House of Commons Hansard Debates for 21 May 1993

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crude old-fashioned use of the balance of payments statistics, which we heard from the hon. Member for Leeds, Central, is inappropriate in the 1990s as a serious intellectual economic analysis.

It is useful to advertise to our business men that there may be areas in which there are opportunities to expand the amount of British trade. Let us be clear. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant) said, certain British industries cannot compete with cheap labour in the far east. Nor should we attempt to compete in those areas unless we can introduce a level of technological advance and capital expenditure that enables us to make them high-value industries. Business men make sensible and rational decisions to exploit the opportunities and should not be biased by misguided political intervention.

Above all, the manufacturing/non-manufacturing dichotomy is such a striking old-fashioned misunderstanding of the modern era. I entirely endorse the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson) that the old-fashioned analysis simply does not apply to the computer industry where software houses are now apparently regarded as a service sector. It used to be said :

"What is good for General Motors is good for the United States of America."

Do we realise that the stock market value of General Motors is now less than that of MicroSoft, the software house? That is the striking transformation of the American economy. It started to move into continuing world superiority in the Microsoft area barely 12 or 15 years ago.

Business men need the opportunities, but they are the judges of them. The free open market has already changed British industry and is bringing back the opportunities that we lost in the 1960s and 1970s. I feel for my hon. Friend the Minister visiting horrible parts of the world such as Paraguay and Argentina. They are classic examples of tyrannical socialist inbred societies, which have opened up in the modern world under the influence of the Conservative Government. With protectionism, they discovered--

Sir David Steel : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Evans : No, I am about to finish. The fundamental test--I find this deeply shocking from a Liberal--of a liberal open economy is free trade and open markets. The late Mr. Gladstone would have understood that, if not the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel). The point at stake is that the failure catastrophically of the Latin American economies in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s was rampant protectionism, state intervention and the fact that they were not open to the world economy, as Argentina had been before the first world war in its better and happier phase. When one opens up industry and business to competition, British industry turns round and wins. That is why we have seen the car industry go from being on its knees in the 1970s to a position where we will have a surplus on car exports within about a year. It is why, despite sneers at the Koreans, the United Kingdom manufactures about half of the personal computers sold in the European Community and the computer press in the United Kingdom is so much more sophisticated in the volume and range of what it covers, compared to what one can buy in France.

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Free, open and fair trade built our prosperity in the 19th century and free, open international trade will fund our prosperity in the next century. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on what he is doing. I conclude with this final thought. I congratulate my right hon. Friend reviving that ancient dignified title, the President of the Board of Trade. However, I suggest that my hon. Friend the Minister should carry to my right hon. Friend the President this message : may the Board of Trade meet in full plenary session--the Archbishop of Canterbury might lend some moral authority for the importance of promoting British trade.

1.54 pm

Mr. John Bowis (Battersea) : Before my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (Mr. Evans) goes off to summon the Board of Trade, I should like to make a brief speech.

My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson) has dubbed this the Martyn Lewis debate. I am sure that if we were able to look up we would see the Press Gallery packed with correspondents who have noted the subject of this debate and, therefore, know that good news is coming ! They are here to report our every word and the catalogue of success of my hon. Friend the Minister. That is also why the Opposition Benches are packed, as we can see, with Labour Members who have come to support British success !

The Labour party told us how important the Maastricht treaty was. The treaty had significance for British exports. The Labour party explained that there could not be a referendum on Maastricht because the matter should be left to Parliament to decide. Labour Members came here in great numbers yesterday. The charabancs arrived and Labour Members poured out. They sat on the Opposition Benches and decided to abstain--

Mr. Stephen : In person.

Mr. Bowis : --in person, as my hon. Friend says. Today the charabancs have left and the abstention is without even the presence.

Meanwhile, with the distinguished exception of the Ettrick shepherd--the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel), who speaks for the Liberal party--only Conservative Members have spoken in the debate. My hon. Friends from north, south, east, west, the midlands, Wales and London have contributed to the success story.

As my hon. Friend the Minister said, we should be proud of the success story, salute the record levels of exports, particularly from the end of last year into this year, and draw comparisons with our competitors in Europe, Japan and America. We should be proud of that success, but we should not be complacent. That is why we are here to spur on British exports. We are also here to ensure that the level playing fields--or the level seas referred to earlier--are achievable. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) said, it is industry which exports, not the Government. Industry provides the quality, the price and the after- sales service. It markets its goods and services around the world. The Government can remove obstacles and help to provide the information at home and abroad. It can also help with marketing.

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Sometimes we should consider what exports are. They are not necessarily things wrapped up in packing cases and shipped out from Britain. Invisible exports are, be definition, not too visible. Often, services provided in Britain for overseas buyers are equally part of our exports. So, too, increasingly is the success story of inward investment, which is bringing former competitors from abroad to produce their goods here and re-export.

Sometimes one looks at a product and wonders whether it is possible to distinguish the home-produced bits from the imported bits. The last time I went to purchase a car I was shown two cars--one which I thought was British and the other which I thought was European. I was mulling it over. The salesman could see what I was up to. He said, "I know why you are hesitating. You think that this is a British car and that one is not. You are wrong. There are more British components in that car than in this car."

More and more companies are coming to Britain, including Nissan and Bosch. Bosch products are no longer manufactured in Germany. They are produced only here and in Spain. So Bosch is now British. That may come as a surprise to our German friends, but it is true.

Mr. French : Is my hon. Friend aware that there are British manufactured goods which the manufacturer or distributor deliberately chooses to give a Japanese trade name? For example, Saisho and Matsui videos are sourced in Britain by a British company, Dixons, but deliberately given a Japanese name in the belief that that will enhance the appeal to the purchaser.

Mr. Bowis : My hon. Friend has made a good point, but I am not sure what he makes of the name Brother--perhaps it is a Japanese attempt to sell goods to trade union members.

Many interesting and important issues have been raised, particularly on behalf of smaller firms. There have been calls for the need to continue the fight against regulation--for a bonfire of regulations to which my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North wanted to set a match. We constantly need to look for the fiche d'impact, which is not a cod that has bumped into Brighton pier, but a way in which to ensure that the impact on small firms is kept under control.

We must be constantly aware of the needs of small firms and support them in exporting goods. My hon. Friend's Department does a great job in assisting small firms in my constituency, particularly those in specialist markets such as fashion, handbags and belts. Small firms in south London that employ only a few people cannot, on their own, take those products around the world, but, with the support of the Department of Trade and Industry, they are able to go to some of the trade fairs, exhibit their products and, we hope, sell out of them. Such action leads to greater employment and exports.

The sum of those small firms creates the success of our exports. I hope that my hon. Friend will continue to provide a flexible response to the needs of small firms through fairs, missions and the excellent idea of the video link to assist small firms in reaching overseas agents in overseas markets.

I also hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will continue to look for new markets. The right hon. Member

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for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale mentioned Africa, and I am particularly thinking of African markets. Export tables show that Africa, below the Sahara, and south America do not feature, but they should do so. I visited Namibia before it gained independence. There was a great trade fair full of Japanese and German manufactured goods, but there were no British products available. Britain enters the markets late--often too late. Scotch whisky and some soap powders, made under licence, have arrived in Eritrea, the newest African country, but already the Japanese, Italian and German markets are making the running. We must encourage and enable our industries to reach those markets. We must assist them by easing the debt burden on such countries so that they can afford to trade.

When my hon. Friend the Minister considers whether British time should be altered, he must bear in mind that, according to the financial markets, our one hour advantage enables them to reach the far east ahead of their competitors. We should not tamper with British time until we are certain that to do so would produce an economic benefit.

When my hon. Friend considers the tourist industry, he should bear in mind problems such as those faced by the Savoy hotel as covered in the press today. It has lost £1 million because of regulations from Brussels. He must ensure that such niggling and costly regulations are removed.

We must carry on encouraging the arts. My hon. Friend referred to the excellent export work of the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. I know from working on the boards of the Royal National Theatre and the South Bank Centre that such companies have been able to take British excellence abroad, and both perform abroad and encourage people to come to this country to see those excellent performances. We must use English as the medium to encourage other countries to become closer to us culturally. They will then trade more closely with us. But we must not forget the need for people in this country to learn foreign languages. Sometimes when employees in foreign companies learn English it allows them to export more products to this country than we export to theirs. It is crucial for us to learn foreign languages.

One of the great achievements of Maastricht in relation to exports has been to ensure that, in future, Community countries that sign regulations must uphold them. The non-compliance of the past has militated against British exports. Maastricht will help British exporters to achieve equality of opportunity and that, combined with the excellent work being done in the Board of Trade, will lead Britain to greater success.

2.4 pm

Mr. Leigh : With the leave of the House, I should like to say a word or two only, because I see that the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) is here and I want to give her some time to speak.

We have had a good debate lasting some four and a half hours. It has ranged widely from the steamy water fronts of Paraguay to the teeming bazaars of Hong Kong--

Sir David Steel : Socialist Paraguay.

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Mr. Leigh : To some. We all want to pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman for his lonely battle to raise the standard for all the Opposition parties in this debate. As always, we listened with care to his authoritative speech. Perhaps he will write to me about NCM--he felt that the companies in his constituency were not getting a good enough service. As he rightly said, we should not bandy the names of companies across the Floor of the House, but generally our market testing shows that companies welcome the increased flexibility and more comprehensive range of services that they are receiving from NCM.

The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned the rule about the number of times someone can be subsidised to attend a trade fair. The purpose of the subsidy, of course, is to encourage companies to gain a foothold. He aslo talked about the importance of DTI staff being seconded to overseas embassies. We are aware of that and are always trying to increase their numbers. We all thank the right hon. Gentleman for his contribution, and I hope that I have answered some of his points.

The only other Opposition Member to speak today was the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) who played the part of Jeremiah. He was not prepared to be the Martyn Lewis of the morning. He is starry eyed about the 1960s. He forgets that we were subsidising loss-making nationalised industries to the tune of £2 billion. Now those same industries contribute an equal sum to our economy. He ignored the fact that our balance of trade has been deteriorating, not for 14 years, but for generations. He ignored the transformation of our economy and the fact that export volumes and earnings are at record levels.

I thank all Conservative Members who have taken part in the debate--my hon. Friends the Members for Gloucester (Mr. French), for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson), for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen), for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Hawksley), for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson), for Mid- Staffordshire (Mr. Fabricant), for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) and for Monmouth (Mr. Evans). In their excellent speeches they concentrated on the work that my Department is doing to reorganise itself and become an effective voice for exporters.

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Many of my hon. Friends mentioned the fact that we have increased ECGD cover by £2 billion. We are increasingly relying on industrial secondees who are experienced in the markets of the future. As my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth said in an excellent speech, our whole trading position has been transformed in recent years. So much of what the hon. Member for Leeds, Central said looked back to the past.

We are now part of a successful and growing single market. I assure the House that we shall redouble our efforts to achieve a successful negotiation of the GATT Uraguay round. On it depends our future prosperity.

Finally, I hope that this debate will be remembered for the fact that, in the middle of it, the Department of Employment announced that inflation is now down to 1.3 per cent. a year, the lowest rate in my lifetime. That shows the success of our economic policies and the steadfast pursuit by my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of policies that will ensure that in the race between nations this country becomes increasingly competitive. Helped by my Department, we will ensure that we increase our exports to the world.

Mr. James Arbuthnot (Wanstead and Woodford) : I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,

That, at the sitting on Tuesday 8th June, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business), the Speaker shall not later than Seven o'clock put the Question necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motion in the name of Secretary Sir Patrick Mayhew relating to the draft Northern Ireland (Emergency and Prevention of Terrorism Provisions) (Continuance) Order 1993. That, at the sitting on Tuesday 8th June, the Speaker shall not later than one and a half hours after the first such Motion has been entered upon put the Question necessary to dispose of proceedings on the Motions in the name of Mr. John Smith relating to Legal Aid and Advice (Northern Ireland), namely the Question already proposed from the Chair ; and the said proceedings may be entered upon or continued after the expiry of the time for opposed business.-- [Mr. Arbuthnot.]

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Racial Violence

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

2.9 pm

Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington) : In speaking about racial violence, I shall deal with the issues arising from the recent brutal killing of the black schoolboy Stephen Lawrence in south-east London.

The black men and women who came to this country in the 1950s and 1960s went through difficult times and had to work hard to keep themselves and their families together. They always believed and kept themselves going with the notion that, for their children, times would be better. Classically, the hope of the immigrants, whether black, Jewish, Somali or Turkish, down the ages has been invested in their children.

Therefore, the recent spate of killings of black school children in south- east London and the killing of Stephen Lawrence in particular is distinctly cruel. Black school children are being slaughtered in a way that makes it look as if society is throwing a community's hopes back in its face.

I shall not speak in detail about the Stephen Lawrence case because it is sub judice, but I stress that his killing was not the result of gang warfare or of some long-running feud between rival adolescents. He was an innocent schoolboy waiting at a bus stop when he was stabbed to death by a gang of six white youths. He was the type of young man that we all want our children to be. He was ambitious and studying at schools for seven GSCEs and wished to become an architect. He was from an exemplary, hard-working and dignified black family.

Since the killing, there has been much talk about how political activists have exploited the case. Before the community became involved and people started to organise and march, it seems that the killing was being ignored, especially by the media. I extend to Stephen Lawrence's family my commiserations and I thank Nelson Mandela, the head of the African National Congress in South Africa, for taking the trouble when visiting England a few weeks ago to visit the Lawrence family. From speaking to that family, I know that they found that visit highly inspirational.

The killing of Stephen Lawrence would be bad enough if it were an isolated incident, but it came on top of a spate of killings of young black men in that area. In February 1991, 15-year-old Rolan Adams was stabbed. In May 1991, 25-year-old Orville Blair was stabbed, and in July 1992, 16-year-old Rohit Duggal was stabbed just 200 yards from where Stephen Lawrence was to be stabbed a few months later. Those killings are just part of a national pattern of racial harassment and violence. In Hackney in my constituency, not a week goes by without people coming to see me about the racial harassment and violence that they are suffering. All the time, I see people who are frightened to leave their homes. Many of them are women and children, and they are being spat on and abused and their flats and houses are being covered with graffiti. Excreta is pushed through their letter boxes.

I know families who take their children to school every morning in a cab, not because the school is a long way off or because they can afford to take their children to school

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in a cab, but because they are frightened of the violence and harassment that they encounter when they are just walking in the street.

The issue does not affect only the black and Asian community in Hackney, which has traditionally been an area of Jewish settlement. The Jewish community, particularly the Hasidic community, is also suffering increasing harassment and violence. That growing problem exists not just in London but throughout the country.

The black community in Britain wants an end to this harassment and to the violence and killing. It wants action. Local councils must act, and far more quickly and effectively, against council tenants who harass other council tenants. Bexley council must act to close the British National party headquarters, which is in its borough. It is not coincidence that all the killings that I listed have taken place within three or four miles of that building.

I am sorry to say that the black community in south-east London feels, perhaps incorrectly, that Bexley is so insensitive to the fears of black ethnic minorities and Jewish people about the fascists' headquarters in the middle of the borough because it is Tory controlled. Bexley claims that it does not have the power to close down the headquarters, but I believe that even under the planning laws it can do so. How many more black school children have to be killed before Bexley makes a move to close that fascist headquarters?

This is a matter not for councils alone but for the Government, and I call on them to act. They need to look at the law. The law must be changed to make it easier to close fascist organisations and headquarters such as the BNP one in Bexley. The law needs to be strengthened on incitement to racial hatred. The Commission for Racial Equality has recently made welcome proposals to that end, and the Government should take them far more seriously than they have so far. Above all, the law needs to be changed to make racial harassment a legal offence.

The Government tell us that law and order is the number one political issue. Black people want law and order, too. If the Home Secretary can rush through a Bill to change the system of unit fines in this Session, I see no reason why he cannot rush through a Bill on racist violence and killing as well. Those fines may be upsetting people, but violence and killing are frightening the black community and are a far more appropriate subject for rushed legislation. I do not see any practical reason why the Government cannot bring forward such a Bill.

Above all, what the black community wants, what Stephen Lawrence's family wants, is for his killers to be brought to justice. A number of witnesses have said that they saw a gang of six white youths stab Stephen Lawrence to death, but so far only one person has been charged. The black community wants all six killers to be brought to justice. Nobody should be roaming the streets boasting of how he was able to stab to death a black youngster at a bus stop.

I have tried to outline the problems arising from racial harassment and violence. I have tried to convey the fear in which some people are living. However, the most notable and remarkable factor is that, in spite of the dire predictions of Enoch Powell over a quarter of a century ago, black and white people live happily together side by side. The extent to which, in 1993, we are a genuinely multiracial, multicultural society is remarkable. Black and white people do not live side by side in the same way in

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cities such as Washington and New York in the United States. The extent to which black and white people live side by side is a tribute to the decency and kindliness of ordinary British people, black and white.

But racial harassment and violence exist and the recession, the pressure on working-class people and the level of unemployment are causing enormous tensions and making life difficult for many people. The message must go out from the House this afternoon that for racist murderers and bullies there is no place to run and nowhere to hide. The most disturbing and hurtful aspect of the killing of Stephen Lawrence for the black community was the way in which initially it was almost entirely ignored by the mainstream media and the Government. The weekend after he was killed, only one national newspaper carried the story.

The black community has lived in Britain for centuries, but there has been a big black presence since the last war. Black people came to this country not to rely on charity and good will but to work. Indeed, to a great extent the progress made by this country since the war--in terms of its institutions, health service and public services--has been aided by black people, as citizens and workers. They have done much to build up the nation and its institutions. Black people are not willing to stand by and see racial violence reach epidemic proportions. They want to be assured that when there are killings and racist murders in the community, their feelings will be respected and that the Ministers to pay lip service to the issue of racial tolerance. But all concerned want, first and foremost, respect to be paid to the black community and the Lawrence family in their grief, and they want action from the Government. We do not want in Britain the sort of situation that exists in France, Italy and Germany, where, week after week, we hear about racist murders and the hostels and homes of black people and refugees being set alight. We do not want the tide of racism and nazism which is engulfing some European countries to engulf Britain.

I call on the Government to take the issue seriously, to pay respect to the Lawrence family and, above all, to take the firm action that is necessary to show the racists in our midst that their brutality and violence will not be tolerated, that there is not one law for black people and another for white people and that the lives of all British citizens are equally precious in the eyes of the Government.

2.22 pm

Mr. John Austin-Walker (Woolwich) : I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott) and to the Minister for enabling me to take part in the debate. I have lived for many years in my constituency of Woolwich, in the borough of Greenwich. I live a few hundred yards from the spot where Rolan Adams was murdered and a few hundred yards from where Orville Blair met his death. Prior to living at my present address, I lived in Woolwich only a few hundred yards from the spot where Stephen Lawrence's family live. So I know the area well, and it gives me no pleasure to come to the House today to speak in this debate.

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My hon. Friend painted a clear picture of the daily experience of many black families in our community. After the Rolan Adams murder, a television company came to the area in which I live to make a programme. They interviewed some young black people and those black youths explained on television what life was like living there. Colleagues of mine in the community and on the council complained about the distorted picture of their community that was being painted by the television company. They said, "This is not the area in which we live. That is not the community we recognise," and I had to admit that it was not the community that I recognised, either. I had to point out to some of my colleagues that if one were black, one's perception of the community and one's daily life experiences might be somewhat different.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington made a number of points that need to be considered. The main issues are incitement and harassment. There is no doubt that the presence of the British National party just over the border in Welling contributes in no small measure to the increase in racial violence in the area, and I believe that it is not only the responsibility of Bexley council, where the headquarters are, but a matter of serious concern to all of us and on which the Government need to act. In 1992, the Commission for Racial Equality published its review of the Race Relations Act 1976. It recommended to the Government that an independent review of the working of the law on incitement to racial hatred should be conducted and that the Attorney-General's involvement should end. I will not go into the detail of the recommendations, but I understand that the Commmission for Racial Equality is still awaiting a response from the Home Secretary. It seems that the process by which a prosecution can be brought is extremely cumbersome, and perhaps that is why so few prosecutions have been brought.

The Commission for Racial Equality urged the Home Secretary to make racial harassment a specific criminal offence, to make racial harassment a ground for eviction, to place public authorities under a statutory duty to monitor complaints of racial harassment, to establish a separate tort of racial harassment and specifically to consider criminalising racial violence.

The Minister will know from when I visited him earlier this year with representatives of the anti-racist alliance and the Society of Black Lawyers that some draft legislation had been submitted to the Home Secretary for his consideration. I hope that serious consideration will be given to that matter.

My hon. Friend referred to the speed with which amendments to laws can be made. I understand that it is the Home Secretary's intention to introduce a Bill to amend the Criminal Justice Act 1991. I hope that at that time the Government will be prepared to consider the inclusion of specific offences of racial harassment, and I hope that we can have a debate on that.

The time to act is now. I do not want to come to the House again and have to speak in a debate following the murder of another Rolan Adams, Rohit Duggal or Stephen Lawrence. I hope that the Government will take seriously the recommendations that have been made.

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2.27 pm

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Peter Lloyd) : I congratulate the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) on her heartfelt speech and on securing her Adjournment debate on a day when the previous business finished early, allowing her more time than usual to deploy her case. The extra time allowed the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Austin-Walker) to intervene and I listened carefully to what he said, as I know that many such incidents as we are debating have occurred in his constituency. The hon. Member for Woolwich intervened to extend and to reinforce the points that the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington had made. The fact that they are both here at this time on a Friday emphasises the concern that they feel about racial attacks and the harm that such assaults do to innocent people and the corroding fear that they generate among ethnic minority communities across the country.

The hon. Lady mentioned the murder of Stephen Lawrence in Greenwich on 22 April. It was an appalling crime and the more shocking because Stephen, as the hon. Lady explained, was studying for his A-levels and was clearly an able, peaceable, decent young man. He was planning to be an architect and obviously would have had much to contribute to society, both black and white, when he qualified.

I met his family--father, mother, brother and sister--when I visited Greenwich earlier in the week. No words that I can say can bring effective comfort to the shattering loss that they have suffered and which will be with them throughout the rest of the lives, but I am sure that the House will want to record the sympathy that the hon. Lady eloquently expressed and which I repeat on behalf of myself and my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary.

I also visited the police when I was in Greenwich and was convinced that they are totally committed to bringing those involved in Stephen's death to justice--and they have now charged a 17-year-old with Stephen's murder. The police are acutely aware, as is the community--both black and white--that there have been three other murders of members of the black community in the area in the recent past.

It being half-past Two o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

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

Mr. Lloyd : Two of those three murders were clearly racial, as was that of Stephen, but in all three the murderer was caught and sentenced to life imprisonment--an indication of police determination to act effectively. But murder is not, thank God, the usual outcome of racially motivated crime. The police to whom I spoke in Greenwich understand that assaults and harassment are the day-to-day experience of racial crime and that they cause hurt and distress across the community--poisoning lives and relationships. that is why the police in the area have established a special racial attacks division in Plumstead, to encourage people to report racial attacks and to ensure that those reports are effectively followed up. Last year, the unit had a clear-up rate of 43 per cent., which is considerably higher than that for crime generally across London.

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Across the country, as the hon. Lady said, there are attacks of varying nature and of varying seriousness and cumulatively they have an enormous impact. Last year, the number of recorded racial attacks continued to increase, with nearly 8,000 being reported. At least some of that increase stems from the police being required to collect statistics much more systematically in recent years, as a measure of the concern that they and the Government feel. In fact, in 1991 the definition of racial incident was broadened to include any incident where the victim had reason to believe that the incident was racial--if it could not be proved to be so.

Police efforts in many parts of the country to create confidence and to encourage victims to report incidents have also contributed to the increase in the numbers recorded--although I accept that, as for all crime, only a proportion of racial offending is reported. The police inspectorate has a special duty imposed on it in every inquiry into the arrangements that each force has to follow up reports of racial attacks.

On the many visits that I have made over the past year to ethnic minority meetings, cultural and other activities throughout the country, I have been impressed to find how often there are good personal relationships between the police and the organisers. I do not believe that such relationships could suddenly be constructed for my visit. They represent months and years of patient work on both sides. I am sure that that is happening increasingly--and where it does I suspect that, ironically, it helps to increase, in the short run, the number of racial incidents that are reported.

I am aware that there are many areas where relationships have a long way to go. If they are to be effective, they must include a number of agencies adopting a common approach. On my visit to Greenwich, I was glad to meet representatives of the council and some local community groups under the chairmanship of Mr. Dhillan, chairman of the Greenwich Council for Racial Equality. They emphasised their determination to work together in co- operation with the police to improve race relations generally and to combat racial attacks and harassment in particular.

Ms Abbott : The Minister said--I do not argue with this--that part of the reason for the rise in reported racial attacks is that people are more willing to come forward to report them because of better relationships between the police and community leaders. Does the Minister accept that, at a time of recession and severe unemployment, as well as there being an increased willingness by people to report them, racial attacks are on the rise? It is inevitable that if there are gangs of youths with nothing to do, there will be violence and harassment. Does he accept that although there may be greater willingness by people to report the attacks, there is also an increasing trend of racial attacks?

Mr. Lloyd : I am not sure that I gathered the last line of the hon. Lady's intervention. Did she say, "increasing trend"?

Ms Abbott : I said that racial attacks themselves were on the rise.

Mr. Lloyd : It is difficult to tell from the figures whether racial attacks have gone up because there is an increasing number, or because there is an increasing readiness to

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report them. I said that I was sure that part of the increase had occurred because of the greater determination of the police to record racial attacks and because of a wider definition of racial attacks. However, I do not exclude the possibility that there has been a general increase. It would be impossible for me to do so because I do not know. What I do know is that there are far too many attacks ; one attack is one too many. A great deal of harassment and hurt, which is less serious individually, but which is cumulatively important, does not get reported. I accept that point.

I also accept that the total conditions in an area--the social relationships--contribute to particular problems. I do not single out any particular item as being the key or as being specifically responsible, not least because many of the identified perpetrators of attacks are not unemployed. Unemployment does not help, but I should not put it down as one of the causes although I can see that it might be a contributory factor in individual cases. Areas of multiple social deprivation are the areas that are most likely to breed the tensions that lead to attacks. The parts of Greenwich and the parts of London where there have been many attacks are in many ways attractive areas in which to be and in which to live.

The dynamics of the situation are complicated. It is impossible to pick out one cause and to say that if one eliminated that, the problem would go away. It is basically to do with relationships, with the way in which people regard themselves and with the way in which people regard those who belong to other communities or who are of other colours.

I return to the role of agencies, which is crucial in combating racial crime, including assaults and harassment. Since the Home Affairs Select Committee report of 1986 and the establishment of the interdepartmental racial attacks group, chaired by the Home Office, there has been an increasing emphasis on such an approach. The group's first report was published in 1989 and made a series of detailed recommendations for the police service, housing authorities and other organisations on combatting racial violence and harassment. Its key recommendation was that multi- agency groups should be established to deal with such crimes in the areas in which they occurred.

A follow-up report published last year surveyed progress so far, noted good practice and gave advice on the formation and strengthening of local agencies. The two reports have been important in promoting the multi-agency approach and in offering practical assistance on how agencies might co- operate effectively to address this difficult issue. In practice, this approach draws together a number of groups, including the police, the housing authorities, local education authorities and schools, the social services, local community groups and race equality councils, and sometimes others, such as the Crown Prosecution Service. These various groups pool information and work together to provide protection for those vulnerable to attacks and to help victims--for example, through joint visits. Incidents reported to one agency can be referred to other agencies in order to build up a complete picture of the racial harassment in the area. This can be particularly helpful where victims are unwilling to report attacks to the police. The joint approach also allows evidence gathered by the police to be used by other statutory agencies for their action.

The hon. Lady mentioned in particular the activities of the British National party, and in particular the fact that

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for some years it has had in Welling, not far from Greenwich, a headquarters and bookshop, although when I saw it the other day it was boarded up and clearly not a bookshop open to the general public. I know, however, that there is a very widespread and deeply held belief in Greenwich and the surrounding areas that its presence is responsible for many of the racial incidents in that part of London and must be implicated in the murders that have taken place. The BNP holds repugnant views which are disliked and condemned by the vast majority of people in all parts of the community, and I can understand how particularly offensive their visible presence must be to those in the ethnic minorities. Last year, the police raided the premises and seized material with a view to bringing a prosecution on the grounds of incitement to racial hatred, but the CPS decided that the material provided insufficient evidence to secure a conviction. In the absence of any change in the type of material being distributed, any further action by the police would certainly lead to claims by the BNP that it was being victimised--giving it the kind of publicity that it would find helpful in recruiting sympathisers. It has also been suggested, and the hon. Lady mentioned it, that the British National party offices should be closed on the grounds of an abuse of planning permission. This is a matter for Bexley council, but I understand that legal advice from the council's solicitors is that such closure could be successfully contested by BNP in the courts. If that happened, it would produce publicity that was not to the disadvantage of the British National party.

The police also tell me that last year they found links to the BNP in only two of the many incidents that they investigated. I believe that there are no powers under the existing legislation to proscribe organisations other than terrorist organisations, such as the IRA--although not Sinn Fein, which sympathises with and supports it. The only legislation that enables Ministers to ban terrorist organisations is the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1984. That Act enables the Home Secretary to proscribe any organisation that appears to him to be concerned with terrorism. I am afraid, therefore, that today at this Dispatch Box I cannot give the hon. Lady any undertaking or any encouragement to believe that the BNP's official presence can be removed under our present law. If its official presence could be removed, its unofficial presence, and its supporters and sympathisers, would remain and would just as conveniently meet in private houses and store their propaganda there. Nor can I indicate to the hon. Lady that the law could be changed to make such closure possible without creating powers for authorities to close down a range of fringe political groups in different parts of the political spectrum. I do not believe that that would be acceptable to the House or to the country at large.

Ms Abbott rose --

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