. Gentleman to accept my apologies for my earlier bad manners.

I return to the subject of central Government spending by local government. I put it that way deliberately, for reasons with which I shall deal shortly. The House should consider the issue, because large amounts of central Government money are involved, and at present it is proving incredibly difficult to target the money in the way intended by the providers. Let me give an example.

In the last public expenditure round, the Government took the view that a certain sum was necessary to provide adequate social services for my county of Surrey. That indeed is the proper role of central Government. The Government passed the money, by way of the standard spending assessment, through the Department of the Environment to Surrey county council. Now, £8 million of the money earmarked for Surrey's social services is being spent on other services provided by the county council. Hon. Members know the size of the mailbags that we receive when social services provision is not of the

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standard that constituents want. That is an example of how difficult it is for a Government of any political persuasion to target funds under the present system.

My third reason for drawing attention to the problem is the fact that local government expenditure has proved extremely difficult to control--again, irrespective of the political colour of the central Administration. Successive Governments have tried to control it, and have encountered problems. When Governments say that they want to sort out the spending of public money by local government, they really mean that they want to get public expenditure under control. If our aim is to control the spending of public money via local government, surely trying to control local government income is not the most effective method. When I have difficulties with my bank balance, it is the expenditure involved with which I must deal first. Surely it is self-evident, at least in private circles, that, when we experience expenditure problems, we must control expenditure. That is the first lesson that I would draw from 20 years of trying to do something about local government expenditure.

There is no point in arguing about whether local government expenditure needs to be controlled. All expenditure, public or private, needs to be controlled. Money is a finite resource, and there is never enough to meet all needs. It must be controlled, whether we like it or not ; and I believe that it must be controlled directly. Over the years, every attempt to control this part of public expenditure by means of income control has failed. As each method proves unsuccessful, another method is invented, even more draconian than the last and even sillier. There are plenty of absurd examples.

How, then, do we control local government expenditure? I have four suggestions. First, the Government must be certain that they have identified the source of the money involved. Secondly, they must be certain that they have identified the real purpose of the expenditure. Thirdly, they must be clear about who controls what is going on. Finally, they must ensure that there is a link between the providers and the client or customer.

All that may strike hon. Members on both sides of the House as eminently obvious. Why do we need to discuss something that is self-evident? The answer is that, although the solution may seem obvious, things are being handled badly at present.

First, let us consider the need to identify the source of the funds. The argument goes like this. There are many kinds of provision, and many kinds of expenditure--public expenditure, voluntary sector expenditure and quango expenditure, for example. Each type of expenditure needs to be controlled in a different way, and it is therefore vital for us to be clear about the source of the finance. Probably the best illustration of the wrong way in which to categorise public expenditure is provided by the public- expenditure category called local government spending. That is because a range of sources is involved. There are councils' fees and charges ; there is agency allocation of money--for instance, transport supplementary grants ; there is the local tax, whether it be community charge, council tax or rates. Then there is the grant from central Government. Each of those different sources

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requires a different method of control. For example, the marketplace controls fees and charges : a council can charge only what the market will bear for, say, swimming facilities. But the marketplace does not and cannot control the amount that is provided by central Government.

If we are to control this part of public expenditure, we must be absolutely clear about the source of finance. That is why I said that I wanted to discuss the issue of central Government spending via local government, for that is what the central grant is--central Government expenditure. Anyone in the Treasury will confirm that. It needs to be identified for what it is, and discussed separately. There is another catch. In saying that we need to control central Government expenditure via local government, we may forget that central Government expenditure is a pretty poor category as a source of money. It includes money from the Departments of Transport, Education and Health, from the Home Office and from many other Government Departments. We need to be clear about the source of every element of the central Government grant.

Secondly, we need to be clear about the purpose of the expenditure. That, too, may sound obvious, but far too many spending categories are vague ; many are far too large or far too small ; and even more are just plain confusing. We talk readily in the House about public expenditure on education, as though education spending were an entirely proper category of expenditure which we could control. But when a local councillor talks about education spending, he or she is talking about spending money on primary schools, secondary schools, clothing grants and remedial help for children : that is what councillors understand by the label "education".

An Education Minister, however, takes education spending to mean expenditure on all schools and on further and higher education, but certainly does not take it to mean expenditure on clothing or remedial help, which are the responsibilities of the Department of Social Security and the Department of Health respectively. It is small wonder that there is poor control of education spending, when two people engaged in a debate on the subject find that they are talking about different issues.

There is another reason for the confusion. Neither the councillor nor the Education Minister is talking about the totality of education, for neither is talking about expenditure on private schools or tutors. If we are to control public expenditure, we must get the categories right.

Thirdly, we must sort out who controls each section of public expenditure. That brings us straight into a debate that has been going on ever since local government began--the debate about the nature of the real relationship between central Government and local authorities in terms of expenditure.

There are those on both sides of the House who believe that local government should be left to get on with its own spending and that one solution would be less interference. However, central Government have a role in all expenditure, whether it is public or private. The nature of a country's economy is a concern of central Government. Some of my colleagues are great believers in non-intervention, but even a decision by central Government not to intervene has a profound effect upon public expenditure and the national economy. Therefore, the two extremes of saying that we need do nothing or that we must do everything do not hold water.

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We cannot get away from the fact that there must be central Government involvement. Therefore, we must ask what central Government should be involved in. I can offer only one guiding principle : he who pays the piper calls the tune. In my Surrey example, central Government believed that they were making available £8 million for what they had decided was a correct priority. However, that £8 million was not spent on that priority.

It is small wonder that people in the Department of Social Security and the Department of Health are angry to discover that the money is not being spent on what they decided was a correct priority. The principle of he who pays the piper must apply if central Government are providing money for a specific purpose. Whether money is spent by central Government, local government or a voluntary agency, the provider of the funds must have control.

There are obstacles to my argument. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under- Secretary of State for Social Security needs to make money available to local government. What does she have to do? She provides that money for the Department of the Environment, which then passes it on as a block grant. There is another reason why targeting and control are not much good. If all the Departments that are providing money for local government pass it on to the Department of the Environment, there is an intermediary. Intermediaries in the chain of control are not a good idea.

Another problem is that both local government, in its capacity as a mini- Government, and the Department of the Environment have their own priorities and policies, so my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State passes money to the Department of the Environment which imposes its priorities, and when the money is passed to, for example, Surrey, there is a second lot of priorities. There is no effective control in that method.

We need to know what the tests could be for controlling such expenditure. For example, there is no way in which local taxation could fund an expensive service such as education. An expensive service will almost certainly need to be controlled by central Government if there is to be effective control of expenditure. However, if one focuses on local democracy, that is a different argument--one may end up sacrificing effective control to achieve it. Thus, the first test is, if it is expensive, it is central. The second test must be who sets the standards. I do not think that the House would become excited about whether the grass verges in my constituency of Spelthorne were kept half an inch high or an inch high. That is a matter for the worthy burghers of Spelthorne to decide. However, from the newspapers and my mailbag, I get the impression that, if the standard of literacy in Cornwall is different from that in Kent, mayhem would break out in the House because that should not be tolerated.

That tells us something about who should control expenditure on reading. Although some standards can be set locally, things may change. I cannot imagine a time when the length of grass in Spelthorne will become controversial, but one must be flexible in case a standard suddenly becomes controversial.

Having said that he who pays the piper must have control and that whoever sets the standards should have the final say, if that increasingly becomes central Government, where does that leave local government? Regardless of who is providing the money or controlling

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