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Lord Chesham: My Lords, I certainly agree with the noble Lord.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that the element which is lacking in this country and which is now becoming evident throughout the world is the element of urgency? I do not make any distinction between one side of the House and the other on this point. Will the noble Lord take further
cognisance of the feeling that is spreading throughout the world that we must take the matter of getting rid of the nuclear weapon more urgently than has been the case hitherto?
Lord Chesham: My Lords, the record of this Government stands very well so far as the urgency that has been achieved and what we have achieved in relation to other countries. I do not believe that we can be criticised for it.
Hearing Aids
2.58 p.m.
Lord Ashley of Stoke asked Her Majesty's Government:
- Whether they intend to provide improved hearing aids on the National Health Service.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Cumberlege): My Lords, NHS hearing aid centres may purchase and supply to a patient free of charge any type of hearing aid that they consider medically appropriate.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, first, let me say that I have no interest to declare. I use a cochlea implant and do not use a hearing aid. I am very surprised at the Minister's response. She should know that, although that is the theory, in practice very few deaf people can obtain that kind of private aid through the National Health Service--and good luck to those who can get them.
Is she aware that the present National Health Service aids are very old-fashioned? A recent report by Hearing Concern said that, while they are helpful in quiet surroundings, they are of very little help under most circumstances. That is quite a condemnation. The poor performance is because there is no provision in this aid for cutting background noise, nor for the automatic boost of sound, nor for multidirectional microphones. I am told by some experts that also the specifications are inadequate. Cannot the Government help those millions of people who depend on that second-class technology?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, it is quite right that the noble Lord should say that he does not have an interest to declare in this subject. However, many of us feel that he has shown enormous courage and determination in overcoming his disability. More than half a million hearing aids are allocated each year to those who need them. The department is looking carefully at the advanced digital hearing aid to which the noble Lord referred. It is still at the developmental stage. It is up to those involved in audiology to decide what is the best type of hearing aid for an individual. But none is excluded from the National Health Service.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that I am a very lucky chap? I asked for a hearing aid, and I received one of a high specification very quickly. It is better than the very expensive privately
supplied ones that I had before. Furthermore, it cuts out noise and takes in the ring, or whatever it is, that goes around the House.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am delighted that we have one satisfied customer of the NHS here today.
Lord Trefgarne: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that despite the views of my noble friend Lord Gisborough there is some sympathy for the views of the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, which I recall from my own experience in the department? Is she satisfied that the manufacturers of hearing aids are sufficiently subject to the spur of competition in order that they may bring forward continuous improvements to their products rather than relying on the enormous captive market of the National Health Service?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, six manufacturers supply hearing aids to the National Health Service. Trusts which supply these appliances go out to competitive tender every year for them.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that she has a semi-satisfied customer, in that I am on the way, I hope, to getting a more satisfactory hearing aid from the National Health Service than I have had hitherto?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I am delighted.
Baroness Jay of Paddington: My Lords, can the Minister comment further on the discussions a few weeks ago, which were somewhat heated, about the entitlement of war pensioners to enhanced hearing aids? At that time the Government said that there was no need for additional private help because medical evidence suggested that NHS hearing aids were satisfactory, although I understand that many doctors who are experts in this field have since come forward to say that that is not so. Can the Government now publish the evidence on which they made that decision?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, it is a matter for the War Pensions Agency and the Department of Social Security to decide what type of hearing aid individuals who are war pensioners receive. The hearing aid service is free to anyone through the National Health Service and, as we have heard this afternoon, many people are very satisfied with it.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Minister was answering as if she were not responsible for the War Pensions Agency and the Department of Social Security. Does she not recognise that on these occasions she answers for the Government as a whole?
Baroness Cumberlege: Yes, my Lords. I was just clarifying where the responsibility lies within the ministerial team.
Lord Ashley of Stoke: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the war pensions issue is a very important one
which we will be raising shortly? But for the moment will she address her mind to the question I am raising of an improved National Health Service hearing aid for the many millions of people, especially older people, who rely upon it? Will she take my word for it that she is misinformed when she says that this hearing aid is at the developmental stage? I know that it has now been developed. An advanced hearing aid is available now. I am not suggesting that the health service can afford it overnight, but will she try to push it forward a little? Because so many issues are involved and because this affects many millions of people, will she see a deputation consisting of myself, Members from both sides of the House and perhaps Members of another place and experts in the field just to discuss the better use of resources?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, the noble Lord is aware that I am always delighted to see him. There have been several occasions when he has come to my office and we have discussed these issues. My door is always open to him.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I have a very expensive hearing aid which fits into my ear? It costs around £1,000. Surely, with the advances now taking place, if the ministry were to place an order with firms which produce small computerised hearing aids to improve the hearing and the lives of deaf people enormously they could be bought extraordinarily cheaply. Surely this is a case where the ministry should use its buying power to bring down the price.
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, it is up to trusts to decide where to buy hearing aids. There is the NHS Purchasing Centre. Many of the trusts go to the centre but others prefer to place their contracts individually. That is a matter for them. We believe that we get good value for money. It is competitive. Six firms are involved. Every year the contracts are put out to competition. Hearing aids are a very personal thing. We recognise that individual aids are needed by individual people. That assessment is best made through those involved in audiology--the consultants, technicians and others involved.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I note the competitive nature of the manufacture and supply of hearing aids to those who need them. However, does the noble Baroness agree that it is advisable for individuals who think they may need a hearing aid to rely not solely on the advertisements of the manufacturers or the representations that they or their agents make but that at all times it should be kept under the clinical control, first, under the general practitioner, and then, if necessary, the ear, nose and throat specialists?
Baroness Cumberlege: My Lords, I would not want to restrict choice. If people prefer to go directly through an advertisement, that is up to them. However, the noble Lord makes a good point, in that we have comprehensive services to support the supply of these devices. It is important that people make use of those services because clearly they are beneficial to them.
Public Interest Immunity
3.7 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, with your Lordships' leave, I should like to make a Statement on the future of public interest immunity in relation to government documents as it operates in England and Wales, in the light of the consultation following publication of the Scott Report. My right honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General is making a similar Statement in another place.
The Government are committed to the principle that there should be the maximum disclosure consistent with protecting essential public interests. Your Lordships will recall that the law which prevailed at the time of the Matrix Churchill case was further developed by the House of Lords case of ex parte Wiley in July 1994. Since that case, Ministers have had a general discretion to disclose documents without the prior approval of the court, if they consider that to be in the overall public interest. Against this background, it is the view of Sir Richard Scott that legislation on public interest immunity is neither necessary nor desirable, and the Government agree.
Public interest immunity is needed because of the potential conflict between two important public interests: the clear public interest in the administration of justice, in a criminal case the fair trial of an accused, and what is sometimes also the clear public interest in the confidentiality of certain documents or information. But your Lordships will bear in mind that the so-called immunity is subject to the ruling of the court, and that in a criminal case where government documents are in issue, the judge himself examines any such document and makes the actual decision on disclosure in the light of the facts of the case.
In their proposals for the future, the Government have had particular regard both to the recommendations of Sir Richard Scott and to the many responses received during the consultation process. The Government's conclusions represent a new approach, which is set out in a paper today being placed in the Library of both Houses.
Under this new approach, Ministers will focus directly on the damage that disclosure would cause. The former division into class and contents claims will no longer be applied. Ministers will only claim public interest immunity when it is believed that disclosure of a document would cause real damage or harm to the public interest. This new approach constitutes a change in the practice to be adopted by Ministers but fully respects existing legal principles, as developed by the courts, and is subject to the supervision of the courts. It also accords with the view expressed by the present Lord Chief Justice that,
- "public interest immunity should only be claimed for the bare minimum of documents for which the claim of serious harm can be seen to be clearly justified".
The Government intend that this test shall be rigorously applied before any public interest immunity claim is made for any government documents.
It is impossible in advance to describe such damage exhaustively. It may relate to the safety of an individual, such as an informant, or to a regulatory process; or it may be damage to international relations caused by the disclosure of confidential diplomatic communications. Normally it will be in the form of direct and immediate harm to, for example, the nation's economic interests or our relations with a foreign state; in some cases it may be indirect or longer-term damage, to which the disclosure of the material would contribute, as in the case of damage to a regulatory process. In any event, the nature of the harm will be clearly explained.
This new, restrictive approach will require, so far as possible, the way in which disclosure could cause real damage to the public interest to be clearly identified. Public interest immunity certificates will in future set out in greater detail than before both what the document is and what damage its disclosure would be likely to do, unless to do so would itself cause the damage which the certificate aims to prevent. This will allow even closer scrutiny of claims by the court, which is always the final arbiter.
The new emphasis on the test of serious harm means that Ministers will not, for example, claim public interest immunity to protect either internal advice or national security material merely by pointing to the general nature of the document. The only basis for claiming public interest immunity will be a belief that disclosure will cause real harm.
In relation to national security, the Government's approach takes into account the types of information which Parliament defined as sensitive in the Intelligence Services Act 1994, although as I have said a document will not attract public interest immunity simply because it falls into a pre-defined category.
Many public interest immunity claims are not the responsibility of government. Although the Government believe that their approach can be applied more widely, the paper placed in the Library only restricts government claims.
I am grateful to all those who have contributed to the debate and taken the trouble to respond to the consultation exercise in this complex area. A combination of the revised regime laid down by the House of Lords in ex parte Wiley and the Government's new approach should ensure that public interest immunity claims will be significantly less frequent in future. And I repeat that any claim in a criminal case will always in the end be subject to review by the court itself.
I believe that these factors, combined with the new test based on serious damage which I have described and which is set out more fully in the paper today being placed in each Library, provide what should prove a sensible, balanced and effective regime for the future, and I commend it to your Lordships.
3.13 p.m.
Lord Irvine of Lairg: My Lords, at the fag end of this Administration, the Government's late conversion (after 17 years of restrictiveness) is a little hard to take. It really is a little rich. The beneficiaries of 17 years of
restrictiveness herald a new openness, but one that can only be delivered by an incoming government. If there had been this spirit of openness 10 years ago, the events leading to the Scott Report would never have occurred. There would have been no issue of concealment by Ministers of information favourable to the defendants in the Matrix Churchill trial. I need not remind your Lordships that the Scott Report was about government attempts to conceal from Parliament changes of policy in relation to arms to Iraq and to conceal from the courts documents which, in the event, led to the acquittal of the defendants--defendants who would never have been brought to trial if the documents had been disclosed up front in the first place.But I must not allow myself to be sour. If a late, although limited, belief in openness has taken over, the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will be the first to agree that,
- "Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth",
Your Lordships will know that public interest immunity protection can be claimed on a contents basis or a class basis. That is the distinction that underlies the Statement that we have just heard. A contents claim is that the content of the document, if disclosed, would probably damage the public interest. A class-based claim need not allege that. There are decisions of your Lordships' House in its judicial capacity, which, of course, still stand, upholding many class-based claims; for example, Cabinet minutes or papers, documents concerning the security of the state, high-level interdepartmental minutes and documents concerning the administration of the armed services, to give only a few examples. I take it from the Statement that so far as this Government are concerned, class-based claims will never be made again. That is what I understand. The Statement reads:
- "The former division into class and contents claims will no longer be applied".
Perhaps I may ask one further question. Can the noble and learned Lord confirm that Ministers will be free under the new policy to make up their own minds in applying the test--what damage would disclosure of this particular document (or of these particular documents)
cause?--so that there will be no repetition of an instruction to Ministers by the Attorney-General that they must sign? Will the noble and learned Lord therefore confirm that hereafter decisions to claim public interest immunity will be free, uninfluenced decisions by Ministers themselves applying the new test explained in the Statement?I note, but dispute, the Government's view that legislation on public interest immunity is neither necessary nor desirable. Will the noble and learned Lord confirm that after the decision of your Lordships' House in its judicial capacity ex parte Wiley in July 1994, to which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack referred in the Statement, the Court of Appeal in the case of Taylor v. Anderton has upheld a class-based claim by a police force--that is, a public interest immunity claim in respect of the class of reports of officers investigating complaints against the police? The reason put forward and upheld by the Court of Appeal was the old "candour" one--that frank reports would be inhibited unless there was a class protection. I found that a depressing decision. I agree with Sir Richard Scott, who has expressed the hope:
- "that class claims will never be made if they cannot be based on something more substantial than the 'candour' argument".
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