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Mr. Forsythe: The Minister will understand that I was making general points, not specific ones. This is not the place for specific details.
Mr. Worthington: I take the hon. Gentleman's point. If he could put more substance into those points, I should be delighted to respond to them and to examine the procedures.
The hon. Gentleman raised the assertion that the Department of the Environment is both a polluter and pollution controller. As he will know, on 1 April 1996, the previous Government established the Environment and Heritage Service as a next steps agency, following a full assessment of the options for the delivery of environmental functions and heritage protection. It is important for us to watch the development of the agency and to see how it operates. If, at the end of that time, the position is inadequate, we must address it, but as the organisation has existed for a year, it would be a bit precipitate to change it.
The hon. Gentleman and I know that Northern Ireland's road safety record is unfortunate. He referred to our Committee sittings on that. Eventually, last year, important legislation was put through to penalise, for example, bad drivers, which, we hope, will yield resources. Recently, more money has gone into measures such as traffic calming, which should improve road safety.
On quangos, again, one returns to the fact that the quango state of Northern Ireland could be dealt with most effectively if the talks were to succeed. When there is an elected Assembly within Northern Ireland, the necessity for excessive quangoisation will disappear. I hope that that will come along. At present, we have to deal with each quango on a one-by-one basis. In some areas, we shall certainly examine the role of appointed rather than elected bodies, and come to conclusions on a one-by-one merit basis.
Mr. Forsythe:
Before the Minister leaves the issue of the Department of the Environment and roads, may I remind him that road safety officer numbers have been reduced or maintained at the former level?
Mr. Worthington:
We shall have to wait and see what happens over the next year. No decisions have been taken at present. We are working on the previous Government's budgets. The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office has written--and I think that the degree of consultation that we have embarked on is unprecedented--to each of the parties, asking for suggestions to increase the budget next year. It will be interesting to receive their proposals for cutting expenditure that is being wasted. We look forward to receiving from all the parties a lengthy list of proposals. We wait in hope, but I suspect that they will be outnumbered by proposals for increased expenditure.
Rev. Martin Smyth:
One of our difficulties is that we cannot compare the figures. Would it be possible for the
Mr. Worthington:
It will not astonish the hon. Gentleman to know that he cannot have those figures right at this moment. I do not know whether I heard him right, but I thought that he referred to traffic calming measures in the Holy Land. I do not actually have those to hand at present.
The Child Support Agency was introduced with all-party support. I have already established good contact with the CSA in Belfast, which, in addition to serving Northern Ireland, serves a considerable amount of eastern England. My impression is that the work of the CSA in Northern Ireland is towards the top of the CSA's UK performance chart. The annual report will come out shortly, and I can only encourage the hon. Member for South Antrim to get in touch with the director of the CSA in Northern Ireland and put his points to him. However, I have been impressed with its work so far and we have just set new targets for it.
I congratulate the hon. Member for West Tyrone (Mr. Thompson) on his maiden speech. We remember vividly his predecessor, Rev. William McCrea, who, I suppose, was unique among hon. Members--he was probably the only Member who could fill Waterfront hall three nights running. That was not because of his political skills, but because of his gospel singing skills. I do not know whether he is going to intensify his efforts in that field, but he was a memorable Member.
I was at the Ulster-American folk park last week, so I found out at first hand the contribution that it makes. I heard the concerns of the director and others about the merger. It is so well advanced that we now have to implement it. There is no alternative. We are promised gains from the merger, but I did hear, as one always does when one goes to the west of the Province, people's fears that they will be forgotten about. Sometimes those fears may be excessive, but it has registered with me.
I apologise if I miss any points out. The hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson) made a point about integrated schools. The number of integrated schools has expanded in recent years, but they still cater for only 2 per cent. of children. The previous Government and ourselves support the idea of integrated schools, where parents want them, where parents can demonstrate clearly that there is a demand for such schools and where that demand is robust and can be afforded, alongside the presence of other schools, which is important. There is, as elsewhere, a surplus of school places, so we shall consider the proposals sympathetically.
We hope that the talks will deliver in relation to local government, with the people of Northern Ireland deciding on such powers, but recently there have been some steps forward. Some local authorities have made considerable contributions through their involvement in district partnerships, using European money. Some of them are seizing on their newish economic development powers, to increase their role in society, and of course we welcome that.
The hon. Member for--is it still Fermanagh and South Tyrone?
Mr. Maginnis:
I reassure the Minister that I am still the hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone and that he will be welcome when he eventually finds his way to Dungannon or Enniskillen, where we have missed his presence so far.
Mr. Worthington:
Now that the hon. Gentleman has returned home, it would be time for me to start visiting him. Recently, I have found it difficult to contact him at times and I should welcome the chance to go to Fermanagh and South Tyrone. I welcome his budget suggestions. Of course, we always have to be aware of the knock-on effects of any rationalisation, but we have to insist that things are run efficiently. If services are run inefficiently, it takes away from services elsewhere. There is no doubt that sometimes what appear to be economies are only false economies, and we have to bear that in mind.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned Mackie's. It would not be proper for me to comment on the affairs of a particular company, but we are aware of the situation and shall give what support we can. The IDB is in close contact with the company, and I am sure that the relevant Minister--the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram), who is sitting beside me--will be willing to talk to the hon. Gentleman about that.
I think that the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) misheard the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen, who did not refer to any decline in standards in Northern Ireland's schools. As is the case in the rest of the United Kingdom, it is absolutely crucial that we do not become satisfied with the standards in Northern Ireland. As we said many times during the election, standards have to be raised to match the best in Europe, although standards in Northern Ireland are relatively high already.
The hon. Member for East Antrim (Mr. Beggs) mentioned university places. We recognise that the shortage of places in Northern Ireland is a serious problem. As he will know, we are awaiting the Dearing report, which we anticipate will appear next month. It should give us clues as to the ways ahead. We accept what the hon. Gentleman said about the consequences for Northern Ireland of a shortage of places. We accept that the problem has to be dealt with in the medium and long term, but we need to take guidance from the report.
I see that the hon. Member for Upper Bann has returned to his seat. I dealt with the issue of targeting education and social need in his absence, and it would be unfair to go over the point again. The Government have been active on the social and economic front since we took office, because we recognise how important it is that economic and social policy should help our political policy.
Unemployment, poverty, inequality and unfairness are fertile ground for social and political unrest, so we have to use education and training to provide opportunities for all. Indeed, we have already taken action on, for example, schools, where the situation that we inherited was unacceptable. Teachers were being made inappropriately redundant and class sizes were rising. Not to act would have set back our long-term objective of lower class sizes.
Our action was greatly welcomed. Instead of the increase in the schools budget being below the rate of inflation, it is now slightly above.
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