House of Commons Hansard Debates for 22 Jun 1992

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Wales rose by only about 2 per cent. Housing for Wales intends to build 4,000 new homes this year, compared with 3,500 last year, which is a good improvement.

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

Citizens Charter

29. Mr. Raynsford : To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on the application of the citizens charter principles to British Rail.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. William Waldegrave) : British Rail has set out the application of the citizens charter in its own passengers charter. The charter commits British Rail to giving passengers the safe, high-quality service that they have the right to expect. Passengers now know what are BR's standards, and which standards are being achieved.

Mr. Raynsford : Does the Chancellor recall that the citizens charter White Paper published almost one year ago contained a clear pledge to reform conditions of carriage, which were described as heavily criticised and more than 40 years old? Does the right hon. Gentleman recall also the pledge that those simple,

easy-to-understand conditions of carriage would be published last November? A seven-month delay in arriving seems rather long, even by British Rail's standards. What redress will the Government offer?

Mr. Waldegrave : In this matter, it is not entirely British Rail's fault. BR and the Department of Transport have been awaiting the European Commission's work, which appeared to delay matters. My information is that BR will now be able to press on more speedily.

Sir Anthony Durant : Is my right hon. Friend aware that my constituents will be pleased that any price increases will be linked to the service provided in future? That is important to those who commute to Reading and just beyond it.

Mr. Waldegrave : That is a good principle and one which will benefit season ticket holders. The first objective is to ensure that standards that commuters want are met. When they are not, that will be reflected in prices and in compensation to individual holders of season tickets in the preceding year.

Dr. Marek : Does the Chancellor of the Duchy believe that the application of citizens charter principles to British Rail should relate to its commercial aspects, or will an element of service be involved? If the latter, where precisely in British Rail should that element of service be found?

Mr. Waldegrave : The element of service comes in British Rail's managing its business as effectively as possible. As our railways are presently constituted, the Department of Transport is responsible for negotiating that--and under any future privatisation, the regulator would have that role.

Mr. Rowe : Is my right hon. Friend aware that British Rail has just put on the market a grade 1 listed building at a price virtually half that which British Rail paid for it? At the same time, BR denies that the blight affecting the properties of constituents of mine who live close to that

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building has anything to do with BR. How does my right hon. Friend see those two conflicting attitudes fitting in with the citizens charter?

Mr. Waldegrave : My hon. Friend will have to await my detailed reply. I do not know the details of the case to which he refers, but I will be happy to pursue it.

European Research Council

30. Mr. Ernie Ross : To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what proposals he will make to the European Research Council during the United Kingdom presidency.

Mr. Waldegrave : As the presidency, we will prepare the ground for the fourth framework programme, which will define Community research in the years ahead while assessing whether any financing problems that remain from the third framework programme need dealing with. I want to see better management and evaluation of EC programmes. I shall be seeing Vice- President Pandolfi in London tomorrow.

Mr. Ross : Does the Chancellor of the Duchy agree that one of the most important steps that the Council could take would be to support the proposed global climate observation system, which would ensure a sound scientific basis for the adoption of environmental policies?

Mr. Waldegrave : The hon. Gentleman has made a good point. He will be well aware of the initiative launched in Rio by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in this connection, and I shall draw his remarks to the Commissioner's attention tomorrow.

Mr. Oppenheim : Should we not recommend the ending of all European Community Research funding for fat-cat corporations such as Olivetti, Siemens and Philips, which over the past few years have proved brilliant at lobbying for funding for prestige research products, but less than brilliant when it comes to producing efficient, marketable goods? If they devoted half the effort that they devote to lobbying for protection and research grants to producing such goods, they would be world beaters.

Mr. Waldegrave : We firmly believe that individual corporations and products should not receive research support, either from the Community or from our own domestic programme. We should use the European programme to support generic science and strategic science, which can have a wide range of applications, but we should not be drawn into individual industrial decisions of the kind that my hon. Friend rightly criticised.

Dr. Bray : Is the Chancellor of the Duchy aware that the science communities--not only in Britain but in France and Germany--want the European framework research programme to be well supported? Does he propose any steps to bring the national peer groups together, so that, with their pooled wisdom, they can help to improve administration standards in Europe?

Mr. Waldegrave : I think that there is a role for domestic advice to strengthen the European Community's assessments. At the last Council meeting, I pressed hard for better evaluation of the existing European programmes and received considerable support around the table. We in Britain have a great deal to offer in that direction.

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Mr. John Marshall : Will my right hon. Friend use the British presidency as an opportunity to keep a beady eye on the expansionist ambitions of President Delors in this regard, as in many others?

Mr. Waldegrave : Yes, although it should be recognised that Britain receives a good return from European research and development expenditure-- a rather better return than under the juste retour formula. None the less, that does not mean that we should not question any unnecessary expansion and ensure that evaluation and assessment of projects are better and tougher than in the past.

Intestacy

31. Mr. Cohen : To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on the effect of intestacy on Duchy properties.

33. Mr. Foulkes : To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will consider introducing legislation to alter the intestacy provisions in the Duchy.

Mr. Waldegrave : The laws on intestacy are no different in the county palatine from those in England and Wales.

Mr. Cohen : Is not the Duchy of Lancaster running a feudal fiefdom, robbing relatives of their inheritance? Why does not the normal law apply, whereby if someone dies without having made a will, his next of kin, rather than the Queen personally, has a claim to his property? For the sake of natural justice, should not repossessions by ancient statute be stopped immediately--or are we to assume that the Duchy is using its policy to satisfy the monarch's private greed?

Madam Speaker : Order. The first part of the hon. Gentleman's question was perfectly acceptable and in order, but I must tell him that no personal criticism can be made of and individual except by way of a substantive motion. Will the hon. Gentleman withdraw the second part of his question?

Mr. Cohen : My criticism was of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Mr. Waldegrave : I am sure that the hon. Gentleman's question was perfectly in order, but factually--you, Madam Speaker, are not responsible for that aspect--it was completely haywire. Opposition Members who take their briefing from the Daily Mirror always come a cropper ; I have dealt with one or two in the past. The truth is that the law of intestacy is exactly the same in the Duchy of Lancaster as it is everywhere else : there is no difference in the rights of next of kin. The only difference lies in the fact that, instead of all the money going to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it goes to a charitable fund to benefit the people of Lancashire. Some hon. Members may well support that.

Mr. Foulkes : Does the Chancellor of the Duchy accept that many of us have no wish to join the republican rat pack led by Rupert Murdoch and Andrew Neil, who unfortunately, is a Scotsman? There is growing and genuine concern that although the civil list provides a very generous income and although the monarch is exempt from tax, the estate goes to the Queen personally when people die intestate in the Duchy of Lancaster and have no

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heirs, and not to the Crown, as represented by the Government. Many people believe that that anomaly ought to be dealt with. Will the Chancellor consider introducing legislation to change that procedure, because otherwise it will continue to reflect adversely on the monarch?

Mr. Waldegrave : I thought at first that the hon. Gentleman, whose question is more accurate, was referring to his hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen), who got it all back to front. At least the hon. Gentleman more or less knows the facts. In the following respect, though, he is wrong. Instead of the money going into the Consolidated Fund for general use by the Government, it goes into a benevolent fund which benefits a range of charities--above all, for example, Salford and Lancaster universities, Blackburn cathedral and Broughton Hall disabled ex- service men's home. There are also very small grants, including that to pay for driving lessons for an 18-year-old suffering from spina bifida and a contribution towards a powered wheelchair for a sufferer from muscular dystrophy in Lancashire. Many of us think that the Duchy, through its benevolent fund, does very good work and that it should receive support in the House.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : I thank my right hon. Friend for confirming that not one penny of this money is kept by the Duchy and that it all goes to charitable uses within the Duchy, a fact that all properly informed Lancashire Members have always been well aware of.

Mr. Waldegrave : I did think that it was somewhat rash of these foreigners to interfere in my hon. Friend's area. I thought that she would dispose of them--as she has done. I would correct her, however, on one small point. Part of the money is spent on the administration of the magistracy. If, however, it were not spent in that way, money would have to come out of the self-same public funds into which the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) wants all the funds to go, so that it is an entirely circular argument.

Mr. Sumberg : Is it not ironic that, whenever we have Scottish questions, Scottish Members such as the hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) complain about English Members interfering, but now that we are considering Lancashire affairs, the hon. Gentleman is poking his nose into them? Would not the best advice to people in Lancashire who are affected in this way--I speak with no special interest-- be to go to see a good lawyer if they have a problem?

Mr. Waldegrave : My hon. Friend's latter point is sound. Previous Scottish invasions got to Derby, but on those occasions they did not try going through Lancashire.

Academic Research

Mr. Maxton : To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what balance he proposes for funding academic research between the research councils and the higher education funding councils.

The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of Public Service and Science (Mr. Robert Jackson) : The Government's White Paper of May 1991 setout a new system for funding higher education, including a new balance of funding for academic research between the research councils and the

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higher education funding councils. My right hon. Friend will be working closely with his colleagues responsible for the higher education funding councils to ensure that this system is managed effectively to promote good research and to obtain the best possible value for the taxpayers' money.

Mr. Maxton : Will the Minister ensure that the Scottish universities receive a fair allocation of funding through their research council? In particular, when allocating funds to the Faraday institutes, will the hon. Gentleman ensure that Scotland gets one this time? In particular, will he look carefully at the excellent scheme put forward for a Faraday institute by Strathclyde university and the national engineering laboratory at East Kilbride?

Mr. Jackson : The allocation of research funds to Scottish universities is a matter for the Scottish higher education funding council. That, in turn, is a matter for the Departments of Education in terms of the overall allocation of funds for universities. However, I shall draw the hon. Gentleman's point to their attention. I noted what the hon. Gentleman said about the Faraday institute. This initiative is still in its early days ; firm decisions have not been taken. It will be possible to take his point on board.

Charters

35. Mr. Harry Greenway : To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster what further areas of Government activity are under consideration to be covered by a charter ; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Waldegrave : My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister reviewed the coverage of the citizens charter at his seminar last Friday. We have achieved a great deal, but there is much to do. We intend to publish a courts charter later in the year, and a charter for the users of further and higher education--students and employers--early in 1993.

Mr. Greenway : Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, as a result of charters, by the start of the next academic year parents will have access to comparative tables of performance information, which will greatly assist them in choosing schools for their children?

Mr. Waldegrave : My hon. Friend is entirely right. Under the parents charter, parents will receive annual written reports on their child's progress at school, information on arrangements for discussing that and national curriculum and examination results with teachers and comparative information on the examination results and truancy rates of schools in their area. We are encouraging schools voluntarily to publish information on staying-on rates and school-leaver destinations, which will be required from September 1993.

Mr. Matthew Taylor : Will the Chancellor express his concern about the regression in achieving the citizens charter targets for those on health waiting lists and for those who have been waiting more than two years? What role will he take in ensuring that the regression that has occurred since the election is put right?

Mr. Waldegrave : As the hon. Member doubtless knows, the huge gain in the past year--40,000-plus--dwarves the small set-back last month, which I guess will

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be corrected in the months ahead and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will then congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health on that.

Mr. Adley : May I probe my right hon. Friend's terms of reference for the citizens charter? Am I right in thinking that, initially, he is examining the public service provided through public funding of organisations that have a public obligation? That being so, does he agree that he has an obligation to examine actions taken by public bodies such as, shall we say, British Rail, whose reorganisation has taken place over many years? Will he therefore consider BR's reorganisation to see whether he believes that it is in accord with the service that he intends the public to be able to enjoy from British Rail?

Mr. Waldegrave : My hon. Friend is right, although I would extend the point further : whether the service is provided by private or public money, my office has a role. I am interested in the organisation of British Rail if that helps or hinders it in meeting the objectives that it has agreed.

Citizens Charter

36. Mr. Barnes : To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on progress towards the implementation of the citizens charter.

Mr. Robert Jackson : Since the White Paper on the citizens charter was published last July, we have made excellent progress. Nineteen charters have been published, setting out detailed service standards across much of the public sector. We have enacted legislation to bring the powers of regulators up to the levels of the strongest, to give parents more and better information about schools and to give more and better information about the services that councils are providing and at what cost. We have also launched the charter mark scheme. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy referred to the successful seminar that we held at No. 10 Downing street on Friday.

Mr. Barnes : Are the citizens charters supposed to offer openness and scrutiny, in an era in which more and more is being hidden from hon. Members and in which areas of

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agency agreements can no longer be questioned? In those circumstances, should we not try to achieve consistency and set up a Select Committee to investigate the work of the Duchy, especially on citizens charters, so that the two bits begin to fit with each other--scrutiny under the citizens charter and scrutiny in the House?

Mr. Jackson : The hon. Member is absolutely right that the citizens charter is all about openness and clarity. Setting clear targets and monitoring performance against them is one of the critical instruments of the citizens charter. The hon. Gentleman's point about the accountability of agencies to the House is slightly misconceived, because the answers given by chief executives are available to hon. Members. There is continuing discussion about how this should be done most effectively. That is not wholly a matter for the Government, because it is also partly a matter for the House authorities, as is the hon. Gentleman's last point about Select Committees.

Mr. Dickens : Is not it a fact that the citizens charter is designed to defend the ordinary person against the state or the local authority, or against any of the large organisations that provide services? Is not it a tribute to the citizens charter that the Prime Minister has thought it necessary to set up a special Department to administer the citizens charter to give the ordinary citizen his rights?

Mr. Jackson : My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The citizens charter is making considerable progress in improving specific commitments to individual people who use services. In British Rail, there is the commitment that 90 per cent. of trains should arrive within 10 minutes of schedule and that 99 per cent. of services should run. For patients, there is the commitment to individual appointment times and maximum waiting times for operations. There is the commitment to a waiting time of 10 minutes in the Employment Service. There is a commitment to a passport waiting time reduction from 24 days to seven days. There is a commitment to timed appointments in the utilities. All those are specific improvements in service which derive from citizens charter initiatives.

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