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REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS OF COURT

DOUGLAS, Tuesday, 14th July, 1987 at 10.30 a.m.

Present: The Lieutenant-Governor (His Excellency Major General Laurence New, C.B., C.B.E.). In the Council: The President of the Council (the Hon. J.C. Nivison, C.B.E.), the Lord Bishop (the Rt. Rev. Arthur Henry Attwell), the Attorney-General (Mr. T.W. Cain), Messrs. R.J.G. Anderson, A.A. Catlin, Mrs. B.Q. Hanson, Messrs. E.G. Lowey, W.K. Quirk, J.N. Radcliffe and E.M. Ward, B.E.M., with Mr. .T.A. Bawden, Clerk of the Council and Mrs. J.E.M. Brown, Acting Clerk of the Council.

In the Keys: The Speaker (the Hon. Sir Charles Kerruish, O.B.E. (); Mr. A.R. Bell and Brig. N.A. Butler, C.B.E. (Ramsey); Mr. R.E. Quine (); Mr. J.D.Q. Cannan (Michael); Mrs. H. Hannan (Peel); Mr. W.A. Gilbey (); Mr. B. Barton (); Messrs. P. Karran, R.C. Leventhorpe, and D.G. Maddrell (Onchan); Mr. B. May and Mrs. J. Delaney (Douglas North); Messrs. A.C. Duggan and D.C. Cretney (); Messrs. D.F.K. Delaney and P.M. Kermode (); Messrs. J.C. Cain and G.V.H. Kneale (Douglas West); Mr. J.A. Brown (Castletown); Mr. D.J. Gelling (Malew and Santon); Mr. M.R. Walker, Dr. J.R. Orme and Mr. J. Corrin (); with Mr. R.B.M. Quayle, and Mr. T.A. Bawden, Acting Clerk of Tynwald.

The Lord Bishop took the prayers.

BILLS FOR SIGNATURE

The Governor: Hon. members, in addition there are three Bills for signature on the Agenda: the Church Bill, the Administration of Estates Bill and the Recognition of Divorces Bill, and if it is your wish we will continue our business while these are being signed.

It was agreed.

PROCEDURAL

The Governor: Before calling upon the Clerk to lay papers I note, with sadness,

Bill for Signature — Procedural T1454 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 that this is the last time when we shall be calling upon Mr. Robert Quayle. I have tentatively agreed with my fellow presiding officers, and now seek your agreement as a Court, that we should make our farewells to him off the record during the tea break in the Members' Room and that we should give the presiding officers an opportunity on your behalf to make a farewell on the record as the last item of business that we have in this sitting of the Court, either this afternoon or tomorrow. Is that agreed, hon. members?

II was agreed.

TYNWALD DAY CEREMONIES - LETTERS RECEIVED FROM H.R.H. THE PRINCESS MARGARET AND OTHER GUESTS

The Governor: May I also take this opportunity of congratulating him on the way in which under the hand of the Tynwald Ceremony Arrangements Committee he executed and planned the 1987 Tynwald Ceremonies, which I thought were outstanding. (Members: Hear, hear.) We have had charming letters from Her Royal Highness, from Lord Napier and from the Hon. Jean Wills and from many others — and I know there have been many received in the Court — which make it quite clear that particularly H.R.H. was deeply moved by the Tynwald Ceremony. It was an utterly sincere letter in which she uses the words 'thank you' to us all for revealing the Island to her 'in all its glory', which is a rather lovely thing to say. It is quite obvious that she adored her time with us and was unusually relaxed and at peace while she was with us.

THE PRINCESS ROYAL — CONGRATULATIONS. — MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM THE HOME SECRETARY

The Governor: Hon. members, I also had a letter from the Home Secretary in acknowledgement of a letter from this Court and from the Government on the occasion that the Princess Royal was given her new title. If you remember, we sent the Queen best wishes and I will just read one paragraph of the letter from Douglas Hurd: 'I have it in command to convey Her Majesty's warm appreciation of these sincere and affectionate congratulations and good wishes and to say that Her Majesty looks forward to the continuation of the close ties between the Crown and the Island which Her Majesty values so deeply'. I apologise for that rather lengthy introduction, hon. members.

PAPERS LAID BEFORE THE COURT

The Governor: I call on the Clerk to lay papers.

Tynwald Day Ceremonies — Letters Received from H.R.H. The Princes Margaret and Other Guests The Princes Royal — Congratulations - Message Received from the Home Secretary Papers Laid before the Court TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1455

The Clerk: I lay before the Court:

Value Added Tax and Other Taxes Act 1973 - Value Added Tax and Other Taxes Act 1973 (Amendment) ( No.3) Order 1987

Customs and Excise Acts (Application) Act 1975 - Customs and Excise (Community Transit) Regulations (Application) Order 1987.

Manx Decimal Coins Act 1970 - Manx Decimal Coins (Gold Angel Coins) Order 1987.

Licensing Acts 1961 to 1980 - Licence Fees and Duties (Amendment) Order 1987.

Music and Dancing Acts 1961 and 1976 - Licence Fees and Duties (Amendment) (No.2) Order 1987.

Cinematograph Act 1977 - Cinematograph (Licence Fees) Order 1987.

Subsistence Allowances - (Public Notice No. 82/87.)

Audit Act 1983 - Accounts and Audit (Health Services) Regulations 1987.

Betting Act 1970 - Betting Duty (Amendment) Regulations 1987.

National Health Service (Isle of Man) Act 1948 - National Health Service (Supplementary Ophthalmic Services) (Isle of Man) Regulations 1987. National Health Service (Payments for Optical Appliances) (Isle of Man) Regulations 1987.

Administration of Estates Acts 1960 to 1973 - Administration of Estates (Variation) Order 1987.

Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1987 - Drug Trafficking (England and ) Order 1987. Drug Trafficking () Order 1987.

Committee of Public Accounts - First Special Report of the Standing Committee of Public Accounts concerning the award of a Home Affairs Board Contract for Radio Communications for the Emergency Services.

Advocates' Fees Committee —

Papers Laid before the Court T1456 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

Fifth Interim Report of the Select Committee on Advocates' Fees.

Whitley Council for the Isle of Man Public Services (Manual Workers) - Report of the Committee of Executive Council appointed to consider the Constitution of the Whitley Council for the Isle of Man Public Service (Manual Workers).

Value Added Tax - Value Added Tax (International Services) Order 1987.

Customs and Excise - Spoilt Beer (Remission and Repayment of Duty) Regulations 1987.

Orders in Council — period to 30th April 1987 - Notice is hereby given, in accordance with paragraph 15.3(j)(iv) of the final report of the Select Committee on Governor's Powers and Duties, of the following Orders in Council affecting the Isle of Man:- The Nuclear Installations (Isle of Man) (Variation) Order 1987. This Order varies the Nuclear Installations (Isle of Man) Order 1977 so as to extend to the Isle of Man —

(i) amendments to those provisions effected by the Energy Act 1983; and

(ii) Section 3 of the Congenital Disabilities (Civil Liability) Act 1976 (disabled birth due to radiation), with exceptions, adaptations and modifications.

This order also makes minor amendments to the Schedule to the 1977 order consequential upon the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1974 (an Act of Tynwald) and the Statutory Bodies (Transfer of Functions) Act 1969 (an Act of Tynwald) and came into operation on 7th May 1987.

Marine Pollution —

Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 (Isle of Man) Order 1985.

This order extends to the Isle of Man, with the exceptions, adaptations and modifications specified in the schedule to the order, Part II of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 (Deposits in the Sea) together with certain provisions of Part IV of that Act (General and Supplementary), and came into operation on 1st May 1987.

European Communities - Applicable European Communities Secondary Legislation for May 1987.

Islands Commission of the Conference of the Peripheral Maritime Regions of the E.E.C. 1987 —

Papers Laid before the Court TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1457

Report of the Isle of Man Delegation.

Appointed Day Order - Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1987 (Appointed Day) Order 1987.

Annual Reports - Report of the Isle of Man Board of Education for the year ended 31st March 1987.

Report of H.M. Prison Isle of Man for the year ended 31st December 1986.

Twentieth Report of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal for the year ended 31st March 1987.

Second Report of the Public Lottery Trust for the year ended 31st January 1987.

Petition of the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Douglas for authority to borrow £55,000, repayable within 20 years, to defray the cost of replacement windows at 26 dwellings at Spring Valley Estate, Douglas, being Phase II of a scheme, and Department of Local Government and the Environment's report thereon.

Petition of the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Douglas for authority to borrow £46,000, repayable within 5 years, to defray the cost of cavity fill and external door draft proofing in 196 dwellings on the Pulrose Estate being Phase II of a scheme, and Department of Local Government and the Environment's report thereon.

Petition of the Castletown Town Commissioners for authority to borrow £150,000, repayable within 25 years, to defray the cost of constructing a new civic centre in Farrant's Way, Castletown, and Department of Local Government and the Environment's report thereon.

Department of Local Government and the Environment's approved to petitions —

Petition of Onchan District Commissioners for authority to borrow £13,500 to defray the cost of a central heating replacement scheme in Barrule Drive, Onchan.

Petition of Douglas Corporation for approval to the sale of 19 and 20 Westmoreland Road, Douglas, to the Department of Health and Social Security for the sum of 25p.

Petition of Douglas Corporation for authority to borrow £27,200 repayable within 20 years to defray the cost of improvements to pre-1930 dwellings in the Borough.

Petition of Ramsey Town Commissioners for authority to borrow a sum not exceeding £15,350, repayable within 10 years to defray the cost of Phase II

Papers Laid before the Court T1458 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

of the Town Street Lighting Scheme.

HOUSING — AVAILABILITY FOR MANX PEOPLE - QUESTION BY MR. KARRAN

The Governor: We turn to the Question Paper, hon. members, and I call on the hon. member for Onchan, Mr. Karran, to ask the question standing in his name.

Mr. Karran: Your Excellency, I beg leave to ask the Chief Minister:

Whereas in the 1970s a major cause of disquiet and unrest for many Manx people was the inability to acquire decent housing.

What steps has the Council of Ministers taken to prevent a repeat of history?

The Governor: I call on the Chief Minister Mr. Walker, member for Rushen.

Mr. Walker: Thank you, Your Excellency. In reply to the hon. member's question, I am aware that in the 1970s the prices of houses outstripped the increase in wages and this was a matter for concern. Nevertheless, during this period a substantial number of people became houseowners for the first time and very many local authority dwellings were built. I believe there were over 1,100 local authority dwellings built in the period of the 1970s with the consequent decrease in the housing lists. Your Excellency, the subject of housing is a complex one and we should not be tempted to simplify it. I would like to state quite clearly that I believe home ownership to be an important part of the fabric of our society and, as such, would wish to encourage home ownership as widely as possible, but do accept that there will always be some who do not aspire to purchasing their own homes and there are some who cannot afford to and should not be persuaded. I am a supporter of the policy pursued in recent years of encouraging the private sector to become fully involved in the mortgage market, at the same time recognising the need for Government to be involved with the more marginal situations, and would suggest that there may be better ways to assist that sector than by direct lending. The hon. member Mr. Karran has been assured on a number of occasions that Treasury regularly reviews the House Purchase Scheme and does consider the different aspects of policy aimed at assisting the first-time buyers on low income. As far as the public sector is concerned, I can assure the hon. member that the Department of Local Government and the Environment is not ignoring its responsibilities, and again he is aware that the department is concentrating its resources in the immediate future in the provision of more sheltered housing in an endeavour to fill a very real demand. This should free some public sector houses for re-letting and will also free some under-utilised dwellings in the private sector for re-sale. The department is also reviewing its schemes for assistance in improving the housing stock and considering whether or not the current schemes are properly targeted. There is a need for local authorities to be aware and be prepared to take

Housing — Availability for Manx People — Question by Mr. Karran TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1459 action in those areas of housing that are their responsibilities, and they are required to inspect and review the housing needs of their areas. They must also be prepared to serve formal notice on owners in the areas of inadequate properties. Housing responsibilities and policies are complicated and somewhat fragmented in this small Island, and during the next few weeks I am meeting with the Department of Local Government and the Environment and also with Treasury. Housing policies will feature prominently in those discussions and I can assure the hon. member that Executive Council is aware of the need for constant monitoring in order to avoid some of the problems that he has identified.

Mr. Karran: A supplementary, Your Excellency. Would the Chief Minister not agree that the difference between the 70s and today is that in 1970s house building for the first-time buyers was taking place? Can he tell me where it is happening today on the Island? Also, at that time the local councils and the Local Government Board were building houses for rent and would he confirm that virtually no homes have been built in the past two years and the future plans of Government is not to build over the next five years? A further supplementary, Your Excellency. Would the Chief Minister give this Court an absolute assurance that in his October policy speech it will contain positive plans for housing, including rented accommodation, and the positive improvement in the scheme for first-time buyers on the Island?

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, I will endeavour to respond to most of the supplementary questions in that speech. He asks, where are houses being built today for first-time buyers? I would suggest that over the last few years we all know the building industry has been at an all time low, but there have been houses continuing to be built in Onchan, in the member's own constituency, aimed specifically at the first-time buyers and in a way which a first-time buyer could buy a small unit and would get approval to build on a larger room if and when a family grows. So that need was specifically catered for in Onchan. The hon. member may also know a development which is commonly referred to as `Toytown' which has been built over, again, the last few years and many of the occupiers of that particular development are first-time buyers and although it has been criticised, I think, because the houses are rather close together and stereotyped, I would suggest to him that if a builder is aiming at a specific market with limited funds, then there is always the probability of similarities coming into an estate. But there are just two estates that come readily to mind that are in an on-going situation. I accept, and it is no secret, that Government has not built any local authority dwellings in the next few years; that has been said over and over again in this hon. Court. What perhaps has not been made clear is that over £41/2 million of taxpayers money has gone into what was formerly inadequate housing stock and brought it up to an acceptable situation, and I have to say, Your Excellency, that I believe tenants of public authority houses deserve proper standards of accommodation and that is what we have tried very hard to provide. The subject of housing will feature in the policy speech in the autumn; of that I have no doubt. It is one of the important issues of society and one that exercises politicians' minds on regular occasions. So, Your Excellency, there will be an opportunity to discuss housing at great lengths in October, but I would say that

Housing — Availability for Manx People — Question by Mr. Karran T1460 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

Government has not ignored its responsibilities over the last four or five years.

Mr. Karran: A further supplementary, Your Excellency. Firstly, where is Toytown? The second supplementary is, does he not realise that the houses that are bought up in my constituency — there is a sizeable difference between what the Government mortgage will pay for and what the actual price of the house is? A third supplementary, Your Excellency, is, can he give this hon. Court assurance that we will not end up making the same mistakes that were made in the 1970s and causing a lot of distress to a lot of young people in the Island, that his Government, this new smashing form of Government, will make sure that they will not repeat the situation in the 70s and suffer from the ostrich syndrome?

Mr. Crelney: Thank you, Your Excellency, if I would ask the Chief Minister, whereas it is known that it is the responsibility of local authorities to review the needs for housing within their area, would he consider, when he does consult with the appropriate Government ministries, also consulting with the local authorities on this matter? Secondly, is he aware and what is his opinion of a recent Press article in which it stated that the house prices on the Island have risen by 25 per cent. in this immediate time? Does he consider that is of benefit to those who are wanting to be first-time buyers?

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, I referred to a building estate as Toytown. That is, I think, its popular nickname. I am surprised the hon. member does not know where it is; it is not very far from his constituency and it is, of course, at Tromode. Again, I know from firsthand knowledge that many people on that estate are first- time buyers. As far as the houses that were built in Onchan are concerned, I would say to the hon. member that they were specifically aimed at the individual who was going to get assistance from Government, that is the first-time buyer on low incomes, and if his suggestion is that Government should simply raise its ceiling to overcome the problem, then I would suggest that is wrong and I am certain that he would recognise that the floor price goes up with Government's ceiling and there is a relationship between those two figures. As far as local authorities are concerned they do meet with Department of Local Government and the Environment. On regular occasions they have a housing meeting on which are represented all the acting housing authorities and I certainly would not want to involve myself between the local authorities and the Department of Local Government. As far as the article in the paper which said that house prices had risen by 25 per cent., I think we have to accept that house prices were at an all-time low. It is unfortunate, perhaps, for some people who are wanting to purchase; it is more fortunate for those that are wanting to sell their properties and move on to perhaps another situation, so what is good for one is not necessarily good for the other; I think we all have to accept that. As I say, housing is an important subject, it is one that will not be dismissed and it is one that Executive Council are aware of the problems of.

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, a supplementary. Whereas the Chief Minister

Housing — Availability for Manx People — Question by Mr. Karran TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1461 is putting up a very fine glossy picture of how Government are looking into these problems, is he not aware that there are young couples who are in a higher income bracket than some of the lower paid income and they quite categorically cannot afford to buy a house on the present grants or loans they get from Government? Would Executive Council not consider at some stage in the game actually building purpose-built houses for these low income bracket people, because otherwise we are gradually becoming an island of those who have and those who have not, and there seem to be plenty more of those people coming to the Island who have?

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, in the 1970s which are referred to as a bad time as far as housing is concerned on this Island, a number of schemes were instigated. There was one by the Local Government Board at St. John's, there was certainly one in Onchan, a number of local authorities actually did exactly what the hon. member is suggesting and there is no reason at all why similar schemes should not take place in the future if there is a demand.

RATING — POLL TAX — GENERAL REVALUATION - QUESTION BY THE SPEAKER

The Governor: We move on to question 2, hon. members. I call on the hon. Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker: Your Excellency, I beg leave to ask the Chief Minister:

(1) What assurances can you give that this Government will not introduce a 'poll tax' to replace the rating system?

(2) Will Executive Council take steps to institute a general revaluation for rating purposes?

The Governor: The Chief Minister, Mr. Walker.

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, at its sitting in January this year, Tynwald considered the motion that it 'is of the opinion that steps should taken to phase out the domestic rate over a period of five years' and resolved 'that Executive Council should consider the matter and report thereon'. Executive Council has asked the Treasury and the Department of Local Government and the Environment to prepare a joint report on the subject and that report is imminent. I am sure that they will have given consideration to the question of a poll tax. It is worth remembering, though, that the final report of the Select Committee on the Rating of Domestic Property, which was approved by this Court in October 1985, recommended that poll tax should not be regarded as a possible alternative to rating. This is the present policy and I have no reason to believe that a change is warranted or suggested, and I think we should await the joint report and Executive Council's report to Tynwald before giving any firm assurances or taking any steps.

Rating — Poll Tax — General Revaluation — Question by the Speaker T1462 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

The Speaker: Does the hon. minister care to answer the second part of my question, sir?

Mr. Walker: I am sorry, Your Excellency. As far as the general revaluation is concerned, this was considered, albeit briefly, in Executive Council last week in response to seeing the question on the Question Paper. It is a subject that has not had much discussion within the present Executive Council and it is something we will be paying further attention to. It is a very expensive exercise, Your Excellency, and whether that expense is justified, I think, is a question that has got to be seriously considered. It would be comparatively simple to double the valuations on the Island and so halve what appears to be the rate demand although, as far as the individual is concerned, obviously there would be no reduction in what they paid. That is a window dressing exercise and I think we have to question whether or not that in itself is worth the cost. The other area that the rating department of Treasury have been considering is to get rid of the anomalies that are obviously there within the present rating system, and I know that over the past few years an exercise has been carried out by the Government Valuer to try and get rid of the large apparent anomalies. When that has happened it may be possible to do a mathematical exercise in revaluation, but it is a matter that has not been discussed at very great depth by Executive Council.

The Speaker: Your Excellency, a supplementary. Do you not consider it folly on the part of Government to maintain a system which is so totally out of reality that it is misleading to the public? Would you agree that the Manx people believe that they are paying high rates because there has been no revaluation of property for some ten years and that the basis on which the rates are fixed is totally irrelevant to the values of the property?

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, I agree with the hon. Mr. Speaker's statement, yes.

The Speaker: In that case will you try and do something about it?

Mr. Walker: I have said, Your Excellency, Executive Council will be considering this mattef further. We have not had an in-depth discussion and the first time, in fact, it was featured on our Agenda was in response to the question being placed by Mr. Speaker.

PASSPORTS ISSUED IN THE ISLE OF MAN - RIGHTS OF HOLDERS

The Governor: Question 3, the hon. member for Malew and Santon.

Mr. Gelling: Your Excellency, I beg leave to ask the Attorney-General:

(1) What rights does the holder of a British passport issued in the Isle of

Passports Issued in the Isle of Man — Rights of Holders TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1463

Man have if stopped and subjected to a strip search at a seaport or airport in the British Isles?

(2) In what way, if any, do these rights differ from those of other travellers in the same situation?

The Attorney-General: Your Excellency, Customs and Excise officers in the Isle of Man and duly authorised by the Treasury have powers to search any person arriving at a seaport or airport within the Isle of Man in accordance with section 171 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1986 of Tynwald. That section states that where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that any person who is on board or has landed from any ship or aircraft or who is entering or about to leave the Island or who is at a place subject to customs control is carrying any article which is chargeable with any duty which has not been paid or secured or the importation or exportation of which is prohibited a Customs and Excise officer may search that person and any article he has with him. The section also provides that a person who is to be searched may require to be taken before a justice of the peace or a senior Customs and Excise officer. The justice of the peace or the senior Customs and Excise officer must then consider the grounds for suspicion and direct whether or not the search is to take place. The Section also provides that no woman or girl shall be searched except by a woman. Customs and Excise officers in the United Kingdom have identical powers and subject to the same restriction under the equivalent section in the United Kingdom law, which is Section 163 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979 of Parliament. The powers of Customs and Excise officers both in the Isle of Man and the United Kingdom under the respective Acts of Tynwald and of Parliament extend to searching any person arriving or leaving the Isle of Man or the United Kingdom irrespective of the person's nationality or the place where his or her passport was issued. Holders of British passports issued in the Isle of Man are in no different position from the holders of British passports issued elsewhere or indeed the holders of foreign passports. I understand, Your Excellency, that there has as yet been no occasion when it has been necessary to carry out a body search in the Isle of Man. In the United Kingdom, where searches have been necessary these have normally occurred either at London Heathrow Airport or at Dover and the principle concern of the Customs and Excise Service in these cases has generally been that it prevents the importation of drugs.

Mr. Gelling: I thank the learned Attorney for his reply.

DOUGLAS BREAKWATER — SULBY RESERVOIR - COSTS, LOANS ETC. — QUESTION BY DR. ORME

The Governor: We go on, hon. members, to question 4. The hon. member for Rushen, Dr. Orme.

Douglas Breakwater — Sulby Reservoir — Costs, Loans Etc. - Question by Dr. Orme T I 464 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

Dr. Orme: Your Excellency, I beg leave to ask the Ministry for the Treasury:

What were -

(a) the initial Tynwald votes; (b) the initial quotations; and (c) the total final audited costs, excluding all extras.

for the Douglas breakwater, and Sulby reservoir and -

2 What loans, if any, are outstanding and -

(a) what are their annual servicing costs; and (b) how long will they take to repay? with the correction in that in 1(c) 'excluding' should read 'including'. I apologise for the error, but the answerer has been informed.

The Governor: I call on the Minister for the Treasury, Mr. Cannan.

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, I am pleased to reply to the hon. member and to give him the figures he requires. I shall commence with Douglas Harbour starting at 1(a). The initial Tynwald approval in November 1979 was for a scheme costing £7,200,000. 1(b) In January 1981, Tynwald was informed that the contract had been awarded for £8,917,981, a sum below the inflation rate of 26.2 per cent. since estimates were prepared in 1979. 1(c) The contract was, of course, subject to price fluctations and the total final audited costs came to £10,267,438 for the breakwater plus £758,004 for dredging, £587,309 for Halcrows, £138,330 royalties and rentals, £439,961 haul route and £189,152 for the Kewaigue car park and harbour works by the Harbour Board's own workforce. Part 2 of that question in respect of the breakwater: the total overall cost including dredging, haul route et cetera was £12,380,194 and of this, £10,442,250 is still outstanding and in part (a) of part 2 of his question the annual servicing costs in 1986/87 amounted to £1,496,700 declining by £40,000 per annum. How long will they take to repay? The answer there is 25 years. Now, Your Excellency, if I can move on to the Sulby reservoir, the Isle of Man Water Authority is not subject to specific votes of Tynwald, but must obtain its borrowings from Government by virtue of Section 29 of the Water Act 1972. Votes of Tynwald have therefore only been made for the Executive Government portion of the reservoir and borrowings for the Water Authority portion contained within the sums voted for total water borrowings. However, in November 1977 the Chairman of the Water Authority stated in Tynwald that a small reservoir with a base substantial to allow for enlargement would cost £3.4 million and a fully enlarged reservoir £6.54 million. Government subsequently agreed to meet the additional costs of an enlarged reservoir. Now the specific answers to the hon. member's question, therefore, are: 1(a) £60,000 as contribution towards costs of exploratory work — Tynwald vote 17th

Douglas Breakwater — Sulby Reservoir — Costs, Loans Etc. - Question by Dr. Orme TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1465

January 1978; £10,000 to proceed with detailed planning for enlargement — Tynwald vote 19th February 1980; £950,000, being balance of cost of initial works in connection with proposed eventual enlargement, additional foundation works - Tynwald vote 8th July 1980; £3,000,000 for construction to optimum height - Tynwald vote 8th July 1980, subsequently increased to £4,153,000 to take account of price fluctuations. (b) The original contract (stage 1) £5,565,103 subject to price fluctuations due to inflation based on Department of Environment indices accepted by the authority in April 1979. The revised contract (stages 1 and 2) £8,599,617 subject to same price fluctuations accepted by the Water Authority in November 1980. 1(c) The total final contract cost for construction: £11,325,514 less capital allowances £5,103,000 equals £6,222,514 Water Authority's borrowing; and the second part of (c) the total overall cost, including initial exploratory work, access road, consultants' fees et cetera, £12,899,458, and this includes £37,555 to be audited. In the second part of his question, the authority borrowings outstanding at 31st March 1987, leaving aside capital advances, the loan charges of which are being borne by Executive Government until the enlarged reservoir is utilised for water supply purposes as per Tynwald resolution of 8th July 1980 — the sum is £5,994,150 for construction only, and that is £7,426,989 for overall cost. The authority's annual servicing costs in 1986/87 are, for construction only, £641,353 and the authority's annual servicing costs in 1986/87 concerning the whole cost was £794,662, and virtually all annual servicing costs are based on a 60-year sinking fund repayment. Executive Government borrowings outstanding at 31st March 1987 are £4,629,290. The annual servicing costs in 1986/87 — £576,963 declining by £11,000 per annum and it will take 42 years to repay. I would add, adding 2(1) and 2(2) together, that the total borrowings outstanding are £12,056,279 of the overall cost and the total annual servicing costs £1,371,625. I hope the hon. member is able to follow the arithmetic, Your Excellency!

Dr. Orme: A supplementary, Your Excellency, if I may. I would like to thank the minister for his comprehensive reply. Your Excellency, my intention in asking this question is not to re-examine history, but to look for lessons which could be learnt so that future repetition of mistakes could be avoided. I would like to ask the Treasury Minister, in view of the information which he has just imparted to this Court, is there any evidence to suggest that there exists within Treasury the necessary knowledge to ensure that initial costings for projects are realistic and that subsequent expenditure is adequately controlled and, if not, could the minister advise this Court how that necessary knowledge will be acquired and applied in future?

Mr. Cannan: I can assure the hon. member that there are now the necessary controls within Treasury following the appointment — I think it was three years ago — of Mr. Cooil as the Treasury adviser on all construction projects. Mr. Cooil, of course, is a chartered surveyor of some standing.

Mr. Lowey: Could I ask a supplementary of the minister, Your Excellency? Would the minister not agree that in the case of the Douglas breakwater a Treasury official was in at the planning stage, especially on the finances, and continued to take an active part of monitoring the costs throughout its operation?

Douglas Breakwater — Sulby Reservoir — Costs, Loans Etc. - Question by Dr. Orme T1466 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

Mr. Cannan: Bearing in mind that the hon. questioner was Vice-chairman of the Harbour Board at the time, I will accept what he says as correct.

Dr. Orme: Would the hon. minister not agree that, according to the Treasury capital estimates for the Douglas breakwater, in 1981/2 after an initial vote from Tynwald for £7.2 million the Treasury reported that, due to the present recession tenders received have been particularly modest and the total figure was going to be £8.91 million? In the Treasury capital estimates '82/3 the Treasury reported that the total cost had arisen to £10.91 million including a figure of £1.5 million for a total evaluation of projected inflation plus additional roadway costs. In '83/4 the figure had risen to £12.15 million including the additional costs for the planning delays and we now have a figure of £12.38, million so the existence of Treasury controls does not necessarily mean that the cost is going to be controlled.

Mr. Cannan: If I can reply to that, Your Excellency, I am sure the hon. member is aware that I was not a member of the Treasury during the period for which we has quoted these figures (Laughter) and I would also like to say that I said just two minutes ago that within the last three years the Treasury have appointed a chartered surveyor to oversee all construction costs and all are examined by Treasury before Treasury concurrence is given on their presentation to Tynwald.

The Governor: Well, hon. members, I think we have given that question sufficient airing and it is perfectly clear what point you are making, Dr. Orme. I would just draw your attention, however, to Standing Order 31 which envisages such a question being asked and answered in writing.

INCOME TAX ARREARS — QUESTION BY MR. KARRAN

The Governor: Question 5, hon. members. The member for Onchan, Mr. Karran.

Mr. Karran: Your Excellency, I beg leave to ask the Minister for the Treasury:

(1) In each of the past three tax years, how many –

(a) individuals; and (b) companies,

were sued for arrears of income tax?

(2) What is the total amount of income tax outstanding in respect of each such year?

(3) What proportion of income tax assessed is payable by individuals?

(4) What action does your department take to collect arrears due from –

Income Tax Arrears — Question by Mr. Karran TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1467

(a) individuals; and (b) companies?

The Governor: The Ministry for the Treasury, Mr. Cannan.

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, I have to say that also this is, by virtue of the question, a somewhat reduced answer in respect of the previous one but is also fairly long and complicated. But let me say at the outset to the hon. member for Onchan that, following my appointment as Minister for the Treasury, I was concerned, as indeed were my colleagues, about the tax arrears and a meeting was called on 19th January last with the Assessor of Income Tax, the Collector of Customs and Excise and the Coroners. The Treasury's concern over tax arrears — and I would say that that meeting was chaired by myself — was made clear to the Coroners and they have subsequently improved their enforcement results, and I am confident that the coroners will continue to give Treasury their full co-operation in respect of collection of arrears of taxation. If I now can reply in detail to the hon. member for Onchan, let me start with the first part. The number of taxpayers sued in 1984/85: 1,335 individuals, 674 resident companies and 1,287 non-resident companies — that was for company registration tax. If I can say, that, if you recall in the Budget, has been transferred now to a duty which is now collectable on presentation of annual reports at the General Registry. In 1985/86 1,098 individuals were sued, 585 resident companies and, again 1,537 non-resident companies; they were sued for fixed non-resident company tax. In 1986/87 1,051 individuals were sued, 542 resident companies and 1,468 non-resident companies. Part (2) — the total amount is outstanding for the past three years as at 13th June 1987: 1984/85, individuals £1,083,345; companies, £466,778 and the non- resident companies, £268,072, giving a total of £1,818,195. In 1985/86 outstanding for individuals was £1,471,039, for companies £720,979 and for non-resident companies for company registration tax £405,596, giving a total outstanding of £2,597,614. In 1986/87 individuals owed £3,665,168, companies owed £1,314,233 and the non-resident companies £678,220, giving a total of £5,657,621. Now included in the '86/87 figures of £3,665,168 for individuals is an amount of £2.5 million which relates to underdeducted I.T.I.P. and for which the demands are due to go out later this month. Have you got that, Peter? (Laughter) Therefore that amount does become payable until these demands are issued. Part (3) — the proportion of income tax assessed payable by individuals in 1984/85 was 68 per cent., 1985/86 — 65 per cent. and 1986/87 — 69.5 per cent. Now he requests, 'what action does your department take to collect arrears due from (a) individuals and (b) companies?' Proceedings taken by the Treasury Department to collect tax from individuals and companies are virtually identical, being as follows: (a) assessment notices issued which requests payment on 1st January or, issued later than that date within seven days of the date on the notice unless the recipient is an individual subject to I.T.I.P. Where the individual is subject to I.T.I.P. a demand is issued requesting the balance of tax outstanding after I.T.I.P. deductions some time after the end of the year of assessment, usually during the month of July. For 1987/88 and future years it is expected that, because of the modification of I.T.I.P., there will be considerably fewer such demands issued.

Income Tax Arrears — Question by Mr. Karran T1468 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

Secondly, should payment or some arrangement to pay not be forthcoming, a notice demanding the remittance of the amount outstanding within 14 days is issued. Then failure by the taxpayer to heed that demand results in the issue of a warrant signed by the Assessor directing the Coroner to enforce the warrant in the same manner as an execution of the High Court. When that has gone, the next stage — when the Coroner is satisfied that the means are available to pay all or part of the tax arrears consideration is given as to what stage he should take to recover the outstanding sum such as payments by instalments or arrest and sale of assets. And hon. members, it is only beyond this stage does the procedure differ for individuals and companies. Individuals may become the subject of a petition for imprisonment and companies may have proceedings taken against them to place them into liquidation. Thank you, Your Excellency.

Mr. Karran: Your Excellency, a supplementary. I thank the hon. minister for his reply. It would be interesting to see it circulated to members. Whilst supporting the Treasury in collecting taxes due, would the minister make an assurance to the public that equal vigour is applied for the collection of taxes from companies as applied to individuals? I would like to also ask the hon. member, can he tell me, will he include the threat of imprisonment to directors of offending companies equally and make sure that as many inspectors are employed collecting the taxes from companies as individuals?

Mr. Kermode: A Supplementary, Your Excellency. Is the hon. minister not aware there is a serious shortage of staff in his inspectors' department and we have people that are waiting as long as three years to have their tax problems looked into? Could I ask him if he would look into this problem and get it solved as soon as possible?

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, in reply to the hon. member for Onchan I can assure him that there is as much vigour taken to press for the payment of arrears of individuals as there is for companies, but I must also inform him that the legislation, as it presently stands — the income tax authorities go for liquidation of the company. In reply to the hon. member for Douglas East, I am advised that only in exceptional and special cases where there are amounts in contention between the income tax authorities and the individual or company concerned does it take this length of time, and I cannot really accept that there has been three years except in the most exceptional case.

Mr. Karran: A further supplementary, Your Excellency. Is the Minister of the Treasury then satisfied with the present legislation as far as company directors are concerned and imprisonment?

Mr. Cannan: It is a matter under review, and the legislation, of course, when it comes before the branches of Tynwald, comes and these matters at the direction of Executive Council. With Your Excellency's permission, sir, I would like to advise members that the answers to both these complicated and comprehensive questions will be now

Income Tax Arrears — Question by Mr. Karran TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1469 circulated.

HOUSE PURCHASE SCHEME — FLAT CONVERSIONS - EARNINGS THRESHOLD — QUESTION BY MR. LEVENTHORPE

The Governor: Question 6. The hon. member for Onchan, Mr. Leventhorpe.

Mr. Leventhorpe: Your Excellency, I beg leave to ask the Minister for the Treasury:

(1) Will your department reconsider the policy of not providing Government mortgages on flat conversions for first-time buyers, provided that the survey is satisfactory?

(2) Will your department consider raising either the earnings threshold of £8,500 or the maximum loan of £21,000?

The Governor: The hon. member for Michael, the Minister for the Treasury.

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, in reply to the hon. member for Onchan, let me say that the Treasury regularly reviews the House Purchase Scheme and considers all aspects of policy, but I cannot agree, in the light of past experience and advice from senior Treasury officials, that the policy will be changed. In the first instance in 1984, after encountering continuing problems with loans that had been advanced on converted flats and after seeking the advice of the Chief Environmental Health Officer who reiterated the view that House Purchase Scheme advances should only be approved in respect of purpose built flats, the then Finance Board decided to discontinue lending on converted flats. The fall of flat values, valuations in retrospect too high at the time of survey and original purchase and the fact that the property had often been allowed to deteriorate has led to the Treasury writing off some £95,000 in the last two years on converted flat mortgages. It is of particular concern when property deteriorates because, of course, flats are mutually dependent parts of the whole structure. If I could reply to part (2) of the hon. members' question, the same applies to part (1) of your question: the Treasury will consider raising thresholds, but I would point out that the purpose of the scheme is to assist first-time buyers of low income and there appears to be no shortage of mortgage facilities available at reasonable rates of interest from the private sector to people above our thresholds.

Mr. Leventhorpe: A supplementary, Your Excellency. Would the minister agree that there are some unfortunates who are caught in what I would call a property trap, having bought a flat, now unable to resell it, and would he also agree that property prices have risen probably faster than wages on the Island and there should be some reconsideration of the limits, both of income and property values?

Mr. Kermode: A supplementary, Your Excellency. Would the Minister for the

House Purchase Scheme — Flat Conversions — Earnings Threshold - Question by Mr. Leventhorpe T1470 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

Treasury please let me know where first-time home buyers can buy a house for £21,000 in the Isle of Man these days?

Mr. Cretney: Your Excellency, would the Minister of the Treasury not agree with me that the way to assist those who, as rightly identified by the hon. member for Onchan, Mr. Leventhorpe, are caught in the property trap, is not by changing the policy but by finding other means to assist those people? I believe that the policy that is now being achieved by the Treasury Department is a right policy.

Mr. Karran: A further supplementary, Your Excellency. Would it be possible for the hon. minister to tell us how many people earn more than £8,500 in respect of ordinary working men, and does he feel that it would be far more beneficial to help the people who are earning less than £8,500 to buy their own home?

Mr. Brown: I would agree to that as I am one of them!

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, if I can answer some of the questions as they are, as for the limits it is constantly under review at the Treasury but the matter of raising the limits brings with it the problem that if you raise the limit of the first- time mortgage, then the price of the first-time house will increase because the builder knows that he can ask that price because the buyer will have that amount of money available as 90 per cent. or 95 per cent. of funds. So we are in a trap here that, if we are not careful, by raising the base too much then the price of the first-time houses will increase out of all proportion, but we are conscious of it. We are conscious of the £8,500 whether to increase that also but, again, when you increase that amount then there are also sums available from the private sector. The position of the house loan policy is for first-time buyers, and if we raise too high and give to the people loans from Government when they can get them in the private sector at one per cent. interest more, then we bring into question: should the rest of the community be subsidising the one per cent. interest? I can give all members an assurance that this matter of house purchase, increasing the limits of both the capital and of the salary qualification, is under review. It is my view that, in many sectors of the Island, wages are steadily rising with the general improvement in the economy. There are sectors that are in an area where they have fixed wages and dd not have the rise but in particularly the construction industry and in other areas there are rising wages. In reply to the hon. member for South Douglas we are aware of people caught in this trap between an unsaleable property in the flat. Again, all I can say is we are giving it our attention.

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, I am quite amazed at the statement of the hon. Minister for the Treasury. What he has actually been saying to us . . . Does he honestly think that Government should forget its responsibilities and tell first-time home buyers to go to the private sector? Pass the buck again?

Mr. Cannan: It is not passing the buck at all. If funds are available in the private sector, in the banks — and that is what banks and building societies are here for — the banks are offering mortgages; we are offering first-time mortgages. I have

House Purchase Scheme — Flat Conversions — Earnings Threshold - Question by Mr. Leventhorpe TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1471 told the hon. member, but we want to be careful that we do not so increase the amount that we are offering (a) that it inflates the price of the first-time house and, secondly, it puts the person who has borrowed the money in the very difficult position that they have problems repaying the monthly interest loans.

MORTAGE INTEREST RATE — QUESTION BY MR. KARRAN

The Governor: We move on, hon. members, to question 7. TIN hon. member for Onchan, Mr. Karran.

Mr. Karran: Your Excellency, I beg leave to ask the Minister for the Treasury:

(1) In view of the drop in interest rate, when does Treasury intend to bring down the interest rate on mortgages?

(2) When was the last time interest rates were reviewed by the Treasury?

The Governor: Mr. Cannan, the Treasury Minister.

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, permit me to begin by saying I query the hon. member's assertion regarding a drop in interest rates. Interest rates on house purchase loans are revised at 1st July 1986, when Government was offering nine per cent. on debentures, and at 1st July 1987 Government was still offering nine per cent. on debentures and, in between, was paying as high as 11 per cent. on 1st January 1987. The average rate payable on Government debentures, which has an effect on the deficiency of the scheme, was 10.98 per cent. on 1st July 1986 and 10.94 per cent. on 1st July 1987 and now, if the hon. member will note, one year rates in the money market have fluctuated as follows: July 1986 — 93/4 per cent., January 1987 — 11 3/16 per cent., March 1987 — 10% per cent., April 1987 — 91/4 per cent., July 1987 — 9 5/16 per cent. So over the 12-month period interest rates have changed very little and we did not seek to raise interest rates on mortgages at 1st January 1987 when rates had moved up. The Treasury does not — I repeat, does not — therefore intend to be pressured into bringing them down when there has not been a significant drop in interest rates. As the hon. member will now appreciate, interest rates are notified to the staff of the Treasury daily and therefore interest rates on all Government activities is constantly under review. The average rate payable by the Government is the most important determining factor and I am sure the hon. member would not wish us to increase the deficiency to be funded by the taxpayers.

Mr. Karran: Your Excellency, a further supplementary. Does the hon. minister then mean that the Treasury is trying to get out of its commitment to the Government mortgage scheme by not trying to keep the rate lower for first-time buyers?

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, the rate has not changed, as I have tried to point out to the hon. member in my answer; even when the outside rates went up as high

Mortgage Interest Rate — Question by Mr. Karran T1472 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 as 11 3/16 per cent. in January, Government did not put its rates up. Government's commitment to keeping the rate as low as is possible is still there, and at no time since July 1986 when it was brought down has the rate on the money market fallen below 9 5/16 per cent.

BUILDING MATERIALS — COSTS IN THE ISLE OF MAN - QUESTION BY MR. CORRIN

The Governor: We move hon. members, to question 8. The hon. member for Rushen, Mr. Corrin.

Mr. Corrin: Your Excellency, I beg leave to ask the Chairman of the Board of Consumer Affairs:

(I) What is the average cost of one cubic yard of standard concrete mix in —

(a) the north-west of England

(b) ; and

(c) the Isle of Man?

(2) Has your board conducted an inquiry into the cost of building materials in the Isle of Man and, if so, with what result?

The Governor: The Chairman of the Board of Consumer Affairs, Mrs. Hanson.

Mrs. Hanson: Your Excellency, in answer to the first part of this question the Board of Consumer Affairs understands that the average cost without discount of one cubic yard of standard concrete mix excluding value added tax in the north- west of England is £24.20, in Northern Ireland £19.27 and in the Isle of Man £34.99. In answer to the second part the board has not conducted an inquiry into the cost of building materials in the Isle of Man for, with its very limited resources, inquiries have in the main confined to fuel, energy and food prices, which regularly provoke consumers in the Island to question if they are getting value for money. However, members may be assured that the Board of Consumer Affairs, having had the quite remarkable price difference brought to its attention, has launched an inquiry and will keep a watchful eye on the situation. Indeed, the board intends to do much more by bringing forward legislation which will, where competition does not exist, seek to ensure that goods and services are provided to the consumer at a fair price.

Mr. Corrin: Your Excellency, I thank the hon. member for her reply.

Building Materials — Costs in the Isle of Man — Question by Mr. Corrin TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1473

PASTEURISATION OF MILK — QUESTION BY MR. DUGGAN

The Governor: Question 9. The hon. member for Douglas South, Mr. Duggan.

Mr. Duggan: Your Excellency, I beg leave to ask the Minister for Local Government and the Environment:

(I) What percentage of milk produced on the Island is pasteurised?

(2) What steps are taken to inform consumers as to whether milk is pasteurised or not?

(3) Does pasteurisation give any added health safeguards and, if so, from which illnesses or diseases?

(4) Will your department consider the introduction of compulsory pasteurisation of milk sold for human consumption?

The Governor: The Minister for Local Government and the Environment.

Mr. Delaney: Your Excellency, the hon. members' question as follows — 'what percentage of milk produced on the Island is pasteurised?' The answer is straightforward, Your Excellency: 79.9 per cent. Question B, 'are any steps being taken, if any, to enlighten the consumers that milk is pasteurised or not?' I can say to the hon. member, all pasteurised milk for retail sale is contained in cartons which are properly labelled. Question C, 'will pasteurisation give any added health safeguards and, if so, from which illnesses or diseases?' The consumption, Your Excellency, of untreated milk .does expose people to certain diseases and risk of diseases, tuberculosis being one, and brucellosis, diphtheria, together with other relevant rare diseases, too many and too numerous to name, Your Excellency. But, nevertheless, these same diseases can be caught from other sources, as the hon. member is probably aware. Question D, 'will your department consider the introduction of pasteurisation of milk sold for human consumption?' As the hon. member was a member of the department I am now responsible for and knows that the last time this matter was discussed in the department was on the 16th November 1984 when an inquiry was asked for and has been carried out, Your Excellency, I can say straightforward to the hon. member I am not in a position to direct that people of the Isle of Man should be wrapped in cotton wool and left in their beds every morning because they might get knocked down when they walk outside. (Members: Hear, hear.) The people of the Isle of Man are well informed enough to know that if they do not drink pasteurised milk there is a certain amount of risk, but they take that risk; in fact, over 5,000 people daily in the Isle of Man are prepared to accept unpasteurised milk and I, Your Excellency, am not going to be in the position to drive those people away from their preferences as far as the consumption of milk is concerned, and I hope that support has given my two members of my department. Your Excellency, if it is proved to me that there is a risk that is not acceptable, and a political risk particularly, then I will therefore consider legislation being

Pasteurisation of Milk — Question by Mr. Duggan T1474 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 brought in, but I do believe, Your Excellency, that the visitors to the Isle of Man may justly require notification if they are drinking unpasteurised milk and therefore maybe identification is necessary on milk which is unpasteurised.

Mr. Anderson: Your Excellency, may I ask the hon. minister a supplementary? Has his department any knowledge or any figures or any dates of when in fact there has been any notification of either brucellosis or tuberculosis in dairy cattle in the Isle of Man?

Mr. Barton: Your Excellency, would the minister confirm that with the higher standards maintained in the Island over the last ten years by the Ministry for Agriculture these high standards have minimised the risk from this particular area?

The Governor: The minister to reply.

Mr. Delaney: Your Excellency, first of all to my hon. friend, Mr. Anderson, I can say that I have no figures at this moment and I am not aware of any figures that certain diseases have been caused by the consumption of unpasteurised milk in this Island recently and, to Mr. Barton, I can say that I am satisfied that the standard achieved by the producers of milk in the Isle of Man is of the highest quality, and if 1 was concerned that they were not I certainly would reconsider the answer I have just given to the hon. member for South Douglas.

Mr. Brown: A supplementary, Your Excellency. The minister, when considering this — could he take into account and is he aware there are people who are actually allergic to pasteurised milk and cannot drink it?

Mr. Delaney: Well, I drink unpasteurised milk on many occasions myself and I am not allergic to it but I am sure there are as there are, in everything else that is consumed by human beings, but if that is the case, obviously they have a special case and special provision has to be made for such people.

PASTEURISATION PLANTS — FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO INSTALL - QUESTION BY MR. DUGGAN

The Governor: Question 10. The hon. member for Douglas South, Mr. Duggan.

Mr. Duggan: Your Excellency, I beg leave to ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry:

Does your department offer any form of financial assistance to farmers who wish to install pasteurisation plants?

The Governor: The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

Mr. Maddrell: Your Excellency, pasteurisation plants and equipment have

Pasteurisation Plants — Financial Assistance to Install — Question by Mr. Duggan TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 11475 always been excluded from the grant assistance under the Farm Improvement Scheme. The facility is regarded as being linked to the retail selling of milk, and the department has always refused to make grant assistance available in areas where competition between the producer could be evident. Since the introduction of the Farm Improvement Scheme, which was in 1984, approved by Tynwald on 23rd March in that year, grant assistance has in fact not been available for any type of plant or equipment. The equivalent U.K. grant assistance scheme also excludes plant and equipment and therefore pasteurisation plants. Points of interest are that in the last five years there have only ever been two enquiries for this facility, for grants. I would point out there are 130 dairy farmers in the Isle of Man and 27 producer/retailers. Non-pasteurised milk can be purchased from any of the 27 producer/suppliers and I would also make it known that that is a choice for the public to decide whether they want pasteurised or non-pasteurised.

Mr. Duggan: Your Excellency, I thank the hon. member for his reply, sir.

THEME/LEISURE PARK — PROVISION OF - QUESTION BY MR. KERMODE

The Governor: Hon. members, question number 11. The hon. member for Douglas East, Mr. Kermode.

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, I beg leave to ask the Minister for Tourism and Transport:

Will your department investigate the possibility of Government or private finance providing a theme park or leisure park in the interests of tourism?

The Governor: The Minister for Tourism and Transport, Mr. Bell.

Mr. Bell: Thank you, Your Excellency. The answer to the hon. members' question is 'yes'. We are already doing this at this very moment as part of our current review of the tourist policy of the new department and we will be coming forward with our recommendations in due course.

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, in view that there are people in my constituency who are facing bankruptcy because of the tourist industry on such a low ebb, would they please give this matter, as there are many other resorts in Great Britain who are now turning to this type of entertainment which is much needed, which there is a lack of, that they would give this matter . . . make it a matter of priority and urgency?

Mr. Delaney: Your Excellency, can I ask the minister, will he confirm that meetings have taken place recently in connection with this particular matter as recently as yesterday morning?

Theme/Leisure Park — Provision Of — Question by Mr. Kermode TI 476 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

Mr. Bell: Yes, Your Excellency, I will confirm the hon. senior member for East Douglas, that we have had meetings; in fact we had two meetings on such a theme yesterday — one the hon. member does not know about. It is a matter of priority to define the new direction of Manx tourism. The hon. member should be well aware, though, before he makes rash assertions that we are not doing as much as we should, that these theme parks are very, very expensive things to put in situ, and until we are absolutely sure that the course of action is right we will not be making any recommendations, bearing in mind the vast amount of money which could be involved in it.

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, a further supplementary. I am fully aware of the cost and implications of leisure parks because I have got the documentation which the hon. minister can have at any time he wishes, but can I ask that the meeting that the hon. member for East Douglas referred to — was it between Executive Council or was it just between ministers or was the rest of their department involved as well?

Mr. Bell: I do not quite honestly see the relevance of it, Your Excellency, but the answer is that the first meeting was between my department and the hon. Minister for Local Government and the Environment and the second meeting was between the committee investigating the future of sports facilities and allied leisure facilities — between that committee and a number of consultants who were on the Island yesterday to discuss the matter. We are progressing on it but we will be bringing our recommendations to this Court when we are absolutely sure that the course of action is right and costed out effectively.

Mr. Duggan: A supplementary, Your Excellency. Will the minister in his deliberations consider having discussions with Douglas Corporation for further extensions with Noble's Park, because up there, Your Excellency, you do have car park facilities and Noble's Park is becoming a venue now for young people with families? A further extension up there for such things as a boating pool, maybe a carousel ride and a big dipper — that is all you need to make it a real park at maybe less cost.

Mr. Bell: Your Excellency, at the moment we are doing our best to encompass a review of all the facilities which are available on the Island. That obviously does include Noble's Park as well, both in the sporting sense and in the development of leisure facilities. I would just add that it is not the sole responsibility of the Department of Tourism to develop these facilities on the Isle of Man. If Douglas Corporation, which is the Corporation responsible for the main tourist area on the Island, feel that they need these facilities they are quite free and at liberty to go ahead and develop them themselves. They do not need stimulation from the Tourist Board to do that.

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, a further supplementary. In view of that last statement would the Minister of Tourism support the finance needed for such a venture?

Theme/Leisure Park — Provision Of — Question by Mr. Kermode TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1477

Mr. Bell: Your Excellency, we are quite prepared to consider everything.

FURTHER EDUCATION — COSTS CHARGED FOR STUDENTS - QUESTION BY THE SPEAKER

The Governor: I think we should move on, hon. members, to question 12. I call on the hon. Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker: Your Excellency, I beg leave to ask the Minister for Education:

(1) What is the annual cost of educating a Manx student at a university or polytechnic in the United Kingdom?

(2) What annual sum is to be charged for the education of United Kingdom and other overseas students at the Isle of Man College of Further Education?

The Governor: The Minister for Education, Mr. Kneale.

Mr. Kneale: Your Excellency, the actual annual cost of educating a Manx student at a university or polytechnic in the United Kingdom varies according to the type and length of the course being taken, but in general the annual cost to the Board of Education is as follows. For advanced level courses fees paid direct to the particular institution is the home student rate of £556 per student. Besides this we have to pay a contribution to the Department of Education which this year is estimated at £3,605 per student, which gives a total of £4,161. In addition, the board pays a maintenance grant to each student which is subject to parental contribution. For a 30-week course this amounts to £2,425 in the London area and £2,067 elsewhere. After taking into consideration parental contributions the actual cost to the board averages out at about £1,400 per student, and when we add this to the fees the average cost to the Isle of Man per student on advanced level courses is £5,561 per year. For students on non-advanced courses the annual fees paid to the institution are £360 per student; the maintenance grant, subject to parental contribution, is similar to that for the advanced level courses and, when added to the fees, gives an average cost of £1,760 per student. Turning to the second part of the question, the charge for full-time courses at our College of Further Education for home sudents within the jurisdiction of the Department of Education and Science is £360 for non-advanced courses and £556 for advanced courses. As regards advanced courses the local authorities representing U.K. students will be charged the home student rate but, in addition, for each U.K. student attending the College of Further Education we will make a deduction from the contribution we pay to the Department of Education and Science of £3,605, which is the amount we pay them. In effect the cost of education of a U.K. student in the Isle of Man will be the same as educating an Isle of Man student in the U.K. As regards overseas students who attend the College of Further Education, the

Further Education — Costs Charged for Students — Question by the Speaker T1478 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 annual fees charged are £2,055 for non-advanced courses and £3,720 for advanced courses. These are the same rates they are charged in the United Kingdom.

The Speaker: Your Excellency, I am grateful to the hon. minister for his reply.

Mrs. Hanson: Your Excellency, may I ask a supplementary, please? Would it not be correct to say that Manx students are charged the overseas rate in the U.K. whereas students from the E.E.C. countries are charged the home rate for students' fees in the U.K.?

Mr. Karran: A further supplementary, Your Excellency. Is there an age limit to the Board of Education paying the annual costs of Manx students at universities and polytechnics or is it just that the age stop applies only to the grants?

Mr. Kneale: Regarding the last question, if we are referring to the mature students going, then there is an age limit above which we do not pay at the moment simply because of the lack of finances. The question about students from Europe — they, I understand, do pay the home rate but our students also pay the home rate to the institution, but we have in addition to pay this contribution to the Department of Education and Science; that is the difference.

DRUGS — OFFENCES DURING THE T.T. PERIOD - QUESTION BY DR. ORME

The Governor: We move on to question 13. The hon. member for Rushen, Dr. Orme.

Dr. Orme: Your Excellency, I beg leave to ask the Minister for Home Affairs: During the T.T. period, how many — (a) visitors were apprehended and searched for drugs on arrival; (b) prosecutions for drug offences resulted; and (c) convictions were obtained and what sentences were imposed?

The Governor: The hon. member for Council, Mr. Lowey.

Mr. Lowey: Thank you, Your Excellency. Thanking the hon. member for his questions I have interpreted 'apprehended and searched' to mean 'stopped by the police' because some were searched and others were not, so in my reply it will actually mean 'stopped'. Part (a) of the question — approximately between four and five per cent. of those who used the Steam Packet ferries during the T.T. period were stopped in the search for drugs on the piers in Douglas. Most were stopped on their arrival coming into the Island but some were stopped on departure and I may also

Drugs — Offences During the T.T. Period — Question by Dr. Orme TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1479

add, Your Excellency, that we only received one formal complaint and this has been subsequently withdrawn by those who were actually stopped. Part (b) of the question — 15 people were prosecuted for possession of drugs as a result of the above. A total of 22 offences was involved as some people had more than one drug in their possession and were therefore charged with more than one offence. In addition to those who were prosecuted, three people were cautioned, and the reason for the cautions were that the quantity of drugs were so small in these cases that there was virtually insufficient evidence to justify a charge. On four separate occasions controlled drug substances were found on the pier after the passengers had dispersed, presumably discarded by passengers who feared they may be stopped and searched because of the high police profile. In question (c) all 15 people who were prosecuted were convicted. One was sentenced to 28 days' imprisonment, 12 were sentenced to 14 days' imprisonment, one was sentenced to 14 days' imprisonment suspended for two years, and one was fined £50.

Dr. Orme: A supplementary, Your Excellency. The minister answered part (a); it said how many? He said four or five per cent.; could he tell me how many visitors were stopped?

Mr. Lowey: Yes, indeed. I have to give approximations because, as the hon. member knows, being a member of the Tourist Department, the exact figures are not yet available. They are 860.

Dr. Orme: A further supplementary, Your Excellency, if I may? My supplementary question, Your Excellency, is, is this the best way of dealing with this problem? Accepting that the laws of this Island are being broken, it is also important to remember that the visitors are strangers and potential customers. The law is applied here in a very different way to the United Kingdom and some of these visitors may be unaware of these differences. My question is, would the minister agree that in these circumstances, if only out of consideration of the possibilities of careers destroyed and lives permanently stained by a prison record, it is proper for us to examine alternative approaches to this problem?

Mr. Gilbey: Your Excellency, would not the hon. minister agree that we must have a deterrent to stop drug taking here, and would he not also agree that the Steam Packet does and is always willing to put up notices warning of the penalties in this Island so people who have got drugs on the ships can throw them overboard and they have three hours to do it in?

Mr. Cain: A further supplementary, Your Excellency. Following on the remarks made by the hon. member for Glenfaba, could consideration be given to improving the quality of the information displayed on the boats and possibly at the airports so as to make sure that people travelling to the Isle of Man are adequately informed of the differences with regard to penalties on matters relating to the misuse of drugs.

Mr. Karran: A further supplementary, Your Excellency. Could the minister give us an assurance that those signs will not have to come out of charity and will be

Drugs — Offences During the T.T. Period — Question by Dr. Orme T1480 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 properly funded where it should be — by Government resources?

The Governor: The minister to reply.

Mr. Lowey: Yes, indeed, sir. May I say straightaway, Your Excellency, that I prefer to put the positive side forward. I believe that between 95 and 96 per cent. of the travelling public were not involved in the stop-and-search operation that was actually undertaken by the police at this, the very highest peak weekend, if you like, of our visiting season. I have to say also that the police have had many tributes paid to them by the organisers, the sports organisations that come and make the T.T. so successful, and I genuinely believe that the T.T. fans appreciate the fair, firm and sensitive way in which the Isle of Man police control their activities the whole time they are here. I have to say to this Court — and I make no apology — the police will not be tolerant of any illegal drug carrying, usage or trafficking on the Island and I have to say it is to the T.T. fans' great credit that the vast majority of those guests of ours support that aim and practise it. If I can say too, I accept what Dr. Orme has said regarding the damage that this can do to careers having a prison sentence imposed, but this is a well-known Isle of Man characteristic and I believe the vast majority of people equally share the belief that dealing and dabbling in drugs is dangerous and it is deadly and can destroy lives, and that is why we put a very hard profile to it. I subscribe to that particular belief. To Mr. Gilbey, the hon. member for Glenfaba, Your Excellency, I would totally agree that the Steam Packet co-operate to the full in this joint effort of making aware to our potential visitors on travelling to the Isle of Man our abhorrence of that practice and its total illegality, and I would accept that at all times we have had nothing but co-operation from the Isle of Man Steam Packet. To my friend, Mr. Cain, the hon. member for West Douglas, there is a constant review, sir, of updating advertising with leaflets and all the rest, on the boats and getting the information either through broadcasting to potential visitors, so it is a constant review each year. To Mr. Karran, I can and am pleased to be able to announce that we have already taken steps to obviate the point that he raised in his questions about advertising and literature being the domain of charity. That has been taken on board and active steps have already been taken to make sure that it is a charge on the department.

Dr. Orme: Your Excellency, may I ask the minister if he regards an expression of the T.T. fans that they have fair and firm treatment as an indication of the sentiments of the other 800 people approximately who were stopped, that were part of the process of stopping 860 people to result in 15 prosecutions and three cautions?

Mr. Lowey: Your Excellency, without hesitation I would say 'yes, I do', because I believe myself that if I am stopped at an airport in a security check I do not take exception to it; it is part of the modern world in which we live. Can I equally say, the fact that we only had one complaint, which has since been withdrawn, speaks volumes for that 800.

Drugs — Offences During the T.T. Period — Question by Dr. Orme TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1481

ALBERT TERRACE — DETERIORATION AND CLOSURE — QUESION BY MR. KERMODE

The Governor: Hon. members, that brings us to the last question on the paper. The hon. member for Douglas East, Mr. Kermode.

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, the reason I ask this question is so that we do not have a recurrence of what happened in Albert Terrace again, and I beg to ask the Minister for Health and Social Security:

In view of the amount of money spent on Albert Terrace, will you give an explanation for its deterioration and eventual closure?

The Governor: The Minister for Health and Social Security.

Mr. Brown: Your Excellency, I am unable to give an explanation at this time for the projected deterioration at Albert Terrace. Whilst my department has recently received professional advice regarding the structure it has unfortunately revealed a conflict in expert opinion and a further more comprehensive report is awaited. I wish to make it clear at this point that we have also recently received a report regarding one of the main services which also projects a major problem, supporting the viewpoint that the best option in the short term may be — and I emphasise, may be — to vacate the property. My department is in full consultation with the Treasury and the Department of Local Government and the Environment on the best ways to progress. In conclusion, Your Excellency, I can assure the hon. member that, following receipt of the full report called for, then the overall situation will be reviewed again in detail.

Mr. Cretney: Would the minister give an assurance to this Court, as given in private to members, that the prime concern of the department in this matter will be the welfare of the elderly people involved?

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, in view of the amount of public money that has been spent on this venture in the past — and it affects every member's constituency in this hon. Court — will that report be released to every member of this hon. Court so that we can get to the bottom of whatever happened?

Mr. Brown: Your Excellency, could I say that the prime concern of the department is for the elderly and for people in general and also, of course, our staff who work there, who are very valuable to us. With regard to Mr. Kermode's question, I cannot give that assurance and I would not give that assurance.

Mr. Kermode: Is it possible, then, if I move a resolution or move that this hon. Court gives a direction that this report be circulated to all members of this hon. House?

The Governor: No, not at this stage, I am afraid, Mr. Kermode.

Albert Terrace — Deterioration and Closure — Question by Mr. Kermode T1482 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

Mr. Karran: Your Excellency, would the minister not agree, with the question from the hon. member for South Douglas, that assurances have been given in private about the whole situation?

Mr. Brown: Yes, Your Excellency, that is so, and can I say that I am as concerned to ensure that public money has not been wasted as everybody else, and in fact this hon. Court has given me and my colleagues that responsibility. I hope the hon. member will accept that.

The Governor: That concludes the Question Paper, hon. members.

DOUGLAS BAY OUTFALL — STATEMENT BY MR. CALLIN

The Governor: We turn to the main Agenda and first I have given leave for two statements to be made: on item 15, a statement by the Minister for Highways, Ports and Properties and on item 19, a statement by the Minister for Local Government and the Environment. I call on, first, the Minister for Highways, Port and Properties.

Mr. Catlin: Thank you, Your Excellency, for giving me this opportunity to inform this hon. Court that I will not be moving item 15 on today's Agenda, and that relates of course to the Douglas Bay outfall investigation Phase 2. However, let me assure hon. members that the withdrawal of this resolution does not mean that my department is no longer anxious to progress with this matter. As members will be aware from the presentation made to them at the Postgraduate Centre on 11th May this year by the consultants John Taylor and Sons, a number of proposals have been made. It had been hoped to undertake the next stage of essential investigations during the summer hence the resolution appearing on this Agenda. In the interim, however — that is, since the resolution was tabled - discussions have taken place on the proposals contained in the consultants' report, the results of which do require time to enable further consideration being given before proceeding with the next stage of the investigation. Your Excellency, hon. members will appreciate that in such an important issue as the disposal of foul sewage and with the possibility of such very high capital costs involved, not only must we have consideration for the state of repair of the installations but we must also consider the environmental aspects of the crude sewage disposal system in the context of modern thinking. It is this aspect that we want to look at further and this is to be done in the ensuing months. Your Excellency, thank you.

GLEN MOOAR, LAXEY, HEATING CONVERSIONS - STATEMENT BY MR. DELANEY

The Governor: I call upon the Minister for Local Government and the

Douglas Bay Outfall — Statement by Mr. Callin Glen Mooar, Laxey, Heating Converstion — Statement by Mr. Delaney TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1483

Environment, Mr. Dominic Delaney.

Mr. Delaney: My statement is short, Your Excellency. In reference to item 19 it is some embarrassment to me to stand up and say to hon. members I will not be moving this resolution, and it also grieves me at this time I will not have the opportunity. The people in this particular area at Glen Mooar, Laxey, have been promised for a number of months, a long number of months, that the heating conversion down there will be done for this next winter, but because of certain difficulties in relation to the storage tanks for the gas that will be supplied, I feel it would be improper at the moment to in any way mislead Tynwald that everything has been sorted out. There are some complications in relation to the siting of tanks and I feel this resolution, Your Excellency, will be more appropriate at the first sitting after the summer recess. My office, I understand, have spoken to Mr. Speaker, the member for that area, and I can only give him my apologies, but I do intend, Your Excellency, to try and get that heating conversion done for the winter.

VALUE ADDED TAX AND OTHER TAXES ACT 1973 (AMENDMENT) (NO.3) ORDER 1987 — APPROVED

The Governor: Hon. members, item 4, Value Added Tax and Other Taxes Act 1973. I call on the Minister for the Treasury to move.

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That the Value Added Tax and Other Taxes Act 1973 (Amendment) (No.3) Order 1987, made by the Treasury on 24th June 1987, be and the same is hereby approved.

Your Excellency, the Value Added Tax and Other Taxes Act 1973 (Amendment) (No.3) Order 1987 introduces into Manx legislation similar provisions relating to Value Added Tax as were introduced into the United Kingdom legislation by the Finance Act 1987 of Parliament. Hon. members will recall certain that other provisions of the Finance Act which came into effect on 1st April this year by way of a budgetary resolution of Parliament have already been implemented in the Island by an earlier order. Article 3 is an enabling provision allowing for regulations to be made to permit schemes for cash accounting and annual accounting by certain businesses. Article 4 introduces provisions allowing the registration for Value Added Tax of businesses established in the Island or the United Kingdom and which makes no taxable supplies in either territory. Article 5 amends Schedule 1 to the Act to make changes in general registration and deregistration requirements. In particular it extends the time to notify liability to be registered from 10 to 30 days. Article 6 gives the Treasury the power to provide by order a special scheme applying Value Added Tax to tour operated services in respect of package holidays anywhere in the European Community. Article 7 extends the provisions of Section 5 of the Act concerning the repayment of Value Added Tax on supplies made in the Island to overseas businesses to include

Value Added Tax and Other Taxes Act 1973 (Amendment) (No.3) Order 1987 - Approved T1484 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 goods imported by them into the Island. Article 8 provides for immediate registration of a transferee when a registrable business is transferred as a going concern. However the transferee will retain the right to have 30 days in which to notify his liability. Article 9 is consequent upon new partial exemption rules and provides for partly exempt businesses to have a right of appeal to a Value Added Tax Tribunal about the use of the new partial exemption method. Your Excellency, this hon. Court has heard it said many times before: the is obliged to introduce these provisions as under the Customs and Excise Agreement 1979 it has undertaken to keep its customs and excise law, which includes that relating to Value Added Tax, in line with that of the United Kingdom. I beg to move, sir.

Mr. Radcliffe: I beg to second, Your Excellency.

Mrs. Hannan: Your Excellency, if I could just ask for clarification on a number of points, I wonder if someone in business is required to register if, before they have registered when they first set up their business, if they do not think they are going to exceed a sum of £7,250 and they do not register for tax and if they do exceed £7,250, what happens in that circumstance? If they are given wrong information from the customs and excise people about registering for value added tax, does that have any effect legally, especially if it is verbal, and what happens if somebody sets up a business, does not register for value added tax but actually charges value added tax on top of goods in case he/she is liable to be registered in the next three quarters of that year? This is registration, Clause 5(2) 'A person is not liable to be registered by virtue of sub-paragraph (1)(a)(i) above after the end of any quarter if the Treasury is satisfied that the value of his taxable supplies in that quarter and the next three quarters will not exceed £21,300'. I wonder if the Treasury or the Customs and Excise have a crystal ball to see how much people are going to make within those three quarters. What I would like to see — and maybe the Minister for the Treasury could explain to me — is if people are able to register when they set up in business. Because of the difficulties which people are finding once they have been in business, they are not registered for value added tax, they have made too much money, or at least they have gone over the amount that they are allowed under the value added tax legislation, and then they are fined and also liable for paying value added tax which they have not actually charged on their goods.

The Speaker: Your Excellency, will the hon. minister bear in mind, as he presents orders of this nature to the Court which keeps us in line with England, the fact that a part-time Island resident and European Commissioner is determined to impose value added tax on food and building construction materials in the future and will he, in bearing this in mind, look carefully at the need for abrogation once again?

The Governor: Does any other hon. member wish to speak? I call on the minister to reply.

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, if I could reply to these in the form that they have been presented to me as questions, I would like to reply first to the hon. Mr.

Value Added Tax and Other Taxes Act 1973 (Amendment) (No.3) Order 1987 - Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1485

Speaker. I can give him my unequivocal assurance that an in-depth study is being carried out by the Treasury, headed by my colleague, the hon. member for West Douglas, Mr. Cain, into every aspect of the Customs and Excise Agreement with the United Kingdom and in relation to the harmonisation of E.E.C. regulations in 1992/1993. This is an in-depth study, not an in-house study. The committee of the Treasury is seeking advice from the Bank of England, the United Kingdom Treasury, the International Monetary Fund — the I.M.F. — in Washington, leading bankers and financiers and also going to Strasbourg. We are seeking the widest briefing that we can on the whole aspect of E.E.C. harmonisation in 1992/1993 and whether it is in our best interests to reserve Article 3 as we are or to make alternative arrangements. To the hon. member for Peel I would like to say that the Collector of Customs and Excise is not an ogre; the department is bending over backwards to assist, to advise and to help people in business in respect of their liability for value added tax. Many of the small questions that the hon. member sought — I would suggest that people in business have an appointment with the collector. As I say, he is only too willing to assist and to have the necessary advice. Registration takes place after the end of any quarter, so if they feel after a quarter that they are going over the top they must then see the collector, and it is a provision to avoid registration because of an exceptional level of trading in one quarter. In other words, there is a provision and there is one other matter — if people are starting to charge V.A.T. when they are in fact not registered, it is a case for the person being charged V.A.T. to go to the Department of Consumer Affairs and say that it is an irregularity. It is quite wrong for somebody to con — if you like, for the use of a better word — by presenting a bill and charging V.A.T. when that person knows that they are not liable for V.A.T. and that money that they are asking is by no means going to the collector of excise. I beg to move, sir.

The Governor: Hon. members, I put to you the motion standing in the name of the Minister for the Treasury at item 4 of the Agenda. Will hon. members in favour say aye; those against say no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it.

CUSTOMS AND EXCISE (COMMUNITY TRANSIT) REGULATIONS (APPLICATION) ORDER 1987 — APPROVED

The Governor: Item 5. Customs and Excise Acts (Application) Act 1975.

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That the Customs and Excise (Community Transit) Regulations (Application) Order 1987, made by the Treasury on 24th June 1987, be and the same is hereby approved.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

Customs and Excise (Community Transit) Regulations (Application) Order 1987 - Approved T1486 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

MANX DECIMAL COINS (GOLD ANGEL COINS) ORDER 1987 - APPROVED

The Governor: Item 6. Manx Decimal Coins Act 1970.

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That the Manx Decimal Coins (Gold Angel Coins) Order 1987, made by the Treasury on 24th June 1987, be and the same is hereby approved.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

LICENCE FEES AND DUTIES (AMENDMENT) ORDER 1987 - APPROVED

The Governor: Item 7. Licensing Acts 1961 to 1980.

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That the Licence Fees and Duties (Amendment) Order 1987, made by the Governor in Council on 25th June 1987, be and the same is hereby approved.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

LICENCE FEES AND DUTIES (AMENDMENT) (NO.2) ORDER 1987 - APPROVED

The Governor: Item 8. Music and Dancing Acts 1961 to 1976.

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That the Licence Fees and Duties (Amendment) (No.2) Order 1987, made by the Governor in Council on 25th June 1987, be and the same is hereby approved.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

Manx Decimal Coins (Gold Angel Coins) Order 1987 — Approved Licence Fees and Duties (Amendment) Order 1987 — Approved Licence Fees and Duties (Amendment) (No.2) Order 1987 — Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1487

CINEMATOGRAPH (LICENCE FEES) ORDER 1987 — APPROVED

The Governor: Item 9. Cinematograph Act 1977.

Mr. Cannan: Your . Excellency, I beg to move:

That the Cinematograph (Licence Fees) Order 1987, made by the Treasury on 10th June 1987, be and the same is hereby approved.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

SUMMERLAND AND AQUADROME — EXPENDITURE APPROVED

The Governor: Item 10. Summerland and the Aquadrome.

Mr. Bell: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That the Treasury be authorised to apply from the General Revenue of the Isle of Man in the year ending 31st March 1988 such sum not exceeding £120,000 as may be necessary to —

(i) enable the Department of Tourism and Transport to prepare and equip the Piazza level at Summerland for operation; and

(ii) operate the Aquadrome part of the Derby Castle complex for the period from 3rd October 1987 until the end of the current financial year.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

TOURIST PREMISES DEVELOPMENT SCHEME - EXPENDITURE APPROVED The Governor: Item 11. Tourist Premises Development Scheme.

Mr. Bell: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

Whereas —

(a) a sum of £200,000 was included in the Treasury's capital estimates

Cinematograph (Licence Fees) Order 1987 — Approved Summerland and Aquadrome — Expenditure Approved Tourist Premises Development Scheme — Expenditure Approved T1488 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

for 1987/88 for loan assistance under the Tourist Premises Development Scheme 1986; and

(b) the loan assistance sought by applicants under that scheme is now in excess of that sum.

Now therefore Tynwald —

(1) authorises the Treasury in respect of the year ending 31st March 1988 to apply from moneys borrowed additional sums not exceeding £200,000 in respect of loans under that scheme; and

(2) hereby approves of borrowings not exceeding £200,000 being made by Treasury for this purpose, such borrowings to be repaid within a period of 30 years.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

ABATTOIR — EXPENDITURE APPROVED

The Governor: Item 12. Central Abattoir, Cutting Room.

Mr. Delaney: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That Tynwald approves of the Department of Local Government and the Environment incurring expenditure not exceeding the sum of £150,000 to carry out an extension of the cutting room at the Central Abattoir, Tromode, Braddan.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

SULBY SEWER RENEWAL — EXPENDITURE APPROVED

The Governor: Item 13. Sulby Sewer Renewal.

Mr. Callin: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That Tynwald approves of the Department of Highways, Ports and Properties renewing the Sulby foul sewer at a cost not exceeding £157,000.

Abattoir — Expenditure Approved Sulby Sewer Renewal — Expenditure Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1489

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

SILVERBURN CRESCENT SEWER RENEWAL - EXPENDITURE APPROVED

The Governor: Item 14. Silverburn Crescent Sewer. I call on the Minister for Highways, Ports and Properties to move.

Mr. Catlin: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That Tynwald approves of the Department of Highways, Ports and Properties renewing foul sewers in Silverburn Estate at a cost not exceeding 148,750.

Your Excellency, a number of the properties on the Silverburn Estate have been subject to foul sewage flooding, this being mainly due to their position and level relative to the foul sewer serving these properties. This foul sewer runs through the rear gardens of the properties and in certain cases under the property itself. It is at nominal depths and has a gradient of less than one in a thousand and the regular blockages and consequential flooding are minimised only by weekly jetting of the sewer. The purpose of this scheme is to provide a new foul sewer which will be laid at a satisfactory gradient which will take account of the lowering of the sewer pipe from over the river to the bed of the river where it crosses the Silverburn River. This lowering work was undertaken in 1985 at the request of the then Highway Board, as its old position was a contributory factor in the severe flooding of Silverburn Estate. On completion the existing system will be abandoned. The proposed scheme will prevent further flooding and the need to continue the present extraordinary maintenance. The work is to be carried out by my department's own workforce — that is, the Highways Southern Division Workforce who, in conjunction therewith, will be laying a surface water drain to be financed out of revenue. Your Excellency, I beg to move the resolution standing in my name.

Mr. Barton: I beg to second and reserve my remarks.

Dr. Orme: Your Excellency, I rise not to oppose this motion but to ask some questions. The expenditure of £48,750 is necessary, as the mover has indicated, for two reasons: one because the gradient of the existing sewer is unsatisfactory — in fact it is around about 1 in 2,000; the second is that there are houses built on top of it. Now my questions are that this Government employs people to control work that is carried out on its behalf and also employs a planning authority. Now how was a sewer built with a gradient of less than 1 in 1,000 and how were houses built on top of that sewer without some sort of planning constraints being put upon the developer of the area so that we now have to find £48,750 to move a sewer so that

Silverburn Crescent Sewer Renewal — Expenditure Approved T1490 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 it is in the middle of the road and can be properly built and maintained?

Mr. Lowey: Can I ask the hon. minister a supplementary, Your Excellency? Would the minister confirm that these works will not permit additional sewerage to be carried by that newly laid pipeline and that it is to obviate a public health nuisance to these people who have put up with and tolerated this inconvenience — and that is putting it mildly — for many years?

Mr. Maddrell: Your Excellency, Ballasalla is quite a distance from Onchan, but I have been called to Ballasalla; I have been called when the manhole lids which are in the gardens have been surcharging, and if you can imagine a sewer surcharging into your garden you would not be very happy about it. Now I cannot say why the sewers are under the gardens, I cannot say why they are in the wrong place; that happened long before 1 was here. We are learning. This is one of the things we are learning very much, and we are learning about the cost about it today, but I would say we have a duty to these people that we have to do something about the sewers as they are now. There is no other way that I can explain that. I have to get up and defend their right that there has to be new sewers to get rid of the problem they have.

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, could I just ask the minister if he would not agree that the sewer in question is an original sewer, it was not laid by the developer of the estate that it serves, it was there in the ground serving Ballasalla and it was connected too by the developer? It seems to me, with the building in the 1970s when there was so much development taking place, that the resources of Government were inadequate. The inspectorate, I think we have to accept, at that time was inadequate and I would sincerely hope that, if we do get ourselves into another time of development like we experienced 10 years ago, Government is itself prepared to pay the Bill for an adequate inspectorate, because I believe that was sadly lacking in the past.

The Governor: Does any other hon. member wish to speak? I call on the minister to reply.

Mr, Catlin: Your Excellency, if I could first of all thank the Chief Minister for his explanation with regard to the laying of that sewer which goes back to the late 41. 1960s, it is true that the original sewer was laid and connected by the developer. As to the question posed by Dr. Orme as to 'how did it happen?' it was a question that I myself asked and there is no satisfactory answer beyond what has already been stated by the Chief Minister. I can confirm what Mr. Lowey has said and I would also confirm particularly — he emphasised the point about it being a health hazard — anything connected with foul sewage causing a problem in this way has got to be a health hazard and I would hope that everybody today would fully support the resolution. It is, as I have stated, the work will be carried out by our own staff so it will be done costwise as cheaply as possible, and at the same time we will take the opportunity to lay a storm water drain at the same time.

The Governor: I call, hon. members, the item 14 on the Agenda, the motion

Silverburn Crescent Sewer Renewal — Expenditure Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1491 standing in the name of the Minister for Highways, Ports and Properties. Will hon. members in favour say aye; those against say no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it.

CAMBRIAN PLACE, DOUGLAS - PURCHASE OF THE WIDOW'S HOUSE - EXPENDITURE APPROVED

The Governor: Item 16. Widow's House, Cambrian Place, Douglas. I call on the Minister for Highways, Ports and Properties to move.

Mr. Collin: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That Tynwald —

(1) authorises the Department of Highways, Ports and Properties to purchase the Widow's House, Cambrian Place, Douglas, from the Department of Health and Social Security in its capacity as Trustee of the Squibb-Cubbon-Grave Trust for a sum not exceeding £52,250;

(2) authorises the Treasury to expend out of capital moneys during the year ending 31st March 1988 a sum not exceeding £52,300 to meet the cost of the aforementioned purchase; and

(3) approves of and sanctions borrowings not exceeding £52,300 being made by Government, such borrowings to be repaid within a period of 15 years.

Your Excellency, perhaps it would be helpful if I were to explain that this is a matter which my department has inherited from its predecessors the Government Property Trustees who, as I am sure the Court will be aware, often acted as Government's co-ordiriator in matters where several Government departments had an interest, and this is such a case. The property known as the Widow's House in owned by the Squibb-Cubbon- Grave Trust, which is administered by the Department of Health and Social Security, the sole trustee. It is very old and in a poor condition. Rather than spend the considerable sums of money required to bring the property up to the standard required under present-day flat regulations, the Department of Health and Social Security decided to sell the property and to use the proceeds to convert the other property belonging to the trust in Clarke Street into four self-contained flats for elderly single people. The Department of Health and Social Security, as the sole trustee, is obliged at law to act in the best interest of the trust, and in this respect the Chancery Court ruled that the property was to be advertised for sale on the open market for a given number of weeks. My department, therefore, was just another interest party as far as the owners were concerned and had to compete with other prospective purchasers. Fortunately my department's offer of £52,250 subject to contact and Tynwald

Cambrian Place, Douglas — Purchase of the Widow's House - Expenditure Approved T1492 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 approval has been accepted by the Department of Health and Social Security. The acquisition of this property falls within the policy of acquiring the area opposite the Lord Street bus station. This area contains Seneschal House, which is already owned by my department and is shortly to become surplus to our office accommodation requirements once the War Pensions Committee has completed its transfer to Markwell House. In addition, there are two plots owned by the Douglas Corporation and which, it is felt, the Corporation would be prepared to consider for inclusion in the redevelopment of this area. The decision to consolidate a land bank in this area stems from a recommendation of the Car Parking Sub-Committee of the previous Executive Council. Possession of this site is necessary on two accounts: firstly, taking the short term, both the Widow's and the Seneschal Houses could be demolished to provide additional surface car parking spaces which are urgently required in this part of the town. In the second place the ownership of the Widow's House site, taken with that of the Seneschal House, will facilitate negotiations with prospective developers and help in the formation of a comprehensive plan for the redevelopment of this important part of the town centre. The redevelopment potential of this area and the adjacent Lord Street bus station, which has only within the last month or so passed into Government ownership, is considerable. It behoves Government to ensure that the eventual redevelopment of such a prime site within the Douglas town centre should be compatible with the future needs of the town, whether these be retail or commercial or a mixture of both. By acquiring the Widow's House site, Your Excellency, Government will be in a stronger position to discharge this Court's commitment to the rejuvenation of our inner town areas. Your Excellency, I beg to move the resolution which stands in my name.

Mr. Delaney: I rise to second and reserve my remarks.

Mr. Cretney: A question, Your Excellency, and that is, is it the department's intention to consolidate the whole site? I understand some of it may be in private ownership and, at the end of the day, will it be the department's intention to provide a Government facility in the form of a car park or whatever or will it be something that will be operated by private enterprise?

Mr. Karran: Your Excellency, can I just ask for an assurance from the minister that, if this property comes surplus to requirements for his department, he will circulate Government Departments as this piece of land is quite a valuable piece of land in Douglas?

Mrs. Hannan: Your Excellency, I am quite opposed to the sale of these buildings. I think they are an important part of Douglas and if Douglas does not recognised them as an important part I certainly do. We have many places that I feel should be preserved, should be used for housing. We have spoken about housing this morning in Question Time and I think it is an important part. It is in the centre of Douglas where people want to live, Douglas Corporation have done up many flats in the centre near to this area and I feel that really it should be preserved and not for Government to buy it and knock it down, and I would have thought that

Cambrian Place, Douglas — Purchase of the Widow's House - Expenditure Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1493

even if the Department of Health and Social Security could not have done these houses up, then maybe this trust could have been launched to ask for support from members of the public to many charitable organisations in the Isle of Man to support the housing of people within town centres. I believe that we should have people living in town centres. I do not believe we should move them to the outside. They cannot then afford buses to get into the centre to shop and I feel that if we are going to knock everything down for the car and for the office we are just going to made these deserts, wildernesses in the middle of our towns and I feel that these sorts of properties should be supported, not only these sorts of properties but any small properties in the middle of towns, and I do not feel that Government should be the organ buying up all these properties to knock them down. We have only got to look round the corner at Albert Street to see lovely properties there in the hands of this Government doing nothing with them and paying very small amounts of money to these people so that we can have them to build up Government offices when we have a plot of land over on the other side of Finch Road lying empty. I believe we should not buy up parcels of land and sterilise them when it comes to housing, and I believe that money should be put into these houses to make them fit for human habitation for people living in town centres.

The President of the Council: Your Excellency, I should like to support the move to dispose of this particular type of property. I was the Chairman of the Board of Social Security in 1951 when, under the National Assistance Act, many of these charities were taken over by the board. This was administered in those days by the Vicar and Wardens of St. Barnabas' Church, alas now gone, and the Vicar and Wardens of St. George's Church, and the Widow's House in Fort Street was administered by the Mayor of Douglas, the High Bailiffs and certain people of this kind. This property has become totally unacceptable to the modern generation. It was merely rooms which did house people where they could put a bed in a subsequently a little sink was put in the corner of the room and some conveniences were put at various parts in the houses. They become... when I was on the board — and I am sure other members that followed later would find — this type in these modern days is totally unacceptable, and I would hope that when we talk about improving, certainly I would agree with the hon. member for Peel that provision should be made in the town centres for elderly people and many of us would look with sorrow at the fact that Albert Terrace is in difficulty because this is the type of acceptable address which people like. I would say that the Widow's House, particularly the one in Fort Street, which had a big stone notice up above that this was erected for the poor and destitute widows of Douglas — that is not acceptable today, sir, and it is a good thing that these do come down, but the properties like Albert Terrace, which had an address where people could say 'I live in 5 Albert Terrace' and it was unknown whether this was a charity home or what kind of a house it was, but as far as this Cambrian Place house, it is more than overdue that that house should be pulled down to make room for development in that area. It was quite a rag bag in that area and we hope that a suitable development will be made, but at the same time I would subscribe to the sentiments proposed by Mrs. Hannan, the member for Peel, that we should

Cambrian Place, Douglas. — Purchase of the Widow's House - Expenditure Approved T1494 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 not lose sight of the fact that there should be provision for elderly people in part of Douglas, but it should be suitable accommodation and not this which is outdated.

Mr. Delaney: Your Excellency, from time to time items come on the Agenda which do in actual fact give you... people reflect back particularly on property where they have spent most of their life in association with it. I have known this property since I was that high and running messages for the widows who lived in those houses, but the idea that somehow it is not necessary to knock these down is total nonsense; it is political fluttering. Those houses, Your Excellency, should have been knocked down 30 years ago. I do not disagree with the hon. member that we should not make provision close to the town. It has been my political aim for a long, long time to make sure that happens, but to try and give some idea to the people outside that there was some grandiose scheme, we are knocking down some lovely abode for people, widows in this town, that we are doing this is totally wrong, sir. I have been involved with this from my youth through to being responsible for social security and therefore directly responsible, not only for the people there but for rehousing them, and with the help of Douglas Corporation we had them rehoused close by. The double glazing was required but was not put in to the flats they went to. I can actually name you the widows from my youth who have lived in those houses, as other members of this Court can, and as far as I am concerned this is a step in the right direction. Now there are areas down there in Douglas that provision can be made for single people, not only widows but for single men as well, and we should make moves for that and my ministry, I hope, will have support to do just that. It will be costly but it has to be done. But do not get the illusion, Your Excellency, from one or two people that somehow the people out there will think that we are taking away some salubrious piece of property. It was a hole in the wall. It was totally outdated. The idea was good originally because that was the accommodation that was accepted, but if anybody, and particularly people like myself who have been in and out there all their lives to see those ladies — and they were ladies — that lived there, gives the impression outside that we are not caring for the widows of this town or the old people it is totally wrong and politically misleading, Your Excellency, and I hope this Court will support the ministry in getting this particular piece of property demolished — the sooner the better. The only thing I would ask the minister — there was a metal plaque up on the wall in Cambrian Place; from my early days I remember it and I never understood what it was and it was not until I was older in life that I realised exactly why it was put there and I hope that will be retained and possibly put on a building or a construction in the town nearby to show to the people this particular lady who put this donation to the town that it is not forgotten, the good work she did. But I hope this Court will reject any idea that we contain that little plot of land in there, which was in the totally wrong space for the last 50 years, particularly when you consider all the buses were parking up alongside that property and the fumes were being pushed into their rooms — that is all they were — rooms, bedsits. That is what was happening for the last 10 or 15 years and we allowed that to happen, and it is totally wrong, Your Excellency, that we should try and make any political capital out of getting rid of something which was totally outdated. I support the President of the Council that they have seen their day. Let us get on with it and build homes fit for people to live in and we can only do that through

Cambrian Place, Douglas — Purchase of the Widow's House - Expenditure Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1495 effort, albeit that I agree with the member that they should be built in the town so people have the benefit of the facilities of the town. But do not kid ourselves that somehow we can rescue this at this stage. Your Excellency, on the radio this morning a school friend of mine, Mr. Mallon, was referred to as being against this. I am sorry to disagree with Mr. Mallon — he and I both were brought up in this area — but I can tell you it is a step in the right direction as long as we make provision for the people who come after us — widows in the town. This is a step in the right direction, Your Excellency.

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, I am fully going to concur with my colleague in East Douglas, but just to make a comment as a member of the ministry, we were fully aware of the implications and we are not heartless people. The only thing I would like to say is, I have listened to the President of the Legislative Council who has been sat here for a long, long time and we talk about revitalisation of town centres and bringing the people in which my resolution to Tynwald, which we all supported, did just that, so we are not an uncaring Tynwald. But there have been plenty of times when resolutions could have been put in this hon. House in certain areas to develop or to put people into the town centres, but it has not been done and, for goodness' sake, when you have been sat here for 40-odd years and getting up and saying 'we need these facilities' and yet you had the position to do it and could have done it and have not done it, I think it is a sheer nonsense. But we are a caring ministry and whatever happens... and I hear this 'demolition' word; as far as I am aware in my ministry — and the minister will confirm — we have not actually said a use or decided to do anything at all with these houses at this moment in time; no decision has been made, so the word 'demolition' at this moment in time is out of order, although I personally do feel that they should be demolished.

The Governor: I call on the minister to reply.

Mr. Catlin: Could I first of all, Your Excellency, say the easiest part is to agree with my colleague, Mr. Kermode, when he said that we are a caring ministry and I can fully concur with that. (Laughter) Now quite seriously, I would hope, Your Excellency, that the Court today will fully support this resolution, and if I could answer just one or two of the questions that have been raised, Mr. Cretney raised the point as whether the area, when the property would be demolished, would be used as a car park or a private enterprise. We have not gone that far yet, Mr. Cretney, it has not yet been decided. It has been, as I said, with regard to consolidation; I did say in my opening remarks that the acquisition of this property falls within the policy of acquiring the area opposite the Lord Street bus station, so it is a policy. Mr. Karran said that if we would ever part with the property, would we circulate other Government Departments? Of course, we would be happy to do that. I think we would anyway in all cases before parting with property. Now Mrs. Hannan felt that the property should be retained. I have to agree firstly with the President of Council and Mr. Delaney as far as the state of this property is concerned. I took the trouble the other day to visit the Widow's House and I went through it, and quite honestly it is fit for one thing, and that is to be knocked down. You could not expect anybody to live in that property today no matter what you did with it, so as far as we are concerned it is not fit for habitation and that

Cambrian Place, Douglas — Purchase of the Widow's House - Expenditure Approved T1496 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 was also decided by the Department of Health and Social Security anyway. Mr. Delaney also said that there was a plaque on the wall. Now I also noticed that plaque, and when I was there with the administrator of the department, of the properties division, Mr. Barber, the other day, we looked at that plaque and one of the things that we had agreed was that, should the property be knocked down, we should preserve the plaque because it is history. As I have said, I would hope that everybody will support the resolution. I agree with Mrs. Hannan, as others have done, that wherever possible housing should be provided for the elderly people in town centres rather than on the outskirts but that is a separate problem. What we are dealing with today is the purchase of the Widow's House. So far as we are concerned, it is not fit to put anybody to live in it.

The Governor: I put to you, hon. members, the motion standing in the name of the Minister for Highways, Ports and Properties at item 16 on the Agenda. Hon. members in favour please say aye; those against say no.

A division was called for and voting resulted as follows:

In the Keys:—

For: Messrs. Gilbey, Cannan, Quine, Barton, Walker, Dr. Orme, Messrs. Corrin, Brown, May, Mrs. Delaney, Messrs. Duggan, Cretney, Delaney, Kermode, Cain, Kneale, Bell, Brig. Butler, Messrs. Gelling, Karran, Leventhorpe, Maddrell and the Speaker — 23

Against: Mrs. Hannan — 1

The Speaker: Your Excellency, the resolution carries in the , sir, with 23 votes cast in favour and one vote against.

In the Council:—

For: The Lord Bishop, Messrs. Lowey, Ward, Radcliffe, Quirk, Anderson, Mrs. Hanson, Mr. Callin and the President of the Council — 9

Against: Nil

The Governor: Hon. members, in the Council, nine votes cast in favour and none against; the resolution therefore carries.

CASTLE RUSHEN - PRESERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME, PHASE U - DEBATE COMMENCED

The Governor: Item 17, Castle Rushen — Preservation and Development. I call on the Minister for Highways, Ports and Properties.

Castle Rushen — Preservation and Development Programme, Phase II - Debate Commenced TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1497

Mr. Catlin: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That Tynwald approves of the Department of Highways, Ports and Properties carrying out Phase II of the preservation and development programme for Castle Rushen at a cost not exceeding £35,000.

Your Excellency, for Phase I of this scheme a capital sum of £25,000 was approved in 1986/87 under the job creation programme and later in that year an additional sum of £7,500 was provided. The bulk of this £32,500 has been spent on rewiring where the former wiring was both inadequate and dangerous, the installation of improved lighting in the banqueting hall, the dungeons and on the main staircase, the installation of a new pay/souvenir kiosk, repairs to the toilet roof, urgent roof repairs to Derby House and the purchase of decorative iron litter bins of the same pattern adopted for Castletown Square. In conjunction with the Manx Museum two retired officials of the Ancient Monument Section of the U.K. Department of the Environment have been commissioned to prepare a feasibility study on ways and means of preserving both Castle Rushen and Peel Castle. It had been the original intention of my department not to approach Tynwald for approval to proceed with Phase II at Castle Rushen until the consultants' report had been studied and provision to meet its recommendations incorporated into Phase II. However, in view of the urgent remedial works already identified at the Castle, such as roof repairs and the eradication of dry rot in Derby House and the electrical re-wiring of the court room which ought to be carried out in the summer months, my department has decided to bring the matter to the July Tynwald, and for this it has the support of both the Treasury and Executive Council. I should emphasise that all work carried out at the Castle will be sympathetic and will not prejudice the integrity of this most important ancient monument. Close consultation will be maintained throughout with the Manx Museum. Your Excellency, I walked round the Castle within the last two or three days - (Interruptions and laughter) and, quite honestly, there is a lot of work to be done there. It is a very important building and it is a shame, really, that it has been allowed to deteriorate in the way it has done, and I would have had no hesitation coming here today with a resolution double the amount than what we are asking for, and again I would hope that all members will support this very worthwhile resolution.

Mr. Barton: I beg to second, Your Excellency.

The Speaker: Your Excellency, after visiting the Widow's House he found himself in the dungeons! (Laughter) However, Your Excellency, I support this resolution wholeheartedly but I find it somewhat misleading. We have preservation developments. We have had a recital of repairing roof leaks, repairing electrical installations and a few odds and ends here and there and, frankly, we are failing to face up to the real challenge. Castle Rushen does not want to be a pile standing there in isolation. It wants to come alive, hon. members, (Members: Hear, hear.) and it wants to be marketed as a living castle. Now this is not happening and all we are doing here is making a token gesture towards what is termed 'development'. It is nothing less than maintenance, essential maintenance — I support it wholeheartedly, but this morning I heard the minister remark on a point made by

Castle Rushen — Preservation and Development Programme, Phase II - Debate Commenced T1498 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 the hon. member, I think it was for Douglas East, and it was related to the participation, really, of the public generally in the provision for tourism. It related in that instance to actually the local authority getting its finger out and doing something for itself but, Your Excellency, as we pass these votes I sometimes wonder just how far the Isle of Man is committed to tourism, and my belief is it is not very far. (Members: Hear, hear.) You get a situation, Your Excellency, where even the most basic requirements from departments, from local authorities, are not forthcoming. Dustbins cannot be emptied, roads cannot be cleaned, litter abounds and nobody honestly cares because the rates may go up. Chief Minister, please note! Our rates will be affected if we do something about improving our own environment. You may say that has little or nothing to do with this proposal, but in my belief it has, because we can go on spending money and maintaining our piles, such as Castle Rushen — very rightly so — but unless, behind it, there is a public determination to not only revive our heritage but also, in association with it, revive our tourism, then, Your Excellency, the tourism angle is going to go into the ground very quickly indeed. As 1 say, I welcome this, but the challenge is not here. Minister, make this pile come alive, make it an attractive exhibit which can be spoken of with pride in any part of the world, and make people come from all parts of the world to visit it as a living example of, really, a very, very historic past.

Mr. Bell: Your Excellency, Mr. Speaker has stolen my thunder, just about; he has said virtually everything I was intending to say. What I really want to say, Your Excellency, is I of course will be supporting the resolution this morning but I really just want to repeat again my concern over Government's handling of its heritage on the Island. I have raised this once before, I intend to go on raising it until I see some action to improve it. I am in no way criticising the Department of Properties or the minister but I am absolutely convinced that our heritage buildings — our Castle Rushen, our Peel Castle, the Queen's Pier in Ramsey, the Laxey Wheel - should not be under the control of the Department of Properties. They do not have the resources, they do not have the remit to develop and promote these facilities in the way they should do for the benefit of the Island. We are hearing this morning of a scheme to preserve and develop Castle Rushen. As the hon. Mr. Speaker has said, this is no more than routine maintenance we are talking about. This is in no way a development plan whatsoever. I am slightly concerned to hear that, two gentlemen have been appointed to draw up a scheme for the preservation of the Castle. Now, preservation is fine up to a certain degree; I will support that wholeheartedly, but there is a difference between preservation and fossilisation of it and I myself had the experience this weekend to go through the Castle as it happens, and I must admit, although it has tremendous potential to be a very interesting asset, it was quite a dreary experience. There is absolutely no life in that building at all; it is a totally sterile pile of bricks in the middle of Castletown Square the way it is at the moment.

Mr. Brown: It is not even bricks!

Mr. Bell: And yet it has so much potential to be developed. I have suggested it before, Your Excellency — I am more convinced than ever now that Government

Castle Rushen — Preservation and Development Programme, Phase II - Debate Commenced TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1499

needs to set up a separate heritage department within some form of Government, either linked to the Museum or my own department or a separate department altogether, but it needs to bring these projects together under professional management to promote and develop the facilities that we have. Our heritage is unique; it has the admiration of almost everyone that comes to the Island to experience it, but we do absolutely nothing at all to develop it. If a • slate comes off the roof we will fix it. If the pipes burst we will fix the pipes, but in terms of developing and promoting and telling the Island, even telling our own people about it, we do absolutely nothing. We spent £300,000 or £400,000, I think, on Laxey Wheel. What have we done to tell anyone about it? There is very little serious promotion. We had a burst last year; the momentum seems to have gone completely. There is no follow-through at all and I would be interested to hear the through-put of figures this year in comparison to last year. It needs more professional management and, I repeat again, I am not criticising the department on this; it is not their remit to do this sort of thing and neither do they have the resources to do it, but Government as a whole does have resources to do it and it should give a commitment to the development of our heritage by establishing a new management structure for these facilities because if we do not, as the hon. Mr. Speaker again has said, it belies our supposed commitment to the development of tourism on this Island. We have all recognised now, I think, that our greatest potential for success in carving out new markets in tourism is through the development and promotion of our heritage. If we really mean that, we have got to take it seriously and promote vigorously — and I am afraid it will upset one or two purists, perhaps — but vigorously and commercially to make sure we get people through that, that we use the benefit of modern developments in presentation. We are starting for the first time to see a change in the Museum itself with a more modern, up-to-date, professional promotion. We need to see that through every facet of our heritage on the Island. At the moment we are doing nothing more than paying lip service for it towards it and carrying out routine maintenance on all these other things although, in the case of the Queen's Pier, not even routine maintenance. Your Excellency, I would like... in fact I did organise a meeting last week between my department and various people interested and involved with the heritage groups. Unfortunately I was stranded in England at the time and could not get back in time for the meeting, but I would like the hon. minister and his colleagues to go away and look at this project — not just the Castle Rushen but the promotion of all the heritage projects in their control, look at it afresh and perhaps come back to Executive Council or to this hon. Court with some proposals for the further development and promotion of these things because, if we do not, all the efforts we are going to put into marketing tourism on the Island are really going to come to nothing, because at the end of the day we will not be able to back up in fact what we are actually marketing.

Mrs. Hannan: Your Excellency, I would really like to support the Minister for Tourism's comments on the Museum and on heritage in general. I feel that the place for Castle Rushen, Peel Castle and Laxey Wheel should be placed with the Manx Museum and National Trust. However, they do need funding and I do not think anyone can take over and run Castle Rushen, Peel Castle or even Laxey Wheel

Castle Rushen — Preservation and Development Programme, Phase II - Debate Commenced T1500 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 properly without proper funding, and that means putting a lot of money into these buildings simply because we have never put money into them in the past and they have really just trundled along with no spending whatsoever. Feasibility studies have been carried out in other castles and set-ups in other parts of the world purely to try and make them more attractive and more acceptable to the tourist who wants to come and see a living castle, a living display, and this is something that the Museum have been doing at Cregneash since 1938, and I think it is something that every person who visits Cregneash is aware of — the heritage and the culture which have been preserved there. However, I should say that the cost of maintaining that — and it is only maintained — per year is quite staggering and I feel that really, instead of being maintained, even Cregneash should have more money put into it, not just to maintain it but to keep it going, because it was the first open-air museum, I think, in the British Isles, possibly even further afield. So we have got to think about more funding. Today's resolution in front of us, hon. members, is only maintainance and it is maintainance purely because nothing has been done in the past, but when we are talking about going through Castle Rushen and Castle Rushen being dull and dreary, I think it is even duller and drearier on a cold winter's night when the water is pouring in through the roof, and I have been there and experienced that. As far as I am concerned, I do not think, by the description put forward today by the Minister of Highways, Ports and Properties, he has mentioned this particular roof which needs attention; it is the roof over the room over the banqueting hall which is actually leaking, and I think that that should also receive attention. I am sure a lot of money could be spent on that just keeping it up to date. However, I do feel that members might be interested. It should be alive tonight; there is live music there this evening.

Mr. Brown: Your Excellency, I naturally fully support this and in fact know the difficulties that the minister is in. It is all very well for members of this hon. Court to stand up and say we should be pumping more money in, we should be doing that — I know the fight that was had over the last three years trying to get this Court to give that exact money and, in fact, it was not until last year that Castle Rushen got a fair share of the bite in its terms, and the problem has been that the Government Property Trustees, as it was then, and now the Properties Division, had within its responsibilities that affect its capital budget that are really helping other sections of Government, so they become way down in the list of everything that they are given to look after their own property. In this same hon. Court we have just passed, with respect, £200,000 to keep open something at the end of Douglas promenade. I can tell you now, I would far rather have seen that £200,000 going into the castles in the Isle of Man and the other historical areas in the Island. But it is not just a matter of money, and if hon. members are saying that they are fooling themselves. It also is a matter of professional staffing, of providing professional advice, which the hon. Minister for Tourism was concerned about — I am sorry, but these people under there who are with the Department of the Environment in the U.K. are used to this sort of thing and can save us a lot of time and a lot of money because they are used to the type of ideas we are trying to progress. Now, on top of that, Your Excellency, we also have the professionalism. How

Castle Rushen — Preservation and Development Programme, Phase II - Debate Commenced TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1501 many times have we heard that about our tourism — the lack of professionalism? Not the people themselves but the commitment — professional people being used to provide us with the back-up for all these areas and, again, the Properties Division is struggling along with a very small staff. There is not even an overseer for the tourist orientated attractions, i.e., the castles and Laxey Wheel, and they are having to do that with all their other responsibilities. I am one hundred per cent. — and I have said this for, well, all my time in this Court — I am one hundred per cent. behind projecting our historical value and our heritage, and it is going to get more and more important as we are getting swamped by people coming to our shores to reside here who have not got a clue about the Isle of Man or its people or its way of life — or its Government, for that matter. So therefore it is very important for us to get our own heritage put in our place and that is up to the people of the Isle of Man to do that and this Government to back it with finance so we do not lose what is very valuable to many of us, and that means a real commitment, and I hope that this hon. Court will give that commitment. I fully support the hon. minister and I would just say that over the last few years quite a bit of money has been put into those attractions and also slight adjustments to make them look a bit better, but there is a long, long way to go and I would say let us get that commitment right and stop playing about with £35,000; start putting in £100,000 or £200,000.

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, in the hope that my minister might agree with me again, when we talk about castles and the Properties Division I regard our department as the department responsible for maintainance, not for promoting. If you are going to promote and bring alive castles, I would suggest the Tourist Board, who are in that game of promoting our heritage and our tourist industry, because it is their slogan that says it is our differences that make the difference, and for the information for the Minister of Tourism, the two people that were over, the expertise that they brought over, was Dr. Apted and Mr. Slade, and they were experts in the Ancient Monuments Section of the U.K. Department of the Environment, so we sought the professional advice. But, Your Excellency, when we first were left into this ministry, we did say to the Manx Museum and National Trust that they should take the castles off our hands because we were not the experts and the National Trust had the experts there that could deal with these problems, and many people felt we were just trying to pass the buck and shirk our responsibilities. That was not the case; we wanted the best possible environment in which our castles could survive and the only way of doing that is to put it into the hands of the people that know castles. The Minister of Tourism has answered his own question when he talks about expertise. Take it off our hands, give it to the Museum and National Trust — they should have it, they have the expertise and, as far as coming to life is concerned, I think there are a few members of this hon. House that want to come to life as well as the castles!

The Governor: At that point, hon. members, I think the best way of coming to life might be to break for lunch and meet again at half past two!

The Court adjourned at 12.59 p.m.

Castle Rushen — Preservation and Development Programme, Phase II - Debate Commenced T1502 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

CASTLE RUSHEN — DEBATE CONCLUDED — EXPENDITURE APPROVED

The Governor: Hon. members, we continue our debate on item 17, and if no other member wishes to speak...

Mr. Kneale: Your Excellency, I move the motion be now put, sir.

Members: Agreed!

The Governor: We can call upon the minister to reply, which is almost as quick.

Mr. Catlin: I will be very brief, Your Excellency. I sense there is a very strong feeling of support for the resolution in the Court and for that I am very grateful. What I would like to say is that the resolution that is before you today is mainly concerned with the making of the building weatherproof and to carry out certain urgent repairs, and when we talk about urgent repairs that is the sort of thing which happens to some of the floors in the Castle; (Interruptions) You cannot leave those as they are any longer. Now the second phase would be to get the experts in to advise on the best way to capitalise and to bring the Castle alive, as so many people have spoken about here today. Now almost everything that has been said I am in full agreement with, and I am certain my two colleagues in the department would be in full agreement as well. The Speaker did make emphasis on bringing the Castle alive. Now the Speaker is also aware that the members of my department did have a meeting with himself and some of his colleagues on the Museum and he knows that the attitude of our members in the department is to co-operate with the Museum fully and to do all that we can to bring about the things that he would like to see. Now it was touched on by Mr. Brown earlier and that is that the Department of Properties, which previously was the Government Property Trustees — I am going to say this publicly today: it has been quite wrong that that department has been allowed to function in the past in the way that it has. It has been run on a shoe string and you cannot blame the Government Property Trustees for that, and I have been shocked, since I came in as the minister for the department, to see some of the responsibilities that we have inherited and the state that some of those properties are in, but I am not blaming the properties division. The point is that money was not made available. Now with regard to the future, I was rather surprised at the Minister for Tourism this morning, because one of the things that... again, the department have fully co-operated with, the Tourist Board, and the Tourist Board have made available funding of a sum of £25,000 for the funding of a feasibility study to see how the castles and the Laxey Wheel can be capitalised along the lines that have been suggested today, and my department is fully behind that but, please, do not ask the D.H.P.P. to do the impossible, because our staffs are very limited and what we are trying to do at the moment is to maintain the buildings and to do what we can, but our staffs are not professional in the way that they should be to do what you want done and I think we have to wait for that day to come along. The question was raised about the figures within the admissions to the various castles and the Laxey Wheel, and I am pleased to say that the figures up to the

Castle Rushen — Debate Concluded — Expenditure Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1503

5th July this year, with Castle Rushen, was almost 15,000 as against just over 12,000 last year. Peel Castle is slightly down — 8,000 this year as opposed to 8,800 last year but the Laxey Wheel is again is on the up; it is 23,000 over this year as against just under 20,000 last year. I would say, hon. members, that the resolution that you have before you today — and that is really what is important today — is worthy of the support of this hon. Court and I would hope it would receive it.

The Governor: I put to you the motion standing in the name of the Minister for Highways, Ports and Properties as item 17, hon. members. Will those in favour say aye; those against say no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it.

FREEPORT SITE — NEW WATER MAIN - CONSTRUCTION OF ACCESS ROAD — EXPENDITURE APPROVED

The Governor: We come to Item 18, the Freeport site, and I call upon the Chairman of the Isle of Man Freeport Authority to move.

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That Tynwald approves the Isle of Man Freeport Authority incurring expenditure of 198,000 for materials and labour costs in respect of the laying of a new water main and construction of access road on the Freeport site at Ronaldsway.

Your Excellency and hon. members, this resolution is an indication that the development of the Freeport at Ronaldsway is finally firmly committed and underway. The resolution is necessary because, by virtue of its agreement with the developer of the Freeport, Freeport Properties Limited, the Freeport Authority is responsible for the provision and cost of all normal infrastructure works as regards services outside the boundaries of the site which, in the reasonable opinion of the Authority, are necessary to connect such services to those to be provided by the developer within the Freeport boundaries. The works now necessary relate to the provision of a new water main and the building of a new access road. The laying of the new water main is necessary because the present water pipes supplying the Balthane Industrial Estate, which is privately owned, lies directly across the Freeport site. The position at the moment, therefore, would be that buildings could not be erected on or in close proximity to the pipe, and the owner of the pipe would have to be afforded access for repair and maintenance purposes, so in order to overcome that problem the Authority, following consultations with the Water Authority and the Department of Local Government and the Environment, has agreed that it will be necessary to lay a new water main on the circumference of the Freeport site, which will then be re-connected to the pipe presently serving the Balthane Industrial Estate. The Authority have long recognised the need for the provision of a new water main and considers it to be necessary normal infrastructure work. The Isle of Man Water Authority has agreed to carry out the necessary works and has informed the Freeport Authority

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that the total cost of obtaining necessary materials and laying the pipe has been estimated at £31,000 and at the conclusion of the works the Water Authority will undertake the responsibility for the supply. The second item covered in the resolution — that is, the building of a new access road from the main road to the entrance to the Freeport site — is necessary because the existing road has been constructed by the airport's own engineering staff for airport use and, as such, although it is of adequate strength for airport traffic, it was never intended to carry more than a modest amount of heavy vehicles. The road has no drainage facilities and the standards of construction employed do not make it suitable for use as a permanent access to the site. The Authority has decided to use this particular access route permanently, so a complete rebuild of the road is now necessary. It is considered desirable to use an existing access point rather than develop a new access on to what is already a difficult section of road, as the access point already exists from the airport, Ronaldway Aircraft Company Limited and the industrial estate. The Department of Highways, Ports and Properties has informed the Freeport Authority the total cost of materials and construction of the road has been estimated at £66,500. That is for a 7.3m wide carriageway with fencing on the airport side. Fencing is obviously necessary to physically separate the Freeport and Airport boundaries in order to avoid vehicles or persons deliberately or accidentally straying on to the airport property. Your Excellency, I beg to move the resolution standing in my name.

Mr. Anderson: Your Excellency, I beg to second and reserve my remarks.

Mrs. Delaney: Your Excellency, I would ask, will the service of the new water main be adequate to cover the needs of the proposed further development site opposite the airport as well as that of the Freeport, or will this also require another major project with regard to services?

The Governor: Does any other hon. member wish to speak? I call on the Chairman of the Freeport Authority to reply.

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, the water main at the moment is privately owned and it runs across the Freeport site. The water flows in the direction from the airport towards Balthane and the water pipe was put in by the owners of the Balthane Industrial estate. The pipe that is going to replace the existing one will be sufficient to carry any foreseen load from Balthane and from the Freeport itself. The Ronaldsway Industrial estate, which is down behind Ronaldsway Aircraft Company's building, is in fact supplied from the main in the main road so this water pipe is adequate for its foreseen capability. Thank you, Your Excellency. I beg to move.

The Governor: Hon. members, I put to you the motion at item 18 of the Agenda in the name of the Chairman of the Freeport Authority. Will hon. members in favour say aye; those against say no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it.

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BETTING DUTY (AMENDMEMT) REGULATIONS 1987 — APPROVED

The Governor: Item 22, Betting Act 1970.

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, I beg to move —

That the Betting Duty (Amendment) Regulations 1987, made by the Governor in Council on 26th June 1987, be and the same are hereby approved.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE (SUPPLEMENTARY OPHTHALMIC SERVICES) (ISLE OF MAN) REGULATIONS 1987 — NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE (PAYMENTS FOR OPTICAL APPLIANCES) (ISLE OF MAN) REGULATIONS 1987 — SUPPLEMENTARY OPHTHALMIC SERVICES EXPENDITURE — APPROVED

The Governor: Item 23. National Health Service (Isle of Man) Act 1948. I call on the Minister for Health and Social Security to move.

Mr. Brown: Your Excellency, with the permission of the Court I would like to seek approval jointly to both the National Health Service (Supplementary Ophthalmic Services)(Isle of Man) Regulations 1987 and the National Health Service (Payments for Optical appliances) (Isle of Man) Regulations 1987 which appear as items 23 and 24 on the Agenda, if the Court will give leave for that.

The Governor: Do you wish to debate them together but vote on them separately hon. members? (/t was agreed.)

Mr. Brown: Your Excellency, I beg to move —

That the National Health Service (Supplementary Ophthalmic Services)(Isle of Man) Regulations 1987, made by the Department of Health and Social Security on 28th June 1987 under the provisions of Sections 36, 37, 39, 40, 59 and 64 of, and Schedule 2 to, the National Health Service (Isle of Man) Act 1948, as amended, be and the same are hereby confirmed.

The National Health Service (Payments for Optical Appliances)(Isle of Man) Regulations 1987, made by the Department of Health and Social Security on 28th June 1987 under the provisions of Sections 3, 36, 39, and 57 of the National Health Services (Isle of Man) Act 1948, as

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amended, be and the same are hereby confirmed.

(2) Tynwald authorises the Treasury to apply from the Government Revenue of this Isle during the year ending 31st March 1988 a sum not exceeding £40,000 being the additional amount required for the purpose of the Supplementary Ophthalmic Services.

Mr. Brown: Thank you, Your Excellency. The Health and Social Security Act 1986 incorporated amendments to restrict the scope of ophthalmic services provided under the National Health Service (Isle of Man) Act 1948. These powers were necessary to reflect similar changes made in the United Kingdom, the main consequential effect of which has been to bring to an end the manufacture of National Health Service spectacles, to be replaced by a system under which the department would provide, by regulation, for payment to be made to meet or contribute towards the cost incurred for the supply of private optical appliances for which a prescription had been given following a National Health Service sight test. Hon. members will recall that the former department attempted in December of last year to secure Tynwald approval to the introduction into the Island of a system more or less identical to that applying in the United Kingdom. In the event those proposals were rejected. Since then the situation with regard to the availability of National Health Service optical appliances has become critical and I am advised by the Isle of Man Association of Opht... opticians, anyway, Your Excellency, (Laughter) it is a new word and I do not like it! But the Island's opticians are experiencing considerable difficulty in maintaining existing services. The department, through its Ophthalmic Services Committee, has been studying various alternatives in an attempt to produce a scheme which is both workable and meets the concerns expressed previously by the hon. members of the Court with regard to the more restrictive elements of the United Kingdom system. Throughout the detailed study of the options available to the department, officials have worked closely with representatives of the ophthalmic profession. Arising out of these deliberations the consensus view was that a voucher scheme broadly based on the United Kingdom arrangement was the most appropriate way forward for the Isle of Man subject to significant amendments to provide for a much more flexible approach in this most important area of health care. I hope hon. members will recognise that the considerable effort made by the department to reflect the wishes of Tynwald has not been without cost, an initial £40,000 being required in the current year and £70,000 extra for a full year to give effect to these proposals. Your Excellency, guidelines have been circulated to members which I think adequately describe the basis and scope of the new proposals and, that being so, I do not intend in my opening speech to cover all those in detail. I will, however, be happy to try, as best I can, to answer any points hon. members may wish to raise. Your Excellency, I beg to move.

Mrs. Delaney: I beg to second.

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The Speaker: Your Excellency, I have one query in respect of the voucher scheme, sir. One would imagine that with the introduction of a voucher scheme people holding vouchers would really have the same benefit from those vouchers as if they were operating in another setting, in the United Kingdom, for instance, but that is not the case in the Isle of Man, I understand. In the United Kingdom, if you have a voucher, you can go into a major store and take advantage of the - facilities that they have to offer and trade your voucher in there. Here, as I understand it — and the minister can correct me if I am wrong — you will still be in the hands of your optician. There is no alternative as indeed there is in another island, and what I am going to ask the minister is in fact, will these vouchers issued in the Isle of Man be tenable in the United Kingdom? Can they be traded over there by people who might get better value for money for their voucher in another setting than they would in the Isle of Man?

Mr. Quine: Your Excellency, if I could speak first of all to the Supplementary Ophthalmic Services Regulations. My interest here is in Schedule 1 and I think it is 8.8(v), if I have got that right. It says here 'A contractor shall be entitled to demand and recover from a patient or person having charge of a patient a sum in respect of (a) loss of remunerative time resulting from that patient's failure to keep an appointment or (b) loss or remunerative time and travelling expenses resulting from a journey made to the patient's residence at that patient's or person's request'. On the face of that, of course, that is prima facie reasonable, but what concerns me in this, Your Excellency, that that is a blank provision to demand payment for the time irrespective of what circumstances give rise to the patient not keeping that appointment; illness or whatever, there is no provision there, as far as I can see, for that to be waivered in any respect or for any consideration to be shown in regard to extenuating circumstances which may have caused the patient not to keep that appointment. I think this provision, as presently cast, is too embracing and would, I am sure, ultimately lead to some unreasonable burden being placed upon a patient, in all probability a patient that would qualify under a full voucher — in other words a patient who really cannot afford to pay it in the first place. So I think that is quite wrong. Turning to the second set of regulations, which is the Payments for Optical Appliances Regulations, my concern here evolves around Regulation 3; first of all 3.1 (b) Regulation 3.1 (b) reads: 'A person who is under the age of 19 years and receiving full-time secondary education...' So of course I think you have to ask yourself, well, what happens to a person who is under 19 years of age who has received an education at the College of Further Education or in fact perhaps received • an education in a special establishment because he is in some way disabled? Well, I have endeavoured to get some clarification on that point and I am told that what happens is that you go to 3.1 (d) of these regulations where there is a reference • to the Charges Regulations 8 (g), and if you go to those regulations you will then find provision for persons under a general exemption for low income who can seek exemption from payment, but before they can do that they have to go to the department and file for a contribution assessment. Now I find this completely untenable. How can we expect people under 19 years of age, people attending the

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College of Further Education, to go through that process? It is quite, I think, an unworkable and unduly lengthy procedure. But in any case, Your Excellency, we are dealing with similar people in two different ways. On the one hand, if you are under 19 and you are in full-time secondary education you, as a matter of right, qualify for this complete assistance, and if you happen to be attending a different education situation — for example the College of Further Education — you are then subject to a means test before you can receive benefit. Surely this is not right? There are two educational institutions — the College of Further Education on the one hand and Ramsey Grammar School, if you wish, on the other, and because they are different institutions you have to go this maze of regulations to find out first of all whether you can benefit and then, having determined that you can benefit, you have then got to subject yourself to what to me appears to be a means test, get the approval under Regulation 5(4) for a contribution assessment before you can get benefit. I feel, Your Excellency, that both these matters — the matter in respect of the blanket provision for a contractor to charge for an appointment that is not kept and for this second matter here concerning the treatment of students and persons attending other education institutions, should be looked at afresh. One final point, Your Excellency. I suspect that 3.1 (c) should read 'paragraph 2' not 'paragraph 3' — 'A person whose resources are treated in accordance with paragraph 3(1) as being less than his requirements.' I think that should be 'paragraph 2' unless I have misread it because '3' does not relate to that at all, it relates to an application for a test of sight. Those are the three points, Your Excellency, I wish to make.

Mr. Corrin: Your Excellency, may I refer to the voucher system and the full voucher, which will cover the full cost of a prescribed appliance of a basic standard that may be used towards an appliance of a more expensive standard? Now on the face of it that is fine, but then could we go on? The restricted voucher, which will cover between 20 and 50 per cent. of the cost of the prescribed appliance of a basic standard but may not be used towards any other appliances — now why has anyone got to be restricted to that standard? This 20 to 50 per cent. of a standard is a known cost that presumably the minister and his colleagues quantified; why, then, has it got to be restricted? After all, people are paying towards these anyway and I ask, if someone wants a better pair of spectacles — I am not saying that they should have 20 to 50 per cent. of an unlimited cost, but why are they restricted to what has got to be the standard? Why cannot it be quantified in a sum of money and say, 'Well, you can have that; to whatever cost you want to buy, put it together yourself? Why has it to be restricted in that way? I think that now we are bringing this forward, this could be looked at right now and people should have that freedom. Why have they to be restricted? Presumably — well, one way you could look at it you could say the cost is the same, but of course we know that, as important as looking at it is, many, many people are not going to be satisfied with the standard. They, quite rightly... after all, most people wear these things on their faces so therefore they are going to buy something better. Now why, in that case, should they have no right at all to any assistance just because they want something better

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than the standard? Why is this? Why not give them the freedom?

Mrs. Hanson: Your Excellency, from a consumer's point of view I would like the minister to make clear what the procedure is, because we have in the past had one or two complaints from consumers about the procedure. Am I correct that the procedure is that every person is entitled to an eye test every two years normally, free of charge? That prescription is handed over immediately, they are entitled to have it and that is the consumer's personal property. They can then decide either to shop around for frames at different opticians or indeed give the prescription and put an order in to the optician who tested their eyesight, or indeed they have the right to go to any other supplier who supplies frames and has the prescription dispensed across the water or by some other optician. Now I would like that to be made quite clear — that the prescription is the property of the consumer and he has a right tb it.

Mrs. Hannan: Your Excellency, I would like to support the member for Ayre who spoke about a person under the age of 19 receiving full-time secondary education. I believe there should not be any distinction between a person educated at Peel School, the College of Further Education or King William's College. I believe they should be all treated in exactly the same way, should be treated as being able to receive vouchers for spectacles and not have to pass through a means test, and I think this is something that the Department of Health and Social Security should look at for the future when they are bringing forward further amendments on these regulations. I would like to raise another point: it is the Opticians Act of 1958 and I wonder why it is not an Act of the Isle of Man and has to be an Act of Parliament, because I believe the opticians are governed by this Act. And in speaking on this, Your Excellency, I would like to congratulate the Department of Health and Social Security after — I think it is probably about three years — actually bringing this before Tynwald. They did not succeed in December; I think they will probably succeed today because we are running out of National Health spectacles. I think in future, though, all departments of Government should really act to changes and be prepared to have a six-month wait and, during that six-month wait, to actually get things right, because this is what happened when Tynwald voted these regulations out last time — they could not be brought back within six months. So I would look to the Department of Health and Social Security to sorting out the problem of under-age children - young people under the age of 19 receiving full-time education and also looking into the working of the Opticians Act of 1958.

The Governor: I call on the the minister to reply.

Mr. Brown: Thank you, Your Excellency. If I can take Mr. Speaker's point first, my understanding is that these vouchers will not be able to be transferred to the United Kingdom because the values are different, and of course it is not as such a reciprocal agreement and therefore they will only be valid in the Isle of Man. Mr. Quine made some interesting points, and to answer that and to answer Mrs.

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Hannan, who also raised the point about full-time secondary education, now the department are of course aware of the comments of the two members with regards to this, and it applies with regard to free prescriptions. May I say that we are conscious that if we do it in one area we would need to do it in the other one, and at this stage in time we have not really looked into detail as to whether or not people who are at the College of Further Education full-time are justified in being given free prescriptions or free glasses under the basis they are talking about. May I say, though, that in reality — and the hon. member for Ayre said that the maze to find out if you are available to get them, the maze is in the legislation but is not quite so difficult in the reality. There will be brochures available for people to understand what they are allowed to do. They will also, hopefully — and we will be providing information for the opticians to give those people the advice as to what they should do — fill in a form, and in fact the basis of a person who is at the College of Further Education is based on their income; it is an assessment of their income and, in doing that, the officers already will be using a set procedure. First they have to establish the amount of relevant income of that person. They then have to establish the amount of relevant expenditure per week, such as a mortgage or lodging or whatever, and then, when they have done that, they find out how much they have actually got left in their pocket. Now for a single person who is not a householder who is between the age of 18 and 60, he would have to have in his pocket £38.75 per week plus for him not to be able to get assistance under the voucher scheme, so in fact, if he has got less than £38.75, he will then be eligible for a voucher and he will then be able to get his glasses. The basis for that is, with respect, there are people who are at the College of Further Education who may have quite a good income in their family. Now then, that comes to another question — should everybody have glasses free, as was the old system? I think that we have already accepted the principle that we change from that into the voucher system. We have already made the decision, Your Excellency, of the extra cost to Tynwald this year for providing this enhanced scheme as against the United Kingdom's scheme, and I hope hon. members will accept that. We did take on board the points made in the last debate over this scheme, and in fact I was one who was concerned, as were many other members. I would just say that we have spent time with the opticians and, looking at the Irish scheme which was mentioned, whether or not we can do anything to help there, and in fact this scheme we have come up with for the Isle of Man is a scheme that we feel is better. Now restricted vouchers, which was mentioned — in fact in the United Kingdom there is no value for restricted vouchers, so —

Mr. Corrin: We are in the Isle of Man!

Mr. Brown: If I can finish — in the Isle of Man we have given a scheme for values against restricted vouchers, so in fact we have a scheme here providing for persons to be able to claim at least something with regards to a voucher towards the cost of getting a pair of spectacles, and that is a restricted one for persons who do not fall into certain categories. In doing that, it ranges between the price of £4.20 up to £55, depending on the category you fall in. Your Excellency, I think that we

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The Governor: I put first of all to you, hon. members, item 23 standing in the name of the Minister for Health and Social Security. Will hon. members in favour say aye; those against say no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Item 24. Will hon. members in favour say aye; those against say no.

A division was called for and voting resulted as follows:-

In the Keys:—

For: Messrs. Gilbey, Cannan, Barton, Walker, Dr. Orme, Messrs. Brown, May, Mrs. Delaney, Messrs. Duggan, Kermode, Kneale, Bell, Karran, Leventhorpe, Maddrell and the Speaker — 16

Against: Messrs. Quine, Corrin, Cretney, Cain, Mrs. Hannan, Brig. Butler and Mr. Gelling — 7

The Speaker: Your Excellency, the resolution carries in the House of Keys, sir, with 16 votes being cast in favour and seven votes against.

In the Council:—

For: The Lord Bishop, Messrs. Lowey, Ward, Quirk, Anderson, Mrs. Hanson, Mr. Callin and the President of the Council — 8

Against: Mr. Radcliffe — 1

The Governor: Hon. members, in the Council, one vote cast against and eight

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SUBSISTENCE ALLOWANCES — PAYMENT THEREOF — APPROVED

The Governor: Now, hon. members, we revert to item 20, Subsistence Allowances.

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

In respect of absences on official business commencing on or after 14th July /987, Tynwald approves of the payment to Members of Tynwald, officials, Members of the Civil Service and such other persons as the Treasury may from time to time by order direct, of subsistence and out-of-pocket allowances at the rate and on the conditions set out in the draft Public Notice now laid before the Court, in lieu of the rates approved by resolution of Tynwald dated 15th April 1986.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

ACCOUNTS AND AUDIT (HEALTH SERVICES) REGULATIONS 1987 - APPROVED

The Governor: Item 21. Audit Act 1983.

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That the Accounts and Audit (Health Services) Regulations 1987, made by the Treasury on 24th June 1987, be and the same are hereby approved.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

ADMINISTRATION OF ESTATES (VARIATION) ORDER 1987 - APPROVED

The Governor: Item 25. Administration of Estates Acts 1960 to 1973.

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

Subsistence Allowances — Payment Thereof — Approved Accounts and Audit (Health Services) Regulations 1987 — Approved Administration of Estates (Variation) Order 1987 — Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 11513

That the Administration of Estates (Variation) Order 1987, made by the Treasury on 14th June 1987, be and the same is hereby approved.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

DRUG TRAFFICKING (ENGLAND AND WALES) ORDER 1987 - APPROVED

The Governor: Item 26. Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1987.

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That the Drug Trafficking (England and Wales) Order 1987, made by the Governor in Council on 29th June 1987, be and the same is hereby approved.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

DRUG TRAFFICKING (SCOTLAND) ORDER 1987 — APPROVED

The Governor: Item 27. Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1987.

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That the Drug Trafficking (Scotland) Order 1987, made by the Governor in Council on 29th June 1987, be and the same is hereby approved.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

RADIO COMMUNICATIONS AND EMERGENCY SERVICES CONTRACT - STANDING ORDERS SUSPENDED - FIRST SPECIAL REPORT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS RECEIVED

The Governor: Item 28. Committee of Public Accounts. I call on the Chairman

Drug Trafficking (England and Wales) Order 1987 — Approved Drug Trafficking (Scotland) Order 1987 — Approved Radio Communications and Emergency Services Contract — Standing Orders Suspended — First Special Report of the Standing Committee of Public Accounts Received TI514 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 of the Committee of Public Accounts, Mr. Speaker, to move.

The Speaker: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That the provisions of Standing Order 195(3) be suspended to enable the following resolution to be considered.

Mr. Lowey: 1 beg to second, sir.

The Governor: Hon. members, I put to you that motion, that the provision of Standing Order 195(3) be suspended to enable the following resolution to be carried. Will hon. members in favour say aye; those against say no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it. Mr. Speaker, item (2).

The Speaker: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That the First Special Report of the Standing Committee of Public Accounts concerning the award of a Home Affairs Board contract for radio communications for the emergency services be received and the recommendation contained therein be adopted.

Your Excellency, it is not the intention of the Public Accounts Committee in this special report to fulfil the whole of the remit that Tynwald has given us in respect of radio communications for the emergency services, but rather to reach an initial assessment and portray some of the more obvious weaknesses that this Government has to remedy and that are capable of being remedied as a matter of urgency in the public interest — in essence, salvage what we can from a disastrous situation both technically and politically. In paragraph 5(a), (b) and (c) of our report you will find that the urgent questions that face the Court and the Island are portrayed. Now, Your Excellency, at the outset of our examination of the files on this project we came quickly to the conclusion that there had been a series of colossal blunders from the word go in respect of this operation. There had been delays on the part of Executive Council, and the Home Affairs Board had entrusted their professional assessment of need to amateurs whose performance could most happily be classed as that of knaves or fools but whose plausibility and determination to achieve their own objectives have resulted in plans for the most sophisticated radio extravaganza that money could buy, escalating an original estimate of £314,000 to £2.5 million, which in itself has proved to be half a million pounds less than the real need as envisaged by the Home Affairs Board Originally. There was commitment by the board to purchase equipment which, without planning approval for sites to utilise it, would be redundant. Planning inquiry evidence that we assume was given in good faith was obviously based on a false premise and the role of the C.A.A. in respect of planning generally has scarcely been that of a responsible organisation. In fact, it appears that the Manx authorities were unwittingly manipulated and used by the Civil Aviation Authority. The questions that needed to be answered as a result of our initial scrutiny related to the appropriateness of the proposed system for the needs of the Isle of Man and whether it could be changed should this prove desirable; the cost of the proposed

Radio Communications and Emergency Services Contract — Standing Orders Suspended — First Special Report of the Standing Committee of Public Accounts Received TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1515 system and the degree of control possessed by the Government of the Isle of Man over radio communication within the area of its jurisdiction. To get the right answers we sought the most informed source we could obtain and found it in the person or Professor Parsons of Liverpool University, and we also brought in, as consultants, International Broadcasting Consultants of Castletown. We invited Professor Parsons to assess the situation as you will find outlined in paragraph 9 of our report - namely, was the proposed system viable? If so, is it a suitable system to be used for the emergency service of an area such as the Isle of Man? Are there simpler and cheaper alternatives of comparable effectiveness? Could fewer or different sites be used for towers? What may be the on-going implications? Can the re-allocation of frequencies be delayed? His answers were clear. The proposed system would, yes, be viable but is not the proper choice for the Isle of Man. A slight select system using selective calling and receiver voting would be a cheaper solution of comparable effectiveness. The proposed system would be suitable for use by the emergency services but it appears to be substantially over-engineered as a system for emergency services on a small island. It is impossible to say whether fewer or alternative sites would be acceptable for the radio towers without a detailed propagation survey, and features such as overlay paging and provision for data seem to be unnecessary. Maintenance implications which, hon. members, as he states in the report, had not been taken into account, will be considerable — £250,000 per year — and should be the subject of competitive tender — maintenance at a quarter of a million pounds against an original estimate of £300,000-odd! And he made the point that re-allocation of frequencies could not be delayed. Those views were broadly confirmed by our consultants. Now with the knowledge, Your Excellency, that the situation was out of control and running wild, we worked closely with the new Department of Home Affairs and have achieved some small measure of progress as portrayed in paragraph 14, in that, with their co-operation and their ingenuity and advice portrayed to them from another source, they confirmed it was possible to eliminate several of the proposed towers; space for facilities on existing masts has been negotiated rather than erect new masts; an independent project manager has been appointed, an absolute essential from the word go, and I am happy to say that negotiations are continuing on the part of the Home Affairs Board with the object of minimising cost to the Isle of Man. Now satisfactbry as that may be, it is only plugging leaks and for our part we hope it will be found possible to re-negotiate the contract, and this is very much in the lap of the gods as in fact the original Home Affairs Board rushed in and committed themselves, and we hope it will be re-negotiated in the form as indicated as being desirable by Parsons and to substitute a site select system. However, Your Excellency, while this was being done we found that in our hill area of the Island we had a very positive asset, and that related to the fact that one of the prime transmitting sites in the British Isles is Snaefell, and it was quite evident that while a one — mast situation would have catered, sir, for all the Island's needs, it was being effectively blocked by the Civil Aviation Authority's operation there. Now I make it clear that that does not mean 'by the Civil Aviation Authority's own navigational operation', for which they were responsible but rather due to the fact that they had proliferated their commercial activity and had used our asset on

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Snaefell — because I regard it as our asset and I know my colleagues do — for the commercial end of the Civil Aviation Authority, and they have done remarkbaly well out of it. Let me explain why. Some years ago this organisation negotiated a lease with the then Forestry, Mines and Lands Board for some £56 a year on the basis of a loosely worded legal document. They then proceeded to exploit Snaefell by letting off facilities to a wide range of operators, including British Nuclear Fuels, Securicor, the Ministry of Defence, to name but a few, and if you will have studied the Parsons report, as I am sure you have, you will appreciate they have some 30 frequencies in use up there at this present moment. Now it is remarkable that there was no knowledge of this exploitation of a Manx resource known to the Manx Government, and even where United Kingdom ministers were concerned, Your Excellency, there apparently had not been the courtesy of informing the Manx Government of their presence here. So here indeed was a ridiculous situation — this Government forced to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds because in essence it is being ripped off by a commercial operator. It is clear to us that while planning approval simply gave environmental control at a time of increasing interest in a wide field of radio transmission, our Government must know the use to which installations in this Island were being put. They do not know it through planning, they have no other means of getting to know it; we feel they must know it, so we recommended a solution to this problem, and it is a Bill which will effectively provide for the appropriate controls and you will find it set out as an apperidix to our report. I would emphasise it will not affect domestic users,, including radio hams, unless their requirement is clearly commercial rather than domestic. It will control the prime Snaefell site and it will control the Civil Aviation Authority's actions without in any way impairing their true role of providing navigational assistance. In short, it gives the Island control of its own resources. The Bill, Your Excellency, has been prepared with the help of the legal draftsman. It is a Bill that we would hope, if you adopt our report today, will be introduced in the early autumn and implemented by the turn of the year because, as the hon. members of the Treasury will realise, we are losing precious revenue from this leakage from our control. Your Excellency, I beg to move.

Mr. Maddrell: I beg to second, Your Excellency, and reserve my remarks.

Brig. Butler: Your Excellency, I rise to support Mr. Speaker's motion. Both as a private member of the House and also as a member of the Home Affairs Department I find myself in agreement with the First Special Report of the Standing Committee of Public Accounts. Indeed, I must say that the manner in which the Home Affairs and the Public Accounts Committee have co-operated together has been most encouraging and, indeed, most productive. I think it was important that we had separate experts who did not, until latter stages, work together because that gave a validation of the findings, because both of these experts, presented with the facts in a slightly different way, approaching the situation from a slightly different angle, came to the same conclusions. One would hope that would always be so with experts but one has not always found it so and I think it is a much greater underlining of the validity of this report that

Radio Communications and Emergency Services Contract — Standing Orders Suspended — First Special Report of the Standing Committee of Public Accounts Received TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 11517 two separate sets of experts have come to the same conclusions, and indeed I might mention a third expert, Dr. David Last, who was employed by the Manx National Trust and Museum, looked at much the same figures and also came to much the same conclusion, as I am sure the hon. member for Peel will wish me to point out, at a rather earlier date. So we have undoubtedly proven the technical findings. I think it might be worth my just mentioning very briefly the present situation. First of all there is no doubt that we shall be able to take care of the needs of the Fire Services this year, which is something that was not taken care of. Secondly, Snaefell will go ahead and will succeed on a two-tower basis — this was inevitable — but we are building the towers one this year and one next year. Having managed to solve the various problems and overcome the various objections there, is no doubt that the building of the Home Affairs Department tower next year, starting as early as possible in the spring will enable us to meet our time programme and it also has a lot of advantages in terms of not having too many workers up on Snaefell at the same time falling over each other and breaking the necessary works disciplines. Thirdly, as far as the other sites are concerned, I had hoped that we would have the final radio test results today but we have not. They will be here this week, but I am very optimistic that it will not be necessary to build new sites at Mull Hill, Corrin's Hill or Carnane, that we are to use existing sites; that we shall still have to build at Maughold as planned but that in the north of the Island instead of purchasing an expensive site at Bride we should be able to use existing Government property probably at Jurby to provide the needs of the North. All of this will amount to a considerable reduction in costs, as will various other measures that we are taking. Whether the contract is re-negotiated or just reformed the situation will be the same. Phillips understand that their prices were a little too high and in the discussion of the new costs, which will include some rises in areas where we have had to vary or delay, they will undoubtedly give us due credit anywhere where they perhaps charged a little too much. This will be very carefully watched by our project management provided by B.T. In summary, on costs I would be very hopeful that I shall be able to show this hon. Court a reduction in the overall cost in spite of the fact that we have now incorporated a number of extra items into the project which were not there to start with or propose to do so with the subsequent permission of Tynwald; for instance, we are able to take care of the current needs of Manx Radio in this re-location programme, we will be able to do things for the Electricity Authority and so on, and I also hope this will include the extra costs we have involved such as project management and the B.T. inquiry and so on. The last point I would make — it would be quite improper of me to try and look ahead on allocation of responsibilities and blame, because that is the task of the Public Accounts Committee, Your Excellency, and I would not like to pre-empt their subsequent findings because they have a great deal more to pronounce on, I know, but Mr. Speaker mentioned that there was a whole catalogue of errors and that really Manx Government or the system of Manx Government has much to answer for in what occurred, and perhaps the constructive thing now is to try and find a way ahead which will avoid similar problems. The Home Affairs Department is addressing itself to finding a solution which will take care of all of this enormously expanding and complex area of telecommunications, not just emergency services, not even just Government radio but every aspect of telecommunications, some means

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of co-ordinated control within Manx Government that can provide or find access to the necessary expertise to avoid similar mistakes in the future, and certainly we are giving this a very high priority and we will be hoping to produce a report in the course of the summer for presentation to Executive Council and, subsequently, here in this hon. Court.

Dr. Orme: Your Excellency, I rise to support this report. I think it has identified a logical pathway through this situation and I applaud the approach of strictly discriminating between those issues requiring immediate remedy and the others. However, I think that, to continue from where the previous speaker has left off, a very important part of the remit of this committee has been put to one side and others and the distractions of sixth form lectures on harmonics and the descriptions of quasi-synchronous systems and site select systems should not allow us to forget that the important question that must be answered before we go ahead is, how did we get here? It has been said elsewhere, Your Excellency, that failure is always an orphan, and I would like to know something of its parenthood before we go anywhere from here and I think that is a condition of accepting this report.

Mr. Delaney: Your Excellency, very briefly, I would like to stand up publicly — and I hope my colleagues would and particularly those who have been here the last five or ten years — and congratulate the Public Accounts Committee and the Home Affairs Board for actually a solution to a problem which certainly haunted me for the last 11 years since I came to this hon. Court. I can very well remember the actual wording that I gave three months for myself and Dr. Mann, the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Civil Defence, what the hell I was doing paying a bill to a private person for a Government facility on the top of Snaefell; Now my answer is in front of me, because nobody knew what we were involved in and nobody knew what we were doing. After 11 years I have got an answer to a question! Very, very rare that happens in this hon. Court and I congratulate the committee and wish them success. I think, if there are any doubts at all, the money they have saved — they will save, I have no doubt whatsoever — the Manx taxpayer has justified their existence, certainly for the rest of the duration of this Government and probably on further than that. Congratulations, hon. members, I think you have done a tremendous job.

Mr. Walker: Thank you, Your Excellency. I am not going to oppose this report; the Public Accounts Committee in fact did come to Executive Council some weeks ago and suggested that there was a need for the introduction of a Bill which would give the Isle of Man Government control, and Executive Council in fact go along with that. There is certainly a need for some sort of legislation. I think I am concerned with the proposed Bill and the way that it is drafted and, in particular, Clause 1(3) where it says 'No licence may be granted by the Commission to the Crown or any agent of the Crown or any United Kingdom public undertaking without the approval of Tynwald' and I see in that practical difficulties. The principle, as I said before, of the Government having control, I think, is not questioned, but I think it would be more practical if instead, with the approval of Tynwald, it had the Home Affairs Department or Executive Council. I can see problems if perhaps we have defence installations or something along that line being requested to be put on the Isle of

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Man and for it to be debated in public forum and I can see some embarrassment, some difficulty, Your Excellency, with that, and I think, when the Bill comes before the branches, that is a particular matter that will require some debate. I think it is only right that that concern, sir, be registered.

Mr. Lowey: Your Excellency, yes, I rise too to welcome the report because it is a practical step forward. It is of interest to note that the very first meeting of the department on 23rd December last year — that was one week after we were actually formed by this hon. Court — the then Department of Home Affairs - present one, that is — decided to seek professional advice from British Telecom, as it then was, so we recognised at our very first meeting that there was a need to get a professional hand on the tiller, and to that extent again I would like to pay tribute to the member of the department who has the professional skill and experience to guide us and help us, and that is the gallant member for Ramsey, Brigadier Butler, and I want that to be said right at the very outset. I have been very fortunate and I know Mr. Duggan, the member for South Douglas is equally fortunate in having his experience and expertise to call upon. So, we have been fortunate, but luck is not enough and I think, when the paternity element of this report comes to be written, I think it should be borne in mind that the past Home Affairs Board were not so fortunate in the experience that they had at their immediate disposal. Having said that, Your Excellency, I do believe that at my second meeting we actually identified a weakness in the telecommunications exactly as pointed out by Mr. Speaker, and at our second meeting we decided that the commission, the Telecommunications Commission needed expanded and to actually, to fulfil the very function that is proposed in the Bill that is part of this report. So, it comes as no surprise that we welcome the report as a practical step, but that was again something which we recognised very early on to such an extent that we have a vacancy on the Telecommunications Commission which we have refused to fill up to now because we feel that the commission needs expanded and a different expertise included in the excellent expertise that is already available there but in a different field, and so we have stayed our hand in expectation of this very report so that we could in effect have a commission relevant to the needs of the Isle of Man. So, yes, this is the machinery for the way forward and I congratulate the Public Accounts Committee in putting it this way. Again, I too can only say the department looking at the Bill — we felt the principle was absolutely right so we were not going to argue on the detail, but the detail, as mentioned by the Chief Minister, was one that did give us cause for concern, but we can argue the detail when it is on the floor of the House of Keys and in another place. I also just feel, if we are talking about the weaknesses as proposed in the Bill, I do not particularly myself like seeing figures included in Bills because they very soon become out of date, and where £2,000 may seem a high figure today, in five years' time it would perhaps seem like chicken feed, so, again, I think with safeguards for revenue, I believe again — mere detail but that can be argued as and when we come to the legislative processes. But I do believe that this report has produced an interim positive solution to problems that are facing us. It is nice to be able to say that the working relationship — and this is again a credit to all concerned where we do not need to be antagonistic to one another in the sense that we may have

Radio Communications and Emergency Services Contract — Standing Orders Suspended — First Special Report of the Standing Committee of Public Accounts Received T1520 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 different points of view, but at the end of the day, when the goal is the same, where constructive working helps to get the right result, and that is what it is about, and I believe that this is a classic example of good coming out of mistakes in the past. So there is a positive side to this. Again, I endorse what Mr. Speaker says when he says the day of reckoning of how we arrived at this particular situation is to come later and we may then have different interpretations to put on it but today is not one of those. This is a practical step forward for the immediate future, I endorse the report and urge the Court to accept it.

Mr. Maddrell: Your Excellency, today I find a great satisfaction in standing here as I fought these masts from the very beginning as I did not like what I saw. My intention is not to stand here and incriminate, it is to stand here and say that I get satisfaction with this report. I think that Mr. Speaker has portrayed everything that has to be said about it. I would agree that the Home Affairs Board, when they first started off on the first debate at the beginning of January, voted against a Public Accounts Committee; that is in the records. They have changed their line of attack and I must congratulate anyone who finds that something has to change and go along another line and is doing it to the satisfaction of all the committees that we meet under now; I find it most gratifying and I would say 'Good luck' to the Home Affairs Board, 'try and save as much money as you can'. In saying in this report that we may save somewhere between £250,000 and £350,000, that is only sums of money which are based on facts but, remember, it was a turnkey tender; it was open. You might even be talking about saving a million as we stand here today. That is cut off, we know where we stand now, that the B.T. mobile with the Home Affairs Board will make sure that what we get, what we want, is paid for and no more.

The Governor: Does any other hon. member wish to speak? I call on the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee to reply.

The Speaker: Your Excellency, I am sure I certainly and my colleagues are in debt to the Court for receiving the special report that we have made, sir, and, hopefully, for adopting the proposal that is contained thei-ein. I must express the indebtedness we feel to the Home Affairs Board in working so closely with us in recent weeks — recent months, in fact — to try and improve a desperate situation. The fact that they have achieved such a measure of improvement is certainly worthy of commendation and, Your Excellency, we are fully behind the principle of the Bill which we have printed as an Appendix. We have believed firmly that the Island stood for open government, and this portrays open government in relation to the control of aerial masts in the Isle of Man and I hope the Chief Minister, will not find that foreign to his thinking. Your Excellency, I commend the resolution to the Court.

The Governor: I put to you the motion standing in the name of the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, the hon. Mr. Speaker, at item 28(2) of the Agenda. Will hon. members in favour say aye; those against say no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it.

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ADVOCATES' FEES — STANDING ORDERS SUSPENDED - FIFTH INTERIM REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE RECEIVED

The Governor: Item 29. Advocates' Fees Committee.

Mr. Cain: Your Excellency, I beg to move —

(1) That the provisions of Standing Order 195(3) be suspended to enable the following resolution to be considered.

(2) That the Fifth Interim Report of the Select Committee on Advocates' Fees be received and the recommendations therein adopted.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

WHITLEY COUNCIL CONSTITUTION FOR THE ISLE OF MAN PUBLIC SERVICE (MANUAL WORKERS) — DEBATE COMMENCED

The Governor: Item 30. Constitution of the Whitley Council for the Isle of Man Public Service (Manual Workers). I call upon the hon. member for Douglas West.

Mr. Kneale: Your Excellency, I beg to move —

That the Report of the Committee of Executive Council appointed to consider the Constitution of the Whitley Council for the Isle of Man Public Service (Manual Workers) be approved and that the recommendations contained therein be adopted.

Your Excellency, as hon. members are aware, the original resolution before Tynwald on 18th February, which was instrumental in the setting up of this committee by Executive Council, arose from the request of the Manx Democratic Workers Union for recognition. Hon. members are also aware that the original resolution was replaced by an amending resolution which I moved, which read as follows: 'that Tynwald, conscious of its policy to promote and encourage a harmonious relationship between Government and local authorities and its craftsmen and manual workers, requests Executive Council (1) to consider whether the Constitution of the Whitley Council for the Isle of Man Public Service Manual Workers approved by Tynwald on 19th May 1971 so far as it relates to the composition of the Trades Union side remains appropriate and (2) to consult interested parties thereon and report to Tynwald as soon as possible'. Because of the newspaper dispute that was taking place when our committee was set up the means of advertising our existence and inviting submissions was somewhat restricted, but it was predictable who would respond. We interviewed every individual and organisation that responded to our invitation to submit views and invited others

Advocates' Fees — Standing Orders Suspended - Fifth Interim Report of the Select Committee Received Whitley Council Constitution for the Isle of Man Public Service (Manual Workers) — Debate Commenced T1522 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 to meet us who we felt could make a worthwhile contribution to our deliberations. Inevitably the position of the Manx Democratic Workers Union figured prominently in much of our discussions and it was quite obvious that there was strong antagonism against them in some quarters. We, as a committee, have tried to approach the task we have been given in a fair and unbiased way and started our enquiries by inviting the Trades Council, who are generally accepted as being the body to represent the workers' views in the Island, to meet us. Our first two invitations to them were rejected but, eventually, much later on in our enquiries, their president and secretary did agree to meet us. We have considered documents issued by the International Labour Office in Geneva concerning freedom of association and protection of the right to organise, and we accept that it is a fundamental right of any worker to decide whether he wants to belong to a union or not. We also accept that every worker should have the right to decide which union he wishes to belong to. Because of the antagonism that was being levelled at the Manx Democratic Workers Union we concentrated on a close examination of their constitution and procedures to see whether they could be accepted as a properly constituted trades union. We questioned others who gave evidence to us on this particular issue and, after careful consideration, we are satisfied that they are carrying out their functions in a proper manner. No-one who has given evidence to us has disagreed with that. There is resentment within the Transport and General Workers Union that they are a breakaway union. Others suggest that they could bring about a break from the U.K. rates of pay. Now we have no desire to take sides in these inter-union arguments and have concentrated our thoughts on whether the Manx Democratic Workers Union are established in such a way as to be recognised by Government as a properly constituted union representing members of the Staff of Government and local authority departments. We are quite satisfied, sir, that they meet this criteria and recommend that all Government departments immediately recognise the Manx Democratic Workers Union as a bona fide trade union. This does not mean that they should automatically have representation on the Manual Workers Whitley Council, so we have considered the constitution of Whitley Council as an entirely separate issue. The functions of Whitley Council for the Isle of Man Public Service Manual Workers are contained in paragraph 7 of their constitution, which states that 'the functions of the Council shall be to secure the largest possible measure of joint consideration and determination of the wages, hours and working conditions of the workers within its scope,' and the definition of 'scope' is given in paragraph 2 of that document — namely, 'the functions of the Council as specified in Clause 7 hereof shall relate to all manual workers in the employment of Boards of Tynwald, Government Departments and local authorities'. Paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 of the original constitution relate to membership, paragraph 3 stating that the Council shall consist of 20 members, ten from the official side and ten from the Trades Union side. Paragraph 5 relates specifically to the Trade Union side and states that it shall consist of seven members to be appointed by the Transport and General Workers Union and three members to be appointed by the National Federation of Construction Unions. Some seven months after Tynwald had approved the constitution of the Manual Workers Whitley Council in 1971 the National Federation of Construction Unions was disbanded, the electricians and plumbers amalgamating to become the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and

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Plumbing Union and they have one seat on Whitley whilst the other two seats have been filled by additional Transport and General Workers Union members. Details of the organisations and individuals who we interviewed are given in our report. Representatives of both the Transport and General Workers Union and the Manx Democratic Workers Union were, at their request, given second interviews. Many useful suggestions were made by those who gave evidence and we have given careful consideration to all the points put to us. Naturally there are conflicting viewpoints — for example, it was suggested to us that the Trades Council should select the Trades Union members of Whitley, but the two officials from that body who eventually came to see us rejected that idea completely and gave it as their opinion that Government should set up the constitution. It was suggested by more than one person that staff representation should be on a department basis and should represent all staff in a department, whether union members or not. After considering the number of departments and the various unions represented in some departments, we decided this was not a practical approach to the problem and rejected it. However, we do accept the principle that the staff representatives should cover as wide a spectrum of the work force as possible. The two representatives from the Transport and General Workers Union who paid the second visit to the committee had many useful suggestions to make, some of which we have incorporated in our report. They suggested that one of the staff representatives should act as secretary to the trade union side with less involvement by the district officer of the Transport and General Workers Union, who would not be a member of the trade union side and would not attend the meetings unless requested to do so in a consultative role. They suggested that an executive committee should be formed, comprising two or three members from each side, the secretary of the official side being the secretary to this committee. This executive committee would consider matters before placing them before the full council for a decision. Now we have not specifically recommended the formation of such an executive committee, but we do recommend a reduction in the quorum of the council to six — three voting members of each side; at present, sir, it is ten — five from each side. Now in the paragraph in the report dealing with this a typing error has crept in; in paragraph 5.5 a corregenda was sent out but instead of the council, it was the quorum of 'the 'committee' that has been printed and that should be read as `council'. By reducing the quorum to three from each side it will allow the council the freedom to operate with smaller numbers and by changing the membership of the suggested smaller body departmental matters can be considered without recourse to meetings of the whole Council. We have made provision in our report for the suggestion about the staff side secretary. Certain other suggestions that were made to us we do not consider were matters that we should comment on, but we consider they are matters which should be referred to the official side of Whitley so that they can be considered within that body. It was suggested from two different sources that the E.E.T.P.U., should have two representatives on the Whitley Council, but having examined their total membership in the employ of Government Departments and Douglas Corporation, we are satisfied that they are fairly represented with the one member they have at present. Nevertheless, we are aware of the need to have adequate representation from craftsmen, and therefore we have recommended that two of the seven representatives from the Transport and General Workers Union should be tradesmen

Whitley Council Constitution for the Isle of Man Public Service (Manual Workers) — Debate Commenced T1524 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 registered with the Building Trades Council. As the Manual Workers' Whitley Council also covers local authority employees it is appropriate that they should have a representative. There are about 300 manual workers employed by local authorities, about two-thirds of whom are employed by Douglas Corporation. Now almost certainly the representative will come from the Douglas Corporation and will be a member of the Transport and General Workers Union, which will give them eight of the ten representatives on the staff side. Now we have come to the claim of the Manx Democratic Workers Union for a seat on Whitley. In an interview on Manx Radio a few months ago a well-known and local trade union official said, 'We live in a democracy and surely people have the right to join a democratically established trade union'. Now we, as a committee, sir, agree entirely with that opinion. As I have already explained, we are satisfied that the Manx Democratic Workers Union are a democratically established trades union and should be recognised by Government as such. We have been made aware that the present trade union side of Whitley have said they would not progress any matter put forward by the Manx Democratic Workers Union or represent their views at Whitley Council. We are further satisfied that the Manx Democratic Workers Union represent the sufficient number of Government and local authority manual workers to warrant their views being represented at Whitley Council, and we recommend that they should appoint one representative from a Government department who is a member of their union. Now paragraph 5.6 of our report deals with decisions of the Council and is a repeat of the present constitution. Paragraph 5.7 relates to reports to Tynwald. The paragraph in the present constitution reads as follows, 'The Lieutenant-Governor shall, from time to time and not less frequently than quarterly, lay before Tynwald a report of the decisions of the Council'. Quite obviously this has not been complied with and we are recommending a change that the 'Lieutenant-Governor' should be replaced by the 'Governor in Council' and the reports to Tynwald should be not less frequently than yearly, but we do insist that they should be made to ensure that Tynwald is kept informed of decisions of Whitley Council. Paragraph 5.8 of our report deals with arbitration and is the same in principle as the present paragraph. The order of wording has been slightly altered. Paragraph 5.9 of the report deals with future amendment of the constitution. The first sub-paragraph is the same in principle as at present. The second sub- paragraph is new and allows for amendments to be made by the Governor in Council following recommendations made by a Tynwald committee appointed to examine the constitution. In both cases the approval of Tynwald is necessary before alterations are made. Now since our report was published Press statements have been made by the Transport and General Workers Union, the Manx Democratic Workers Union and the Isle of Man Trades Council. The statement of the President of the Trades Council, which was published in last week's 'Courier', is very significant. Having explained his reasons for not wishing to get involved at the beginning of our enquiry he says, `It is true to say that we are conscious of the fact that to totally oppose the formation of the Manx Democratic Workers Union would be to fly in the face of International Labour Convention and European declarations on human rights which the Labour movement on this Island is striving for. One condition of such rights is the freedom of the individual to join or form an organisation of his choice

Whitley Council Constitution for the Isle of Man Public Service (Manual Workers) — Debate Commenced TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1525

and the right to be recognised'. He also points out that it is not a requisite for an employee's organisation to be affiliated to the Trades Union Council or the Isle of Man Trades Council to be recognised by an employer and concludes his statement with these words: 'Consequently, in the light of all these facts, it is accepted by the Trades Council and its affiliates that this is the problem of Tynwald, whose decision will resolve this matter hopefully to the satisfaction of all concerned, not least the workpeople under the sphere of Whitley Council conditions of employment who, despite this controversy, are working in their jobs harmoniously without regard for whatever union each individual is a member of'. Now although we as a committee, sir, are unanimous in our belief that the constitution should be amended in line with our recommendations we are conscious of the fact that it is preferable for both sides to agree to these amendments and, for that reason, in paragraph 5.10 of our report we are recommending that Whitley Council should be given a period of four months to try and reach agreement. Failing that, and in the knowledge that Tynwald has the final say on this issue, if agreement has not been reached, by that time then we are recommending that Executive Council will place the suggested amendments to the constitution before Tynwald for consideration. The recommendation in paragraph 6.1 of our report has nothing at all to do with the constitution of Whitley Council. It simply recognises that the Manx Democratic Workers Union is a bona fide trade union which has been democratically established and is operating in a correct way. We have not the slightest doubt that they are a bona fide trade union which should be recognised as such by all Government departments and we are recommending immediate acceptance of this fact. I beg to move the resolution standing in my name, sir.

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, I beg to second and reserve my remarks.

Mr. Gilbey: Your Excellency, last Friday morning the members of the official side of Whitley Council met to consider their reaction to and policy on this resolution, and I am most grateful to them for coming together at such short notice and at times that were inconvenient for many of them. Unfortunately Mr. Maddrell, the hon. member for Onchan, although he would like to have attended, was not able to do so. The members had the benefit of a memorandum from their secretary which had been circulated in advance, and they made three outlined decisions regarding this debate. The first one was that except for an explanatory statement by me as chairman, we should endeavour not to take part in the debate or vote on it. The main reason for this was to maintain our future independent negotiating position as one side • of Whitley Council. Indeed, we regarded taking part in detail in this debate as putting us in much the same position as members of a Planning Committee would be if they took part in a debate in this hon. Court on a planning matter. The second reason was out of deference to the trade union side. Very often both • sides have agreed in recent years that it was wrong to make public statements in anticipation of matters to be discussed in the Council, and indeed I think Mr. Kneale himself has mentioned statements that have been made. I personally very much take the view that when you are discussing industrial relations it is much better to do so in private than through or with the assistance of the media, whether of Press or radio.

Whitley Council Constitution for the Isle of Man Public Service (Manual Workers) — Debate Commenced T1526 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY ,14th JULY, 1987

The second decision we made was that we should ask all other members of Tynwald to be kind enough to express their views on this very important matter as fully as possible so that we would have the benefit of those views and be able to take them very fully into account in future discussions within the Council. The third decision we came to was that we were concerned that there should be flexibility about some of the smaller and more minor recommendations in this report before this hon. Court. I am not referring to major matters of principle but smaller matters such as, to give an example of one which cannot be controversial between the members of Whitley Council, as to whether reports should come to this hon. Court. We took the view that in fact this was rather contrary to a decision of Executive Council itself recently which said the system of reporting by boards and departments of Government should end. Another non-controversial one was that decisions should be approved by the Council of Ministers rather than His Excellency before they were put into effect. In fact, for as long as the secretary can remember, decisions have been put into effect immediately as agreed by the two sides, and I think both sides had overlooked that any further permission was required, and whether another party should be brought in could be saki to be a matter of doubt. Now for these reasons we felt that it would be better, had this hon. Court merely approved the summary of recommendations, 6.1 to 6.2, rather than every single recommendation from 5.1 to 5.9. We therefore ask the Chief Minister and Executive Council if an amendment could be arranged to bring that about, effectively by saying that the report would be received and recommendations 6.1 and 6.2 contained therein and be received. Unfortunately this matter was decided by the Council of Ministers this morning and they decided not to support such an amendment. The Official Side only learnt of this — or only some of them learnt of it — at 10.15 this morning, and of course there has been no time to have a meeting of the Official Side to consider this matter, because over lunch most hon. members will be engaged with meetings about Peel and other matters. Furthermore, of course, some members of the Official Side are not members of Tynwald but of Douglas Corporation and as representatives of local authorities. If there had been time to have a meeting of the official side to consider this, they could have decided — and I say 'could have' — that such an amendment might be moved by a member of the Official Side. I personally feel that it is best not to do this and thus not get involved further in the debate. Instead, it seems to me best for the official side to leave the resolution as it is. However, if it is passed — and I certainly would not wish to prejudge this issue in any way — I think it would be appropriate for the Official Side to ask the chairman and our members of the committee of this hon. Court to attend a meeting of the full Whitley Council to present and fully explain their detailed proposals, thus keeping the freedom of independence of the Official Side until the Council meets as a whole, because I would stress that I do believe the views of all members of the Official Side are that they should retain their independence to consider this matter as one side of Whitley Council negotiating with the other, but of course very much taking into account the views expressed in the debate and the decisions reached in it. Thank you very much, Your Excellency.

The Governor: Hon. members, as we agreed earlier in the day, I propose that

Whitley Council Constitution for the Isle of Man Public Service (Manual Workers) — Debate Commenced TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1527 we break now for a slightly longer tea break than usual, meeting again at half past four to hear petitions, after which we will return to this debate. The first to speak will be the junior member for Douglas East.

The Speaker: A point of order, Your Excellency. Has the hon. member for Glenfaba moved deferment of the resolution?

The Governor: No.

The Speaker: Thank you, Your Excellency.

The Governor: The Court will adjourn.

The Court adjourned at 4.02 p.m.

PETITION OF THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND BURGESSES OF THE BOROUGH OF DOUGLAS TO BORROW A SUM FOR THE REPLACEMENT OF WINDOWS AT SPRING VALLEY ESTATE, DOUGLAS — APPROVED

The Governor: Hon. members we turn to the petitions, item 34, and I call on the Minister for Local Government and the Environment.

Mr. Delaney: Your Excellency, with respect to the petition of the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Douglas for authority to borrow £55,000, repayable within 20 years, to defray the cost of replacement windows at 26 dwellings at Spring Valley Estate, Douglas, being Phase II of a scheme. I beg to move:

That the prayer of the petition be and the same is hereby granted.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

PETITION OF THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND BURGESSES OF THE BOROUGH OF DOUGLAS TO BORROW A SUM FOR DRAUGHT-PROOFING ETC. AT PULROSE ESTATE, DOUGLAS — APPROVED

The Governor: Item 35. I call upon the Minister for Local Government and the Environment.

Petition of the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Douglas to Borrow a Sum for the Replacement of Windows at Spring Valley Estate, Douglas — Approved Petition of the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Douglas to Borrow a Sum for Draught-Proofing Etc. at Pulrose Estate, Douglas - Approved T1528 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

Mr. Delaney: Your Excellency, in respect of the petition of the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Douglas for authority to borrow £46,000, repayable within five years, to defray the cost of cavity fill and external door draught proofing in 196 dwellings on the Pulrose Estate being Phase II of the scheme. I beg to move:

That the prayer of the petition be and the same is hereby granted.

The petition relates to the second and final phase of a scheme for 196 of the 250 dwellings on the lower Pulrose estate, the first phase of which was approved in 1986. The unit cost of proposed works is £234. As intended, works will provide much needed insulation and to a lesser degree sound proofing for properties which, I am sure members will agree, is much more needed to meet current housing standards, an issue which has been debated frequently in recent weeks in this hon. House and other places. Unfortunately, the proposed works exceed the amount allowed for in the Corporation's estimates by £6,750. Despite this excess, Treasury Board concurrence has been obtained for this item and the Department of Local Government and the Environment is convinced that these works are necessary. I myself, Your Excellency, before this petition arrived, had the opportunity, under the guidance of the Borough Engineer and one of the councillors for this particular area, to visit these properties and I can assure you, Your Excellency, and the hon. members of this Court, this work is much needed, but it has recently come to the notice of my department that certain statements have been made in relation to these 250 dwellings, and I have had to seek assurance from Douglas Corporation, the chairman of the committee concerned with the estates and also with the Town Clerk that there is no intention on behalf of the Corporation to demolish these properties within the next 15 years. Statements have been made that after the expenditure of £5,000-odd pounds on each property it is practical to demolish these properties in the near future and re-house the tenants. That is misleading the people who have to live in these properties, it is misleading them in several avenues, Your Excellency, particularly in relation to what is the plan for Douglas Corporation and my department in relation to housing. I feel that to put these people under some illusion that they are going to get new houses provided in the next five, ten years, Your Excellency, is totally wrong. I think they have been misled and I should say that publicly, so they know that we are going to do our best to make the facilities in the properties in which they live of the highest standards possible at the most economic cost, but it is not the policy to knock down those 250 dwellings in the near future and, having said that, I beg to move the resolution standing in my name.

Mr. Gilbey: I beg to second.

Mr. Duggan: This is my constituency, Your Excellency, and there is a lot of concern regarding these houses, sir. Quite a number of years ago when I was in the council, I had a lot of public meetings over these houses and my own personal view, sir, at that time was that as the houses were only prefabricated and would last 10 to 15 years when they were originally built — they have stayed up for 60 years and I said in the long-term, Your Excellency, that to refurbish them was to put the day off, because, as you will find out in four or five years time, sir, there will be complaints. The best we could get out of the council and the Local

Petition of the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Douglas to Borrow a Sum for Draught-Proofing Etc. at Pulrose Estate, Douglas - Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1529

Government Board at the time was refurbishment. It has improved the houses to an extent, Your Excellency, but I must tell the Court, never mind what Mr. Delaney says, there are still many complaints about these houses. (Mr. Cretney: Hear, hear.) I was summoned last night to a meeting to attend the Tenants Association in Pulrose, and they were adamant that something must be done regarding even possible demolition of houses and to re-build in the long-term. They do not expect it to be done overnight, but the concern of my constituents, Your Excellency, is asbestos. The houses are all built with asbestos cladding inside and it is a fear that it could be detrimental and hazardous to their health. Another point, Your Excellency — quite a lot of the bedrooms in these houses are suffering from porous roofs and you are getting dampness in from the ceilings, so what I am saying is, Your Excellency, though I tend to support the petition, in the long-term I do not think these houses are going to last much longer. As my colleague, Mr. Cretney behind me, no doubt would substantiate, there is a lot of concern. Tomorrow evening, sir, at 8 o'clock Mr. Delaney can come along; there is a public meeting been arranged by the Tenants Association, not by myself; I have been asked to come along as an M.H.K. along with Mr. Cretney to our constituency. There is alarm, there is concern, sir, and there are problems with the houses, rest assured.

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, I am going to support the petition this afternoon, but I am afraid that serious doubt must come into being as to whether or not this work would have been necessary if, in the first instance, the work had been properly supervised. I, on many an occasion in Douglas Town Council, did complain about the state of the workmanship and it is on record for all to see, but I do feel even to this day there is work not being carried out of which I have a letter and documentation and told whenever I went round with the Borough Surveyor and Engineer to have this work done. That work is still not done; that is some two or three years ago, and it is still not completed and I always said some day I will hold on to these letters and this list of works and some day it might just come in useful, so I still have it. You can go into some of these houses after the builder's work had been approved by the officials of Douglas Corporation, that heads had not been completed in windows, there was gaps underneath the windows. If all this work had been done in the first instance you would not have to be spending this kind of money on doing exactly what you are doing today. So I feel for future developments that the Local Government Board are going to have to supervise or in some way insist certain things are laid down to ensure that these dwellings are refurbished in a proper and sensible manner.

Mr. Brown: Your Excellency, just really commenting from what the last speaker has just said about the Local Government or the D.L.G. are going to have to supervise, with respect, that is the responsibility quite clearly of the Douglas Corporation and I would suggest that in fact supervision now is better than it used to be and in fact I think we have to be very careful of the inference that is given within this hon. Court that jobs are not being done well, because if they are not being done well we should not approve this petition. That is the first thing. But I do believe that this money is being well spent and we should clearly define in this hon. Court — because many times this comes up — whose responsibility it is to

Petition of the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Douglas to Borrow a Sum for Draught-Proofing Etc. at Pulrose Estate, Douglas - Approved T1530 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 maintain and look after the houses, and while there is support from the D.L.G., at officer level and may be political level, it is quite clearly defined whose responsibility it is to carry out these contracts and to ensure that they are done to a high standard, and that is not this Court's duty.

Mr. May: Your Excellency, I must go along with the hon. mover's sentiments on this, that unfortunately there were problems with these houses when they were initially refurbished. I think this particular estate was the first major exercise in refurbishment of local authority properties and there is no doubt about it whatsoever that there were mistakes made at the outside. The job possibly was not done to standard, it was not done to satisfaction, but I will say that the jobs that are being carried out at the present point in time, as far as I can see, are being carried out competently, efficiently and they are certainly improving the environment of the tenants who live in those properties. I think one of the major problems with Pulrose was a political decision that was taken at the time as to whether indeed that estate should have been refurbished or whether it should have been absolutely flattened and re-built. Personally, I would have preferred, I think, the latter, but it is no good looking at things in retrospect. We have to live with the situation that there is there today and I can say no more than I support this petition that is before us this afternoon.

Mr. Cretney: Very briefly, sir, I will also be supporting what is on the Agenda in front us and, as the hon. member in front of me, my colleague for South Douglas has stated, there is concern in that area and the refurbishment job that was originally completed is not satisfactory. People still have problems with it and at no stage has it ever been indicated or suggested that we would wish to see the houses demolished and re-built overnight. I think in the longer term that situation is going to have to be faced and it is going to have to be faced realistically by the Corporation who will have to come up and put forward proposals to the department in the longer term, because there is no doubt that the work and the standard of work and the standard of living conditions is not of a satisfactory condition, and I will finish at that, sir.

The Governor: I call on the minister to reply.

Mr. Delaney: You see, sir, why I needed this particular item moved to clear the air. First of all you will spot our deliberate mistake on the petition! You will see that draught is spelt d-r-a-u-g-h-t. (Laughter) I wonder where they are going to put the keg! Your Excellency, can I turn to the members and the idea, Your Excellency, is to make sure that those good people living in old Pulrose — I have known it all my life — are not kidded along the path where they have been kidded on many occasions, promising pie in the sky and not happening. The refurbishment, which was well overdue when it was carried out, was done to the specifications — and I have no doubt because I have spent some time on this — that were laid down. I am aware that even the engineer of the town at the time, I believe, Your Excellency, thought it was proper to demolish, but it was a political decision of Douglas Corporation who Mr. Brown has stated quite clearly are responsible for the tenants of their properties and they can no longer go on pointing the finger, when it is

Petition of the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Douglas to Borrow a Sum for Draught-Proofing Etc. at Pulrose Estate, Douglas - Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 11531

convenient, at the Local Government Department and saying it is their fault. If they want to be local councils and authorities who I believe have a right to look after their own people, they must take all the responsibility where they seek it and they cannot take the opportune time to just point the finger at us when something goes wrong and say it is us, and I want that spelt out clear for the future and the ministers that come after me, sir. As far as Mr. May is concerned, I thank him for his support and he has spelt out the situation as well. I believe he was on the council at the time when this was done, so he will know the history of it as I do. Mr. Cretney and Mr. Duggan - of course, they are representing the people of that area, but they will be the first ' to admit I know probably as many people in that estate as they do and I have probably handled, over my time in politics, as many problems from that estate as they have done, sir. The fact of it is I know the problems that are facing them, I went down there and I saw the difficulties, but you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Those houses were bad at the time and we have spent a lot of money trying to just bring them up to a living standard, and I think that has been achieved — not a high standard but a standard, and I do not think that is acceptable either, but as long as the people there — and Mr. May spelt it out and now we have also Mr. Cretney who spelt it out — it will not be done in the next two or three years. So what we have got to do is, where we find a fault down there, try and rectify it and I hope that this the policy — I know it is the policy — of the Corporation and I will be receiving a letter which has been sent to me by the Town Clerk emphasising that point, sir. I thank the members for their support.

The Governor: Hon. members, I will put to you the motion at item 35 of the Agenda in the name of the Minister for Local Government and the Environment. Will hon. members in favour say aye; those against say no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it.

PETITION OF THE CASTLETOWN TOWN COMMISSIONERS TO BORROW A SUM FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF A CIVIC CENTRE IN FARRANT'S WAY CASTLETOWN — APPROVED

The Governor: Item 36. I call upon the Minister for Local Government and the Environment.

Mr. Delaney: Your Excellency, in respect of the petition of the Castletown Town Commissioners for authority to borrow £150,000, repayable within 25 years, to defray the cost of constructing a new civic centre in Farrant's Way, Castletown. I beg to move:

That the prayer of the petition be and the same is hereby granted.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

Petition of the Castletown Town Commissioners to Borrow A Sum for the Construction of a Civic Centre in Farrant's Way Castletown — Approved T1532 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

The Governor: That completes the petitions.

WHITLEY COUNCIL CONSTITUTION FOR THE ISLE OF MAN PUBLIC SERVICE (MANUAL WORKERS) — DEBATE CONCLUDED — REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF EXECUTIVE COUNCIL APPROVED

The Governor: We revert, hon. members, to item 30 of the Agenda where the opening speech has been made and it has been seconded. I think, Mr. Kermode, you caught my eye?

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, I was not going to comment or to say a word — the fact is that I am on this committee and the report has been presented to this hon. Court — but in view of the chairman, who seemed to put a great store in his opening remarks on the fact that, as a result of his amendments to my resolution, this committee was formed, I would like to point out without my original resolution he would not have been able to make his amendment, but I put forward that resolution simply because it was a matter of democracy, the right of every Manxman or Manxwoman to become a member or affiliated to any union which they so wish and I hope, members, you will support that report.

The Governor: Does any hon. member wish to speak on item 30? Then I call on the minister and the Chairman of the Whitley Council to reply.

Mr. Kneale: Your Excellency, the remarks of the hon. member for Glenfaba rather intrigued me. He started off by saying that the members of Whitley Council had agreed not to take part or vote in the debate and they have left the room at the moment. He then goes on to tell people, virtually hint, what they should do with the report and what not to do and admits that he has been going round trying to get somebody to move an amendment that he would have liked to move. Now I find this all wrong and intriguing, and I would suggest to the members of this Court that this matter has dragged on for years without anybody making a decision on it, we should not be talking about receiving or anything like that; we should approve the report as put before you. The matter — it leaves it open for Whitley Council, both sides, to get together and see if they can themselves reach agreement on the recommendations that we are putting forward and only then should we, as a Court, deal with the final recommendations. But the recommendation that the unions should be recognised immediately as a bona fide trade union — that is a matter that should take immediate effect, and I beg to move, sir.

The Governor: Hon. members, I will put to you the motion standing in the name of the Chairman of the Committee of Executive Council at item 30. Will hon. members in favour say aye; those against say no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it.

Whitley Council Constitution for the Isle of Man Public Service (Manual Workers) — Debate Concluded — Report of the Committee of Executive Council Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1533

PEEL — PLANNED DEVELOPMENT OF MAJOR COMPLEX - STATEMENT BY MR. DELANEY

The Governor: Now, hon. members, I have been persuaded to permit Mr. Delaney to make a statement while there are various counsels present on the subject of the Peel petition which, as you know, has been exercising members of this Court on an off throughout the day. I now call upon Mr. Delaney to make that statement.

Mr. Delaney: Your Excellency, I am must indebted to you, sir, for the kind permission that has been given to me. Members are aware that my department has been petitioned by Peel Town Commissioners for authority to convey a certain parcel of land in the area they represent to an American company for the planned development of a major complex. The purpose of petitioning the department is quite evident, quite clear: to ensure that the ratepayers of Peel and the people of Peel are protected — a secondary chance, if you want, for someone to look at their decision. I believe that the Peel Commissioners unanimously have supported the petition. I believe that the people of Peel, the majority, are supporting it, but the petition itself has left my department with a bit of a quandary. I had promised and hoped to get the petition to this hon. Court this afternoon because I believe the courage being shown by Peel Commissioners and the intention of Peel Commissioners is right and proper, but certain parts of the contract that would come valid if I was to pass that resolution this afternoon automatically, I think, need to be looked at; small amendments need to be made to protect the ratepayers of Peel. To that end I want to stand this afternoon and make the following statement: that my department and, I hope, Tynwald fully supports the potential building of a major complex in Peel as envisaged. My department has given an undertaking to the legal adviser to Peel Commissioners that if I make this statement this afternoon, by 15th August I can draw back, which is my want and my department's right, the petition, because it is envisages a peppercorn payment for such parcel and plots of land in Peel. The original idea was to bring it to Tynwald Court so a huge concern, a huge item like this, can be debated freely, but as the timing is crucial to the developers and crucial to the Peel Town Commissioners to move to the next step, I am going to write to the company concerned the following letter: Dear Sir, Proposed hotel development, 15 acres Peel headland area. At the Tynwald Court on 14th July, 1987, I made a statement in respect of the above proposed development. I can now give an undertaking that my department will make a decision on the sale by the commissioners to Island Resort Hotels (Isle of Man) Ltd. before the end of August 1987. This decision will take account of a satisfactory resolution to the minor alterations requested on the form of the agreement together with the submission of an application for planning approval in principle. I would like to inform you at this stage that Tynwald is the highest Court in the land and, having made such a statement in front of that forum, it need hardly be stated that at this moment I support the scheme as envisaged. I think, Your Excellency, members will understand that letter is to show good intent. It is to show that we mean and we are hopeful that the people of Peel and the Commissioners of Peel will achieve the objective of getting a major development in that area. Having said that, Your Excellency, I thank you once again for the

Peel — Planned Development of Major Complex — Statement by Mr. Delaney T1534 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 opportunity to make this statement and I will so transmit that letter to the developer.

BILLS FOR SIGNATURE — REQUISITE SIGNATURES OBTAINED

The Governor: Hon. members, the following Bills have been signed by a quorum of both branches: the Church Bill, the Administration of Estates Bill and the Recognition of Divorces Bill. You may also care to note that the findings of the Standing Orders Committee are before you and I think hon. members have received the report and the petitions presented to Tynwald should lie upon the table hereafter.

PRINTING COMMITTEE OF TYNWALD — DISCHARGE - TRANSFER OF FUNCTIONS — APPROVED

The Governor: Item 31, the Printing Committee of Tynwald. I call upon the hon. Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That the Printing Committee of Tynwald be discharged and that -

(1) its duties in respect of —

(a) services to members of the Legislature (including the Central Reference Library); and

(b) the editing and general production of legislative papers (including Bills, Acts, Agendas, Votes and Proceedings, the Official Report and reports),

being proper to legislative government, be exercisable by the Management Committee of Tynwald (a joint committee); and

(2) all its other duties, being proper to executive government, be exercisable by the Treasury.

I beg to formally move this resolution, sir, which appears at the suggestion of the Treasury Minister, and I would make it clear that in item (b) that includes the Reprographic Department.

Mr. Cannan: I beg to second, sir.

The Governor: Does any hon. member wish to speak? There therefore can be no reply. I will put to you...

Bills for Signature — Requisite Signatures Obtained Printing Committee of Tynwald — Discharge — Transfer of Functions — Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1535

The Speaker: Your Excellency, with permission, if I may follow the hon. seconder, I just want to point out, Your Excellency, that on occasion Tynwald goes about its business in mysterious ways. You have had a Printing Committee since 1964 and then, on impulse, we suddenly found that the Tynwald Committee's responsibilities were transferred to the Treasury — out of the blue, just like that. The Treasury then found that, frankly, they were no responsibility of theirs and hence we have the resolution this afternoon, which really puts the position back into perspective once again and restores not quite the status quo but certainly divides the responsibilities in an appropriate manner. So, Your Excellency, I welcome the opportunity of putting forward the resolution, but I would say to Tynwald sometimes you act most mysteriously and without much concern for the matters you are discussing.

The Governor: Well, now that was your reply, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker: It is indeed, sir!

The Governor: So I am afraid, Mr. Cannan, you are out of order. (Laughter) I will put to you, hon. members, the motion standing in the name of the hon. Mr. Speaker at item 31. Will hon. members in favour say aye; those against say no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it.

SCHOOLCHILDREN — TRANSPORTATION ARRANGEMENTS - APPROVED

The Governor: Item 32, Transportation of Schoolchildren. I call on the hon. member for Ayre.

Mr. Quine: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

Whereas —

(a) the parent of every child aged between five and 16 years is under a duty in terms of Section 66 of the Education Act 1949 to cause such child to receive a full-time education by regular attendance at school or otherwise;

(b) arrangements for the transportation of pupils may be made by the Board of Education in terms of Section 87(1) of the Education Act 1949 and the board, with the concurrence of the Governor in Council, may determine the charge to be made for the use of such transport by such pupils;

(c) the board has accordingly determined that with effect from September 1986 every such pupil shall pay a single overall charge of 10p for a journey to and from school regardless of the distance

Schoolchildren — Transportation Arrangements — Approved T1536 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

travelled; and

(d) having regard to the basic principles of compulsory free education, it is necessary to ensure that all persons in receipt of such education be treated equally and have equal opportunities.

Now therefore Tynwald is of opinion that —

(1) the board should continue to make arrangements for the provision of transport for the purpose of facilitating the attendances of pupils at schools or county colleges or at any course or class provided in pursuance of a scheme of further education in force;

(2) no such transport need be so provided.in respect of any portion of such pupil's journey between his or her place of residence and the nearest appropriate place of education which is both a reasonable walking distance and either —

(a) the shortest practical distance between such places; or (b) the shortest practical distance between his or her place of residence and the nearest point at which he or she can board or alight from normally available transport to and from such place of education; and

(3) the cost of providing transport in accordance with paragraph (1) should be met wholly out of moneys provided by Government.

And Tynwald requests Executive Council to give urgent consideration to the implementation of school transport arrangements which embody the foregoing principles and which have regard to the transport and manpower presently employed in providing for the transportation of children to and from school.

The essence of this resolution is that the Government should provide transport for the conveyance of pupils to and from schools and colleges and that no charge should be levied for the use of such transport provided, there should be no duty on Goverment to provide such transport where the pupil lives within a reasonable walking distance from either the school or college or the point where the pupil boards or alights from such transport to be taken to and from school or college. The resolution is primarily concerned with establishing the principle or, as some may view it, as re-establishing the principle that compulsory free education And indeed further education places an obligation on Government to convey pupils to and from schools and colleges free of charge subject to the reasonable walking distance qualification to which I have referred. Education and further education should be no less free, if it may described in such terms, to some pupils than to adults. The resolution does not specify what is considered to be a reasonable walking distance for the precise information on which to determine such criteria is not readily available. The resolution, if approved, would have Executive Council prepare a scheme

Schoolchildren — Transportation Arrangements — Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1537 embodying the principles detailed in the resolution. The only identifiable additional cost would be the loss of the present 10p fares, a sum of £100,000 per annum. Hon. members, I trust this explains in somewhat more lucid terms what the resolution involves. Compulsory free education for children between five and 15 years was introduced just after the Second World War and the position was regularised, so to speak, in the Education Act 1949. Section 66 of that enactment read: `It shall be the duty of the parent of every child of compulsory school age to cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable to his age, ability and aptitude either by regular attendances at school or otherwise.' Of course, hon. members, as you are aware, the compulsory school age is now 16. Section 69 of the same enactment made it an offence for a parent to fall short in his duty imposed by Section 66. Furthermore, in regard to the issue of school transport it provided that it would be a defence to any such charge where the parent proved that the child was not within walking distance and that the education authority or board had made no suitable arrangements to convey the child to school. Subsection (5) of Section 69 provided that 'walking distance' means, in relation to a child (a) who has not attained the age of six years, one half of a mile; (b) who has attained the age of six years but not attained the age of seven years, one mile; (c) who has attained the age of seven years but not attained the age of eight years, two miles; and (d) in the case of any other child, three miles. Under Section 87 of the Education Act 1949, an obligation was placed on the Education Authority to provide school transport. This section read: 'The authority shall make such arrangements for the provision of transport and otherwise as they consider necessary or as the board may direct for the purpose of facilitating the attendance of pupils at schools and county colleges or at any course or class provided in pursuance of a scheme of further education in force and any transport provided in pursuance of such arrangements shall be provided free of charge. The authority may pay the reasonable travelling expenses of any pupil in attendance at any school or county college or at any such course or class as aforesaid for whose transport no arrangements are made under this section'. So it went further than just requiring the provision of transport or school buses; it went as far as to say that, if school buses were not provided and the walking distance was as stipulated, they would even pay the cost of separate transport to get the child to school. Hon. members, it was established in 1949, when compulsory free education was introduced, that the Government was under a legal duty either to provide free transport or to pay the travelling expenses of every child of compulsory school age who lives or lived beyond walking distance. The principle was established and it was given effect in law. It is interesting to reflect, hon. members, that the Education Act 1949 imposed a somewhat greater burden by way of definition of 'walking distance' on the Manx Government than the comparable English Act imposed on local education authorities. I do not find this surprising for, in general, Manx legislators adopt a more compassionate view of social issues. Alas, in this instance, the British Government has maintained its commitment to free transport and we have abandoned it. The situation as reflected in the Education Act of 1949 continued until the Education Bill of 1985 and later 1986 came before the branches of the Legislature.

Schoolchildren — Transportation Arrangements — Approved T1538 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

Although not part of the Education Bill 1986 as originally drafted and published, an amendment to Section 87 was moved, whereby the existing subsection (1) would be replaced by the following: 'The board may make arrangements for the provision of transport and otherwise for the purpose of facilitating the attendance of pupils at schools or county colleges or at any course or class provided in pursuance of the scheme of further education in force and may make such charges as they, with the concurrence of the Governor in Council, may determine for the use by such pupils of any transport so provided'. There were other consequential amendments, notably the removal of the defence by parents charged with failing to ensure full- time education for their child that they lived out with the specified walking distance and that no transport had been provided by the Board of Education. Hon. members, from the record of the proceedings relating to the amendment to Section 87 it would appear that two major considerations influenced the support which this amendment received at that time: firstly, the desire of the Board of Education to save money, fired by the relatively unhealthy state of Government's finances at that time; secondly, the justifiable criticism that pupils outside the three- mile limit travelled free while those under the three miles — say 2.9 miles, if you wish — were required to pay for their transport. I will revert to these two points later. The issue next raised its head in this hon. Court on 16th July 1986, when the then hon. member for Onchan, Mr. Payne, moved a resolution that no charge should be made for school transport. The debate that ensued extended to the ability of the Passenger Transport Board to cope with the anticipated increase in the number of pupils carried. The resolution was deferred to the sitting of Tynwald in January 1987, but in the event it was not resuscitated, hence my resolution, albeit in somewhat different terminology, to progress this matter. To revert to my resolution and, more specifically, to the considerations central to the earlier debates, I would offer the following observations: firstly, cost. The cost necessarily incurred need not exceed £100,000 representing the money presently accruing from 10p fares. Hon. members, can the principle of free education and equal opportunity be allowed to flounder for so little? Can Government's order of priorities deny this expenditure, for there can be no better investment than education of future generations? Secondly, equality of treatment. I believe this resolution offers equal treatment for all pupils having a reasonable requirement for transport to take them to and from school. Inherent in its terms is the expectation that a pupil living in the country should be expected to walk a reasonable distance to catch his bus and a pupil in the town a reasonable distance to school — variations, if you wish, of the theme. Further, hon. members, having regard to the experience gained under the present fare paying system it is my view that a reasonable walking distance as and when determined in the light of experience of the recent past would be indeed no onerous burden for any student. Thirdly, adequacy of available transport. Essentially this is a non-issue, in that the proper determination of the reasonable walking distance will in itself ensure the adequacy of the transport available to meet the commitment. Hon. members, in truth, equality of treatment of pupils and adequacy of transport are not sufficient grounds for rejecting this resolution, although I fear that some

Schoolchildren — Transportation Arrangements — Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 11539 may grasp at such straws in desperation. Neither, to my mind, is cost an issue, for the reasons that I have already explained. Hon. members, we cannot avoid the real issue which is our commitment or otherwise to compulsory free education and the upholding of equal educational opportunity for all children. Education should not carry a penalty for those children who, by accident of residence, are removed from educational institutions. It is unreasonable that an additional financial burden by way of transport charges should be incurred by the parents of pupils living an unreasonable walking distance from schools and educational institutions. For a family with three children attending school who must travel by school bus, this presently amounts to nearly £60 a year. Together with school meals, the total expenditure for such a family is in the region of £450 to £500 per annum, a considerable penalty for accident of residence. As regards bus fares much was said in earlier debates about deserving parents receiving Government financial assistance. Hon. members, this acknowledged need has in reality not been met for the only help available is limited to families on supplementary benefit or family income supplement, and even then it is limited to a 50 per cent. rebate. The many independent and hard working families who are over those iniquities for supplementary benefit bench marks, however marginally over those bench marks, are left to flounder. Furthermore, hon. members, the social stigma and marginal extent of the financial aid available is in itself a deterrent to those seeking assistance and consequently they do not exercise the option. At the present time only 34 families — and I repeat, 34 families - are receiving assistance by way of rebate of fares. Thus, hon. members, even if Government financial assistance was available beyond the bounds of the supplementary bench marks and involved full rebate, which is not the case, the situation would remain objectionable, for I find it deplorable, hon. members, that an education system should foster social division.

Mr. Kermode: Hear, hear.

Mr. Quine: Hon. members, I find the present situation regarding school transport educationally and socially unacceptable. It is a contradiction in terms to speak of compulsory free education and equal educational opportunity under the present arrangement. Parents who can ill afford it, not least those hard working parents just over the benefit bench marks have an unreasonable and, I would suggest, unwarrantable financial burden to bear. If we are to be honest with ourselves we will admit that the amendment to Section 87 was an act of expediency and a retrograde step and we now have the opportunity to put matters right. Your Excellency, I respectfully move the resolution standing in my name.

Mr. Gilbey: I beg to second and reserve my remarks.

Mr. Cain: Your Excellency, I will not speak for long. I just want to make two points. If I were to be asked to judge the merits of the resolution proposed by the member for Ayre in isolation of everything else I could do nothing but support it. The principle that he has so well enunciated I find difficult to argue against. However, there are two things that worry me and these two things are going to cause me, regretfully, to vote against the resolution that he is proposing.

Schoolchildren — Transport Arrangements — Approved T1540 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

The first point is that if we have £100,000 to spend on education, and let us assume we have, and let us assume that that is the figure that we are talking about in terms of this resolution, is this the first priority? I do not know the answer to that but I find it difficult to deal with it without what I would call a complete picture, a complete educational financial picture. That is the first point. The second point, which related to the first point, is this: I do find it difficult to support a resolution which seeks to bind Executive Council in isolation of other demands on the Government's purse strings in advance of the annual financial and budgetary requirements of Tynwald being clearly set out and agreed, and it is for those reasons, matters of what I would call good financial order and discipline, that lead me regretfully at this stage to propose to vote against the proposal that has been so ably put forward by the member for Ayre.

Mr. Barton: Your Excellency, I rise to support the hon. member for Ayre's motion. I can understand the hon. member for West Douglas' reservations but I think this motion is rather different and does not come in quite the category stated because this was a retrograde step when the transport charge was levied and to some families in the sheading which I represent this meant immediately an addition £3 a week to find out of the family budget. I fully support this motion.

Mr. Kneale: Your Excellency, I find the heading of this resolution - 'Transportation of Schoolchildren' — conjures up some interesting possibilities! We have debated this matter on many occasions and it is in fact only 12 months ago that we had a resolution on school transport and, like this one, it was on the last day before the summer recess. Last year the resolution was deferred until January 1987 when it was overlooked, probably because the previous mover lost his seat at the general election, but it did, however, give some figures which indicated that the cost to the Board of Education for the 1,448 children who at that time were being conveyed free amounted to 51.46 pence per journey, which over a year amounted to nearly £200 per pupil. At that time approximately 1,250 children living within the three-mile limit were paying 10 pence a journey and all those journeys were subsidised. Even though the children living outside the three-mile limit are now paying 10 pence a journey, every journey is subsidised by an average of 41.5 pence. Now although the subsidy for those within the three-mile limit is not as great it is still substantial. There are at present 9,560 children attending the board's schools. If, as is suggested by the resolution before us today, the cost of school transport was met wholly by Government, the majority of them would want to use the buses especially on wet days and the cost to Government would rise rapidly. Now the mover of the resolution has suggested only those living within a reasonable walking distance of the nearest school should have to pay. Now we can argue — what is a reasonable distance? We could argue all night on that but I am sure everybody will agree that no distance is reasonable if it is raining hard. I am sure the Minister of Tourism and Transport will tell the Court that they have not got sufficient buses to carry all the children to school or even a substantial increase on the present numbers. He will also possibly tell you the cost of providing additional buses these days. The education of our children is not being affected by this reasonable charge and provision is made to help the lower paid, and the fact that there are only a few applied for it may indicate that there is not many in that category

Schoolchildren — Transportation Arrangements — Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1541 living outside the three-mile limit. I can quite understand that the hon. member for Ayre has to bring this resolution before Tynwald, having made an issue of it at the election, but it should be obvious to everyone that the present arrangement is treating everyone equally and that, according to his resolution, is what the hon. member wants. Prior to this the people within the three mile limit for a long time were paying more than the tenpenny fare amd the tenpenny fare was introduced when the Transport Committee was made up of a majority of people from the Middle area. That may be overlooked these days. I will certainly be voting against the resolution because it is unrealistic. The hon. member for Ayre makes great play of the cost of transport because of the accident of residence. Now it is because of the accident of residence that I am paying 130 pence in the pound in rates compared to a few pennies in the pound in Ayre and similar areas. Accidents of residence can be introduced to make a case for many, many things, sir.

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, I am going to support the resolution here this afternoon because I feel I have been involved with many of the low-paid families in the Isle of Man, some with three children who have to travel to school, as we have heard — £3 a week. On the wage structure in the Isle of Man some of these low-paid people do have a problem, but I just wonder, in Government, when we talk about paying for transport, I know it sounds... it is different and they do go off on Government business, but how many civil servants get transport allowances? Even us in this hon. Court — we get transport allowances. How many thousands of pounds does that amount to? And here we have our children... and let us be honest, hon. members, there was a time when we had truant officers and if your children were not at school he was round to knock on your door and say, 'Look, you are going to be in court if your kids do not go to school'. That is the law, and I think this Government always... the social responsibilities always go by the board. Anything else that comes along to raise the finance we have no problem. Like I have said before, breakwaters and dams — we always find the money, but when it comes down to our social responsibilities we always forget what they are.

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, I do believe that if we support this resolution this afternoon we will be taking a backward step and not a forward one. The hon. member for Ayre put up a very good case but I think he has left the difficulties for somebody else to iron out. I am a member of a constituency that was half in and half out of the free transport area under the old system, and it was the greatest difficulty explaining to one set of parents who lived just 200 yards the Port Erin side of a bus stop that they went free and to the person who lived the other side of the bus stop that their child had to be paid for. Three miles was the limit in those days and it was regarded that children who lived within three miles of a school were capable of walking to school. I would suggest that that is just impractical. Three miles in this day and age is more than children are expected to walk, rightly or wrongly, but that, I think, is a matter of fact. I do believe that we are going to introduce more anomalies into the situation if we go along this road and approve this resolution today than we had before. I had a family within the village who were in a ridiculous situation where, if the son walked to the bus stop nearer the school, nearer to Castletown, then he was in the three

Schoolchildren — Transportation Arrangements — Approved T1542 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 miles and he had to pay. If in fact he walked to the village stop, where all the other kids were waiting for the bus, then he went free and so he naturally went to where all the kids of the village went, but he was discovered and he was told he was not allowed to do that and his parents were told they had to pay because he should have walked towards Castletown rather than back towards the village — absolute nonsense, inexplicable to those people who are involved and I do believe that if we go along the lines of this resolution then we are going to find more and more of those anomalies, and I would seek to avoid them.

Mr. Quirk: Your Excellency, I support this resolution and I support it because I believe that it is time this very subject was looked at and looked at very closely. I must say that I view the suggestion that it should be all free with a little bit of concern. I feel that is the only way to go about it and yet, at the same time, it is going to cost a lot of money, as other people have said, but then again we must remember that the people who have the children are forced to make their children attend school. This is different from many other cases. This is a case where it is a statutory condition that young people should attend school no matter where they are, so you are putting an extra burden on those people, and sometimes people who are probably just outside the hardship line, to find this particular money to pay this extra cost of sending their child to school. I, unfortunately or fortunately, was particularly close to this sort of situation where some of our children had to pay this sum because of a school closing, and I think this is something that should be discussed in a situation such as Executive Council — and that is why I appeal for this resolution to go forward — because there are so many facets of this transportation situation that it has to be brought out in the open, it has to be discussed. On this particular occasion — and I did connect myself or travel with the kids on this particular occasion — I was delighted, I think, with the way they behaved and performed. I was delighted, too, when we got to our destination, which was the Clothworkers' School, that these children were met by the teachers. Now that is something which I can commend and we can all commend but whether it is a situation that is going to continue I do not know. But to me safety on the buses is the important point and, indeed, if you look at it in that respect we are now using regulations which allow a three by two situation where children can sit three on a seat which is only designed for two, so you have three children up to 16 years who can sit on a seat. Now that means that in a 52-seater bus you can have 78 young people sitting on this particular bus. Now that in itself may be not a dangerous situation, but with the lack of supervision these days I think it is a dangerous situation and this is another point that should be looked at - the supervision of young people on the buses themselves. In fact there have been accidents and I think this can be taken up by probably the Chairman of Tourism and Transport — and I am just taking this opportunity of remarking on this because I think safety is very important — that young people can be let off the bus, providing there is a return journey, on the side they are going to go to their house. There has been two accidents lately in my particular area where children have just got off the bus and run across the road and I think this is a situation that we must look at very, very closely indeed. So, Your Excellency, I believe that there is a discrimination at the present time

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between those who live in the country and those who can get within walking distance of the school. One side has to pay and the other has not. The minority has to pay now for their transport to school while the majority can walk to school. That in itself to me is discrimination, so I hope, Your Excellency, that this resolution will be accepted in the spirit that I think it was intended to look at this transportation system and try to get some factual arrangement which will suit everybody.

Mr. Maddrell: Your Excellency, since 1971 as a commissioner, since 1981 as a member of this House I have fought for a very simple thing in the Isle of Man, and that was equality on the buses for schoolchildren. When we got it I was highly satisfied for the people of Onchan who, most of them, are inside the three-mile limit. We had the stupidity in Onchan of a street or a road where the people on this side went free and the people on that side had to pay, and they both went to the same bus stop to get on the same bus! That is what causes animosity against Governments; that was what was wrong. I cannot support the mover of the resolution because I do not think the dust has even died down yet of what we actually got when we got equality and parity and I am sticking to parity and let it settle down. We have people in Onchan who have three children and are paying quite a substantial amount of money for bus fares and paying for school meals because you do not want to bring them home. I am quite well aware of all the problems, but I am not prepared to support it at this point in time.

Mr. Bell: Your Excellency, when the debate too place last year in relation to imposing an overall charge on all children travelling to school I supported it, not necessarily because I want to see everyone pay but I think, as the hon. Chief Minister himself mentioned, it was the first chance to start the clear up some of the anomalies in the system and I still believe, having said all that, that the greatest cause of criticism of what we were doing was in fact the anomalies which remained in the system, not the fact that the charge was put on it. Now the hon. mover of this resolution has identified a cost of this exercise as being £100,000. I would say to the hon. mover that his attitude is simplistic in the extreme if he thinks that it is only going to cost £100,000 to achieve this end. I am sure the hon. member has done his homework but if he will realise that the major problem, certainly within Passenger Transport, is not in fact the loss of £100,000 which can be, with the support of Treasury underwritten by Treasury, it is quite simply a logistical problem within our resources. At the moment we have two peak times during the day: one is the morning with the school buses going to school and one in the evening taking them home again. We are at absolutely full stretch at that period. Members in the South, especially in the Castletown area, may remember last year when there was a problem at Castle Rushen where the teachers were pushing very, very hard to get an extra service to the school to take the schoolchildren home. It took us some three or four months of re-scheduling the buses to ultimately release one bus which would give them that extra service they demanded. Now ultimately we were able to do it, but it was marginally at the cost of the general user of the bus services on the Island. There is no question whatsoever, Your Excellency, if this resolution goes through today it is going to cause considerable difficulties for Passenger Transport and I

Schoolchildren — Transportation Arrangements — Approved T1544 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 have to say here quite categorically now that if hon. members vote for this today and it goes through, you are going to have to live with the consequences, and the consequences will be overcrowded buses, it will be a reduction in service to the general public, it will be ultimately, if you wish it to be carried through, a very substantial capital scheme coming forward in the next couple of years for new buses for Passenger Transport; this is really where your cost is coming from. Now I am not scaremongering or anything like this, I am quite happy to accept the decision at the end of this day, but you must realise what you are letting yourselves in for. It is not simply an increase of £100,000 on the deficit. We are talking of new buses now. They have to be new buses; we do not have enough capacity within the existing stock, we cannot get the cheap buses as we have been able to over the last few years — that supply, unfortunately, has dried up completely. (Laughter) But you are talking about the possibility of £100,000 for a new bus - one bus! This is the scale of the problem that we are facing. We also have a problem with staffing. Our staff at these particular times are at absolutely full stretch. We have no surplus staff for that period. We last year, as a result of a court of inquiry into the wages of my staff, have agreed, and with union concurrence as well, to reduce the levels of overtime worked by my staff. This we are trying to do. It is impossible, therefore, within the terms of that agreement for us to suddenly ask our staff to start working extra hours, if it was possible, to try and fit in the extra runs which may well be necessary as a result of this action. It is going to present us with a very serious logistical problem and one, I am afraid, which is going to be paid for ultimately by a review of the services provided throughout the rest of the Island. We have a duty to the regular bus users on this Island every bit as much as to the schoolchildren. Our regular users are the ones who have kept us going over the last few years, who rely on us heavily for their work commitments, for their other social commitments, and we have to bear that in mind before we make any decision which is going to affect that. At the moment there are, I think, somewhere in the region of 2,500 children using the school buses out of a population of some 9,500 which we have just been told. Undoubtedly, if the service is made free, there will be a huge increase or demand from these other 7,000 children. We cannot cope with it. We have a suggestion here today which I gather is aimed at ironing out some of the anomalies in the system or the unfairness, as has been alleged, in the system by getting rid of the 10p charge and yet, if I understand it right, number (2) paragraph 2 of his resolution is that no such transport need be so provided in respect of any portion of such pupil's journey between his or her place of residence and the nearest appropriate place of education which is both a reasonable walking distance, et cetera. Now if I take that to mean what I think it means, it means that immediately we are introducing a new anomaly by giving, presumably, Passenger Transport the discretion as to what we consider to be a reasonable, walking distance and whether or not we would be prepared to exclude them from the free transport. It is inevitable: the moment that decision is taken, an outcry will go up from the people who are just inside the distance we settle on. We are immediately building back in the very anomalies which the hon. member is pledged to be removing, and it is inevitable, if that decision is taken within a matter of months, this issue will be back on the floor of this House again with another resolution asking Passenger Transport to make sure that everybody travels free and it would be a difficult argument to resist.

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So the nature of this resolution today is not in fact to exclude certain people if we consider they are within a reasonable walking distance, it will in effect mean that all children going to school will have free transport, so let us not kid ourselves that there is any let-out here. There is one other point I would like to raise, Your Excellency, and that follows on the comments from the hon. member for Council, Mr. Quirk, and that is the safety on the buses. We no longer have conductors on buses, all our operations now are one man operations and therefore we do not have the supervisory ability that we had a few years ago to supervise crowded buses and I accept the hon. member's point: from time to time with boisterous behaviour of children unfortunately there are occasionally accidents, but if in fact we get to the stage where all children are travelling free, where we, certainly within Onchan and Douglas, have overcrowded buses, which inevitably is going to happen, I am afraid, then the very thing that the hon. member is trying to prevent is going to happen: the buses will be overcrowded, there will be limited supervision and, indeed, the danger of children's horseplay on the buses in Douglas with perhaps children just running off into the middle of busy roads in Douglas will be very much worse, in fact, than any problem he may be experiencing in his own area. There is a very real danger to children. We do not have, again, the staff to carry out the responsibilities that certain members seem to think we should have. Your Excellency, in principle I am quite sure all members of this House would like to support this resolution today, but the practicalities of it dictate that we must reject it, at least reject it until a time when Passenger Transport has the capacity, perhaps, to bring in a system whereby this can be implemented. So, Your Excellency, I would urge hon. members to vote against the resolution before us today.

Mr. Gilbey: Your Excellency, some 40 years ago people had not got such advanced social ideas or ideas on education as they have today and yet, nearly 40 years ago, in 1949, we have heard how the Government was obliged to provide free transport for those not within walking distance. Why was that? Because of the fundamental belief that education should be free, but it was not much good saying the education should be free if the children could not get there because their parents could not afford to pay the fares to get them to school. It is noticeable that even with the recent swings, perhaps, to ever more conservative policies in the U.K. we have been told they still have free transport, yet we here have abandoned it and it now costs £60 for a family of three children to travel to and from school during the year. Reference has been made to the 1986 Education Act and the amendment to it. The words of that amendment were roughly — 'The board may make arrangements for transport and may make such charges as they with the concurrence of the Governor in Council decide.' I would like to assure new members to this hon. House that many of those who supported that amendment did so not to enable more people to pay but as a way of getting a legal mechanism whereby charges could be swept away altogether, and I was one of them. I believe that Mr. Payne is due great credit for bringing in his resolution almost exactly a year ago, when it was found that this amendment was being used by the Chairman of the then Board of Education and Executive Council not to make transport free for everyone but to make everyone pay.

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Regarding the hon. member for West Douglas's points, he says that he could support this resolution if it was alone and I am sure he is right in this; he sees that it is a fundamental part of education. However, he will vote against it for two reasons. He firstly says if he had a £100,000 to spend on education, is this the first priority? He admits honestly he does not know but I would suggest to him and other hon. members who might have doubts that it is an absolute priority because it is one of the very fundamentals of the belief in a free education, the belief that not only should an education be free but the means of getting to that education should be free. Second, he says he does not think this can be separated from overall financial policy, and that is the very reason why the hon. mover of this resolution has delayed bringing this forward until after the current year's Budget so there is plenty of time for financial provision to be made in next year's Budget, and I am certain that if we have the will to believe in this principle we can surely provide £100,000 with our increasing prosperity. Now the hon. Chairman of the Board of Education says he cannot accept that any distance is reasonable in the rain. Well, I am afraid that I do not agree with him. You sometimes have to walk a distance in the rain. What we are talking about is distances that are unreasonable to walk in any weather because it is too much to expect of children of a certain age. I would also say that it is unreasonable to argue that there are only 33 families with children living outside the three-mile limit who are on low incomes just because only 33 have applied for help. I believe there are many more. I know myself of a number of people in my sheading who have felt hardship and difficulties as a result of the changes brought in last year, but I am very glad that his previous vice- chairman, the hon. member of Council, Mr. Quirk, with his experience of education has said that he will support this resolution. I am sorry that our Chief Minister should regard this resolution as a backward step. Surely the principle of free education, of which this is a part, is not a backward step for him or for members of his Cabinet. He also queried why the hon. mover had not set out full details. Of course he has not set out full details in this resolution because he believes, as I thought members of the Cabinet believed, that this hon. Court should set forward general policies but leave the detailed implementation of those to the appropriate parts of executive Government. My hon. friend, Mr. Maddrell says he has fought for equality for children on the buses. Now we have equality of everyone paying, but what the hon. mover recommends is that we should have equality on nobody paying so there would still be equality. Now regarding the cost, the cost has also been confirmed to me in writing by the general manager of the Isle of Man Passenger Transport Board at a time when the hon. member for Ramsey, Mr. Bell, was chairman of that board, as being £100,000. I do not accept that if there was no charge for any child, more children would travel. The resolution carefully allows for this. It says that those who are within reasonable walking distance should still have to walk. Now the hon. member who is proposing the resolution will, I am sure, expand on this in his summing up as there seems to be some misunderstanding about it, but I am satisfied that if we pass this resolution there will not be the kind of problem that the hon. member for Ramsey has suggested, that we need not be too concerned about overcrowding

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on buses or that we will have to buy more buses at £100,000 each or that we will have to get more staff. I have great pleasure in seconding this resolution, Your Excellency, because I believe that first of all the freeing of charges would make a lot of difference to a lot of people, particularly many of those living in remote country areas. And secondly, because I believe that when we can afford it, as I believe we now can with an improving economy, free transport for education is an integral part of having free education itself.

Mrs. Delaney: Your Excellency, I will be brief. I rise to support the resolution. Education is fundamental, compulsory and free. I feel that most children requiring transport will automatically require meals at the schools and this involves more expense. We are aware that our economy has approximately 60 per cent. low wage- earners; nonetheless we are expected to pay for school buses, meals and many other things, and I know many are on supplementary benefit but there is still a large margin of persons who are in the grey area that was spoken of by the mover, outside the supplementary benefit but still have much hardship in meeting the education commitments. Much is spoken of deprivation and means tests in this hon. Court. Are we not depriving sectors of our community by not providing them with free transport to that sector of the community that can ill afford even the ten pence? Now I move on to the adults, Your Excellency. We have a booming economy and we are asked to look for extra workforce. We are asked to help the unemployed by having training centres — surely we must encourage them to come into the training centres; there has been many an argument and more where the people can ill afford the 'bus ride in to make use of the facilities that are provided by this very Government, so we must help the unemployed. We must also help them to re- organise their careers; this is what we are advocating in the Government. We must encourage more students to further education, because our economy is based on commerce and finance which requires finer and more defined education. There is a growing need for new thinking in education for the work field today. The last administration brought in industry and commerce into this Island and did not apply itself to our education system to fill that need that the new industries require. Very little foresight and planning was seen then and it seems that they are equally blinkered today, Your Excellency. I believe that there should be free transport. If we are going to have a proper education system, it is said to be fundamental and, indeed, is fundamental and surely the very basis is that we must help all of the people — I thought that was what we were here for — not different sectors and defining them by how much they earn. People are, as we are all well aware, conditioned to cars and will not be motivated to use buses, I would hazard a guess, should we decide to have free buses for all. I do not believe what the hon. member for Ramsey says that we will be inundated and we will have to be having dozens of extra buses and dozens of extra workforce. I think all of this is blown out of proportion, as it normally is, when it comes down to providing the fundamentals for our people. It is long overdue that we consider the very basics. We have a booming economy. It was said in glowing terms at the beginning of this year that we were going to help our people because of this economy. Let us begin at the very beginning and help our children.

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The President of the Council: Your Excellency, I am going to support this resolution as printed on the Agenda because I believe, sir, that it is wrong of this Court or any other organisation to take snap decisions. Now what is this resolution? This resolution does give a preamble that Tynwald is of this opinion and that opinion and so forth, and then it states that Tynwald requests the Executive Council to give urgent consideration to the implementation, et cetera. In other words, it passes it down so that some department of Tynwald can go into this subject in depth. It is a difficult problem, a very difficult problem. I was rather surprised to hear my good friend the Minister of Tourism and Transport stating that they would be unable to cope with the enormous amount of children which would appear from everywhere, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin when he goes — where are these children coming from? I have one great disappointment, Your Excellency, when I see this enormous fleet of double decker buses most times going past me and I look in — ah! I see the driver and perhaps one other —

Mr. Delaney: Do you recognise him, Jack? (Laughter)

The President of the Council: Rarely — I used to be on the board, incidentally — and I passed this remark on many occasion that we had so many of these great buses going round the country and hardly carrying any people at all —

Mr. Anderson: Not in the mornings, though.

The President of the Council: And it was decided by some people who passed a remark in this Court that we should get smaller buses because they would do the job and carry the people more comfortably, but the argument was put up — `Ah, but we need all this fleet of buses for the school children and the tourists in the summertime'. Alas, the tourists are not so numerous, particularly in the need for the use of buses, but the children are still numerous and I think what we are asking to do is that the Executive Council, with all the information that they have and with all the means they have of getting the information, should investigate this possibility because it has caused lots of trouble. Here we have my hon. friend from Middle, here saying he has fought and fought for this principle and today is going the other way round. It is a difficult area. It is a very difficult area that we are dealing with, so we must surely have... and then again it was said that the former hon. member for Middle who fought so hard for this principle — he lost his seat at the election —

Mr. Delaney: He was on the wrong bus!

The Preisdent of the Council: You see, he must have been on the wrong bus! There we have the problem, Your Excellency, so who better...? and I notice with interest it may be that the whips have been out, I do not know; you see, I notice the Executive Council, some of whom one might have expected to have given support to this measure, but today they are saying 'Oh, no'. Perhaps some force has been used upon them. I do not know. You see I am not in the hierarchy myself.

Mr. Anderson: You have been telling us to do that!

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The President of the Council: Well, of course, this is Government, you see, but what we are asking today is that the Government go into this and give us the facts and figures and then let Tynwald decide in this democratic government that we have. I do hope that members will not throw this out regardless of what some people may say and regardless of what they may ask you to do; if you do not do it you might be in trouble, you see. I would hope that you would support this resolution, and it does not mean to say that by supporting this resolution immediately all the children are going to travel for nothing. It means that they are going to go into this subject in depth, find out the cost, find out the use of the buses concerned and the point in the United Kingdom... the hon. member for Glenfaba — what a wonderful case he made. He said that the British institution is getting more conservative than ever, he said. He said and he knows (Laughter) and yet, with all this, they are still giving free transport for children. A very good point, sir, and you could not have made it better by quoting that example. So we too should listen very carefully to this and I do hope that the Executive will give full consideration to this and subsequently report so that Tynwald might take a decision on this question.

Mr. Delaney: So you will not have any illusions, there are no whip marks on my back from Executive Council, I can assure the last speaker who, like me, led National Transport, or the Transport Department as it was then, so we, both of us, have some experience of national transport. As a member who has no constituents' children travelling on buses it would be easy for me to do as has been done on many occasions in the past in this Court, I am quite sure: 'It does not affect me, why should I support it?' The opposite is true; it does affect me. It affects my political philosophy, it affects the things I stood for and it affects also something very close to my heart in relation to transport — not only should the children travel free to school as we have a lost leader in national transport? — I am responsible for some of the losses no doubt — but the pensioners of the Isle of Man who are reduced to half fare should travel free as well. We are never going to get it on an even keel as far as I am concerned. I accept that we will have to buy more secondhand buses and I do not accept that they are not still available because I have been following with interest what is happening with the de-nationalisation of transport in Britain, and there are a lot of people over there, I am sure, who would be prepared to sell us buses if we need them. Your Excellency, it is the principle that we are talking about here. The resolution is clear; he is not circumventing Executive Council, he is not circumventing the Finance Board, he is not circumventing anybody. He is putting it squarely in front of this hon. Court, which is the right of any member, and I cannot see any objection to taking it back on board and looking at it. I think that really, if we intend to do anything now is the time to start doing it. It might be that we will create more anomalies — it might be. I cannot see them but maybe it will do, but maybe that can be identified by Government and all the offices and departments concerned will point out and say 'You cannot do this because of (a)(b)(c) and (d)'. It might happen but what is the problem in accepting a principle that all children in the Isle of Man for educational purposes are equal. What is that problem? I cannot see anything wrong with it at all and I hope the members, the serving members of

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Douglas, will support it even though we have nothing to gain from it financially or politically and I think it is right that we should support those people in the country who are faced with this problem and I hope in the future they will give us the same opportunity of supporting a resolution or a policy of Government that allows the pensioners of the Isle of Man to travel on those same buses in off-peak periods at no cost as well, because the buses are there, the drivers are there, they are entitled to be there because we pay through the taxpayers for them. Let us make best use of the transport we have. I will support, Your Excellency.

Mr. Cannan: Your Excellency, today I find myself in a bit of a quandary. I think perhaps the mover of this resolution perhaps finds himself in a bit of a difficulty. When the legislation came forward to the House of Keys I was vigorous in my opposition to it because it imposed a tax on all the parents of my constituency to have their children sent to school. The case was put vigorously at the time by the then Chairman of the Board of Education, who is today the Minister for Education, that this was fair and equitable, that all children should pay the ten pence and that it was quite impossible to differentiate between who should walk and who should not walk. This afternoon we have the Minister for Education propounding the same case as he did then and his colleague on the Department of Education unable to put the case for or against in detail with the support of his minister or, indeed, with the support of officials how they were going to administer it. I suggest that what the hon. member for Ayre has done is trying to fulfil an election promise without actually going into the details and putting to this Court the considered opinions and views of the officers of the Department of Education, how they are going to differentiate between people, what is a reasonable walking distance. Now if the mover had not been from the Department of Education I would have accepted the motion, but he is there, he is in total contact with the officials of the department and why cannot he find out from the officials? Why-cannot he discuss the matter in depth with his minister? Why cannot they come forward with a coherent policy from their department to decide what is best for the children and how they should be carried to school?

Mr. Kermode: The ministers have the power.

Mr. Cannan: The member of the department, unless he is not on talking terms with his minister, should have been able to come up with some coherent policy instead of trying to come to Tynwald to further what is basically an election undertaking.

Mr. Kermode: We will see after November.

Mr. Brown: There is not another election, is there?

Mr. Cannan: He has come up with no solution as to the logistics and practicalities. Is the £100,000 correct or is it not? Does it mean that in the rural areas where there are no bus services and people are off the route taxis are to be provided ad lib? This must be looked at in depth and I would suggest it is referred back and looked at in depth and we have some coherent policy from the Board of Education; and secondly, if the Department of Education want to introduce free

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transport they should, at the time when they came to the estimates — and the member was there with the estimates — arrange to put extra money in the estimates to provide for the transport. On the contrary, they did not, they wanted to divorce themselves from transport altogether and put it on to the Department of Transport. Yes, it should be explored. It is easy for me to say, 'Oh, I support this', but surely the member and his minister can get together to find out what the practicalities are. On a wet day, as the minister says, everybody wants a 'bus even if you are only three doors away when it is snowing or raining, and yet on a fine sunny day there will not be so many because it will be nice to walk along. , It is so vague, this resolution, that I really wonder why the Department of . Education could not have advised the hon. member to come up with a bit more of coherent policy and decide how much it is going to cost, the logistics and the practicalities. It strikes me as if nobody is in communication with anybody. He has only got to ask the Minister for Tourism and Transport about his buses before he puts this resolution down but he did not bother. He is able to talk to those people; I am able to talk to most people and ask questions — (Laughter and interruption) I suggest that we ask the Department of Education to look at this and decide a policy and decide how they should consider the children should be brought to school, and when they have found it out in discussions with the Department of Transport and costed it with the officials of the Treasury then Tynwald will know exactly what it is going to vote for.

Mr. May: Your Excellency, as a member of the Department of Tourism and Transport I had a bit of difficulty with this one until a couple of minutes ago when the hon. Minister for the Treasury got up (Laughter). I can say now quite confidently that I will support the hon. member for Ayre! (Laughter) I think it has to be said the hon. member is fulfilling an election promise;. that is what he is here to do and that is what he is entitled to do, and I think he should be given credit for that. What he is asking for in the terms of this resolution which the hon. Minister for the Treasury seems to want to try and pop off elsewhere, get it off Executive Council's back — 'We do not want to know about it. Let us shove it over to the Department of Education and let them have a look, but do not give it to us' — well, what it is saying here is that 'Tynwald requests Executive Council to give consideration to the implementation of school transport arrangements' — 'requests to give consideration to' — that is what the resolution says. Now as a member of the department I fully realise the difficulties that there may be in implementing this. I do realise that we could find problems in having an adequate supply of buses to deal with this. If this is indeed implemented in due course, there is going to have to be an adequate system of policing it and making sure that it is not abused and that children who live within a reasonable distance do not nip on the bus because they have come out and there is rain like there was last Friday night and say, 'Right, I will nip on the bus' and the poor kid that lives out... Mr. Quirk at Dalby, when he puts his shorts on and nips across the road — he does not get left behind. This is the thing; there are going to be problems and there will be problems of overloading, I have no doubt. What extent those problems will be is very hard to quantify and very difficult, I would suggest, to finalise at this particular stage. The estimated cost of this is indeed £100,000. What we have to ask is —

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A Member: That is rubbish!

Mr. May: That is the estimated cost, sir —

A Member: Rubbish!

Mr. May: — as the hon. gentleman has said. If you want to talk about new buses and anything else, that is something that I cannot quantify or differentiate at this particular time, but what we have to say is: should school facilities, education and the means of getting to education, be free and that is the question we have to ask ourselves? The hon. member, Mr. Delaney, has raised the position regarding pensioners. The department has already made some steps in this area to try and make life easier for the pensioners, and I would hope in the future that we can go further on that line. But at the end of the day what we have to say is, are the buses a public service and are they a social service? I will support the hon. member's resolution.

Mr. Karran: Your Excellency, most of what I was going to say the hon. member for North Douglas has said for me. I did find it quite amusing — the comments coming out of my hon. friend for Michael. As I say, he must have had a memory lapse since before last November with all this talk of co-operation, but I feel, hon. members, that I will support this motion. I feel that Executive Council want to have the power, they want to have the responsibility and I think that what really comes out is what I have been complaining about and expressing concern about on this new way of government where members can quite easily be isolated even if you are a member of a department, and I would say that it is important that we give Executive Council the responsibility that it wants. Now we are asking them to look into something and I think it is wrong for them to try and run away from what we as an hon. Court want them to do.

A Member: Who is running away?

The Governor: Hon. members, may I call upon Mr. Quine to reply?

Mr. Quine: Your Excellency, first of all, and very briefly, I would just like to thank all those members who have spoken in support of this motion. I would like to think that they are far too numerous to mention by name. Thank you very much indeed and some very pertinent points have been made. Turning to the opposition, I think I would rather deal with the matters in general terms but there are two contributions which I cannot let pass. I think the contribution coming from the Minister for Education is somewhat ingenious. I mean, he very rapidly pointed out or suggested that this resolution is before the House because it was in my manifesto. He is absolutely right, but if that represents the village pump for me, his haste to get here with a resolution to abandon the rates for Douglas was actually jumping on the pump. (Laughter) He got here before me, so I think it is disingenious for the minister to point his finger at me and say 'That is only an election promise'. I could not beat him in the 100 yards even with his crutches - (Laughter)

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Mr. Brown: We will lower them for you!

Mr. Quine: Turning to the hon. member for Michael, the Minister for the Treasury, I am not sure in which capacity he is speaking. I think this is splendid. You know, I would suggest that the Chief Minister hang on to his seat very tightly because I can only attribute the hon. member's action to the fact that this elevation to Executive Council has gone to his head, and the Chief Minister had better hang on to his seat because that is clearly what he is aiming for, because it is not just a matter of the armour being tarnished, he has discarded the armour to make a rush for the Chief Minister's seat! Really, I think it is priceless and I am sure that he will get full credit for what he said today when he next visits Jurby and further, hon. members, I will make sure he gets the credit! (Laughter) He has suggested, of course, that this is a matter that should have been resolved within the Education Department. He knows perfectly well it could not be resolved within the Education Department. He knows that I am here proposing this resolution as a member of the department and my minister is opposing me. I mean, how does he honestly expect it to be resolved in the Education Department? In any case, it is a matter which has already been determined by Tynwald and clearly has to come back to Tynwald. Tynwald took the decisions and only Tynwald can undo the decisions, so I think it is ludicrous in the extreme, and I thank the hon. member for Michael for his contribution and I am sure it has gained me several votes! Turning to... if I may now address the general issues, because really they are more important than the grasping at straws which we have seen, first of all this matter of cost — in national terms this sum is insignificant and it does not materially affect Government or department priorities, and to suggest otherwise is ludicrous. This proposal is timely in that it comes at the proper juncture to be considered in Government schemes, the new scheme of things with all this ministerial responsibility. It is timely in that context in that it can be grasped, taken on board and processed, and if we are talking about cost — I mean we have had eyebrows cast at £100,000 — good gracious! — £100,000! If we turn the clock back to 1986 and accept that we made a mess of it in 1986, the figure would only be £50,000. That is because that is what we were paying. The difference is £50,000; the other £50,000 that makes it to £100,000 comes about because of the mistake that was made, and that is what we are now paying for, but we are talking of £100,000 in terms of lost fares. It is my contention, hon. members, that education is the best possible investment, particularly in the present case where we are in effect righting a wrong - that is what we are doing, we are righting a wrong, and it is no use Government trying to grasp at straws and take cover. The fact is a mistake was made and it is up to us to put it right. As Mrs. Delaney has said, and absolutely quite rightly so, I think the time has come when we have got to give some meaning to the empty gestures that we often mutter in this Court about sharing the wealth, sharing the benefit for the community. This, I would suggest, is one way and a point where we can make a start in this direction, and it is unworthy of Government to deny expenditure of this dimension for this purpose. It is quite unworthy of them, and particularly when you have regard to some of the other causes on which hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent — and not causes, hon. members, but lost causes. Mr. Speaker this afternoon spoke just about one particular item and we are all aware of many, many items where there has been hundreds of thousands

Schoolchildren — Transportation Arrangements — Approved T1554 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 of pounds lost and we are quibbling over £100,000 per annum in order for to get children to their place of education! I think it is quite absurd. So I will say no more about costs. The adequacy of available transport — I thought I had made it clear; it is really a non-issue because this walking distance, a reasonable walking distance, has yet to be determined, and when that is determined... and that can only be determined by an examination and a survey, I would suggest, of the numbers that live within whatever distance from school and home and, let me add, these figures are not available now. I have been to the Transport Department, I have been to the Education Department —

Mr. Cannan: You are in it!

Mr. Quine: Of course, and I will be going back there, I hope — I am not sure. (Laughter) There is something on the Agenda about that. It is really not an issue; it is a matter for determination when the figures can be collected. When the facts can be collected, whey are not available, and to suggest that we at the drop of a hat can produce that sort of detail is absolute rubbish. I think it is perhaps significant that the total number of schoolchildren carried by school transport is essentially the same today as it was under the old arrangement so this rush to get on board the buses — I cannot see it. I mean, numbers have to have... are literally the same. Prior to the change it was 2,000 — I have got the months figures here: 2,570 prior, 2,560 a year later. That rush to get free transport or to get subsidised transport, the ten pence fare, has not happened and is not likely to happen just because we remove the ten pence fare. Neither, might I add, has there been any increase in the allocation of transport and drivers in carrying pupils to school since the change was made — the same number of buses, the same number of drivers. The fact remains that there is a point, in relation to which a pupil living from school is not going to take the trouble to wait for a bus and stand on a bus perhaps, as has been suggested here. He is going to walk with his friends and perhaps save his money to buy a bar of chocolate, if needs be but he is not going to stand there. A point would be reached where the child and where the parents would be happy for the child to walk to school. That would be a reasonable walking distance. Anomalies — this is another point that has been raised here, and I think it was the Chief Minister that mentioned this matter of anomalies and he seemed to feel that they were beyond resolution. Well, frankly, hon. members, if it is beyond the resolution of Executive Council to work out a scheme like this I should not be standing here putting a resolution on school transport; it should be one of no confidence! (Laughter) I think any reasonably minded person can accept that there is a point at which a certain distance is quite reasonable for a child to walk to school, to walk from his home to school or to walk from his home to the bus stop to get a bus to school. It is perfectly reasonable and that, I think, can be seen by people with even the most biased point of view with the exception of certain members of this House. Hon. members, let us confront the real questions posed in this resolution before us. Are we prepared to accept the devaluation of the concept of compulsory free education which took place as an act of expediency in 1986? Are we prepared to accept it? Ask ourselves that question first. Is it right that compulsory free education

Schoolchildren — Transportation Arrangements — Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1555 and further education should be less free for those who by accident of residence live an unreasonable walking distance from their educational institutions? Is that right? Ask yourselves that. Thirdly, is it reasonable that some parents, in fulfilling their legal duty to educate their children, should have to shoulder an additional financial burden which many can ill afford? I would suggest, hon. members, that if the answer that you come to in respect of any one of those three questions is 'no', then you are going to support this resolution; it would be hypocritical of you not to. Let me say this, hon. members: if this resolution fails, it will not fail because the cost is unreasonable or that the arrangements are unworkable or unfair or that the transport division cannot cope. Oh, no! Those are the straws to which I referred previously. That will not be the real basis for it failing. It will be because certain members of this House, with notable exceptions, were party to the previous decisions and, in political terms, it is a disaster to admit you were wrong. That is why it will fail, not on substantive grounds, hon. members. I believe most sincerely that the action taken in haste in 1986 as an act of expediency was ill-conceived and is unworthy of the Manx Legislature. (Members: Hear, hear.) It was a retrograde step and I ask hon. members to support this resolution and put matters right. Thank you, hon. members.

The Governor: I put to you, hon. members, the motion in the name of the member for Ayre, Mr. Quine, at item 32 on the Agenda. Will those in favour say aye; those against say no.

A division was called for and voting resulted as follows:

In the Keys:—

For: Messrs. Gilbey, Cannan, Quine, Barton, Dr. Orme, Messrs. Corrin, May, Mrs. Delaney, Messrs. Duggan, Cretney, Delaney, Kermode, Mrs. Hannan, Brig. Butler, Messrs. Gelling, Karran, Leventhorpe, and the Speaker — 18

Against: Messrs. Walker, Brown, Cain, Kneale, Bell and Maddrell — 6

The Speaker: Your Excellency, the resolution carries in the House of Keys, sir, with 18 votes being cast in favour and six votes against.

In the Council:—

For: The Lord Bishop, Messrs. Ward, Radcliffe, Quirk, Mrs. Hanson and the President of the Council — 6

Against: Mr. Anderson and Mr. Callin — 2

The Governor: Hon. members, in the Council two votes cast against and six in favour, the resolution therefore carries.

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PRODUCTIVITY SCHEME FOR GOVERNMENT MANUAL WORKERS - AMENDED MOTION APPROVED

The Governor: Item 33, Productivity Scheme for manual workers employed by Government. I call on the hon. member for Rushen, Mr. Corrin, to move.

Mr. Corrin: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

That a Select Committee of three members be appointed to consider and report with recommendations upon all aspects of introducing a productivity scheme for manual workers employed by Government, such committee to have powers to summon witnesses and call for papers in accordance with the provisions of the Tynwald Proceedings Act 1876 and 1984.

Mr. Kermode: I beg to second and reserve my remarks.

Mr. Collin: Your Excellency, firstly I should like to refer to a study on productivity which was carried out by L.A.M.S.A.C. in 1979 on behalf of the then Finance Board. The resultant report was the subject of lengthy consideration and negotiations, responsibility for which was assumed by the stability of the Economy Committee of Executive Council. When that committee met the representatives of the Transport and General Workers Union in 1982, at a time when the mover of the resolution was the District Officer of the union, the minutes of that meeting indicate that the Transport and General Workers Union was firmly of the opinion that, even if a study indicated that changes were desirable, productivity schemes were unacceptable, as was the suggestion that some workers could be paid more than others because of greater effort. However, the union did seek an across-the- board payment for all manual workers in return for its continued co-operation. The union wished to keep the pay structure simple and suggested that the service increments and the proposed co-operation payment should be amalgamated into a single payment. This suggestion was referred to Whitley Council, where an improvement in the rates of service increments was agreed. The proposed co- operation payment was not agreed, it being the generally held view of the Official Side that management should surely be entitled to expect co-operation without additional remuneration. Now to move on, the service increments have been replaced by the graduated supplements which were finally agreed after difficult negotiations stretching over many months. During these negotiations the trade union side laid great stress on the bonus element of pay in the United Kingdom, but did not press for the introduction of bonus schemes in the Isle of Man. Indeed, during our meeting at which the hon. mover of the resolution was present, the then chairman of the trades union side said, it had to be accepted that bonus schemes were not going to be introduced into the Isle of Man because they would not be viable with the small workforce. The resolution, hon. members, before the Court today seeks to have the subject re-opened at a time when fundamental changes are being negotiated in the terms and conditions of United Kingdom local authority manual workers upon which our manual workers Whitley Council terms and conditions are based. These changes

Productivity Scheme for Government Manual Workers - Amended Motion Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1557 are, I am informed, of such magnitude when agreement is reached as to radically alter the pay gradings, working arrangements, bonus schemes and other matters. The subject of productivity schemes is not an easy one. To consider it at a time when such fundamental changes are, as I say, taking place, would, in my view, be an almost impossible task. That is not to say that the question of such schemes should not be addressed, and for that reason I seek the approval of this hon. Court, Yoar Excellency, to the amendment which has been circulated to members. The amendment I propose would request Executive Council to appoint a committee to consider and report with recommendations upon all aspects of introducing a productivity scheme for manual workers employed by Government and by local authorities. This would enable Executive Council — and I think this is important — to appoint members of Tynwald to the committee together with persons with expertise in the matter of productivity schemes whose advice in this very difficult area will be vital. The amendment also brings within the scope of the inquiry manual workers employed by local authorities as well as those employed by Government. It would seem desirable for any inquiry to look at the question of productivity schemes for all the manual workers covered by the Whitley Council Manual Workers Agreement and not just a section of the manual workers workforce. Your Excellency, I wish to move the amendment which I. have had circulated and which stands in my name:

That Executive Council be requested to appoint a committee to consider and report with recommendations upon all aspects of introducing a productivity scheme for manual workers employed by Government and local authorities.".

Mr. Gilbey: I have much pleasure in seconding that amendment, Your Excellency. There is no doubt that there could be advantages in such an arrangement and superficially it certainly sounds very attractive, but I think the more you look into it the more one finds that if there are advantages, there are many disadvantages to be overcome in attaining the advantages. First of all, the setting of rates for productivity is extremely difficult. How do you, for instance, set the productivity rates for someone who is a swimming pool attendant, or a cook, or something like that? It is surely very difficult. Then you need expert staff to set tip the systems and run the systems. It is interesting — I understand that the view of Douglas Corporation is that they alone would need two extra managerial staff to implement such systems. Then again, you have got to be absolutely certain that the system does run right because, if it does not, there is nothing worse for staff relations because the staff could claim they are being cheated, done down and everything else. Therefore, I believe that it does need detailed investigation by a committee, but a committee which contains experts. I do not believe there is one member of this hon. House, including myself, who really understands how to set up productivity deals and monitor them and all that kind of thing and you must have people on any committee set up who have that knowledge. Again, as the hon. mover of the amendment has said, you need to cover local authority workers. Therefore, it is only fair that the employers of those workers should be represented on any committee. For those two reasons alone it seems to me right that, rather than a committee of members of this House, it should be a very carefully selected committee

Productivity Scheme for Government Manual Workers - Amended Motion Approved T1558 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 set up by Executive Council. There is a further point, however, and that is that I for one believe that Executive Council should more and more be in charge with departments of looking into matters like this which are extremely detailed and impinge very much on the operation of many departments of Government, and therefore I have great pleasure in seconding this amendment, not in any way to prevent this matter being looked into, but to ensure, I hope, that it is looked into even more carefully than might be the case under the original recommendation.

Mr. Kermode: Your Excellency, I am going to support the amendment, but I must honestly say that when I first looked at it — and I know I seconded the original resolution, I thought, 'Here we go again, Executive Council keeping to themselves, the old pals' act,' but, quite clearly, the reasons given for that are quite sensible. Hon. members, I fear a long debate on this when a sensible amendment like this could save us a lot of time here this evening — I urge members to support the amendment because it sounds like common sense to get experts to look into something as big as this.

Mr. Ward: Well, I did not know quite this afternoon whether to ask the Lord Bishop to stand up and help me with a couple of hallelujahs, because we seem to have witnessed this afternoon a re-born... whatever we are going to call the member for Rushen, because quite frankly, when I looked at this resolution, I was so frankly puzzled as to how he had become — and I cannot think of a better phrase than `re-born' to some extent, because, quite rightly, as the member for Council, Mr. Callin has said, this is not new. This is nothing new. It has been tried in the Highway Board, it was tried on the Forestry Board and I think because... and I must qualify this by saying that at the time that I was Chairman of the Forestry Board I did support a move, and I am sure that the members who were on the board with me will agree at that time; against my better judgement, I did agree that if we could get some sort of scheme going that would at least adequately re-pay or help the take home pay of lots of members on the Forestry Board who were working very hard under very difficult conditions and the grading system did not always lend itself to helping them, and we did think at one time that some sort of a bonus scheme or some sort of a productivity scheme would perhaps help. I say this, Your Excellency, against my better judgement because I have got no scruples about saying it. I have been a trade unionist all my life, I am still very faithful to the people that I represented and that I worked with, and I am looking at the member for Middle now and he knows we had a very traumatic experience in our particular set-up of what productivity can do. Let me say this — and I hope those two lads, if they are union people, are listening to this. The first golden rule of productivity schemes is to cut down the workforce (Members: Hear, hear.) and the second — and I think the member for Glenfaba has spotlighted this — it has got to be a very expert assessment of what benefits of the so-called productivity deals are going to come back to the workforce. At the end of the day you come to a situation of something like the ten little nigger boys where you come down from ten to one, and finally you find that after six or seven years of working very difficult productivity schemes the cupboard is bare. You have nothing else more to contribute and the whole thing falls flat.

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The other difficult part about it in this particular resolution is that you are talking about the manual workers working for Government. Quite frankly, I think you have got to agree with me that if you look sensibly at it, so many of the jobs that our manual workers do are unquantifiable as far as actual productivity benefits are concerned, and that is the most difficult part of the lot, ladies and gentlemen. I do believe that... and I am sorry, I cannot support the amendment because I think that you are going down a road which in my mind — and you can accuse me of being a bit biased towards the workforce if you like but it is them I am thinking of, because at the end of the day they come off the worst. In the first place your find that your staff although you are working just as hard as ever, is cut down considerably, and of course, secondly, there comes a day when the benefits of the productivity scheme do run dry. So I would certainly be very much aware — and I know it is difficult for the members of this Chamber to make up their minds about this; maybe my whole purpose in standing up today is to warn the workforce as to where they get involved, but I cannot understand, quite frankly, what the change of life is with the member for Rushen, because he was representing the people who both the Highway Board and the Forestry Board too to my knowledge — I do not know whether there were any other departments, but certainly tried to work on this basis even if it was only to circumvent the grading scheme to help some people to get more take-home pay, and I think you have got to be very wary of entering into these schemes. I do say that if you are going to do it on a wholesale basis the member for Glenfaba is quite right; you are going to have to employ or side-track some civil servants to keep an extremely keen eye on what the benefits are, and they are going to have one hell of a job because, whether a fellow is sweeping a path in a glen or he is helping to put a bridge up or whether... how you can define what is the standard of productivity. So my message is — and I know I can be accused maybe of being an old Luddite and that — but be very careful.

Mr. Karran: Your Excellency, I think you know that the member for Council has done a lot of members a service in the fact that he has expressed concerns that are general concerns. When we look at the previous administration they had eight per cent. unemployment where it was 18 per cent. across the water, and I think that one of the reasons that the unemployment situation was kept under was the policy of trying to get jobs for all. We are all against low paid, as I say, and there is no one in this hon. Court can say that I am not against low paid. I have argued on the tax problem constantly since I became a member of this hon. Court. But I feel that this idea that we will go down and we will give productivity schemes it does concern me. I feel that the hon. member for Council is quite right in shooting shots across the bow to the workpeople of the Isle of Man. We have only got to look in the United Kingdom what is happening now, that they have gone down this scheme and this ends up with privatisation. I would also like to say that, if we are and if we have a commitment to the manual workers employed by Government, let us not try to do it through a backdoor type approach; let us put it in their basic wage — that is where it should be, because hon. members will be standing up after me saying about how our unemployment is going down and we are in a boom year. I quite agree with you if you are a secretary or somebody who wants to be a financial whiz kid, but when it comes down to ordinary manual work it is not quite the same.

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There is a shortage of tradesmen — I would agree with that, but, as I say, with the unskilled labour there is still plenty of unemployment in that thing. So, whilst this can go to a committee and more than likely will go to a committee, I hope that members do not think that this is the cheap option of raising the wages of the ordinary manual workers in Government, because I think the only answer is to put it on basic wages and a commitment by this Government to full employment. My big concern over this is the fact that Government has this idea that the figures are coming down. The figures are coming down all right, but they are not in certain specific areas, they are not coming down, as a member of the Department of the D.H.S.S.; there is still a big demand for unskilled labour and I know people say `Oh! we have got people who will not go to jobs' — as a member of the Work Permits Committee we have fought long and hard about jobs, if you call them jobs — it is £1 an hour. Well, I am certainly not going to force unskilled people to go to those jobs, but I do feel that before people start rubbing their hands and saying 'This is the answer to bringing the wages up', let us not forget that there is still an unemployment situation and there are still a lot of people out there looking for a living.

Mr. Kneale: Your Excellency, as the hon. member for Council has said, in 1979 the exercise that was suggested today was carried out, and it was carried out at the request of the Treasury who at that time applied to Whitley Council to introduce productivity schemes, and I was actually on Whitley Council as was the hon. member for Rushen, Mr. Corrin. We were actually on the sub-committee of six that looked into this. L.A.M.S.A.C. was appointed — and I have got a copy of their report here — and they covered every department and every department of every department and have commented on it, and all the way through this book you are reading, `Increases in productivity would generally have to be met by a reduction in workforce,' Increased productivity would have to be met by a reduction in the nursery labour force' and so it goes on, page after page. Now is that what we are wanting? Are we wanting increased productivity and less employment? That is what was found out at this time. Whitley Council at that time, having considered this report, decided the way to help the lower paid at that time was not by introducing a productivity scheme, but they introduced a Manx supplement to increase their pay in that way, and that is how the Manx supplement came into being after this report had been rejected by Whitley.

Mr. Maddrell: Your Excellency, I support a lot of what the last member who has just sat down has said. I have experienced this exercise on productivity along with, who was my colleague, Mr. Ward. Both' of these, the resolution and the amendment in front of me, say they are productivity. I am going to support the amendment, but do not like the word 'productivity' and I will give you one of my reasons. When you are looking at manual workers and you cannot define exactly what they are doing, that is your first problem, so then you look at a group of manual workers and you say, 'Right, you have got a gang foreman who is a technical man and he has got three workers with him. We take one man away and we leave two workers with him and they will split the wages of the man that we have got rid of amongst the others'. They have got a productivity deal. It costs a commercial

Productivity Scheme for Government Manual Workers - Amended Motion Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1561 person nothing, but there was a man went down and the rest was in theory on the dole. Now that is not what I would like to happen in Government. I would not like to see that kind of so-called productivity happen, so I take note of what Mr. Callin, the mover of the amendment, said insomuch as he said they were going to bring in specialist people who would look at it very carefully to give a very good scheme, because if you are going along with the old productivity schemes you are going to create unemployment and you are going to give somebody some extra wages. They are quite happy to accept the wages so long as he goes down the road.

The Governor: Mr. Cain, do you wish to speak before we call on the chairman to reply?

Mr. Cain: Very briefly, Your Excellency. I would just like to say that, as I read the amendment, which I intend to support, it does say that the projected committee is asked to consider and report with recommendations upon all aspects of introducing a productivity scheme. So therefore we must look at the points for and the points against and I would support that the various members have quite properly raised some of the points against — the member of Council and two of the members for Onchan, but I would have thought, providing the right people are appointed, we can have no fear that we will get anything but a fair and equitable report and I would have thought, therefore, that the amendment should be supported.

The Governor: Hon. members, does any other hon. member wish to speak? Then I call on the mover to reply.

Mr. Corrin: Your Excellency, I have achieved the first objective anyway, and that is to bring to this floor the plight of the manual workers employed by Government, employed by us; we are the employer. I notice the deathly hush that has come over the place, because we are talking about manual workers, the lower paid and their wages. Oh! the old guard comes out straight away. I have heard it all before, but I brought up and I mentioned productivity; it only means to say that you can look at then about being more productive. And talk about 1976 or 1979 — those years have gone, time has moved on; that is the message to the hon. member for West Douglas, Mr. Kneale. We are in 1987 now. It is no use quoting back there. Anyway, some of the wages of the manual workers since then — they have been consolidated into basic wages. There is a problem now in the hospitals with the craftsmen. They have the old basic wage and they had a performance-related wage. Now, I understand, there is only one wage, but does the Manx Government want to pay the boys that? Oh, no! You have not been through a scheme. It is up to the employer to bring a scheme forward. This was the lesson of the Electricity Board when that row was on, and Mr. Simm, when he gave us an announcement, said to the Electricity Board, 'You have had the best of the world for years, it was your responsibility to bring forward a scheme. You have failed. You were aware of the situation; therefore now there is only one wage — you pay it.' Now it was up to the Electricity Board and presently it is up to the M.E.A. to get the best out of their workforce. That is their job as management. Now it is the Government employees, and listen to the tears on behalf of the local authority workers. I wish Mr. Gilbey and Mr. Callin would have shed so many tears

Productivity Scheme for Government Manual Workers - Amended Motion Approved T1562 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 when the pension scheme for the manual workers was brought in and the local authority men were left out in the cold. I wish they had shown so much concern then and since then when the men have asked for a scheme. Oh, that was different! The local authorities had no money to bring forward such a scheme and they were left out in the cold. Do not try telling me, lecturing me on things, moralising. I see no reason whatsoever why men should not be — and I say — managed by Manx men and Manx women, that a scheme should not be brought forward where they are employed to the best of their ability, because I am well aware — and these are the criticisms and the things that you are hearing coming out of the hospital and so on — they have been cut back on staffing levels without getting anything in return. This has gone on; it has been going on for years. Mr. Brown, I would differ with you — you shake your head; you have not been on scene. I have been up front, I have heard it, the levels have been cut back for years and yet they are still being compared with the U.K. In the U.K. they did get a return. Indeed, you could say that there was overmanning there, but I am not aware that there is overmanning in the Isle of Man, because it is the employer who has dictated the manning level at all times. Of course there are other reasons why it will be opposed, because if you have a scheme and you have men who feel that there is an incentive and they want to get to work, then the management has to be one step ahead of them in arranging the work for the next day, so you will get resistance. I have heard this all before, Your Excellency and I say it really is a sorry state of affairs. Here we are, after all these years that I have been on the scene, and now, when I raise it at five past six, there is an amendment put round. Executive Council now want to get in on the act to delay, procrastinate — that is what is going to happen. I could say that the hon. member for Council, when he says they tried things in the Forestry Board, maybe did not try hard enough. Use the grey matter we have got upstairs. I would like to have seen some of this money that was wasted on towers; if your grey matter has been used on that, some of that could have been distributed to these men and not the losses that we have seen and, as Mr. Speaker said this morning, you will be revealed in due course. This is what good government is all about. So, yes, I do feel very strongly for the Government employees, very strongly. Many of them are on washers, picking up Family Income Supplements. Why do we not give them a proper rate for the job? Mr. Karran there — the waffle that he has got now. Honestly, it is pathetic! Why cannot we get down, and I am just asking that a committee be appointed, a committee of this House, not everything grabbed by Executive Council. I would have thought they have got enough on their plate to develop policy and get the housing and other things that they are all talking about. It is all going to come. The five years will be up before they come forward with the first proposals the rate they are going on! So I do implore, I say to the House, reject this amendment. Set up a committee of the House, but not Whitley Council members, because I prefer to see them at the other side of the table, giving evidence. And as for going across for experts, we have seen L.A.M.S.A.C. before. What about all the huff and the puff of the Douglas Corporation L.A.M.S.A.C. report? Mountains were going to be turned over before last November. What has happened since?

Mr. Kermode: They are still puffing.

Productivity Scheme for Government Manual Workers - Amended Motion Approved TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1563

Mr. Corrin: I do not even see the puffing; it has all gone quiet now. Perhaps the member will tell us what came over him. We have seen enough of L.A.M.S.A.C. We know how they work. I am talking about assistance for the Isle of Man — our employees — where we can talk to them. It would not be a bonanza for everyone as we have seen when we have dabbled in it a little bit, with the electricity and in the water, and I am surprised Mr. Gilbey, who was heavily involved, should not be aware of that. There are those who are not getting enough, there are some of those — and let the warning go out to some employees that they would not get any more, but there are injustices, and to say that everything is going to be put right by certain discussions that are going on in the U.K. over annualised hours — it may never be agreed, so you cannot assume that that is going to answer all your problems. I would say again, Your Excellency, that the manual workers on this Island - they have had a rough time and it is time that their grievance was looked at by a committee to come forward — but not L.A.M.S.A.C. and all that — in Isle of Man terms by elected members of this Chamber so that we can decide what is the best way to go forward. That is what I ask for, Your Excellency, nothing more.

The Governor: The hon. member for Rushen, I must comment on the fact that you consistently break Standing Orders in that you do not address the Chair and, in being quite so aggressive to other members, you draw from them a response which in turn breaks Standing Orders. I would counsel you to think about that, Mr. Corrin, although we all respect the strength of feeling which you have. Now hon. members, I will put to you first the amendment in the name of the hon. member for the Council, Mr. Callin. Will hon. members in favour say aye; those against say no.

A division was called for and voting resulted as follows:

In the Keys —

For: Messrs. Gilbey, Cannan, Quine, Barton, Walker, Dr. Orme, Mrs. Delaney, Messrs. Kermode, Cain, Kneale, Brig. Butler, Mr. Leventhorpe and the Speaker — 13

Against: Messrs. Corrin, Brown, May, Duggan, Cretney, Delaney, Mrs. Hannan, Messrs. Bell, Gelling, Karran and Maddrell — 11

The Speaker: Your Excellency, the amendment carries in the House of Keys with 13 votes being cast in favour and 11 votes against.

In the Council —

For: Messrs. Quirk, Anderson, Mrs. Hanson, Mr. Callin and the President of the Council — 5

Against: The Lord Bishop, Messrs. Ward and Radcliffe — 3

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The Governor: Hon. members, in the Council three votes cast against and five votes cast in favour. The amendment therefore carries in both branches. It therefore becomes the substantive resolution. I will put it to you therefore, hon. members, will those in favour say aye; those against say no.

A division was called for and voting resulted as follows:

In the Keys —

For: Messrs. Gilbey, Cannan, Quine, Barton, Walker, Dr. Orme, Mr. Corrin, Mrs. Delaney, Messrs. Duggan, Kermode, Cain, Kneale, Brig. Butler, Mr. Leventhorpe and the Speaker — 15

Against: Messrs. Brown, May, Cretney, Delaney, Mrs. Hannan, Messrs. Bell, Gelling, Karran and Maddrell — 9

The Speaker: Your Excellency, The resolution carries in the House of Keys, sir, with 15 votes being cast in favour and nine votes against.

In the Council —

For: Messrs. Quirk, Anderson, Mrs. Hanson, Mr. Callin and the President of the Council — 5

Against: The Lord Bishop, Messrs. Ward and Radcliffe — 3

The Governor: Hon. members, in the Council three votes cast against and five votes cast in favour, the resolution therefore carries.

SUPPLEMENTARY AGENDA - SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS GRANTED

The Governor: Now, hon. members, by Standing Orders I am obliged to consult you to go on after six o'clock. We are tantalisingly close to the completion of our business. I propose to put it to the test by calling on the Chief Minister to move item 1 of the Supplementary Agenda.

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, may I beg to move:

That permission be granted under Standing Order 27(6) for the following business to be considered.

A Member: I beg to second, sir.

The Governor: Hon. members, I put to you that motion. Will those in favour say aye; those against say no. The ayes have it. The ayes have it.

Supplementary Agenda — Suspension of Standing Orders Granted TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1565

PAPERS LAID BEFORE THE COURT

The Governor: I call upon the Clerk to lay papers.

The Clerk: I lay before the Court —

. Superannuation Act 1984 - Superannuation (Clerk of Tynwald) Determination 1987.

Highways Act 1986 - Highway Closure (Douglas)(No. 1) Order 1987.

EDUCATION - MR. KNEALE NOMINATED FOR APPOINTMENT AS MINISTER

The Governor: Item 3. The Minister for Education.

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

(1) That Standing Order 175 be suspended to allow the following business to be considered.

(2) That Mr. G.V.H. Kneale be nominated for appointment as Minister for Education with effect from 1st September 1987.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIQN - MESSRS. CRETNEY AND QUINE ELECTED MEMBERS

The Governor: Item 4. Members of Department of Education.

Mr. Walker: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

(1) That Standing Order 178 be suspended to allow the following business to be considered.

(2) That the following be elected members of the Department of Education with effect from 1st September 1987 —

Mr. Cretney and Mr. Quine.

Papers Laid Before the Court Education — Mr. Kneale Nominated for Appointment as Minister Department of Education — Messrs. Cretney and Quine Elected Members T1566 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

HIGHWAY CLOSURE (DOUGLAS) (No. 1) ORDER 1987 - APPROVED

The Governor: Item 5. Highways Act 1986.

Mr. Catlin: Your Excellency, I beg to move:

(1) That in accordance with Standing Order 162(3) the provisions of Standing Order 162(1) be waived to enable the following resolution to be considered.

(2) That the Highway Closure (Douglas) (No.1) Order 1987, made by the Department of Highways, Ports and Properties under the provisions of Section 33(1) of the Highways Act 1986, be and the same is hereby approved.

The Governor: Is that agreed?

It was agreed.

CLERK OF TYNWALD — FAREWELL TRIBUTES

The Governor: Hon. members, that concludes our business and brings us to the item which we agreed at the beginning of the day, which is the tributes to our learned Clerk and Secretary to the House of Keys and, hon. members, if I may, though I am by far the most recent, start by saying that I am well aware that the House of Keys have already paid their unique farewells to their learned Secretary, we, in this Court have already said some farewells to Mr. Robert Quayle in the Members' Room off the record during the tea break, but it would be quite wrong for our tributes not to be recorded in Hansard, and I would like, though very much the junior, to say how much it has meant to me to have the learned Clerk in support. As is his way, he seemed to know that I had been appointed Lieutenant-Governor before I did, and from the moment that he knew he took the trouble to come to London to brief me on especially the eccentricities and special nature of this Court for which I will always be grateful. He has become one of the greatest experts alive, I suppose, on the ways of Tynwald and one of the fiercest but most charming guardians of our privileges in this Court and he has guided us and especially me, if I may say so, as a new boy, with charm, with humour and with sureness of touch. It was especially good, I think, to see his expertise in organising Tynwald Day, so wonderfully borne out in Tynwald 1987, and I have already referred to the unique

Highway Closure (Douglas) (No.1) Order 1987 — Approved Clerk of Tynwald — Farewell Tributes TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 T1567

tributes which have been paid to him and his organisation by Her Royal Highness, and of course with this I link the Tynwald Ceremony Arrangements Committee. But of course, hon. members, there are other aspects to Mr. Quayle than those of his work as our learned Clerk. He is above all a devoted family man, and it is especially wonderful to have his family here this evening with us so that we can thank them too and particularly his wife Clare. He is also, as all hon. members know, a committed and unashamed Christian, a licensed reader in the Church of England Chairman of the Salvation Army Advisory Council, Chairman of the Manx Foundation for the Physically Disabled, Chairman of the Council of Churches bookshop, the Secretary of the Gideons International in the Isle of Man, a dedicated fundraiser — as I know to my cost! — and the Secretary of the Life Education Centre Isle of Man Trust. He is also, of course, on a slightly different note, a former member of the Commonwealth Games Appeal Committee. His work for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association I will leave to the great presiding officers who follow me to comment on. I claim for you, hon. members, I think, that we shall miss him and Clare very much indeed from our political family but, thank God, he is not leaving the Island and we shall not lose him from our circle of friendship. Hon. members, may I on your behalf propose the most sincere tribute I can to our much loved and learned Clerk.

The Speaker: Your Excellency, as this evening we take our leave of this Court's most senior official and friend, I echo your feeling that it is so pleasing to have present in the Court those members of his family who we have also come to regard as friends over the years he has served us. Some, of course, have grown from the cradle to become friends and telephone answerers, as some of us know! Now, Your Excellency, may I say as one who has worked very closely with Robert as Secretary of the House of Keys and enjoyed the experience fully, it hardly seems eleven years since the hon. member of the Council, Mr. Anderson, and I, along with our then colleagues on the Consultative Committee of the House of Keys, were considering the applications for the post of Secretary of the House of Keys and Clerk of Tynwald. The person we sought would only be the second to hold the office on a full-time basis and was, as you can well believe, hon. members, expected to have unusual qualities: an administrator, preferably with legal knowledge, who could serve the needs of some thirty-odd bosses including a President and a Speaker whose responsibilities and requirements were not always identical; a person who could serve the widely differing interests of the branches in Tynwald, the Keys with their democratic endorsement to provide government, the Council, whose function is to make sure that the public have the right to govern themselves. Now in our scrutiny of the applications we found a candidate who produced a remarkable testimonial from the Master of Selwyn College, Cambridge, describing the applicant as an - outstanding person in character, personality, charm of manner and integrity, a man of high public spirit and principle, totally reliable, of good humour, whose leadership was of value to the community. He concluded, 'His goods are not merely for the shop window but go right through the man.' That applicant, who eventually was successful in getting the post, was of course Robert Quayle, and throughout his service here in Keys and Tynwald he has lived up to that, the highest of commendations, and leaves us with every line and word of that commendation

Clerk of Tynwald — Farewell Tributes T1568 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 endorsed, as we can all testify. His prowess as an organiser with flair and competence was ably demonstrated not only in the presentation of Tynwald, as Your Excellency has said, but, when the Island celebrated its millennium of parliamentary government and, to the surprise of many and the delight of others, hosted probably the most memorable Commonwealth Conference of the century. The Americans, Your Excellency, have an expression 'mending fences when public relations go awry and credibility needs restoring' and it is no secret that his skills have been utilised to advantage when some of the more blatant administrative errors have had to be rectified. In fact, even the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association have not hesitated to seek his expertise when occasion demanded and his overseas relationships have proved fruitful for us all in the Island, and he has indeed made the Island and its people known throughout the Commonwealth. Significantly, sir, as his experience has grown, so has his feeling for the Island, its culture, its ambitions, its well-being. Together with Clare, whose support has been both manifest and charming, they have made a team who have given distinguished service to the Legislature and the community, and on behalf of members past and present, Robert, accept our thanks and good wishes as you embark on your new career happily in the Isle of Man. (Applause)

The President of the Council: Your Excellency, I would like to concur with all that has been said about Mr. Quayle and also of what Mr. Speaker made reference to Mr. Quayle in his capacity particularly as Clerk to Tynwald. I referred to Mr. Quayle — incidentally, Your Excellency, he is affectionately known to us all as Robert. When we get a message on the telephone about something that is happening the next week or the next day, 'This is Robert speaking'; this is how he liked to be known and this is the relationship which he developed with his members, both in the Legislative Council and, I am sure, equally in the House of Keys. I would like particularly, Your Excellency, to make reference, to his ability to organise. You made some reference, and so did Mr. Speaker, to the wonderful Tynwald ceremonies that we have had and to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the Millennium conferences. They were a pattern which many throughout the Commonwealth have tried to follow and, as Mr. Speaker rightly says, the Canadians invited him to go over to show them the way it should be done. We shall miss Robert but we congratulate him on his joining a partnership in the Isle of Man. We shall watch with interest too as to his future as I know he will be watching us. We have watched him for a long time and, as the Manx people would say, we have been 'weighing him up' and I think it is quite true to say that while we have been 'weighing him up' he has not been found wanting. Thank you very much, Robert, for what you have done, for us as individuals when we were asking questions in Tynwald or when we wanted some information about resolutions. It was not his own opinion that he gave you, he gave you the right method to do whatever that job was. We greatly appreciate it and I join with His Excellency and Mr. Speaker in wishing you and your family — how nice to see them there! — every success in the future. Thank you very much indeed. (Applause)

The Governor: Now the learned Clerk will address you.

The Clerk: Your Excellency, I hope you will forgive me if I contravene Standing

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Orders by addressing my remarks not exclusively to the Chair tonight but also to Mr. Speaker and to Mr. President. As you can see, I feel deeply moved by the kind words that have been said about me. I feel that many, if not all, are undeserved but I do thank you most sincerely for them. The fact that I go with your approbation is the greatest treasure that I could leave this place with. As I take up new challenges in the world outside, I leave with a degree of sadness, obviously, but when only two members of the House now were here before me I feel it is time to go before I become an institution and we have to celebrate my Millennium! Mr. Speaker, you have referred to that day over eleven years ago when you and the committee had to consider the qualities of the candidates for the position of Clerk of Tynwald. I am reliably informed that it was a characteristic of my late grandfather that proved quite a critical factor in that deliberation. I understand that the qualities of determination and independence that were known of him were strongly in my favour. They were no more aptly illustrated than by the story that he used to tell many times of how in the First World War, as chief engineer of a vessel, he received a signal from the captain to stop engines. The captain intended to surrender the ship as they were in U-boat infested waters. My grandfather apparently misinterpreted the signal as being 'Full ahead' and the ship sailed safely through. I hope that story of my grandfather's character does not sound too familiar to presiding officers or to members of Tynwald, and I hope that whatever qualities that I may have inherited from him may have been used to preserve and enhance both the status and the privileges of this ancient Legislature and, as well, those of the Island which I am proud to claim as my home. Your Excellency, I have enjoyed 11'1 very happy years as Clerk of Tynwald and Secretary of the House of Keys, and during that time I have enjoyed not only the friendship of you and your predecessors as well as you, Mr. Speaker, and you, Mr. President, and all members past and present but I have been fortified and loyally supported by a group of dedicated and hard-working staff, and although it may be invidious to single out two for special mention I do so merely to illustrate my indebtedness to all my colleagues: these are Arthur Bawden, the Clerk Assistant, and June Brown, the Clerk Administrator, without whose help the Clerk of Tynwald's Department would have been very much less successful in meeting the needs of members. I have been particularly grateful for their help during the last three to four months when I have been endeavouring to do two jobs at once. I now know how the Cheshire cat must have felt with his body constantly fading away! My wife tells me that even the grin has been fading slightly at times! I thank members for their forbearance and tolerance of the reduced level of attention that I have been able to give them during the last few months of my service here as well as my wife and family for their understanding of a somewhat frayed temper at times. But now it is finally goodbye. After tonight I am on my bike and I commend my successor to you. He will be different but I feel he brings new and exciting qualities to this distinguished office which I have been privileged to hold. I shall watch his progress with interest. Since Clerks have such rare opportunities to address the Houses they serve I do not propose to exhaust your goodwill but I hope I will be forgiven for a brief moment of reflection. Just as Standing Orders are the bible of procedure in this House, many years ago I adopted as my personal Standing Orders that manual of life which the President refers to as the 'good Book'. The Book of Proverbs contains many items

Clerk of Tynwald — Farewell Tributes T1570 TYNWALD COURT, TUESDAY, 14th JULY, 1987 of distilled divine wisdom but one of my favourites is that phrase 'Righteousness exalts a nation'. As Manx people we spend a lot of time promoting the attractions of our Island, not only its physical beauty, its way of life and, more recently, its undoubted attractiveness as a centre for international business, and we spend long thousands of money trying to get that message across to a sceptical world. However important as those qualities are, to me they occupy second place to those invisible qualities which make a nation great and which are set out in the third prayer that is said before each sitting of Tynwald. These could be summarised as integrity in public and private life or, in other words, righteousness. As I step forward into the next stage of my life I do so with my hand firmly placed in the hand of the one who became our righteousness and the greatest service I can do to this Court and to the Manx people is to commend Him to you. Your Excellency, I thank you, I thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank you, Mr. President. I thank you all, hon. members, and I wish you well.

Members rose to their feet in applause.

The Governor: Hon. members, that concludes the business of this Court and also, of course, of this session. I wish, if I may, to each of you a very happy and blessed recess and now the Court will adjourn and leave the Speaker to bring such business as he may wish before the House of Keys.

The Council withdrew.

HOUSE OF KEYS

The Speaker: Hon. members, the House of Keys, the adjournment will be until Tuesday, 20th October, in Tynwald at 10.30 a.m. Thank you.

The House adjourned at 7.13 p.m.

CORRIGENDUM

Page T1444 (Tynwald Court, 6th July 1987), last line, for 'Band of the Royal . Marines' please read 'Quebec Band of the Queen's Regiment.'

House of Keys Corrigendum