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Mr. Freeman: With the permission of the Chair, I will answer all the other points later, but, for the sake of clarity, it may help the debate if I answer this specific point now.

We have made arrangements for the shortlist of bidders to proceed on the basis that residual HMSO hires, in its own name, up to 16 staff, working for residual HMSO on plant at the Sovereign Press at Elephant and Castle, not the Parliamentary Press, to print statutory instruments in full accordance with the 1946 law. As I have told the House, that would increase the cost to the public sector, but it is a procedure that I have set in hand in order to ensure that the privatisation of HMSO is separated from the merits of the Bill.

Mr. Foster: I understand that fully. I understand that the Chancellor is making contingency arrangements against the non-passage of the Bill. I was trying to seek clarification. The background information document produced by the Office of Public Service gives the impression that bidders should proceed on the basis that the work would be done in the privatised HMSO. Yet, in his letter to the Financial Times of 21 June, he said that it will be dealt with in the public sector.

Mr. Freeman: I am sorry that I did not answer that point. The information document was issued before the statement to the House. The action I have taken, which is the most up-to-date position, is subsequent to the issue of the information document. We have not placed an amended version in the Library, because I have reported directly to the House. I have reported the most up-to-date position, which reverses that in the information document.

Mr. Foster: That raises the question when the Chancellor changed the information available to the

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House. I do not remember it being made available in the written answer of 19 June. Yet he wrote to the Financial Times on 21 June, giving the world what I consider to be new information that has not been given to the House and which contradicts information previously given to the House. That requires some explanation. I do not want to labour this, but there is a point that should be dealt with.

The Chancellor said that bidders should proceed on the basis that the work would be done in the public sector. When were the bidders told that, and in what form were they told? Can Parliament be shown the form in which the information was revealed? Why was Parliament not informed that the printing of all statutory instruments would be carried out by the public sector? What does the Chancellor mean when he says that the printing of statutory instruments will be carried out by the public sector? In fact, he just described in his intervention what he means by that. Presumably it will be carried out under the new arrangements at the Sovereign Press.

An even more fundamental problem arises from scrutiny of the extract from the edited information memorandum of 3 April 1996. The House deserves to know that the information memorandum was forwarded to all prospective private sector bidders. It says that the residual body will also discharge the functions of the Queen's printer in relation to the production and issue of statutory instruments. When was that important information given to the House?

It does not strike me as satisfactory that the document was placed in the Library, when it was being circulated to private sector bidders, especially as legislation on this matter was already under active consideration. It seems strange that the Government are prepared to reveal to private sector bidders for HMSO what is not drawn to the attention of the House.

I want now to demonstrate the inextricable linkage of the Bill to HMSO's privatisation. We all agree that the law as it now stands requires the printing of statutory instruments by the Queen's printer--HMSO. But after privatisation, the Queen's printer, or the residual HMSO, will have no in-house printing facility. Therefore, after privatisation, the Queen's printer will be unable to fulfil the requirements of the law as it now stands.

Therefore, is not the major purpose of the legislation to allow the Queen's printer to sub-contract the printing of statutory instruments after HMSO's privatisation, not the retrospection, as is being pretended? If HMSO was not privatised, HMSO, remaining in the public sector, could fulfil the requirements of the law as it now stands.

The Chancellor will argue that HMSO, remaining in the public sector, could not have fulfilled the requirements of the law as it now stands, because, at the moment, £200,000 worth of work is done in the private sector under contract. That is not a huge amount compared with HMSO's total turnover of £375 million. Surely the flexibility could have been achieved to bring an additional £200,000-worth of work back into the public sector, thus allowing HMSO to fulfil the requirements of the law as it now stands.

Of course, the retrospection would still have to be dealt with, and no one is arguing to the contrary, but the claim in the House of Commons on 18 December that the privatisation of HMSO did not require any primary or secondary legislation would have been seen to have been false.

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It might have been desirable to change the law to allow HMSO in the public sector to sub-contract the printing of statutory instruments, but it would not have been necessary. The Bill, or some other primary or secondary legislative vehicle, would have been necessary to permit a residual HMSO after privatisation to continue printing statutory instruments.

Had the Chancellor introduced a simple Bill to allow the sub-contracting of the printing of statutory instruments by the residual HMSO, it would have been clearly seen as a measure required by HMSO's privatisation. But he has conceived the ingenious device of including retrospective validation of statutory instruments printed during the past 30 years. Is it not remarkable that, although the legal force of statutory instruments has been challenged a number of times in 30 years, no one has so far sought to challenge them on the basis that they have been illegally printed?

Is it not the truth that that has been known about for some time in Government, but it was not thought serious enough to be dealt with except when a convenient legislative vehicle cropped up? Suddenly, when some legislation was required because of HMSO's privatisation, an opportunity to deal with that anomaly has arisen.

If the Chancellor had legislated separately, I am sure that the House, and perhaps even the other place, would have dealt with the retrospective element without fuss. The other element, required only because of HMSO's privatisation, could have been dealt with on its merits.

I have dealt with the matter at some length, because the burden of proof is on the Opposition to demonstrate that the legislation was prompted by the privatisation of HMSO. I hope that I have demonstrated that the link is far stronger than that of being "prompted by"--rather, that there is an inextricable link between the Bill and the privatisation of HMSO.

The Bill will have retrospective effect to validate all the statutory instruments hitherto printed by contractors. The House is always reluctant to pass legislation which has retrospective effect, and rightly so. Generally speaking, retrospective legislation is said to be undesirable as repugnant to the rule of law, but there are degrees of retrospectivity.

Legislation that makes legal past actions, decisions or circumstances, especially by public officials or bodies that were thought to be legal by all concerned but which have turned out to be been unlawful, or probably so, may not be regarded as particularly undesirable per se. I have no hesitation in endorsing the Government's perfectly understandable wish to remove all uncertainty by retrospectively validating all statutory instruments printed by contract over the past 30 years. It would be churlish of a Government-in-waiting to withhold their approval for that part of the Bill.

I turn briefly to the progress of privatisation, having established the link, because the House may not have another opportunity to debate the issue. The main thrust of the Chancellor's argument for privatisation was that, to safeguard jobs and expand job opportunities, HMSO should be allowed to operate in both the public and private sectors. For example, he said:

"it is important that HMSO--the Stationery Office, as it will become in the private sector--has the ability to compete in the private sector for private sector work."

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The Chancellor also said:

"HMSO needs the freedom of the private sector to compete on equal terms for public and private sector work. Such trading opportunities will mitigate those job pressures, and, if a privatised Stationery Office is successful in marketing, will mean that more jobs will be available than would otherwise exist."--[Official Report, 18 March 1996; Vol. 274, c. 84-86.]

If hon. Members would care to re-examine the written memorandum made by the Chancellor to the Finance and Services Committee, they will see that it

"proposed the sale by the summer of 1996 noting that HMSO was constrained by its status from competing for business outside the public sector at a time when its central Government market was shrinking. In these circumstances there is a real risk that the business will decline unless HMSO can widen the markets. Privatisation will therefore offer the best chance of a healthy and dynamic future for HMSO and its staff".

The Chancellor argued that HMSO's public sector market was declining, yet the advice that I have received makes it clear that none of the private sector bidders has serious plans to enter the private sector in the short or the medium term. Indeed, each bidder has identified that the key to HMSO's continued success is to ensure that it progressively takes a larger share of the public sector market. They argue that that is the sector where HMSO is best known and has the greatest expertise.

That is hardly surprising, because, if hon. Members would care to examine the extract from the edited information memorandum of 3 April 1996, which appears on page 25 of the excellent research document produced by the House of Commons Library on 28 June, they will see that HMSO's share of £271 million of the total United Kingdom public sector market of £3,155 million is only 8 per cent. The memorandum goes on to admit:

"HMSO's market share still leaves a significant opportunity for a potential purchaser to capitalise on HMSO's existing capabilities and target the markets available even within the public sector."

That is from the Minister's official document, published by the Office of Public Service. Why did the Chancellor not admit that when he was pressed in the debates of 18 December and 18 March? When his own document admits that there is considerable scope for increasing market share within the public sector, and when his private sector bidders admit that they see the continued success of HMSO in taking an increasing share of the public sector market, why could the Chancellor not see that?

Why was the Chancellor not given that advice by his extensive consultants--or was he given it, and did he choose to ignore it? If the private sector bidders have reached this conclusion in the short time available to them, does that not remove the Chancellor's strongest argument for the privatisation of HMSO, and is it not clear that his madcap scheme to privatise it has been an expensive waste of time, damaging to HMSO but devastating to many staff who now find themselves redundant, while those who remain in their jobs face further swingeing job cuts?

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