Lords Sitting of 18 May 1966

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Chester): The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
The Lord Hylton—Took the Oath.

MEDICAL SERVICES IN CAIRNGORMS AREA
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that hospital and other medical facilities are adequate in the County of Inverness-shire, in view of the increasing development of winter sports and other outdoor recreational pursuits in the Cairngorms.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (LORD) HUGHES): My Lords, the hospital services are able to meet the extra demand on them without difficulty. Arrangements have been made to strengthen the general medical services and to extend the doctor's premises at Aviemore, and an additional four-wheel drive ambulance has been provided at Kingussie. The adequacy of these services will, of course, be kept under review.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that very full and satisfactory reply. May I ask him whether the ambulances will be fully equipped to deal with any serious head injuries which may occur, in view of the increasing numbers of children and young people who are now ski-ing and indulging in other pastimes in the Cairngorms area?
LORD HUGHES: Yes, my Lords.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, arising out of the Question, may I ask Her Majesty's Ġovernment—I am afraid I
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am very ignorant on this—whether there is any national form of general inspection of all the different hospitals in the different areas, especially with regard to accommodation facilities?
LORD HUGHES: I am afraid, my Lords, that that runs rather wide of the original Question.

CONSUMER PROTECTION
2.32 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they will again introduce a Bill for the protection of consumers.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD RHODES): My Lords, my right honourable friend has said in another place that he intends to introduce this legislation as soon as Parliamentary time permits, although he cannot at present say whether it will be possible this Session. I appreciate that the noble Lady has a special interest in this matter, but I cannot go any further at the present time.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his Answer, may I say that it is very disappointing? I do not know whether the Minister realises that, by postponing this very important Bill, which at the end of the last Session was three-quarters of its way through your Lordships' House, we are leaving the public and the consumers open to all the abuses which the Bill was meant to obviate. Could the Minister not urge on the right honourable gentleman the President of the Board of Trade that this Bill is urgent and should be regarded as more urgent than many other Bills which the present Government are anxious to put through?
LORD RHODES: Yes, my Lords, I will, and am doing so at the present time. I hope that it will have some result.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether, while realising that the present interim period is being used for most useful discussions, he is aware that all

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sides of the House support, at least in part, what the noble Lady has said? Is he further aware that there seems to be a danger of Governments, of whichever Party, taking great note of the consumers in difficult times, such as the moment, but failing to take account of them at times which are not so difficult? Will he please do what he can to get this measure debated as soon as possible?
LORD RHODES: I can assure the noble Lady that we are enthusiastic about this subject, and that as soon as we possibly can we shall bring it to the House again.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord what has happened between this Session and last Session which has caused this Bill to be relegated in priority?
LORD RHODES: A very great victory for the Labour Party.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, if that is so, then it is very depressing news for the consumer that a victory for the Labour Party is something which is going to be used to ignore the consumer completely. I beg of the noble Lord to go to his superior Minister in the other place and tell him that the consumers are very angry, and that they will not be content with answers like that.
LORD RHODES: My Lords, may I remind the noble Lady that the Conservative Party also had a great victory in 1951, with a very similar sort of majority, and that they were not able to introduce such a measure in 13 years, whereas we introduced one in 15 months?
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I am sorry, but that just will not do. Is my noble friend aware—I believe he may have made a slip of the tongue—that, while I did not agree with everything the noble Lady said in her original supplementary, I support wholeheartedly all that she said in her last supplementary? Is he further aware that those of us on this side of the House would regard a victory for the Labour Party as being a real cause for getting on with this job at once?
LORD RHODES: My Lords, I have no doubt but that the voices of the noble Ladies will be going down the corridors
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to the other place, where decisions lie; and I assure your Lordships that I will do all in my power to bring it forward.

HOUSING IN SCOTLAND
LORD TWEEDSMUIR: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government to what reasons they ascribe the failure to reach their present housing target in Scotland.]
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the Government do not accept that they have failed to reach their housing target in Scotland. For the public sector they aimed to approve about 30,000 houses in their first year of office and about 46,000 houses in the eighteen months to March, 1966. The number actually approved was 47,313. Allowing the usual time for preliminary site works, they expected construction to start by March on about 32,000 of these, and this was achieved. It takes about 21 months, on average, from the approval to the completion of a house, so the disappointing number of completions in recent months is attributable directly to the small number of houses approved by the last Administration in the relevant months of 1964.
Nevertheless, Her Majesty's Government are not satisfied with the rate at which some local authorities are coming forward with the schemes which, at the beginning of the year, they said they expected to start this year, and discussions are to be held next week with the major authorities in order to expedite progress.
LORD TWEEDSMUIR: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for his reply, I would ask, further: how is it expected that the selective employment tax will help the construction industry in Scotland to meet its acute shortage of workers?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, as I said in answer to a previous question, that is rather wide of the original Question.
LORD FORBES: My Lords, I wonder if the noble Lord can say whether the target which was set out in the White

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Paper on the Scottish Economy, stating that an extra 20,000 people would be taken on in the constructional industry by 1970, still holds good.
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I see no reason whatever to disagree with that statement.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he and the Government agree with
it?
LORD HUGHES: I am sorry, but I did not quite hear the noble Lady. I do not know whether she asked whether the Government agreed with me, whether the Government agreed with her or whether the Government agreed with it. The answer to the first and third parts is, "Yes"; to the second, "Not necessarily".
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: I am sorry the noble Lord did not hear me, so may I repeat the question? Do the Government agree with the statement?
LORD HUGHES: I do not find it necessary to add to the triple answer I have already given.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether the target for this year is still 39,000 houses?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the target for this year, we hope, will be completed. However, I should like to warn noble Lords that the figures for the second quarter of this year will not be unduly impressive—noble Lords laugh just a little too soon—for the same reason as the figures for the first three months have not been impressive; that is, that the figures approved by the previous Administration in the succeeding three months of 1964 were even less than the relevant figures for the production in the first part of this year. Noble Lords may wish to have some indication of the accuracy of the assessment which the Scottish Office have made in relation to approvals, starts and completions. The six months ended June, 1964, are the relevant period for the six months ended March, 1966, in relation to completion. During that period of six months the Conservative Administration approved 13,402 houses. The number of houses completed in the six months to March, 1966, is almost identical, 13,411.
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Unfortunately, as I have said, the next three months of Conservative approvals were even worse: in the succeeding quarter only 4,200 were approved, and this must be reflected in the figures for April, May and June of this year. Fortunately, the figures approved by the Labour Administration in the last three months of 1964 and the first three months of 1965 were at a rate twice as great as the preceding six months; and this is what will enable us to reach our proposed target.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many of us on this side of the House are getting rather anxious as to what the noble Lords opposite are going to do as time goes on and they are no longer able to blame the Conservative Government?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, I hasten to assure the noble Lord that we do not share his anxiety. We shall be content to rest our completions on our own approvals. This will be a source of complete satisfaction to the people of Scotland; although that feeling will not necessarily be shared by the Front Bench opposite.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, could the noble Lord say why it takes five months longer, on average, for a council house to be completed than for a private house?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, it does not necessarily take five months longer for a council house to be completed than a private house. The figures I have given, of 21 months, are the time from which approval is given to the time that a house is completed. We do not know the comparable figures for private houses. The only comparisons we can make are the starting dates of the actual construction and the completion dates; and as between private and the public field there is little or no difference.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, may we assume that the figures given by the noble Lord refer to entirely conventionally built houses and do not contain any element of factory-built houses where, presumably, the building time is much shorter?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords, the figures include both conventional and industrialised housing.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, that being so, can the noble Lord say whether the Government think it possible to decrease the time from approval to the time when the house-building begins?
LORD HUGHES: My Lords this is not a matter which is within the control of Her Majesty's Government. It depends on a great many factors. It depends on the extent to which local authorities have been able to keep ahead with the preparation of sites and the construction of the necessary road and sewerage works, and so on. This is one aspect of the discussions which will be taking place next week, because it is a field in which there is room for expediting completion dates and diminishing the period between the approval of a house and its completion.

RHODESIA: COST OF SANCTIONS
2.45 p.m.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether any assessment has been made of the damage to Britain's economy and the balance-of-payments position which will result from the operation of sanctions against Rhodesia.]
LORD SHEPHERD: Yes, my Lords.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that Answer, I would ask him whether he is aware that six months ago, despite warnings, the Government took the view that sanctions would be effective in toppling the Smith régime in a matter of weeks, and that they have proved to be entirely wrong? Is he aware that what worries some of us, in such an assessment, is that the Government may be minimising the effect sanctions will have on the economy and balance of payments of this country? Is he aware that already the anti-British feeling over the whole of South Africa is causing a loss, that foreigners are cashing in; and, further, that if sanctions are escalated the result is likely to be quite disastrous to the British economy?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, all the factors the noble Lord has mentioned
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have been taken into account. The Government, and, I believe, both Houses of Parliament, have taken the view that sanctions were the right method of bringing Rhodesia back to constitutional Government; and that, I believe, is what we all hope will be achieved.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, if the Government have, quite rightly, made an assessment on the matters raised in this Question, would they be very good and divulge them to Parliament?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in some respects the figures that would be given could not be entirely accurate, in the sense that we do not know how long the sanctions will be required; and there are many other aspects which would have to be taken into account. For this reason, I should not have thought that any assessment, if I were to give it, would be of great validity or use to your Lordships' House.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, would the noble Lord no; agree that Parliament would be satisfied with a broad figure, representing the general position resulting from sanctions, and also taking into account the loss of our trade with the Union of South Africa?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I will consider what the noble Marquess has said, and perhaps I might have a word with him later to see whether he would like to put down a Question. At this stage I should not like to go further than I have done.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I thank the noble Lord.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, could the noble Lord, who, with regard to his first reply, was confident and definite, give with regard to insurance some indication of the formula on which the assessment to which he referred is presumably going to be made? All who have been to South Africa recently are aware of the difficulties regarding insurance and reinsurance and the extent to which this country is losing it. In what manner is that assessment made?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords. I am not briefed with a wide range of sanctions and their effects; but, as I said
to

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the noble Marquess, I am quite prepared to have a conversation with the noble Lord.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, might I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that in one of his supplementary answers he said that the whole House was in agreement with the policy of sanctions? Might I ask him to remember that that is not so?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I will certainly look at Hansard and see what I said. I thought I said that both Houses of Parliament and the Government support this Bill.

SEAMEN'S STRIKE AND FOOD SUPPLIES
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given Private Notice:
Whether Her Majesty's Government will make a Statement about food supplies and the effect of the new restrictions on meat and also on what arrangements have been made for emergency supplies in regard to the Scottish islands?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Champion will be answering this Question by a Statement at about 3.30 this afternoon. My noble friend Lord Stonham will also be making a Statement about police amalgamation.

FAMILY PROVISION BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to amend the law of England and Wales in relation to the rights after a person's death of that person's spouse or former spouse and children, and to repeal Section 47(5) of the Administration of Estates Act 1925, as amended. I beg to move that this Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read la. —(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a. and to be printed.

PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE
2.50 p.m.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of the First Report from the Select Committee.
The Committee's Report was as follows:
1. GARTER'S ROLL OF THE LORDS
The Committee have reviewed the arrangements under which Garter King of Arms produces for each Parliament and lays upon the Table of the House an illuminated and hand written Roll of the Lords Temporal. They have considered the value of this Roll as a parliamentary record in relation both to its cost and to the fact that the whole of its contents is included in the Roll of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, which is prepared at the beginning of each Session and laid on the Table by the Clerk of the Parliaments. The Committee recommend that the production of Garter's Roll be discontinued. They further recommend that with the continued cooperation of Garter King of Arms, a suitably printed and bound Record copy of the Clerk of the Parliaments' Roll of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal should be produced each session.
2. DIVISIONS
The Committee have considered the question of the action to be taken when numerical discrepancies are discovered between the Tellers' figures and the Division lists kept by the Clerks. The Committee's conclusions and recommendations are set out below:—

(1) The responsibility for counting the votes rests with the Tellers, and once their figures have been announced to the House, these figures stand as authoritative, unless and until corrected by a further announcement in the House.

(2) If a discrepancy is discovered between the Tellers' figures and the lists of the Division Clerks, this should be reported as soon as possible to the Tellers with a view to their reconciling the inconsistency.

(3) If the Tellers agree that a correction is needed, this correction should be announced to the House at the earliest possible moment from the Woolsack or the Chair.

(4) If the correction involves the reversal of a decision of the House and the House has taken further action on the basis of the mistaken announcement, any proceedings taken on the basis of that announcement should, unless irreversible, be vacated.

(5) If after consultation with the Tellers, no reconciliation is possible and the discrepancy remains unexplained, a note should be appended to the Division List in the Journals, drawing attention to the discrepancy between the numbers announced and the numbers recorded.

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now considered.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: My Lords, in moving that this Report be agreed to I should like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the Committee made a second Report concerned with procedural matters, including those arising out of the debate on the Motion on Procedure of the noble Lord, Lord Alport, on April 29, 1965. This Report, which is lying on the Table, is now available to Peers in the Printed Paper Office. I am not asking the House to consider and approve the Report for the time being, as I think it would be an advantage to noble Lords to have sufficient time to digest its contents before it is considered by the House. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Report be agreed to. —(The Chairman of Committees.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PROBLEMS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE
2.52 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS rose to call attention to the problems of the countryside; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I would preface my opening of this debate by two remarks. First, although I am speaking from this Dispatch Box, the views which I shall express are my own and do not necessarily represent those of the Party to which I belong, although I trust that they will not diverge too far. Secondly, in view of the large number of noble Lords who have done me the honour of proposing to join in this debate, I think it is my duty to be fairly brief.
No one will doubt that the countryside has problems for many people who make their livelihood, their business and their pleasure in it; by farming it, managing it or running boats on a river, or other similar undertaking. To those who live in the countryside, and like to look at it in the state in which it is now in many
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places, and into which it has grown through many centuries of not too intensive or intrusive agriculture, to meet the needs of rural communities, the threats and their implementation are all too obvious, and by many deplored. The threats are caused, as your Lordships will be able to instance for yourselves, by such things as high-voltage electricity lines; new towns; the unholy halo of new and raw housing around so many beautiful villages; by people from afar, and from the adjoining estates, who are no longer content with minor incursions but, I am afraid, really are beginning to lose their sense of the difference between private and public property; by cars and all that they entail.
However, except perhaps for the intrusion of people where they should not be, these problems mostly represent the other side of the coin for those whose activities some might bewail, though in fact they are of the greatest public importance. I do not wish this afternoon to moan about these things but to attempt, briefly I trust, as I say, to rationalise a little on what seems to me the three-fold clash between the need for development, the need for conservation and for the proper industries that exist in the country and the need for people to use the country for recreation.
My Lords, it might perhaps be worth while, at the beginning, to ask why we want to conserve the countryside. Quite clearly, we are vitally tied up with the future of agriculture and forestry, and clearly there must be areas where outside recreation can take place in all the recognised forms, and perhaps in others still unthought of. Tourism, upon which so much of our economy depends, is immensely concerned with conservation of the countryside, but I believe that we are interested in it primarily because we still have the sense to know that, for those who live most of their lives in towns, a drive or a picnic in the country does them good and keeps them sane.
I was interested to find that there is, at any rate a little scientific evidence for this in one of the basic propositions that emerged from the Keele Conference on education in the countryside, which perhaps could be stated like this:
"While it is impossible in the present state of knowledge to trace a causal relationship

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between mental health and an educated awareness of a satisfying environment, the possibility that such a relationship exists are continually to be borne in mind."
Fine words, my Lords, and I think they mean that the countryside keeps us sane. And of course it is also a commonplace which all the literature on this subject emphasises in many forms that the conflict which I have mentioned between the seekers of peace and quiet and of beauty and the destruction of those very qualities where the seekers find them is the basic problem we have to face, let alone the intrusion by those influxes of people on the legitimate activities of countrymen.
Perhaps one more basic question to set the pattern for this debate. What is it that we wish to conserve, and for whom? I have for long been a little worried about the official policy on Green Belts, in that there has been perhaps an undue stressing of the fact that they exist for the recreation of people from the urban areas which those Green Belts surround, and that this has led, a little more than it should have done, first of all to that idea in the public mind that people can in fact go anywhere they want in a Green Belt, and secondly that the Green Belt may become something of a museum piece. On the contrary, I think that the countryside, in order to give its full value, must be a living countryside.
This matter, of course, has so many aspects that I cannot deal with very many of them, but the kind of problem which arises is the question: how many commuters can a village absorb before it loses its village spirit and becomes merely a number of people and surburban houses, where people just wash their cars and weed their gardens at the weekend and take very little part in the communal spirit of the village itself? I do not mean by any means that people who work in towns should not live in villages, but intangible though this aspect is, I believe that it is a very delicate balance and one which people would do well to keep very much in mind.
Another problem which crops up is the conflict between the view out and the view in to a site. Do we allow houses to be built beside a beach or overlooking a fine river so that those who live in them can enjoy the view from their windows, or do we in fact concern ourselves more
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with the view on to those houses for those on the beach or sailing up and down the river? Of course, so far as this debate is concerned (and I think this may be the principal topic of conversation), are we not vitally concerned to decide where we are to have recreational facilities which are so necessary; where these are to predominate and be all-important, and where we should try to emphasise the importance of the farming, forestry and other rural industries, and try, if possible, to keep the people seeking recreation out of them? It is a balance which requires judgment and sensitivity and in the end, when the plans have been made, I believe, firmness.
We have plenty of advice on it now. There have been two conferences on "The Countryside in 1970"; the Scottish Landowners' Federation have produced a booklet, Access without Tears; there was the Keele Conference, which I have already mentioned, where a study was made of the educational aspect of the countryside and the way in which the two can be combined for the good of the country. There was the Nuffield Inquiry into Common Land, which led to the Act passed in the last Parliament. Now we have the White Paper.
I would say at this stage that it seems to me that the provisions in the White Paper are almost all wholly admirable, but I do not propose to follow up many of them this afternoon, for a reason which I hope will be considered valid. It is really the implementation of the advice that we have in its myriad forms which we must try to achieve, either by new bodies and new laws, or perhaps, even now, by using what we have. The paradox about the White Paper, and the reason why I am going to confine myself to a quite narrow aspect this afternoon, is that, although the proposed Countryside Commission, the new powers, the extra finance, the increased vigour, are almost all, as I say, wholly admirable, these proposals have not found a place in the legislative programme for this Session of Parliament; and I should not be surprised if it was at least two years before any of these powers became law and could be implemented in practice.
I should like, therefore, to see what we can do with our existing legislation and our existing organisations and powers. I recognise that noble Lords who follow

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after me may wish to take advantage of what the White Paper says in Paragraph 62: that
"reconnaissance, planning and research are needed both locally and nationally so that when legislation has been enacted work can begin on well thought out schemes without delay."
I will touch on those later. But it seems to me that our task at the moment must be to try to prepare the way for the time when the legislation will come: because in the end, although Parliament may legislate and Government Departments may declare national policies, and countrywide bodies may advise and exhort, it is really strong local determination that is going to achieve something. I think that, in addition to the advice we have had as to what we should do, we might with advantage (I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, has had time, in the short period of the notice I have been able to give him of some of these questions, to find out the answers) do something by way of learning from the authorities and Governments who have already more advanced powers than are nationally available in England, Wales and Scotland.
For instance, I do not know whether any of your Lordships have read the Amenity Lands Act 1965, passed by the Northern Ireland Parliament. It contains many of the proposals which are now in the White Paper for this country, and I think it would be extremely interesting if the Northern Ireland Parliament and the Departments concerned could keep us closely informed about the progress they make and the snags they encounter in putting into effect the powers they now possess. Can we not learn a little, also, from the Cumberland County Council (and I am glad to see that my noble friend Lord Inglewood is to speak later in this debate), because in Part II of a private Act of 1964, they took unto themselves, with the approval of Parliament, some useful powers which are not universally available. I should like to know what use they have made of these powers and what success they have met.
The emphasis, as I understand it, in all informed opinion on this subject centres on the powers of local authorities, very largely under the Planning Acts. But there is an equal stress upon the failure to deal with this subject on larger bases than the individual county or
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county borough, and on the need for a much more regional outlook, and for the combination of the urban authorities, who export people into the countryside, and the county authorities, who are on the receiving end. I must confess that I appreciate the feeling of the county council that, if they are to use even the powers they have to spend their ratepayers' money on the provision of facilities, amusements and attractions for those who come from adjoining urban areas, they may well be accused of doing something that is quite unnecessary and very low down in the priorities of the actual needs of the county. Equally, I suppose, the county borough or the urban authority might well say that where their citizens go for weekends and on holidays has nothing to do with them. All the same, I feel that this is a short-term view, and a mistaken one.
It is true that at the moment the grants structure is not properly designed to bring about the right degree of co-ordination; and this is one of the things the White Paper proposes. However, we have not yet got it. Nor, indeed, are what are to my mind some vital concomitant provisions yet available which will go towards compensating people who live in the country areas. I am attracted by the idea, subject to a reservation which I will produce in a moment, that there should be considered public liability for compensation to individuals who have land, large acres or small, in the country. I am attracted by the idea of greater penalties for vandalism, and a much more intense drive against trespass. I am very attracted by the importance of educating people from their earliest ages in the proper use of the countryside; and I know that this, to some degree, has already been done.
But such protections for country people cannot reasonably be implemented until there is somewhere to which the people who seek the open country can go. How often has one said, as one drives along, that people must be insane to have a picnic in some small lay-by! But where else can they go for a picnic? This is a difficult problem, and I do not see how the legitimate interests in the countryside can be protected from those who drive out into it unless there is some proper destination for these people to seek. In any event, I hope that the new

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powers and the new grants will be available soon. But the object at the moment—and this is what I should like to confine myself to this afternoon, mainly for the sake of brevity—is to see whether we cannot prepare, or go towards the preparation of, sonic sort of viable scheme in order to meet this three-fold problem.
At the moment, with the powers we possess, I think there are three partners in the project. The first is the Government. Yesterday's announcement in another place by the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister, about the reorganisation of the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, may be extraordinarily opportune for the purposes of this debate. At the moment, the responsibility for looking after the countryside, recreation, sport, and all these cognate matters, is spread over a colossal number of Departments. The large bulk of the responsibility falls on the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, but the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources also have a good deal of responsibility. The Department for Education and Science is also closely involved, as are the Board of Trade, with its interests in tourism and the British Travel Association, the Ministry of Public Building and Works, with their responsibility for Royal Parks, and, of course, the Department for Economic Affairs, with their regional ideas and responsibilities.
As this reorganisation has not, I think, yet been finalised, might this not be the moment to see whether, under one Ministry or another, some rather more coordinated department could be evolved with the specific aim of bringing together the various interests which at the moment are spread about in a rather disparate way among the different departments? I believe that a single department or sub-department (I am not for the moment suggesting a new Ministry) would find it much easier to keep in touch with the various statutory and private bodies—the National Parks Commission, the National Trust, the Nature Conservancy, and all the rest of them—than does the present spread of interests over so many parts of the Government machine.
There must also be a number of smaller contributions which can be made under the existing law. When I was reading the
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voluminous literature on this subject my eye fell on a small measure called the Town and Country Planning (Landscape Areas Special Development) Order 1950, an Order which may or may not be familiar to your Lordships. What it does is to subject to special planning control agricultural and forestry development in four county districts in Caernarvon and Merioneth, ten county districts in Westmorland, Cumberland and the Furness area of Lancashire, three county districts in the Peak District of Derbyshire and one in Cheshire. The Ministry of Housing have extremely wide powers to make development orders of this nature. So far as I know, this is the only one which has been made with this specific subject in mind. I think they might see, with advantage, whether they could not do more under these extremely wide and generous powers. There are no doubt a number of other things of which I have not thought on this particular sphere, but that is the sort of line I think we could start on straight away.
Local authorities are, I think, at the core of this problem, and I attempted a few moments ago to set out their main difficulty, but in fact, although they may not be particularly minded to combine in seeking to solve this matter, they have at least powers to do so, as I understand it, both South and North of the Border because under (if your Lordships will forgive a technical reference) Part II of the Second Schedule to the Town and Country Planning Act 1962, and the Scottish equivalent, they can set up joint committees of a number of local planning committees to advise upon development plan preparation. Indeed, I think they can set up joint committees for almost any purpose under Local Government Acts.
This is a very familiar thing in Scotland, and goodness knows how many powers are now spread over a number of counties in order to provide a sufficient staff and a sufficient area to fulfil the functions efficiently. I do not think it is nearly so familiar, practical or popular in England, and I wonder why not. Indeed, what can be done in this way is exemplified by what I found to be a fascinating collection of instances of the sort of things that Country Parks might turn out to be. In one of the "Countryside in 1970" papers, dealing

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specifically with Scotland—and since this is a matter which, at any rate, when I began to consider this subject worried me, in that I could not envisage how these Country Parks could be anything but simply terrible—I was fascinated to look at the diversity of most attractive proposals which have already been thought out in Scotland.
With the rapid development of the ski-lifts and other commercial interests, the Cairngorms area has been subject to the usual conflicts of land use familiar in urban areas, but translated suddenly into an extremely remote (as it was in many places) rural countryside. It was a lonely and superbly beautiful area, but now there is this very heavy pressure of recreational pursuit, and a full-scale plan has been worked out so that the conflict may be solved. Your Lordships will not, I think, consider that there is anything very dreadful about the Cairngorms area as it is now with the new facilities.
Glencoe, an area of great landscape value, has been the subject of much conversation, and the view taken here has been that the provision of the normal type of tourist facilities for motorists and caravanners would be quite unsuitable and out of character. What was recommended was that facilities should be provided for a series of tourists' loop roads, off the main road, carefully designed to meet specific activities; a new forest park with different methods of afforestation to suit the very open landscape there; and an interesting proposal, the reclamation of the Ballachulish foreshore from the spoil and waste tips of the old slate quarries. The difficulty here is that the Argyll County Council has not the staff or the money to do it at the moment, but there is a good idea.
Something totally different is the idea for the reclamation in the middle Clyde area of four and a half square miles of completely derelict industrial land, to be developed as a regional recreation scheme, between Motherwell and Hamilton—a quite different idea altogether. There was to be a lake and water sports; management of a nature reserve; a service area; staging facilities for motorists; facilities for a quarter of a million people in the surrounding urban area, with a motorway going slap through the middle of it; but again a great improvement, I would think, on what is there now.
Another of these projects which have been examined concerns the Loch Lomond-Trossachs area. The study group came to the conclusion that the road widening, the tourist facilities and the private development are not up to the standard that might have been expected in that particularly beautiful area, despite the fact that all applications have to go to the Secretary of State for his approval. Then, again, there is a totally different concept for the North-West, a wilderness area, where the intrusion of man and man-made things would be at an absolute minimum: no vehicles, no entry beyond a certain point except for people on foot. The Glentrool Forest Park in the Stewartry has already provided, by the Forestry Commission, an excellent camp and caravan site, an area leased to the Nature Conservancy, with use permitted in part of the forest park for military and adventure training and sporting rights.
Then, in the context of what local authorities can do on their own, perhaps the most interesting of all are the East Lothian tourist development proposals—one of the very few sets of proposals that the counties in Scotland have made—prepared as a result of a circular issued by the Scottish Development Department. A most intelligent and diverse collection of activities has been proposed in that area, canalising the interest of those seeking recreation into a variety of different fields, but keeping them out of other areas by attracting them away. It seems to me that this sort of thing is well worth studying by local authorities all over the country, and perhaps it would greatly help in the acceptance of this idea if the public were to realise that we are not to have a rather dismal, small, municipal park, suddenly put down in the midst of Surrey, Cumberland or wherever you may like to think of. But there is scope for this enormous variety of ideas and most attractive proposals. But, of course, joint effort between local authorities, private landowners, and the other interests is emphasised throughout.
Local authorities also, I think, have considerable powers under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 which they have not used. People tend to concentrate on National Parks or footpaths, but what has been done about access agreements and access orders,

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which are clearly allowed under that Act? Has the duty, under Section 61, to carry out surveys for the purpose of providing access and recreational facilities, which was required under the Statute to be done by 1951, been carried out by county councils? I am delighted to see that the White Paper suggests a new survey. Have the powers to acquire land been used, and have any wardens been provided? There are powers for all these things. What about the by-laws? These are available now.
Coming to the subject of development plans, I will leave aside the subject of development control, but the positive side of planning is of crucial importance and has been much more successful than people realise. I will mention only a few individual matters. Looking at the Essex County Review, which has been submitted to the Minister and is at present under inquiry, I was interested to see that they had a provision for a regional recreational area—I dislike the term, but apparently that is what it has to be called. What about the idea for the classification of settlements: these areas outside the Green Belt where it is decided that one village is suitable to accept development whereas another must be carefully restricted in its growth? This selection obviously needs care, lest we kill the villages that are restricted. Nevertheless, the idea can make a most positive contribution towards seeing which parts of the countryside are to be conserved and where development can properly take place. If ever there was an example of a valuable piece of research on this subject, the Norfolk County Council's recent study into the tourists' recreational needs in that county, including, of course, the Broads, is one.
There is one more point which local authorities might like to consider. If we are to decide that in some parts of the countryside the existing state of affairs should be largely conserved, why should there not be a determined policy that in those areas there is no need to widen roads? What happens with the pressure of traffic is that this bank is cut down, and that hedge demolished, so that, bit by bit, the countryside that everybody enjoys disappears into a newly aligned and standard-width highway. Provided that there are proper roads available, why
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should not motorists accept the discipline of country lanes and enjoy them for what they are in their present state? I think that Professor Buchanan has written a paper on this subject. It is only a translation to the countryside of his Report, Traffic in Towns. There must be some areas where environment is more important than the traffic and other places where traffic is of paramount importance. It is only a matter of trying to work out which is which. In all this work the lack of qualified people, such as architects, surveyors, and so on, is a serious problem, but it does not need legislation to deal with that.
Finally, there is the question of private interests. I believe that a great deal of this work can be done by private people. Even if the ideas and the locations of the sites for a recreation may originally be suggested by local authorities and joint committees, it will often be a great deal easier, and cheaper, if the ideas can be implemented otherwise than through public funds. For instance, commerce will perfectly well cope with the development of the Broads to the full, provided that the task is put into the right hands. Surely the same will apply to a great number of organised, or even semi-organised, recreational areas. Provided it is perfectly clear, and the idea is accepted, that people will and must pay for their pleasures—and why should they not?—these ventures should be financially self-supporting. The lions of Longleat will spring to mind, but there must be many other examples of private enterprise which have already been started. But I would emphasise that in this matter compulsory purchase should be employed only as a very last resort.
My Lords, there are legions of other ideas, but I must stop. I will look forward very much to the contributions of other noble Lords, and particularly, if I may say so, to the two maiden speeches that we are to have this afternoon. We need discrimination, foresight, organisation; and, so far as organisation is concerned, I think that the need is the opposite to that in the case of justice: it should be done, but should never be seen to be done. I would adopt what was said by another of the study groups of "The countryside in 1970" conference: I am disturbed by the problem of the vulnerability of the British countryside to the pressures of population increase and to the great extension of mechanised

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mobility. All too easily grave damage could be done in many insidious ways, the cumulative effect of which would be noticed only when it was too late. I fear, like them, that the time will come, if we do not do something pretty soon, when the British public will wake up to the realisation that they have created an island which is scarcely worth living in. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.27 p.m.
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, judging by the number of us who have put our names down to speak in this debate, most of whom live and work in the countryside, we obviously owe very great thanks to the noble Viscount for introducing this Motion to-day, and I think he has done it extraordinarily well. I have not heard such a good dissertation on these problems for a very long time, although I sit on various committees connected with them. I think he put the three basic problems, of development, conservation and recreation, extremely well, and although he did not "plug" the point that "conservation" does not mean "preservation", his speech throughout emphasised that conservation is a wide concept and means very much more than just preserving the countryside; it means making the best use of it in all ways.
The noble Viscount has a wide knowledge of town and country planning, and what he said in this context was to me among the most interesting parts of his speech. He pointed out that there has been a plethora of various kinds of advice on these problems, and the central problem really is to know how to implement this, because one of the immediate problems facing the countryside is this confusion and uncertainty which has arisen in a way just because of this sudden mass of proposals and plans and the setting up of further bodies, for example the new Regional Planning Boards and Economic Development Councils. We have already, as the noble Viscount pointed out, innumerable aspects of local authority planning which already cover a good deal of this, and overlapping with them bodies like the planning boards, of which those of the Lake District and the Peak are examples, and now we have the Countryside Commission to replace the National Parks Commission. Lastly, on top of all these various bodies, are bodies which are
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not Government-controlled at all, like the National Trust and the Council for the Preservation of Rural England.
We already have a conflict of aim within these various bodies. I think that already the new Regional Council for the North does not think in exactly the same terms as, for instance, the Lake District Planning Board does, or indeed even the National Trust. For instance, Mr. Dan Smith, who is the Chairman of the new Regional Council for the North, thinks in terms that these amenities ought to be able to pay for themselves; countryside amenities can be made to pay, and this can be done by means of scenic railways over the mountains and chair-lifts to the top of the Lakeland hills and such things. But I cannot help feeling that that would destroy the amenities people come to enjoy.
What influence are all these different new bodies going to have on the whole of the rural economy? We are quite clearly moving away from what we have already, which is the existing local authority set-up, we are moving towards a kind of regional government with regional advisers, who are not exactly elected but appointed because they have the ear of the Government, and they are often served, it seems to me, by councils of no very great distinction. I say that with some diffidence because no doubt certain noble Lords sit upon these councils. I think that from these Benches we support regional government, but whether this is quite the right approach to it I do not know. Nevertheless, I do feel, so far as the countryside and its problems are concerned, that these particular regional bodies will have a good effect on conservation problems rather than a bad one.
What about the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources in this same context? What is going to happen to it? There is a good deal of uncertainty as to its future and nobody really seems to know what the answer is. It was to have been abolished and absorbed in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. Is this still so? Perhaps the noble Lord will be able to give us a lead; perhaps he will not. At any rate, it does seem that the Government themselves are having second thoughts about the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, because if they do not have second thoughts about keeping it one wonders what they will do

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with all its functions. Where will responsibility for forestry, water resources, common land and national parks go? Will it all go to the Ministry of Housing? I think it will be a great pity if it does.
Housing is, after all, only one part, and not necessarily the most important part, of the whole complex of land and its conservation. It is in itself, after all, a despoiler of land, and the Minister of Housing must inevitably be tempted all the time to consider, not so much conservation, even in its widest sense, but the construction of the maximum number of houses at the cheapest possible price in the shortest possible time. This is what it must be tempted to do if it is not itself watched by some other Department. We may well wake up, if we put everything like this under the Ministry of Housing, to find that although we have solved our housing problem, we have no countryside left. To-day it was announced that historic buildings are going under the Ministry of Housing. In general that seems to have had a good reception, but again I wonder whether the Minister of Housing is the right man to look after historic buildings. I feel that his Ministry has too many other contrary problems for him to be the right Minister for this.
Then we have the new proposals under the Countryside Commission whose formation was announced in November, 1965. As the noble Viscount said, it was not mentioned in the Queen's Speech. I suppose it is going to take the place of the National Parks Commission which I take it will be wound up. That possibly is the right way to approach it. The National Parks Commission has obviously outlived its usefulness in the form in which it now is and its position should be reconsidered. It has itself for a number of years been pressing for a review of its financial set-up, and I think its financial set-up is probably the key to its difficulties—compensation, the whole difficulty of the conflict between what you might call the playground versus the workshop aspects of the countryside.
I thought that the noble Viscount had some very useful things to say about public liability for the sort of losses which those of us who use the countryside for recreation and as our workshop have sustained. I do not know whether the compensation provisions worked very well
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under the old National Parks Commission. Your Lordships will remember there was to be a five-year delay between making an access order on a piece of land and determining how much damage had been done to that land by opening it up to the public. But I rather suspect that it has not worked very well. Similarly, although there has been a 75 per cent. grant from the Exchequer towards the expenses of running the National Parks there is a feeling that, even so, a great deal more of the expense of this than is altogether fair has rested upon local inhabitants, who are not necessarily very rich people, by means of payments of rates.
What the noble Viscount said about the new concept of Countryside Parks was a very interesting part of his speech. I, too, when I first heard of the new idea, felt, "What does this mean?" There are already the National Parks which are going to go on, and there are the new kinds of parks like the Lea Valley authority's park which is going to come into being, which is really not so much a park in the National Park sense as an amusement park in the funfair sense. I wondered what on earth the new Country Parks were going to be, and I think his exposition, particularly his examples from the Highlands, were extraordinarily interesting.
Again there is no reference in the White Paper to a warden service. That is one of the most difficult aspects of the existing National Parks Commission. It is one of the things which so many are in need of. Nothing is said, again, about finding the money for the upkeep of these Parks. I thought the noble Viscount had some very useful things to say on that. I think we are getting somewhere near the stage in which agriculture and National Parks can no longer run together. That is particularly true of the Lake District. Within ten years it may become impossible to have agriculture at all in a place like the Lake District. That at any rate is the prevailing feeling among a lot of people in the North. The problem of the countryside is not only the problem of parks and holidays in the countryside; it is, as I have said, the problem of conservation in its widest sense, trying to make the best use of the countryside, which involves not only holidays and keeping it beautiful but also

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making the best possible use we can of it.
As a farmer and landowner myself, I think one must say that we, too, have not been without blame in this respect. I think we have put up buildings which are no ornament to the countryside. There is still no compulsion in planning permission for agricultural buildings. The same applies to tree-felling. I think that we often have a wrong conception of what tree-felling should be.
The problems of the countryside also involve proper town planning. In this respect, more effort should be made to try to use the large areas of derelict land which exist all over the country—land which has become derelict from industrial use and decay. In Lancashire there are something like 12,000 acres of land which could be used for building. I know it is much more expensive than taking other land, which may be good agricultural land or land which is beautiful. Nevertheless it is something that must be done. It involves the proper siting off main roads of things like caravan sites and picnic spots. It involves the prevention of industrial pollution of rivers, and of the air by motor cars. I thought what the noble Viscount had to say with regard to narrow roads in public parks was interesting and significant. So far as the Cumberland planning authority is concerned, the thinking goes even further, and suggests that a lot of these small roads should be closed altogether to cars, except for people who actually live there and who might have a licence to use them.
Water also needs a good deal more thinking about. Naturally, I was disappointed that Manchester should be going to take water from the lakes. Nevertheless, there is something we have to remember as well in the context of planning the countryside—namely, that we can easily destroy places like Ullswater much more quickly by wrong use of them from the point of view of recreation, motor boats and so on, than ever Manchester can do, with the present safeguards. That is a point that we must bear in mind. I strongly support all the things that the noble Viscount has said in his most interesting speech. I am sure all of us regard the White Paper
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as being, by and large, a most satisfactory document. We hope it will be implemented rather more quickly than at present looks possible.
3.43 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET): My Lords, we owe a debt of gratitude to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for having initiated the debate this afternoon. In his speech he touched, I think, on most of the relevant parts of the topic. His speech in 1963 to the Annual General Meeting of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England is still remembered by all those concerned in this question and has made its contribution to what is now being developed through the Government's proposals. I look forward to all the speeches that we are to hear this afternoon, perhaps to none more than that of the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, who has been so closely involved with the Countryside in 1970 Conference, at which so many of the proposals later issued in the White Paper as Government policy were discussed and first brought together in an orderly form.
I will endeavour to answer as much as I can of what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, said, but his questions were rather detailed, and, as he generously conceded, he did not give me much warning of the detailed points he was going to make. In an interesting passage about what we could do now, before the introduction of the Countryside Bill, he mentioned various existing measures and asked whether we were making full use of them—in particular the Cumberland County Council Act 1964. This Act gives Cumberland County Council powers to make the sort of provisions in Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty which can normally only be made in the National Parks themselves. Some use has been made of these powers, particularly in regard to preventing the wrong use of the coastline by tourists. In short, these powers have proved themselves useful, and we hope that they will prove to be more useful as time goes by.
He mentioned also the power which exists for local authorities, and typically urban local authorities and their rustic hinterland, to form joint planning

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advisory councils. The trouble is that these powers as they exist now provide only for advisory committees, and what seems to us to be more important than that is to get the right arrangement for planning authorities so that the planning authority itself, for a social unit of conurbation plus rustic hinterland, shall be the right size to handle the joint problems which arise between the two types of area. My right honourable friend the Minister is instigating at this moment a number of studies on a sub-regional basis, smaller than the big regions with which we are familiar in the Department of Economic Affairs context, covering an urban area with a surrounding rural area, in order to find out precisely what type of situation can be best met by what type of planning authority in the future.
The noble Viscount mentioned the Lands Amenity Act of Northern Ireland, which, we understand is something like our own National Parks Act, but with slightly more executive power reserved to the Minister than in the National Parks legislation, and with no Countryside Commission or equivalent commission, but a different structure. We keep in touch as much as possible with developments under this Northern Ireland legislation, and we know that the Northern Ireland Government has been in touch with our own National Parks Commission—in other words, the experience they are gaining is not lost to us, and we are not omitting to feed it into our consideration about our own countryside legislation.
He also suggested the possibility of a special department within the Government to deal with the countryside, although not, I think, a separate Ministry. I am glad he did not suggest a separate Ministry. How these things are handled in the bureaucracy is not a matter we usually discuss in too much detail in this House. There are, of course, specialists in this matter, and I think that the departmental structure which we have within the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources and which is being sought at this moment, is probably adequate to the kind of needs we are talking about.
Turning to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Henley, I want to take him
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up on a couple of points. The position about the reabsorption of the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources is not too obscure. The Prime Minister himself made a rather full statement about yesterday in another place. It is to be re-absorbed. The dovetailing of the machinery of the two Departments is already rather far advanced, but the formalisation of the arrangements requires legislation. The absorption of the two bureaucratic machines is not something that can be done overnight. It is in hand. There are no second thoughts or back-tracking on it.
The noble Lord made the point that perhaps the Minister of Housing and Local Government was not the right person to entrust with the primary executive responsibility for keeping a decent countryside. He painted an awful picture of a man concerned only with brute quantity, pouring out cheap and nasty houses in ribbon development all over the country. This is really far from the present situation. The Minister is the Minister not only of Housing, but also of Local Government and of Town and Country Planning. It is not in his title, but it is much in his functions; and I think we should be better advised to confine ourselves to discussing specific cases where he may be thought to have erred than in assuming that merely because he is called "Housing" he is against the countryside. He is not. Lastly, I would mention one tiny point. The noble Lord said that the White Paper did not mention the provision of warden services. It does in fact; it is to be found in paragraph 25, which proposes a warden service for the new Country Parks.
I do not know what could be a harder thing to plan than the countryside, unless indeed it is the cities whose development makes it so important that we should plan the countryside. We have to think, all at the same time, of next year's harvest, of next year's breeding grounds for the peregrine falcon, of the new towns or districts of towns which we shall need in 1975, of where the water is to come from in 1985, and where the timber is to come from in 2050. Then, with all these, we have to think of next week-end's motorists coming out of the city to enjoy themselves in the best of all possible ways:

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by breathing the fresh air and getting some sun on them. It is this last problem which makes it all so urgent. Choked roads, cars parked everywhere so that no one can enjoy anything, noses filled with fumes, social and family communication choked because everyone loses their tempers.
One is tempted to say "All right, let there be no cars in the countryside." But then, when one looks at the cities they have come from and at the congestion there, one is tempted to say, "Let there be no cars in the cities either—let there be no cars." But we cannot do that. We welcome the extension of car ownership; it confers a new sort of freedom on more and more people, and it is the essence of good planning to contrive that this freedom shall not be self-cancelling; to contrive that the pleasant places which can now be easily reached shall not become unpleasant simply because they are easy to reach. Both in cities and in countryside it is a difficult task indeed. Just as one cannot preserve the nice places precisely as they are by keeping everyone out, so one cannot set oneself the aim of ensuring that everyone can always go everywhere, if by that one brings it about that there is nowhere anyone wants to go.
One might be tempted to say the task is so enormous that it can be met only by taking swingeing central powers; a 100 per cent. Power of compulsion, a 100 per cent. Exchequer finance. But we have a pretty thriving system of local government in this country, and there would be no surer way of causing it to languish than by successively taking more and more power to the centre. On the other hand, if one took no increased powers to the centre, although some local authorities would do as well and possibly better than the centre could, yet there will always be a variety in their performance, and there would be an obvious injustice in letting that happen, too.
So the Government have tried to strike a balance by the proposals in this year's White Paper which, broadly speaking, is based on an extension of the idea of the existing 75 per cent. Exchequer subsidy for the various new things it is intended shall be done. The White Paper accepts that everybody has a right to spend a part of his leisure in the countryside and
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to be able to reach it quickly and in comfort. This will influence, of course, the future planning and the location of houses, factories, roads and public utilities. But these matters are not within the scope of the Countryside White Paper. The White Paper seeks to reconcile general enjoyment of the countryside with the interests of those who live and work there, and with the need to prevent the destruction of the very amenities which draw people to it.
The answer, as the House knows, is the proposal to set up Country Parks and picnic sites which one can go to, and camping and caravan sites for those passing through on their way to somewhere else; to provide better access to water open country and to State forests; to review and streamline footpaths legislation and to facilitate the creation of more long distance walking routes.
The White Paper also proposes measures to enhance and preserve the natural beauty of the countryside itself: a substantial programme of tree planting by local authorities, with complementary powers to acquire amenity woodlands in certain circumstances; improvements in the legislation governing tree preservation orders (an enormous matter, with thousands of cases every year); a programme to get rid of eyesores from the most attractive places; a review of the policies of seaside local authorities in respect of development on the coastlines, and Government support to the tune of £250,000 for the National Trust's Enterprise Neptune Campaign: and also special powers to regulate motor traffic in certain areas in the interests of amenity. For a large proportion of these measures Exchequer grants will be paid at 75 per cent.
General oversight and co-ordination of all this is to be entrusted to a Countryside Commission which will in due course replace the National Parks Commission. Besides assuming the existing functions of the National Parks Commission in relation to National Parks themselves and to Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, to long-distance routes and to the preservation and enhancement of natural beauty in England and Wales, the new Commission would be responsible for promoting public enjoyment of the countryside generally—that is, outside these special places. Let me say here that there is no intention whatever

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to dilute the powers and functions of the existing National Parks Commission in relation to its own places in the National Parks and the Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The proposal is that these functions shall remain as they are, or better, and that new functions over wider areas should be added to them.
The new Commission will assume its new functions under the proposed Countryside Bill. I know that there is disappointment in the House, and indeed in the country, that it has not proved possible to introduce this Bill in the present Session. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, voiced it; I share it. But it is due to no more dubious or deplorable a fact than that one cannot do everything at once. The Government have a fearfully heavy programme of legislation for this Session, largely of very urgent social reforms. This Parliament looks like lasting rather more than one year and we should not regard the fact that a given Bill is introduced in the second Session rather than in the first as a matter of grave concern. The time is not being lost; it is being used for preparation, and the Bill will be all the better, we believe, for a rather prolonged period of gestation—longer than we had hoped, I admit, but not longer than it should be. The Countryside Bill for Scotland is being introduced in this Session, for the simple reason that Scotland, unlike England and Wales, does not have the foundation of existing National Parks legislation to build on. Scottish needs therefore appeared to us to be more urgent, and this is reflected in the timetable of legislation.
The Countryside White Paper itself has met, on the whole, with a well-merited welcome from the organisations concerned with its contents. What effect will it have? I think that when its provisions are translated into law, when the detailed planning it requires has been done, and when the money has begun to flow towards the implementation of these plans, we may expect the following. At present our country shows, at week-ends and in the holiday season, solid lines of steel boxes, each filled with frustrated people, trying, and sometimes even failing, to get to a rather small number of all too familiar places: the seaside re
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sorts, Box Hill from London, the Lakes from the Northern cities. "It's a fine day; let's sit in the steel box and see if we can get somewhere." We plan, above all, greatly to increase the number of places people will want to get to, and will be able to get to. Why go 100 miles to a National Park? Not everyone needs to be able to walk for three days without seeing anything but sheep. Why not go 20 miles to a place where we can park the car somewhere where it will not spoil the view, where we can get out and roam around for an hour or so, in a wood, on a small piece of open downland, and sit down out of sight and sound of the city, but not all that far out of sight and sound?
So we propose the institution of Country Parks, some of them fairly near to cities. Local authorities are already beginning to think where these Country Parks might be set. But some of us do not even want to walk for a mile or two; older people and people with young children need only a smaller place still where they can simply get out of the car and sit in a pretty place and eat sandwiches. Why go 20 miles? Why not go an even shorter distance to an even smaller place properly safeguarded and designated? So we propose picnic places.
I do not need to remind your Lordships that none of this will make it any harder for those who wish to get right away from all trace of civilisation and tameness. The aim is to provide a continuous spectrum, running from the grand and watery wilderness of Scotland to the clean and natural wood on the very verge of the great city; everything from Ben Hope and Ben Loyal to Epping Forest. The more places there are to go to, the fewer people there will be going to each, and the more each visitor will enjoy his escape from urban life.
But what of the farmer? Is his livelihood to take second place to the weekend enjoyment of the townsman? Not at all. The local authorities, we hope, in agreement with their own agricultural interests, will settle these Country Parks and picnic sites to the mutual convenience of farmer and townsman. The towns-man does not by preference sit down in the middle of a cornfield, or try to run races with a bull: he much prefers to sit on a bit of open down or under some

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trees. His pleasure is, in fact, in precisely the same direction as the farmer's economic interest, provided he can find the right place. It is for this reason that the Rural Development Boards, which are proposed in the Agriculture Bill that will shortly be coming before the House, are to consult the National Parks authorities now and the Countryside Commission, when that is set up. This is a mutual safeguard built into the scheme of things.
In addition to the Countryside White Paper, a further Government White Paper, Local Government Finance, England and Wales, proposes the introduction of a new country-wide grant for the reclamation of derelict land. Together with the countryside provisions themselves, and with the co-operation beween the Defence establishments and my right honourable friend's Department which is now being pursued, this grant should make a big difference to the fight against the outrageous blot.
A word about overhead power lines. This is a straight conflict between amenity and convenience, and there is no solution but continuous pragmatic compromise. We cannot bury everything everywhere—we cannot afford it. It costs £1 million to bury one mile of 400 kW line and £54,000 to run it aloft. Equally, we cannot allow everything everywhere. We just have to keep on inquiring, appealing if necessary, and deciding. Even this has its dangers. The House will remember that when the current failed over a part of South-East England last winter the Chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board said that if he was to have enough circuits to be sure it would never happen again, we should have to stop spending such a long time discussing where each new line was to go. But as an earnest of continued determination to take amenity into account, I have here a list, and can show it to any noble Lord who is interested, of half a dozen recent occasions when my right honourable friend refused to allow overhead lines to take the easy route across pretty places.
Another continuing conflict between the needs of modern life and industry and the beauty of the countryside lies in water. I would ask noble Lords not to think in this debate, and in general, too narrowly of this or that particular case. It is Manchester to-day; it will be another place tomorrow. The Manchester solution is,
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I think, by common consent a remarkably ingenious and careful one. Ingenuity and care are needed all the time, and will continue to be needed. But we all know that it is time now for long-term inquiries and solutions. I cannot say that the longterm solution was too well considered until recently. But we now have the Water Resources Board, and the first results of their labours are nearly to hand. For example, they expect to receive soon the result of the preliminary study they have commissioned on whether or not it will be worth conducting a full-scale feasibility study of the Morecambe Barrage, to the North. They have also been at work on an interim report on the whole future of water supplies for the South-East.
Beyond this, again, lies the whole question of desalination. I think no one can doubt that in 100 years we shall be relying in part on seawater with the salt taken out. If that is so, then it is simply a question of deciding when, where and on what economic terms we shall take the plunge and start to do it. Two techniques are at present contesting the field: flash distillation and reverse osmosis. The latter needs no heat. Both are very new and at the moment fearfully expensive. But research is continuing in this country and an attentive eye is being kept on research in others. It will be a great day indeed when the ever-growing thirst of our cities can be slaked from the sea around and we shall no longer need to continue multiplying reservoirs and tapping lakes and rivers.
These are remote frontiers. Let me end with something much homelier and much closer in time. All planning in the countryside depends, in the end, on what Government has the power to do and what it has not. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, mentioned the landscape Areas (Special Development), Order of, I think, 1950. The procedures under this Order have some value, but their effect is rather limited because, in practice, they allow the planning authority to control only the design and external appearance of buildings. In the kind of place we all have in mind, what one needs is not simply control over appearance but also control over the siting of the building and indeed, above all, over whether or not there shall be a building at all. For this there is a mechanism known as an Article Four Direction, which seems to us to be preferable to the 1950 provisions.

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I will not trouble the House with the details but, broadly speaking, one of the things it can do is to withdraw from a given area the general permission to erect farm buildings of less than 5,000 ft. ground area, and to subject proposals to erect such buildings to the need to obtain planning permission. Local authority associations have for some time been pressing my right honourable friend to make a more liberal use of his power to approve such directions in National Parks and other such places, where agricultural building threatens to spoil the view. I am now in a position to say that my right honourable friend will be prepared to make a more liberal use than heretofore of this procedure where there is reason to fear that unsightly buildings will be erected in National Parks, and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty or high landscape value, or close to unspoiled stretches of coastline.
This is an interim measure which we hope will hold the fort to a certain extent until the full Countryside provisions come into play. By these measures and others, and by the good will and common sense of everyone, we hope to keep the British countryside what it is—one of the loveliest and most diverse in Europe—and to enable all of the British people to know it and to enjoy it by means which do not harm it or those who live on it.

HE SEAMEN'S STRIKE: FOOD PRICES AND SUPPLIES
4.7 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, perhaps it will be convenient if I now answer the Private Notice Question which the Leader of the Opposition asked earlier. If I may, I will use the same words as were used by my right honourable friends in answer to two separate Questions in the other place. In the case of the Minister of Agriculture these were:
"In view of home production and commercial stocks, there is no immediate problem about supplies of food. Therefore, there is no need at all for any panic buying, nor for any unjustified increases in price. I am, of course, keeping a close watch from day to day for any supply problems that may develop if the strike is prolonged.
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"I am in the course of seeing the leaders of various sectors of the food industry so as to ensure that I am kept in constant touch with the supply situation. I have told them that the Government do not intend to allow this situation to be exploited for excessive personal profit. I am glad to say that the representatives of the trades I have seen have readily associated themselves with this view, as have leaders of other trades. For instance, the National Federation of Meat Traders Associations have asked their members to absorb what increased costs they possibly can, and have said that they can see no reason at present for substantial increases in meat wholesale prices. I have also to-day seen the representatives of the marketing boards of the overseas fruit growers, who have also promised their co-operation. For example, the South African citrus organisation (supplying almost all our citrus at this time of year) have undertaken to peg their prices at pre-strike levels for at least a month. The wholesale and retail fruiterers organisations will do their best to ensure that this decision is reflected in retail prices.
"Supplies of meat are at present fully adequate, but if the strike continues imports will be affected, and the Government must offset as far as possible any loss or interruption of supplies. My right honourable friend the President of the Board of Trade is accordingly revoking, with effect from 21st May, existing licences for the export of non-pedigree cattle, sheep and pigs, and prohibiting from the same date the export of carcase meat and offal of these animals, except under licence.
"These arrangements will remain in force solely to deal with the situation caused by the strike. I am glad to say that the President of the National Farmers' Union accepts that this step is necessary for the duration of the strike."
My Lords, the words used by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland were as follows:
"My right honourable friend the Prime Minister made it clear when he spoke to the country on Monday evening that the Royal Navy stood ready

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to ensure the delivery of essential supplies to isolated parts of the country dependent on shipping services. Accordingly, three naval vessels are sailing this afternoon for various destinations in the Inner and Outer Hebrides."
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Champion, for repeating those two Statements. I think all of us will agree that these measures are necessary, and certainly nobody in this House would condone any profiteering. Equally, I think we shall agree that in the present circumstances it probably is necessary to revoke licences for the export of meat and offal. But may I ask the noble Lord what would happen where there was a contract for the export of meat? In such a case, what liability would the exporter have to suffer?
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, there is no general answer on the effect of the cancellation of contracts. It would depend completely on the terms of the contract. Most contracts, I am glad to say, have a clause to cover this sort of contingency; but obviously I cannot go beyond this general sort of statement this afternoon. The actual contracts that might exist will have to be looked into, but at the moment that is as far as I can go on this rather difficult point.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I appreciate the difficulty the noble Lord is in, and for all I know there are very few of these contracts; but I think it would be quite wrong that private firms and individuals should suffer as a result of something the Government have done, some Government policy. I hope the noble Lord will be good enough to look into this point.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I am sure we shall take note of this point because it is clearly a very important one to the private people who might be involved.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, can the noble Lord say how long the meat stocks in this country will last?
LORD CHAMPION: I have no information that will give an answer to this question exactly, but at the moment my right honourable friend is not especially worried about the position. Nevertheless, this is an extremely important matter, and one that will have to be looked after as best we can. What it means is that we have to make the best possible of a bad situation.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord about these three ships of the Royal Navy that are sailing to the Inner and Outer Hebrides? Are they for passengers, as well as for goods?
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, the information I have is that they are to be used for absolute essentials. For example, the supplies that are being carried in these vessels this afternoon are milk, bread, perishable groceries, vegetables and fruit. I think that at the outset we must ensure that people in these Islands have the means of keeping alive.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, arising out of the Statement of the Secretary of State for Scotland, has the noble Lord's attention been drawn to the rather menacing speech made by Mr. Hogarth as to the possible consequences that might arise if the Royal Navy were to be used in connection with the strike in any shape or form?
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, in this sort of situation statements are made which can be rather foolish. What we in this House must try to do is to avoid anything which might exacerbate the position and cause attitudes that have already been taken up to harden. We want the two sides to get together and solve this problem, for the sake of our country, as soon as possible.

POLICE AMALGAMATIONS
4.15 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to repeat a Statement on the organisation of police forces in England and Wales which my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has made in another place to-day. I will use his own words:
"With the expert advice of H.M. Inspectors of Constabulary, I have carried out a review of police areas throughout the country. I have taken full account of the recommendations made in 1962 by the Royal Commission on the Police; but I am satisfied that the continuing increase in crime and its changing pattern, as well as growing traffic problems, justify a more far-reaching reorganisation than was contemplated by the Commission. I have not thought it sensible to adopt any rigid formula for determining the right size of police forces, but I have examined each area and have sought to establish police forces of a size most likely to achieve full efficiency in the prevention and detection of crime and the control of traffic. I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of the police authorities to whom letters have been sent on my behalf suggesting amalgamations on these grounds. Copies of the list are now available in the Vote Office for the convenience of honourable Members. As examples of the scale of the suggested reorganisation, I am proposing the amalgamation of twelve county borough police areas with Lancashire; of seven police areas with the West Riding; of five authorities in the Thames Valley (Oxford City, Oxfordshire, Reading, Berkshire and Bucks.); and of Devon, Plymouth and Cornwall. The proposals for Wales involve reducing the number of separate forces there from 12 to 4.
"These amalgamations would reduce the number of police forces in England and Wales from 117 to 49, and another four forces would be combined into one if the proposals of my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing
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and Local Government for Tyneside are carried into effect.
"I greatly hope that the local authorities concerned will recognise the need for these proposals and enter into voluntary schemes. But if they do not I must use my powers under the Police Act 1964 to promote compulsory amalgamations, for I am satisfied that these amalgamations are essential to a determined attack on crime. The proposals involve a major reorganisation of the police service, but I am confident that all concerned will approach them with the single object of securing the efficiency and well-being of the police service."
That, my Lords, concludes the Statement made by my right honourable friend. Copies of the list of the police authorities to whom letters have been sent have been placed in the Printed Paper Office for the convenience of noble Lords.
Following is the list referred to in the Statement:

POLICE AMALGAMATION SCHEMES

North-West

1

Lancashire

(6,723)

Barrow-in-Furness

Blackburn

Blackpool

Bolton

Burnley

Oldham

Preston

Rochdale

St. Helens

Southport

Warrington

Wigan

2

Manchester

(2,626)

Salford

Stockport

3

Bootle

(2,547)

Liverpool

4

Cheshire

(2,453)

Wallasey

Birkenhead

5

Cumberland

(663) (Amalgamation proposals have already been made to the authorities in this area)

Westmorland

Carlisle

Notes:
1. At present there are 105 separate police forces in England and 12 in Wales; the amalgamation schemes will reduce these figures to 45 and four respectively; and the proposed reorganisation on Tyneside would reduce the figure for England by a further three to 42.
2. The establishment of each combined force is given in brackets.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for repeating the Home Secretary's Statement? In view of the fact that the Police Act, under which these amalgamations are made, was brought into force by the last Conservative Administration, and in view of the fact that at the General Election our proposals went, I think, in some respects, even further than what the Home Secretary is doing now, we welcome this Statement. Not only will it, I am sure, help in the fight against crime, but, speaking generally, it will give better opportunities for promotions in the police force.
I am, however, a little concerned about the effect on existing chief constables and assistant chief constables. This step which the Home Secretary has taken is perhaps rather larger than some people at one time expected. Personally, I agree with it, but it is bound to create problems for certain chief constables and assistant chief constables, who either will not be able to find a satisfactory job in the new, enlarged forces, and will therefore want to leave the police force, or, perhaps because of age, will have to retire early. There will be certain difficulties. All I am asking the noble Lord is whether he will represent to his right honourable friend that, perhaps in the circumstances of this large amalgamation, he will be slightly more generous than was originally envisaged to those chief constables and assistant chief constables who will have to leave their forces.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord has said very little about the constitution of these new police authorities. May I ask whether he is able to make any statement about that aspect of this matter?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, for the support which he has given from the Opposition Front Bench to the proposals put forward by my right honourable friend. With regard to the particular point about the chief constables and assistant chief constables, it is our hope that these amalgamations will lead to even greater opportunities for such officers. As the noble Lord is aware, responsibility for all appointments in the new forces will rest with the new authorities, and it is very much our hope that they will be able to offer them suitable posts in the new forces; although naturally there will be fewer chief police officers. The noble Lord will also be aware that provision is made in Section 58 of the 1964 Act for the payment of a pension and compensation to any chief constable who wishes to retire or who cannot be absorbed in a new force. With regard to higher payments than those provided for in the 1964 Act, I will submit the noble Lord's point to my right honourable friend; but I should have thought that that could not have been done without legislation.
With regard to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, the constitution of the new forces will be in accordance with the Police Acts. As I pointed out, we are hoping that there will be voluntary amalgamation—as has been the case recently, when there were four or five voluntary amalgamations—but if that is not the case the Home Secretary will have to use his compulsory powers. Of course there will then be public inquiries if necessary.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, we on these Benches welcome this Statement very much. We have been pressing for this sort of reform for some considerable time—since well before the last General Election and during it. Looking at the list the Government have provided, it seems, as a general principle, that it has a sensible basis, although we cannot at this stage be tied down to details. There is one question I should like to ask the
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noble Lord. It appears to me that on the whole what is being done is to make the borough constabularies combine with the county constabularies so as to get a new force on a one-county basis, or perhaps on a basis of two, three or four counties. The only point is that there may be some difficulty in deciding where the new headquarters of the new force is going to be. If in these circumstances there is undue delay in the parties being able to arrive at a decision on this point, would the Government step in and hurry them up?
LORD STONHAM: Yes, my Lords. My right honourable friend has asked all the police authorities affected by the changes to reply by June 27 whether they are willing to take part in voluntary amalgamations; and he very much hopes that all these changes, voluntary or otherwise, can be made by April next year. With regard to the question of the different sizes of the new forces and whether they are based on one or more than one county, there has not been any precise formula. We have considered every case on its merits, as will be seen by the fact that for the new forces the minimum size will be some 700, and the maximum size of provincial forces will be 6,700. As to the particular site for headquarters, in most cases there will be a natural headquarters and it will be selected by common agreement. But the fact that amalgamations will cover a number of present headquarters, will leave us with the possibility of retaining and using many of them for the diversification of the service.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, in view of the fact that we shall have larger units—and I welcome this—and that we shall presumably also have the tendency to rely rather more and more on the specialised services of the forces and on new techniques, would this not be a good moment to reconsider the physical standards required for the special services, the ancillary services, and so on?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, this is a matter which is under continuous review; and, as the noble Lord will be aware, only last week the Norfolk Constabulary decided on an alteration of the height standard. But again I must emphasise that the Home Secretary, through the chief inspectors and the inspectors

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of constabulary, can and does give advice on these matters, but the decision on these questions will be a matter for the new police forces when they are constituted.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether the Secretary of State for Wales was consulted on these proposals so far as Wales is concerned, and whether he is in agreement with them?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales was, of course, consulted on these matters.

PROBLEMS OF THE COUNTRYSIDE
4.27 p.m.
Debate resumed.
THE EARL OF YPRES: My Lords, may I, with your permission, return to the countryside? It is with great diffidence that I get to my feet for the first time after, I am ashamed to say, six years in your Lordships' House. It is particularly difficult in that I follow three such extremely competent speakers. I had hoped to be able to prepare a speech packed full of arguments, facts and figures, like the ones we have heard; but, unfortunately, I returned from Belgium, where I have been with a party of splendid ex-Servicemen, only on Saturday last to discover that this debate was taking place to-day. I have not really had much time to prepare my speech, but at least this means that I shall not detain your Lordships long.
I also believe that in a maiden speech one should avoid controversy, and although for an Irishman, as I am, this is always difficult, I will try to do so. For these reasons I ask for all the kindness customarily extended on this occasion. I think it would be right for me to declare an interest in as much as I am chairman of two small development companies. I should like to thank the noble Viscount for initiating this debate, which must be of very great interest to this House, and I should like also to thank him for his help and advice to me personally on this occasion.
My Lords, we have heard a great deal about the number of laws under which the countryside is administered. I think myself it is of vital importance to regard
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the problem of the countryside in human terms. If I may, I should like to deal briefly with three categories of people in relationship to the countryside: first, the townspeople who want to relax and have holidays there (and in this category I might include overseas visitors); secondly, the countryman who works there; and, finally, what I might call the new countryman who has to live and work there because of the population increase. I am sure we all welcome the reconstitution of the National Parks Commission, together with the new powers which will be bestowed upon it. The Commission has done some fine work in the past, and this extension of its duties would seem to be an excellent development.
I am sure noble Lords would approve in general the proposals set out in the White Paper; but I should like to make one or two points on them. I am a little worried that we may be erring on the side of separating the country into holiday places and working places. There are now so many societies, all no doubt doing excellent work, that I see a danger of our getting into a sort of protective straitjacket if we are not careful. I fear that the countryside may become too artificial and over the years lose contact with the real life of the country. I am a great believer in organic growth, and I think we have discovered in some of the new towns the mistakes that we might make in the country, inasmuch as it is almost impossible to create a new town at the drop of a hat. I should like to see, perhaps, a little more integration between rural working life and the amenity land. I would go so far as to say that, provided competent architects, including landscape architects, were employed, limited development in these areas might be a benefit, not only by forming a more living entity but even æesthetically.
I feel very strongly on this point, but I realise that I am on rather dangerous ground. People are frightened of development, I think because there have been some unfortunate mistakes made even after the Town and Country Planning Act came into force. What I should like to sec is more æsthetic control built into the Act. By this I mean local authorities being compelled to take expert advice on all major developments, and, as a corollary to this, the relaxing of the other function of the Act, the designation of

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land. Some such arrangement might remove some people's fear of development, and would enable us to develop more organically and retain in country areas a living and vigorous society.
Of course, the major problem for this category of person is transport, and I am not competent to speak on that, but I welcome the imaginative idea of forming country parks—I do not know that I particularly like the term—as a means of easing this transport trouble. I should like to ask whether British Rail has ever considered running a special holiday train. I have in mind a relatively expensive service, to include eating and sleeping accommodation. Some of our loveliest countryside can be seen from the permanent way, and it should be possible to plan routes to include National Parks, historic houses and towns. I do not suggest that this would greatly ease the road traffic problem, but everything helps, and such a scheme might have great appeal for overseas tourists. Before leaving this subject I should like to refer to the importance of the modernisation of country hotels. A certain amount has been done, but the poor things have been rather hard hit by recent legislation, and I hope that the importance of the part they play will not be overlooked.
I should like to take my next two categories together. I welcome very much the arrival of light industry into rural areas. It must make for the prosperity of the country and give greater security of employment to many who were dependent almost exclusively on agriculture. However, the main problem here must be the increase of population, about which I fear that in the past I have taken a somewhat ostrich attitude. We shall have to house many more people in the country and find industrial employment for most of them. This will mean further demands on agricultural land, and what remains will be required to produce that much more food for an increasing number of mouths. I am sure that our agricultural industry will respond to this new challenge. But I think that already there is a possibility that we are over-using our land, and this is a very real long-term danger.
My Lords, it is quite beyond the powers of my imagination to see the long-term solutions to these problems, but at least
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everything must be done to economise in the use of land; and I am frightened that we are not at present, as a nation, sufficiently aware of this. When driving in the country I was appalled to see the outcrop of apparently permanent new bungalows. It may seem so obvious as not to be worth saying, but we must learn to build upwards in our rural areas. Flat dwelling, for some reason, has never been popular in the country, but it has to come, and unless we start now time is not on our side. Another help might be to build bungalows and small houses of a temporary nature, so that when the extent of this population problem can be more accurately known, at least sites would be readily available for upward development.
My Lords, having got this far, I feel that I can tell you that at a young age I fell into an empty swimming bath, and if my remarks have not been as lucid as those of some other noble Lords I hope you will understand and forgive me.
4.36 p.m.
LORD HURCOMB: My Lords, it falls to me to congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Ypres, upon his maiden speech. If I may say so, it was a very well-balanced one. Those of us who tend to look primarily to the protection of amenity in the countryside are sometimes in danger of overlooking the need for development, even in the remoter parts of the country. I very much agree with the noble Earl in his view that development need not be bad. There is really no reason why every new house put up in a village should be an eyesore, and if competent architects, of whom there are plenty, and landscape architects, who may perhaps be rather scarcer on the ground, are employed, much of this development could itself add to the amenity of the countryside. I am sure that in future the noble Earl, Lord Ypres, will return to his point, and I hope he will not allow six years to elapse before he addresses your Lordships again.
My Lords, the Motion of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has been on the Order Paper for a very long time, and those of us who are interested in the countryside are very grateful to him for having brought it forward now. I think it is high time that the attention of your Lordships' House should be drawn to the problems of the countryside, for a great deal of effort has been expended in the last few years on

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drawing this problem to the attention of people at large. It is now three years ago that the first Nature Week was organised by the Council for Nature. In November last a resumed meeting or Conference on the Countryside in 1970 was convened in London and it was sponsored by the Council for Nature, the Royal Society of Arts and the Nature Conservancy. A fortnight ago we had the Observer Wild Life Exhibition, again very largely sponsored by the Council for Nature, and it was visited by nearly 100,000 people. I mention that figure because it shows the interest that has already been aroused in the countryside and the educational process which has gone on in recent years among all sections of our population in creating an interest in country life and country ways and the appearance of the country itself. All aspects of the countryside—its use and its misuse—were covered by the documentation of the Conference held in November last. Most of that documentation is, I hope, in the hands of those of your Lordships who are particularly interested in these problems.
Perhaps I may be allowed to refer to the Study Group over which I presided, and which dealt with the subject of legislation. On this Group there were representatives of the County Councils Association, the Country Landowners' Association, the National Farmers' Union, the town planners and other representative bodies. As a Group, we were unanimous in making scores of recommendations for legislative or administrative action, which we presented with some confidence as measures or steps which can and ought to be enacted, or on which action ought to be taken now. It is true—and here I agree with the noble Viscount who moved the Motion—that a great deal more could be done by the vigorous use of powers which already exist, which in far too many cases are left dormant, both locally and centrally. On the other hand, my Group came to the conclusion that there are also a great many directions in which legislation ought to be enacted just as soon as Parliamentary time can be found for it. On the subject of Parliamentary time, I know all the difficulties of Governments. But I wonder whether I am too bold in thinking that if the Gov-
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ernment were to produce a Bill for introduction in your Lordships' House, where these questions are so well understood, they might find their difficulties less and their progress quicker than they may at present anticipate.
Mention of legislation brings me to the Government's White Paper. It contains much that is wholly admirable. I may perhaps be allowed to say that its authors had the advantage of the 1970 Conference and all the preparatory studies which went to the preparation for that meeting. We know that the Minister took these recommendations into account, because he was good enough to come and address the Conference. If the White Paper contains so much that is admirable, it is also marked, and some people would think marred, by considerable gaps and omissions. A general criticism which I have heard is that in its opening pages it is unduly obsessed by the need to give townspeople somewhere to go, somewhere to play and something to do. All these needs are pressing and legitimate enough. But the people who live and work in the country, and whose interests in the country are rather wider than those of mere recreation, have also to be considered.
I agree entirely that the idea of Country Parks, whatever one may think of the name, is imaginative—and nothing more complimentary can be said of anything nowadays than that it is imaginative—constructive and valuable in making a positive contribution to the problem of finding outlets for town populations. I agree with the noble Viscount that it seems pathetic that townspeople are content to picnic almost on the verge of an arterial road. But if one goes 20 or 25 miles out of London, one can, at any rate, with luck, see a horse or cow in a field; and there are thousands of town children who never have that pleasure.
I do not think one should decry the fact that many of these areas may be in quasi-urbanised surroundings. I think they will make a practical and constructive contribution to the problem of finding outlets for the urban populations, and at the same time they will have a valuable function in relieving the pressure on the wilder and more remote places. That whole part of the White

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Paper, to which I know Mr. Willey himself attached great importance, seems to me to be extremely well conceived.
If, as I hinted just now, one misses any adequate recognition in the opening parts of the White Paper of the positive value and beauty of the natural scene itself, and of the wild life to which it is the background, I feel a good deal comforted by what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and by his sympathetic approach to that aspect of our problems. President Kennedy, in a striking pronouncement not so long ago, said he looked forward
"to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty, and which will protect the beauty of our natural environment."
I hope that Her Majesty's Government also will be bold in their approach to the future of the countryside, and will not be afraid to say that they mean to protect it. As I have said, I draw considerable comfort not only from the words, but from the tone, of Lord Kennet's speech in that regard.
One special point in which I think there is a good deal of disappointment is that more real power is not to be given under the terms of the White Paper to the National Parks Commission in the process of widening its scope. I am glad that its scope is to be widened and that it is to be re-named the Countryside Commission. But the White Paper says that
"no immediate major change is proposed in the administrative arrangements within the National Parks."
Impressed by the weight of public opinion in favour of joint boards for parks which cover more than one county, the Government still can only bring themselves to hope that the planning authorities concerned will consider seriously the possibility of a change. Surely we have advanced further than hoping that someone will consider seriously a possibility.
LORD MITCHISON: Perhaps the noble Lord would read the next sentence. It is quite short, and I will remind him of it:
"The Government will consider whether it would be desirable to exercise their power to revoke existing arrangements if further experience showed this to be required."
LORD HURCOMB: That is fair enough, but it is going into a more and more dim and distant future.
Then the Countryside Commission is to advise the Government and the local authorities. It is to stimulate education; it is to act as a clearing house; it is to provide liaison; it is to arrange for research—and I think it may also carry it out. Why not give the Commission more of the powers which the National Parks Commission itself has been demanding for years past, as set out in its Twelfth Annual Report? Another gap is the omission to provide adequate protection for sites declared to be of special scientific interest under the Act of 1949, in regard to which urgent matter the 1970 Conference made simple and practicable proposals, including provision for compensation where landowners were asked to refrain on a commercial basis from full exploitation of a given site.
I do not want to stress unduly the things which we hoped to see in the White Paper but which are not there, and I most heartily support the Government in the positive steps which they indicate. There are, for example, the proposals for dealing with footpaths and bridlepaths, for encouraging the planting of trees and woodlands, and for securing greater access to inland waters. In the matter of access to inland waters, I agree with the view the Government take, that water authorities have been far too restrictive in allowing people to have access to gathering grounds, or even the margins of reservoirs. I think there will possibly be a good deal of conflict of interest between the users of inland water spaces, lakes or reservoirs for active recreational pursuits, and those who want them to be kept as nature reserves, or who want to use them for fishing. Water ski-ing and fishing are not really compatible interests. A great deal of thought is being given to this matter in many areas, and particularly the West Midlands, where the needs for recreation are obviously great. I have little doubt that a solution can and will be found by some allotment of the water spaces to particular interests, not altogether exclusive, but not affording that multiplicity of use which a few larger sheets of water will admit. That should be a soluble problem.

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To sum up my views on the White Paper generally, I would urge Her Majesty's Government to be somewhat bolder, and even better in their Bill than they have been in their White Paper, and to include more of the detailed points to which the groups reporting to the Conference on the Countryside in 1970 gave such close attention. There is a large measure of agreement as to what can and should be done, and even if we have to wait a year or so for the legislation, what impresses my mind is that, having got it, we shall probably wait another thirty years for another Bill covering anything like the same ground. That seems to me a strong argument for putting in now everything that can be reasonably included.
I welcome, of course, the more generous assistance promised to local authorities, and especially to the county councils, in promoting the better use and enjoyment of the countryside. I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, that the county councils, in particular, can do an immense amount if they have public support, public opinion—and an educated opinion at that—behind them. Many of them have already pioneered the way. He mentioned, I think, Cumberland and the famous gullery of Ravenglass. But Lincolnshire, right on the other side of the country, was also a leader in safeguarding a place of great natural interest and importance; and in various ways many other counties could claim to have taken enlightened views. The county of Hampshire, for example, has always taken enlightened views on this subject, and I well remember when, a great many years ago now, the county surveyor told me that it would be more than his life was worth to tar a road anywhere near the Test or the Itchen.
May I conclude by emphasising the international interest of whatever action we take here? I have long been associated with those concerned in the conservation of nature in many European countries. The countryside is shrinking, not only in Britain but in Europe as well. If any of your Lordships have been on the Adriatic Coast, for example anywhere in the neighbourhood of Ravenna, and seen what has happened to the Comacchio marshes or the pinewoods of that famous district, you will
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see how many miles of territory can quickly cease, in the space of a few years, to have any natural interest or scenic appeal.
As—I suppose I ought to say if—this country moves closer to the Common Market, conservationists, naturalists and lovers of the countryside should make an effort to move closer to Europe as well. At present, Britain is leading the world in conservation, and in these days there are not so many things in which we can claim to be leaders. What we do to conserve our own countryside is watched, not only in Europe but by the rest of the world, and in particular in the emerging countries in Africa, where much that we did to establish National Parks and Reserves is now being carried on successfully, generally with some technical assistance from ourselves.
The Council of Europe has decided to nominate 1970 as "Conservation Year", and is informing Governments and voluntary bodies of this fact, and asking them to start planning for it. I welcome this news. The British President of the World Wildlife Fund, the Duke of Edinburgh, said:
"This acknowledgment of the importance of conservation by the Council of Europe, whose members extend from Iceland to Turkey, should put new heart into all those who have worked so hard for so many years for this cause. It should also do much to encourage the public to accept conservation as a reasonable and a valuable contribution to the welfare of mankind."
In April, the first European diploma for Nature Conservation was presented by the Council of Europe to the Peak Park Planning Board, and the Council's Director of Economic and Social Affairs
said:
"Following the example of the United Kingdom, which leads Europe in conservation, we are moving away from the old concept of nature protection towards the proper management of natural resources and respect for the environment as a whole."
That, my Lords, is the crux of the matter: the proper use of our land and our natural resources. I think the debate in your Lordships' House this afternoon will have made a further step forward in the education of our public; and it is the support of an educated public that is necessary, both to the Government and to the local authorities, if they are to be strong enough to act on the lines we would all wish.
5.0 p.m.
LORD NEWALL: My Lords, I would ask you to bear with me for just a few minutes, this being the first time that I, too, have addressed your Lordships. I believe there was a Question in another place only yesterday about the cost of a butterfly farm. Judging by the number circulating round here at the moment I think I could probably do equally well, and at a smaller cost! I would also declare a small interest in that I live in the countryside, and therefore some of its problems are my own. This is a large subject and I make no apology for covering only a small part of the problem, and I have no wish to keep your Lordships here until the proverbial cows come home.
I think it is generally agreed that at week-ends one sees a veritable flood of people in cars and trains rushing out of towns and cities, not only to the coastal resorts but also to the ordinary, old-fashioned countryside. This is the right of every Englishman, and although they go to the countryside for many reasons, some perhaps with better intentions than others, they should always have this pleasure and be allowed to enjoy it. It is not such an easy thing to do nowadays.
I welcome very much indeed the Government's White Paper on Leisure in the Countryside, which advocates large recreational areas within easy reach of our cities, although I must admit that paragraph 50, which suggests that we must have more caravan sites, I do not find easy to agree with wholeheartedly. They are a blot on the landscape and very ugly, although I realise that some are necessary. Although some people obviously will never want to use these country parks, because they wish to be on their own, it is fairly obvious from the number of people who always picnic where there are already a great many others, and often by choice alongside a main road, that they would welcome a large designated area for recreation which would be properly staffed and maintained, although possibly women might have to be employed due to the high cost of insurance stamps these days.
This is not a new idea, but it is one which could be developed very easily and expanded through the years as required.
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Some might have more facilities for organised sport, while others would be there solely for picnickers and for children and dogs to exercise. The Green Belt could obviously be used as well, and any necessary buildings camouflaged. There seems to be general agreement for this type of proposal by Members of your Lordships' House and Members of another place, and I hope sincerely that the agreements reached and the ideas put forward can be implemented with less than the normally accepted delays. The National Parks Commission, although going through some internal changes, I believe is going to help in this type of work to a great degree, but it needs more moral support in order to carry out its work properly.
Another extremely serious problem which is causing some concern is the growing need for houses and buildings and the consequent reduction of farming land. I do not claim to be an expert in town or country planning, but it seems to me that there are far too many cases of apparently haphazard extensions to existing towns or villages and not nearly enough thought is put into the possibilities of starting a new village or a small town in an area where the agricultural value of land is not so high. I submit to your Lordships that, although a certain amount of extension to existing towns is necessary, this is not always so and good farmland is often swallowed up. There have been cases of large extensions being made to existing small towns without any apparent regard to the recreational needs of the new community, or to the requirements for the social services. We have all seen some areas where town after town and village after village is virtually joined together in what I believe is termed an "urban sprawl", and the driver of a car seeking some open space has to go further and further afield through row upon row of houses.
In East Anglia, where I live, there is a particular problem, for the Industrial Revolution passed by East Anglia, but many industries are now coming there and the expansion to-day is enormous. Of course, there must be a sensible balance between well-planned and necessary building and the conservation of the countryside. Perhaps in East Anglia more than anywhere else there is a need

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for a stronger feeling of regional development; not a series of conflicting ideas from each town or village, nor indeed direction from Whitehall, but a voluntary feeling of wanting to expand as a whole entity. This is surely the best way to combine the most modern methods of building, and to blend them in to an existing countryside, leaving a great part of it unspoilt for those who go there for peace and quiet.
The Royal Fine Art Commission, in their 19th Report, which doubtless many of your Lordships will have read, quote a particular problem arising out of controversial plans for a housing estate in the Constable country. This has been argued since 1962 and I believe is not decided yet, despite Ministry opposition and also the agreement of the three county councils concerned, designating the area as one of great landscape value.
The April edition of the Quarterly Review, a magazine which is probably also seen by your Lordships, stresses the need for national leadership and action for preserving the countryside. In spite of admirable bodies such as the Conservation Corps of the Council for Nature, the County Naturalists Trust and many others, still not enough is actually being done, either for the countryside itself or for the people who would like to use it for recreation. So, my Lords, I should like to say that I fully appreciate the many conflicting opinions which make decisions most difficult for the Government or anybody else. It is impossible to please one and all, but I hope that even those of your Lordships who prefer to live in our towns and cities will actively support the preservation of our countryside and the increase in recreational facilities.
5.7 p.m.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, what a pleasant, forthright speech that was! If I had to pick a bit out of it, what I liked particularly was the reference to East Anglia, and what I thought was the foresight and broadsight that was shown by the noble Lord. I earnestly hope—and I am sure I can speak for everybody in this House—that the noble Lord will come here and speak again. Whether he will make as good a speech as he made
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this time I do not know, but he will find it very hard to beat that first one.
I did not intend to speak on this subject, other than to say a word or two about regional development, which appealed to the noble Lord who has just spoken and also to the noble Viscount to whom we owe thanks for initiating this debate. I am not standing up here to whine at being sacked. I have been sacked on account of age, and my age would have been the same in whichever Ministry I was serving, but I am rather sorry that the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources is having (shall we say?) a forcible adoption by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government—or would "a shotgun marriage" be the better term? I feel rather more strongly about it than the Minister under whom I served very happily for a couple of years or so. Of course, I can see the reason for it. The reason is probably inevitable in view of the present character of our planning arrangements; and I am glad they are going to be reviewed.
The difficulty is to keep together within the framework of regional development the decisions that have to be made by our local authorities, which are of course the planning authorities. When the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources was first formed, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister defined its duties as
"To participate in the formulation of the national and regional plans, for which my right honourable friend the First Secretary of State has overall responsibility."
Later on in the same statement, as regards the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, he defined the duty of that Minister in these words. He was:
"to see that policies in regional plans were implemented by the local authorities".
That is a statement of functions, and it has proved, no doubt, very difficult to carry out, but the effect of the present change is to leave the question of the countryside, which is what we are talking about to-day, in the hands of a Minister who certainly has responsibility for local government but also has the responsibility for housing and to dissociate it, to some extent, from the Department of the First Secretary of State, with which, as your Lordships will see from what I have just read out, it was first intended to associate it.

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I think the really important point we must all bear in mind about the countryside is what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, called development. When we felt after the war that the overcrowding in our conurbations must be relieved by the building of new towns, those new towns were originally formed either as specific industrial centres—those were few—or mainly for the relief of particular conurbations. There was a ring, for instance, around London, and the others can be found to have relations in the same way to the very big towns nearby. I think that is taking a narrow view of the possibilities of the country, and I prefer what was said by the noble Lord just now (I think in another maiden speech, as it happens), that one ought to consider the possibility of starting new centres in the countryside itself and being sensible about the extent to which they are allowed to interfere for instance with good farming land or the like. This is something which in fact the Forestry Commissioners, who were for a time under the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, have been doing for a long time past. There is a good deal to be said for the view that in some parts of the country, perhaps notably in Scotland, these forestry settlements may provide the kind of rural centre which is rather difficult to imagine otherwise.
I think the same thing could be done with rather larger towns, and one goes from that to the connection between this and the development of industry in this country. I am quite sure that we shall find as we go along that we have to get our new industries and specific developments of our old industries out of the big centres and into the rest of the country. There is no reason to spoil the country in doing this if you know what you are doing and are sensible and reasonable about it. It was because of that sort of association that I welcomed the original idea to keep a close touch between the Minister of Land and Natural Resources and the First Secretary of State, who of course had the overall responsibility for the regional plans with which we are particularly concerned now.
I do not want to take up time; I intended to make a short speech. One of my noble friends in the House sent me a most delightful note saying, "For good-
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ness sake!, do not talk too long, because there are so many waiting to speak". I do not know whether I have followed that exhortation. At any rate, I am going to wind up fairly quickly. I believe everybody has welcomed the Government White Paper and I consider it is a very remarkable performance. If the kingpin in it is the development of the National Parks Commission into the Countryside Commission, for that is what is really intended, it none the less contains a whole number of other proposals which are useful contributions to the general problem. I do not think there is very much to be added to it at present. White Papers are not the end of all things. I would remind noble Lords that this is not a White Paper about the countryside; it is a White Paper about leisure in the countryside. Therefore the cast of it is slightly different from what it might be if it were rather more ambitious.
May I add this about it? On timing, I believe your Lordships would feel that urgent measures for social needs must come first under any Government. I think, too, that your Lordships would remember that since 1949 pretty continuously the National Parks Commission has been asking for a larger and larger extension of its powers. Nothing has yet been done except the issuing of the White Paper. I hope the matter will go further as quickly as may be. But surely it must wait on two other things: one is the review of local government which is going on at present, and that seems to me to have a very large bearing on it; and the second is the reorganisation of the financial relations between the Government and local authorities. Both of those matters come so obviously into the proposals in this Paper that I fully understand why it was thought necessary to wait for them, for that if for no other reason.
Lastly, may I mention the commons? Nobody happens to have done so. One-and-a-half million acres of ground, or thereabouts, are at this moment being registered as commons. The question about this is quite clearly going to be in which cases the agricultural value of the commons and in which cases the amenity value of the commons predominates. Up in the North of the country there are some very clear cases where, whatever you do about amenity, probably the agricultural value is more important. But

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down South, in Surrey where there are a number of commons, it has long been recognised that you must regard their proximity to London and the value to the inhabitants as more important. This is what is called a clash, and I have noticed in all the speeches there was clash after clash, or when there was not clash after clash there was balance after balance. We mean the same thing by both these terms. We are generally agreed on the kind of thing required but we are puzzled as to the best means of doing it in a very complicated and changing civilisation, in which one outstanding balance is the proper balance between town and country and another is between agriculture and forestry—and I could go on.
When you get a clash or a balance you are very often dealing, as in this case, with a comparison between incomparables and a balance between imponderables, and when you reach that position there are only two things to do: one is to toss up, and the other, in a democratic country, is to find a competent Minister to settle it. I rather wish we had been allowed to keep the Ministry of Land for this sort of purpose; I think it could have been useful. But there it is, and I bow, as one must bow, to the practical difficulties of the situation. I see that quite clearly and if I had been my right honourable friend the Prime Minister I should probably have felt forced to do the same thing. But one sees a Department which was great fun and very interesting disappearing, recognising that it has to go but rather sorry it is going.
5.20 p.m.
THE EARL OF HADDINGTON: My Lords, before I make the few remarks that I have to make, may I add my congratulations to those expressed already by the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, on the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Newall? I thought it an excellent maiden speech and, like Lord Mitchison, I hope that we may hear many more such speeches from the noble Lord.
The few remarks that I have to make are made principally on behalf of the Association for the Preservation of Rural Scotland, in which body I have the honour to hold office. I am glad that a compatriot of mine has introduced this Motion in such an excellent manner, and I am extremely glad, too, to hear from
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the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, that Scotland is to have priority in legislation in this matter of the Countryside Bill. I always press the point because I think we must never forget that our scenery in Britain, and particularly in Scotland, is on such a small scale compared with Continental scenery that, however unobtrusive the objects which are put up, they damage our scenery much more than would be the case in the Alps or in European or Continental countries, where they would be hardly visible at all. Our Association warmly welcomes the establishment of a Countryside Commission. We hope that it will be a body of really strong standing. It must have teeth. It must, I think, have a status equivalent to that of the Forestry Commission, for example, and, of course, it must have an independent chairman, and members who really know their job.
There are three overall points that I want to mention, which I think will help towards the preservation of the beauty of the countryside. The first concerns hedgerow and farm timber, a subject which I think has not so far been mentioned, although I believe that in the White Paper there is some mention of trees. In 1955, a Forestry Commission committee sat for two years, under the chairmanship of Lord Merthyr, and most forcefully stressed the fact that, owing to new agricultural techniques, hedgerow and farm timber was being ruthlessly cut down to allow the entry of agricultural machinery. That was in the natural course of events. But the Committee also stressed that there must be some national policy to plant up the land and replace the timber which was being felled. So far, I am afraid, little has been done. I hope that more will be done in the future, because this shortage of trees has certainly had an adverse effect on the landscape. I must apologise for my fervour, but I am an absolute tree fanatic. I think we cannot have too many trees. They hide a multitude of sins; they help the preservation of wildlife which it seems is so rapidly becoming exterminated; they give shelter from the wind, and amenity, not to mention, of course, timber potential.
My second point concerns the Scottish law on litter. In the matter of legislation against the spread of litter Scotland is at a great disadvantage. I am afraid that this is another injustice to Scotland, but

1023
it is the fact. As the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross knows only too well, in Scotland two witnesses are needed in order to bring a prosecution, whereas in England I think that anyone can initiate proceedings with regard to litter. Anyone in England can arrest a man. In Scotland it must be a police job. The matter has to be taken before the procurator fiscal. This entails a good deal of trouble, and I am afraid that Scotland is not at the moment free from litter. Cannot the Act be amended? We had little encouragement about this from the Scottish Office at the conference in Edinburgh. I often wonder whether it would be possible to amend the 1958 Act in order to favour Scotland a little more.
My last point is a short one, but I believe that no-one has yet mentioned it. Cannot our architects think a little more about building techniques applicable to the country and not to the town? It seems to me that perhaps a little more imagination is called for. It may cost a little more money, but the cheapest is not always the best, either from the utility or from the aesthetic point of view. I believe that this is something worth considering. I hope that our architects will be able to think up some new forms of building in order greatly to improve the look of our countryside, with more and more people going out to enjoy themselves. My Lords, that is all I have to say.
5.27 p.m.
LORD ARWYN: My Lords, I apologise for having been absent during some of the speeches, and I must apologise for the fact that I shall have to leave the House early. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, who has provided us with an opportunity to discuss this problem suggested that we could devote time profitably between now and the time legislation is introduced. I should like to make one suggestion in that direction. We have a Minister for Sport, who has limited powers. What we shall need before we are much older is a Minister for Recreation, with full Cabinet status, if this job is to be done thoroughly. By that I mean if we wish to preserve the interest and virility of the youth of this country. In war this country's youth has proved itself adequately twice in this
1024
century. Youth must have an outlet spiced with some physical danger. Youth is our real capital. The most modern factory packed with machinery is sterile without the people who run it, and those who run it must be protected against the stresses of modern industry, because they are our real capital.
In Canada, the United States and Germany, people employed in the towns work hard during the week and spend their week-ends in the country. They think nothing of driving a hundred miles or more to a mountain camp or lake. They work all the harder to earn the money to spend on these regular weekend excursions. We could learn quite a serious lesson from that. If, as the White Paper says, our population increases by 19 million by the end of this century, the problem of leisure is going to be a headache. We can be assured that the highly skilled, technical sophisticated type of worker will require facilities such as those enjoyed by the leisured classes of 35 years ago. In his case it will be a real need and a psychological necessity.
Men who spend the whole of their week in industries whose tempo is governed by the pace of machines, need release from this bondage and an opportunity to indulge in a variety of pursuits best suited to themselves to achieve relaxation. I find my relaxation in sailing. There is some thrill about seeing the nose going down into a trough in a force 6 wind. This is where the spice of danger comes in. One must have it as an outlet. The word "leisure" does not convey the right picture in this case. Recreation in its other meaning, "to renew" is more appropriate.
The stresses built up by the need for utmost concentration in modern industry demand recreation, and as we develop new skills and automated production the need for two or three days' recuperation each week will become greater. We cannot rely on watching football matches on the "tele" as the sole means of recreation and not suffer deterioration. Some are lucky in being able to find relaxation in gardening or a never ending sequence of "do it yourself" jobs. Others of us, an ever increasing number, feel we must "get away from it all" into a different environment. Many are attracted by any

1025
pursuit which brings us closer to the forces of nature: camping, sailing, climbing, fishing, or one of several other occupations.
The introduction to the White Paper mentions the Government's concern about the growing need to site new towns near to open spaces. To use a modern expression, one cannot agree more. Better understanding between management and labour will, one hopes, surely extend to the taking of a more active interest in the holiday pursuits of all employed in industry. Many hundreds of thousands work hard during the whole year in order to save money to holiday abroad. How many realise that what they spend has first to be earned by exports? I think the Government should give this fact publicity. Holidaying abroad is becoming something of a status symbol. Sooner or later decisions in regard to the location of industry will have to take into consideration proximity to the new country parks, and the sooner the better.
There is also the need to regulate holiday periods by phasing. I should like to know what percentage of the employed population could take holidays at any time from May to the end of September. The sight of hundreds of thousands trying to cram themselves into the West Country over a period of six weeks is tragic. They look forward eagerly the whole year to a fortnight away from it all, and they find themselves tied up in intolerable traffic jams and having to sleep in some layby, with the noise of traffic about them all through the night. This happens year after year in Cornwall where I live. Do we not need some degree of education on how to spend these precious two weeks? Here I think Government publicity departments could help in cinema programmes and on television. People tend to follow each other like sheep because they know no other way. Much as we might resent it in our stubborn British natures, especially if we are ancient Britons, we may yet welcome the planning of facilities for leisure by a wise and benevolent Government. By planning I mean planning first on a national scale and then on a regional one, from the regional councils to the local government.
There is another phase to be considered. We have to conserve our land,
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and it may be that the activities developed in our National Parks and new country parks could whet appetites to travel to Canada or other Commonwealth countries for the type of holidays which have been enjoyed in those countries for many years. It is quite different from being stuffed into a boarding-house, waiting for a bingo session to start. The Canadians are a very good example. They owe much of their virility to the way they plan their leisure. It might be a good cue for industrialists who are seeking new incentives or bonus ideas to provide sports holidays free or on reduced terms, especially if they are concerned with export to the country chosen for the vacation. The problems of adequate recreation must be regarded now as seriously as any one of the problems of industry because they concern efficiency in industry.
My Lords, I like to drop at least one danger per speech, and this one concerns the machinations of crank elements in the various preservation societies. We have to earn wealth in order to earn leisure. All wealth originates from the earth. I refer especially to minerals. Recently there was an outcry against mineral exploration on the edge of Dart-moor. We need tin and copper desperately, and the area on the edge of Dartmoor occupied by a tin mine would be lost in the vast expanse. We need to study our priorities in this matter. The siting of country parks should not sterilise the means of earning the wealth which enables us to live. We have time to consider all these matters between now and the time when legislation is introduced. Let us use that time intelligently, and we shall reap a great reward.
5.37 p.m.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, my intervention will be but brief, and I must say that I am one of those who must offer apologies to the House because I shall not be able to remain until the end of the debate. I want to confine my few remarks almost to one topic, the topic of National Parks, and in particular the Lake District National Park. The talk we hear to-day about multiple land use and other planning jargon is novel to most of us, but the effects of receiving large numbers of tourists and holidaymakers in particular areas has long been

1027
understood in certain parts of this country which have been much favoured by holidaymakers and those seeking relaxation in the countryside, and the Lake District is one of those areas. People have wandered where they would, the problems of access have never presented any great difficulty, and I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, that I am not one of those who think that the problem of access is going to make such great difficulties in hill areas with the established farming practices and farmers.
But things are changing fast—they never of course stand still, but they are certainly now changing fast. The main cause of much of the change is the number of motor cars on the roads, and this will soon be accentuated still more with the construction of further lengths of motorway. The old-established holiday areas in this country are likely to be overrun by sheer numbers of visitors. This has been mentioned in reports over the last few years, but the danger is now very imminent. Such areas will not be ready to absorb the number of people seeking to visit them, and if this happens their character must be changed—changed, I fear, for the worse. So I say—and I say it with all sincerity—that the English Lake District to-day is in danger. It is in very grave danger, and it could be changed greatly in a decade. Were that to happen, we should have the position that the same generation which has created our National Parks would have witnessed the destruction of its finest child.
What should we do about this situation? I am very glad that the Government are to have a new look at the National Parks Commission and the other authorities responsible for individual Parks. In saying this, I wish in no way to be disparaging, but after nearly twenty years of working we can see more clearly than was possible at the time the National Parks Commission was set up (and I can remember sitting in another place on the Committee which dealt with the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Bill), and it is time in the normal course of administration to have another look.
But what ought we to do? What, perhaps, ought to govern us? First and foremost, I think I should like to under-
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line the principle which has already been mentioned several times: that our preservation policy must not be negative. Life must go on in these districts. There must be agriculture, forestry; not only should existing industries continue, but new industries must be created, industries that are in scale and keeping with the particular areas. Then we must look for more effective administration—not just administration on paper—at both central and local government levels. Also, I think we must avoid confusion by Regional Economic Councils, which are not answerable to the electorate and are apt to give themselves the most absurd airs, as the noble Lord, Lord Henley, has said. We should be careful, too, that, if possible, the writs of rural development boards should not run within the National Parks; otherwise, the National Parks will be burdened with so many organisations that we shall never be able to make and implement the right decisions in time. As for the financial aspect, it is interesting to think how long we have been parsimonious over this question of the provision of finance for the National Parks. In the National Parks Annual Report there are no pages telling us about finance, for the good reason that they have no money to tell us about. That, I am sure, we must rectify. Spending large sums of money does not mean that we necessarily achieve improvements, but it is the case that we have been over-parsimonious in the past.
Perhaps the biggest question of all is that of highways and communications. Here may I say that the Germans have much clearer ideas and a much better policy than we have here, in that they not only control but also guide motor traffic within their National Parks. I have recently seen something of this, though to-day is not the occasion to expand on this theme. I would only commend a study of these German methods and experience to Her Majesty's Ministers as a matter of urgency. Here at home, National Parks planning policy and highway policy seem confused, if not, unhappily, divorced. In the Lake District, if I may cite that example again, the Lake District Planning Board is very weak, if not actually impotent, over the question of communications. There are three county councils concerned, each with a separate highways committee, a separate

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surveyor and separate staff, and each responsible for its own area. Although they try to co-ordinate what they do, they certainly do not succeed as completely as one would like.
I believe that at the present time there is under way a comprehensive survey, which will show through-roads and minor roads which are proper in a National Park, to serve both the area itself and the surrounding areas. But to-day we have the most haphazard things happening. It seems that the two great guiding principles of the three county councils and their committees are road safety and traffic flow. These are both admirable principles, but the emphasis on them means that every road, main road or minor road, is, in turn, made wider and straighter, and every small lane leading up the remote valleys is gradually pressed further and further up those valleys, destroying the quietness and peace which people come a very great distance to enjoy. All too little attention has been paid to date to car parks, to turning places—and they are very important—and, also, to restrictions on motor traffic on those minor roads. Here again Germany is ahead of us. I welcome paragraph 59 in the White Paper which refers to this topic. I only hope that the Government will see what they can do to put it into practice.
Planning is too often seen by local people as something entirely negative. "No" is said to every application by a humble individual—or so it seems to them—to build a house. Many people do not understand the principles of law behind the National Parks. They think that the planning authorities are entirely negative. Then they see what they believe to be a different law for the rich from that for the poor. They see rich and powerful bodies such as Manchester Corporation, to whom the Minister of Housing and Local Government now proposes to give authority to draw water, not from one but from two lakes, even though alternative supplies are available, and in spite of the clear decision of your Lordships' House three years ago. I should be ungenerous if I did not say that I welcomed the attempt to limit the damage by what are called "safeguards", but I am sure that, when noble Lords and Her Majesty's Ministers examine these safeguards carefully, they
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will see that occasions could arise when they would not amount to very much. We cannot afford to give away the English lakes two at a time, which is what Her Majesty's Government are now proposing.
I say here that I am surprised, and people who live in the North-West of England are surprised, that the Minister of Land and Natural Resources has not resigned on that decision, and that he should apparently support this wholly bad principle. I can only say that this decision will undermine public confidence in any fine words. I would commend to your Lordships the evidence given at the public inquiry in Kendal last summer, not by any private individual but by the National Parks Commission. It is published as an appendix at the end of their last report, and I stand by everything in that evidence.
My Lords, I should like to end on a general note. What we decide in the immediate future could well make or mar the pleasure of millions of our fellow citizens of this and successive generations. So we must take the right decisions and take them now, because time is not on our side. In a famous debate on an allied subject in your Lordships' House not long ago, the phrase was used about the Lake District that it is so small, so lovely and so vulnerable. I would say to your Lordships, as my last sentence, that mistakes once made cannot easily be repaired.
5.48 p.m.
LORD HAMPTON: My Lords, in self-defence I should say that, although the list of speakers does not show a little "M" after my name, this is the first time that I have had the honour of addressing your Lordships' House. I live in Worcestershire and my house is 27 miles from the centre of Birmingham. I do not want to be parochial about this, but, after all, the problems of living in the shadow of a conurbation are common to many places in this country, and will become more widespread still. The population is flooding into the countryside, many into the villages, and the point I want to talk about is the urbanisation of these villages. "Urbanisation" is an ugly word for an ugly thing. The villages are bursting their seams. The developers come along and buy, perhaps,

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five little parcels of land around the villages. One may buy six acres; one may buy one acre and so on; and they plant down little bits of housing estates. These have nothing to do with one another, and differ in no respect from the estates with which the developers are surrounding the towns.
I am sure your Lordships will agree that the main purpose of planning is to maintain the contrast between town and country, between the sophistication and busy-ness of the town, and the simplicity and tranquillity which one hopes to find in the countryside and the villages. This is not a mere sentimental idea; it is an important matter—in my opinion, at any rate—in getting the right balance of life for the whole nation. Every townsman needs the country, every countryman needs the town; but this contrast between town and country is being blurred by the urbanisation of the villages.
Now to urbanise a village is surely to destroy the sort of picture one has in one's mind of the English village: a place of settled tranquillity, a place where the countryside seems to be permeating the village. Of course, I know, as your Lordships know, that the character of the English village has changed a lot in the past thirty or forty years. As a rule, the village is no longer a self-contained entity where the inhabitants expect to find their work and their play. The village around us, at any rate, now consists largely of commuters who find their work in the neighbouring town. In passing, I would say that my experience is that commuters can be of great value to a village by bringing in fresh ideas and, very often, by taking leadership in village affairs. It may well be said that, with life as it is in these modern days, a sense of tranquillity, such as I have suggested in a village, is no longer appropriate and that, if it were appropriate, it could not be achieved. My Lords, I would say not only that it can be achieved but that it must be achieved if we are to retain this precious contrast between town and country.
I am not suggesting for a moment that we should sentimentalise our villages. Nothing could be worse than "yeolde", and all that. Nor am I suggesting that we should ape the past and deck out the village with old-fashioned houses
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designed after the manner of our fore-fathers. Already in patches in the country one can come across modern villages built by architects with modern materials in the modern manner, and to me, at least, these places, built with the sensitiveness, the skill and the subtlety which the architects can use, are places of real delight. I want to see many modern villages to accommodate our modern population, many of whom want to live in a village if they can. I want to see them built on virgin soil, or built as modern neighbourhoods clustered around existing old villages. I want to see them developed as a whole and not piecemeal, and developed so as to give back this sense of tranquillity to the village.
I know that this is a tremendously difficult thing to do. I know that the planning problems are very difficult indeed. It is difficult to get a sufficient area for any comprehensive development, even of the size of a small village. It is difficult to decide which villages should be added to, and which should be left alone. Above all, there is this supreme difficulty innate in planning, that good planning, such as is being done in my own county, must be a deliberate affair, and meantime, while the plan is being prepared, the pressure increases every day—and the pressure of the developer is very hard to resist when one knows how many people are waiting for houses.
In the meanwhile, we can at least have much stricter control, surely, over the layout, particularly, and the design of these developers' additions to the houses; and we can have stricter control, I should have thought, over what one might call the trimmings of a village—all those posts, overhead wires and transformers; those hideously clumsy British Tv ariels, so far less tidy than what one sees in America or on the Continent; those curly concrete lamp-posts which Sir Hugh Casson once described as "swans carrying carpet beaters"; and, above all, I think, those concrete kerbs with which the road men love to decorate our country lanes and our village streets. Nothing urbanises the country more than making a country lane look, or trying to make it look, like a main road. I have spoken about controlling a village, and the idea of controlling a village may not meet with everyone's favour, but I am sure your Lordships, at any rate, will agree

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that, in the past, most of the best villages have grown up through the years under the strict control of the Great House or the Lord of the Manor.
To sum up, I want to see this country lead the world in modern village design, just as it has led the world in village design in the past and as it is leading the world now in our New Towns. But this is not purely a planning problem, because at the bottom of every planning problem there is a personal, human problem. I want to see the contrast between town and country kept for the sake of every human being, because we all need it; and I want to see the object of planning carried out: that is, the enrichment of all our lives by the production of the finest physical environment we can make in this country.
5.58 p.m.
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, we have had several maiden speeches this afternoon, and noteworthy ones, and it falls to me to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, on his maiden speech. I think the noble Lord speaks with a good deal of architectural knowledge. Architects are very much in demand in the planning world to-day. They are rare: and if the noble Lord will avoid being pressed into local government service, at least I think we should be extremely grateful to him for giving us his expert views on the sort of subjects we have been discussing to-day. Certainly, as a village dweller myself, I was most interested in what he had to say about the development and preservation of old villages.
My Lords, I find this subject a very much easier one to talk about in general terms than to try to think out exactly what you mean to do and how you mean to do it. I approach this matter partly as an owner and partly, I must admit—perhaps I ought to say this with considerable diffidence in view of, I will not say the attack, but certainly the aspersions cast on them—as a member of a local authority and an erstwhile chairman of a county council. I put it in that order because I have so often found that what we now call the problems of the countryside are problems which at least the larger landowners used to deal with almost as a matter of general routine, but which, for one reason or another,
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have now become local authority problems and, indeed, national problems.
At one time the landowner was the planning authority, the housing authority, the agricultural authority and a good many other things, too. To some extent he still is. Whatever the verdict of history may be on how landowners perform their duties, at least few works on town planning fail to pay some tribute to what they have done to preserve the countryside. In regard to their relations with the public, this is perhaps a little more controversial, but at least those who think that a rural landlord is concerned only with the maintenance of his rents and the preservation of game—two very good objectives, I agree—will be surprised to find what a landowner is supposed to do to-day.
In my property, which extends to include part of the South Downs, I have a gliding club—and I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Arwyn, that I encourage this because I agree with him that some form of more exciting pursuit ought to be supplied to the younger members of our society—I have two car parks, or places where people can park cars; I have a rifle shooting range; I have a hill climbing track, and I provide room for perhaps half a dozen Boy Scout camps and Girl Guide camps every year. Although I charge a modest rent for some of these facilities, I should be better off if I had none of them at all. I have had to turn down one or two propositions. I have had to turn down a proposition that I should restrict a large area of agricultural land, by quite severe agricultural restrictions, in aid of some rare orchids and other flowers. That obviously would have been quite impossible. Then, I have had to turn down a request for a motor-cycle scramble (which would have been against the by-laws) and I have turned down at least one application for the formation of a nudist colony. In spite of these, I am not aware of any seething indignation at the restrictions I have placed on my property, and I think that goes for most of my neighbours, too. I have no caravans, though many other people have. In fact, there are so many caravan sites in my county that the planning authority has frequently had to intervene in the interests of the amenities.
There is altogether a great deal being done by private enterprise and private

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initiative to give enjoyment and entertainment in the country to people from the towns. I was glad to hear my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross express the sentiment, with which I agree, that where things are working well it is just as well to leave them alone. But I should be the first to agree that in some ways things are not going too well, particularly in view of certain changes. There are some landowners who, following the break-up of the big estates, take a more rigidly commercial view of their property and do not see the point of entertaining the population unless it is profitable to them. But much more important are the changing habits of the public, particularly in the matter of the motorist which has been referred to frequently to-day.
We are accustomed to regard the enormous number of motorists as a problem of the highways and towns, but they are becoming equally a problem of the countryside. My two modest car parks can easily hold, say, 100 cars; but when I am faced with 200 or 300, as it looks as though I shall be, entirely new problems arise. I am then not only concerned with the accommodation for these cars but also with the risks, that are increasing, of interference with agriculture, of litter, of the risk of fire, and even that of the occasional act of hooliganism. I really should have to consider very carefully, if this goes on, whether either to spend a good deal of my own money or to restrict access to the Downs. That is the most I can do under the law, and both of these courses I should be averse to taking. I think this problem of the car is for many parts of the world getting beyond the power of the landowner to deal with. There may also be other matters. I do not know how far the Boy Scouts, the Girl Guides and the cadets and boys' clubs find it difficult to get free accommodation for their camps. Certainly they ought to have it. But I cannot accommodate all those who ask me to find space for them. Again, this may well be a matter beyond the scope of the ordinary landowner.
My Lords, how far can the local authorities be expected to succeed where the landowner fails? It seems to me that they have certain advantages and certain disadvantages as compared with the landowner. The advantages are, as has been
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pointed out, that they have very large powers to do almost anything mentioned in this White Paper. They can preserve land; they can acquire land for access; they can make new footpaths; they can make car parks, and so forth. On the other hand, they have certain disadvantages. To begin with, these powers, which are very extensive, do not belong to one authority in a rural area; they are divided between county councils, district councils and borough councils. That makes co-ordinated planning more difficult.
Then, too, all local authority control is apt to be far more cumbersome, far more legalistic and far, far more expensive than control by a landowner. I will take a simple example. A landowner can preserve trees simply by saying that they are not to be cut down. A local authority must proceed by a tree preservation order, a legal document of considerable complexity, which has to be confirmed by the Minister and which, in certain cases, carries the right to compensation.
There is also the question of precedent which does not affect the landowner but which comes very much into the picture where a local authority is employing ratepayers' money. Again I will take a particular example. When Lord Bath decided to embellish his estate with a number of lions he, no doubt, had a number of unusual and original problems to solve, but he was not concerned with the precedent he was setting to any other landowner. It is almost unthinkable that a local authority should wish to emulate the noble Marquess in this way. But if they should so wish, I am sure that eventually somebody in Whitehall would say, "If these people are to have lions then everybody must have lions, and really we cannot contemplate that." I can only hope that, although individuality and originality are not encouraged in local government circles, it will not prevent the Greater London Council from proceeding with its butterfly farm which I think is a good and interesting thing.
My Lords, I think that despite the difficulties—and the question has been referred to quite a lot this afternoon—local authorities are not using the powers they have, and I think it would be interesting to inquire why. Are they hostile to any

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of the Government's ideas? Is the question of co-ordination of planning too difficult? Or is it simply a question of money? I suspect that it is a mixture of all three. Take preservation for example. Since the 1947 Act, this really ought to be a very easy matter. Before 1947 it was very difficult because of the immense compensation one had to pay. Nevertheless, in my county all the authorities did pay very large sums in those days. I think that my own authority paid something like £80,000 to get agreements with the landowners to keep the South Downs free of building. Many of the owners came in without claiming compensation, and in those circumstances I must confess that it is with somewhat mixed feelings that I received an invitation to subscribe to Enterprise Neptune and indeed to sponsor some part of the scheme.
I can well understand that where you want to provide facilities and have car parks or recreation centres money has to be spent. But surely not a penny need be spent to save the coast from building. I must confess that I think the National Trust has not done very much to illuminate this point. I think that they are rather apt to claim that planning has failed, and as often as not to illustrate that statement with photographs which obviously refer to development which took place before 1932, before any planning legislation was available. I do not believe that planning has failed. I believe, however, that some planners have failed, and as the Government are supporting this enterprise I feel we ought to be given rather more explanation than we have had as to why planners have failed in these particular areas, and why, in view of the very wide reserve powers which the Minister has with regard to county development plans, they have been allowed to fail. There is a much greater excuse for local authorities failing in other directions. Until this White Paper, no lead has been given by any Government and we have more or less been left to our own devices.
Then we come to the question of money, and here it is quite common to accuse local authorities, as they have been accused this afternoon, of taking a parochial, a parish pump point of view about matters which may have long-term advan-
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tages to them. That may be so, but I think we should be lacking in imagination if we did not recognise that, in their present semi-mutinous condition, ratepayers are not very ready to give large sums of money to any project which does not bring any return to them and from which they, apparently, get very indirect benefits, particularly when it is called a free service. I would draw a distinction between projects which are obviously of advantage to local inhabitants, such as the provision of new open spaces near towns, and provision for motorists who may come from any part of the country and are in a somewhat different category. Here I think that local authorities should be helped from central funds as they are in relation to the roads.
My Lords, may I turn finally to a type of land which has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, but not, I think, by anyone else; that is, common land which is not controlled at the moment either by local authorities or by owners? I think that the Government are to be warmly congratulated on bringing in the first stage of the implementation of the Royal Commission Report which, I must remind your Lordships, was presented in 1958. I hope that they will go on to implement it. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, that there are far too many acres of land, particularly in the South of England, which are so overgrown that they are of no real use to owners, commoners or the public. And the sooner they are brought under some sort of control, the better.
There are other problems in relation to these commons—at any rate (I do not know whether your Lordships would consider it a problem), some people find the problem of gipsies very acute. I know that in Parliament there is a school of thought which regards gipsies with a sympathetic and even a romantic attitude of mind, but I do not find that attitude ever present in the ordinary agricultural community. There, gipsies are looked on in a very different light, as an unmitigated nuisance, partly because of the litter they leave and partly because of some of their alleged acquisitive habits. So strong has been the feeling in my part of the world that local authorities have been forced to take action, which they have done, rather

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characteristically, by first seeking to define what a gipsy is.
To think of a statutory register of gipsies is to contemplate a task which would be difficult for any experienced Parliamentary draftsmen. In my part of the world they have now become itinerant, or travellers; and, again characteristically, the approach of their local authority is to make them less itinerant; to house them; to turn them into good ratepayers, paying their insurances, possibly having poll tax paid for them and generally becoming conforming members of the Welfare State. I do not know how far this will succeed, but meanwhile, any ideas about gipsies would be very much welcomed by my authority.
My Lords, the White Paper has not been out very long and I am sure that it has stimulated a great deal of thought. I am sure that, in time, a lot more information and many more interesting suggestions will emerge. My own belief is that progress will be made. It may be a prejudiced attitude, but I think that we should leave as much as we can to private enterprise. We must remember, when dealing with local authorities, that every Party has sympathised with the burdens on the ratepayers, but no Party has yet done anything actively to relieve them. They are still as heavily burdened as ever. Finally, my Lords, I hope that they will take up this question of commons. Subject to those points, I am perfectly ready, both as an owner and as a member of a local authority, to receive stimulation by the Government or by anybody else.
6.18 p.m.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, I must first apologise to your Lordships' House because I cannot stay to the end of the debate. I have explained the position to my noble friend who introduced this very interesting debate, and also to the noble Lord the Minister, who received my explanation with his usual kindness and understanding.
I live and belong to an area where people are vitally concerned with the matter under discussion, the Northern Highlands of Scotland. Tourism of the right kind can play a major role in the struggle to halt depopulation and bring
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prosperity in many Highland districts. Although tourism is not, and must not be regarded as, the sole solution of the Highland problem, we deplore the weakening effect that the new selective employment tax will have upon an industry which is playing such a significant part in our economy. We in Ross and Cromarty have certain reservations about whether the Commission is necessary; but, unlike some of our Northern neighbours, we have no objection to the formation of National Parks. In our view, however, many of the functions proposed for the Commission could well be undertaken by the local planning authority, provided that the necessary finance was made available.
Further clarification is needed to establish the relationship between the Commission, the local planning authority and, last but not least, the Highlands and Islands Development Board. We also want assurance that a county as deeply involved as we are should have adequate representation on the membership of any Commission. At present, the functions of the Commission, the local planning authority and the Highlands Board seem in too many cases to overlap. For example, "safeguarding employment in the countryside" is surely a duty of the Highlands Board. On the other hand, where the Commission undertake to ensure, and where possible to enhance, the beauty of the countryside, this is wholly admirable.
Thanks to the Welfare State, hundreds of thousands of people from the towns and cities of Britain can now get into their cars and find their way into distant parts, where they can find space, fresh air and peace. But such are the numbers that, without some regulations, the space and air can be contaminated and peace be "but a memory". This results in the unfortunate antagonisms which so frequently arise between those who get their living from the land and the too often ignorant swarms who descend upon it. For this reason there is a good case for some form of national warden service; not a police force, but a service which could do something to direct and guide the visitor, and to protect the inhabitants from the damage and destruction that is too often perpetrated by some.
The undesirable tourist is in a minority, but we could wish that this minority were even smaller. It can, and does, cause

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appalling destruction. We find gates left open, so that stock stray; fences broken down; picnics in standing corn crops; damaging fires; stones from dry stone dykes stolen to make crazy paving in some surburban garden; peats stolen from the stacks—not to mention the trail of litter, broken glass and tins left to poison or maim stock and, in the case of glass, people. Regrettably, the litter bugs are by no means confined to our visitors. Clearly, some control is essential, at least until such time as our schools will educate their pupils, not only to gain higher positions in the materialistic "rat race", but also to respect the better aspects of civilised behaviour.
It is unfortunate that in this respect the people of Britain are at the bottom of the league when compared with the other citizens of Europe.
The formation of caravan parks at terminal and transit sites is a good idea, if properly carried out; but, as I have pointed out in your Lordships' House on a previous occasion, there is a growing health hazard involved. The number of caravans on any one site is limited by law in relation to the sanitary facilities available at that site, but the number of additional tents on the periphery outwith the site is not. This results in the sanitary arrangements becoming quite inadequate and unable to cope with the additional users. Legislation is needed here, since in the great areas of the Highlands the local authority has neither the manpower nor the finance to enforce local authority by-laws to deal with this problem.
My Lords, let me end by saying that, as a member of a county council who are to a great extent the trustees of some of the most beautiful country in the world, we welcome and encourage the visitors from the great conurbations, and we hope that they can share the beauty in which we are lucky to live; but, at the same time, we have an equally important duty to protect our heritage, and all that it stands for, from destruction.
6.25 p.m.
LORD HYLTON: My Lords, the Motion moved by my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross is set in such wide terms that it is difficult to deal with more than two or three aspects of some of the questions that he has posed. I
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should like to endorse everything that my noble friend Lord Cromartie has said about the need to educate the public to preserve the countryside. If you go abroad at this time of the year to Germany, Switzerland and other countries, you will see trainloads of school children being taken up into the mountains or into the parks and so on—the Black Forest, and other areas of great beauty—by their school teachers. The whole school, including the teachers, spend a day in the country, and the teachers are responsible for teaching the children how to behave once they are in the country. I believe that nothing like enough is done in this country to educate children and young people in what they can and cannot properly do on their outings. If this were inculcated into the young people of this country in their early years it would make for a great improvement in their behaviour. I commend that to the Minister who is going to reply to this debate.
A few days ago I had the advantage of listening to the Minister of Housing and Local Government lecturing members of rating authorities in the South-West of England. He was speaking in the City of Bath. Among other announcements, the most important, I suppose, was the one about the five cities he had chosen for a survey in order to preserve the ancient and more beautiful parts of the cities. Those cities are Bath, York, Norwich, Chester and Chichester. He said that he deplored what he called the seepage of the town into the country. This is a point that was referred to by my noble friend Lord Hampton in his speech. This seepage, as has already been said, produces that frightful amount of "subtopia" that we all hate so much. "Subtopia" is produced by two or three factors. It almost always occurs on the fringe of a great city or town. This is because the city authority push out their dumps, their junk and their refuse disposal plants as far away from the centre of the city as possible. They, therefore, leave it on the boundary. At the same time, the local planning authorities, the county councils, tend to pay less attention to the fringe of their great cities than they do to the middle of their agricultural areas.
It is at this point that the planning authorities, both of the cities and of the

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counties, ought to make their greatest effort to see that this sort of spoliation does not occur. The reason why it occurs is because cities and county councils, as local planning authorities, are often on unfriendly terms with each other. The city is always wanting to spread into the county, and the county is always trying to keep the city within its limits. But unless the two authorities really co-operate, not only once but continually, to prevent a "subtopia" around the fringes of the city, then that problem will not be solved. In my own county of Somerset we take tremendous trouble on the fringes of Bristol City and Bath City, so that the green fields shall run up to the city boundaries. After nineteen years as chairman of a county planning authority, I am quite sure that this problem could be solved if the county planning authorities were as strict on the city boundaries as they are in the middle of their own counties.
I want to mention only three other points, because the hour is getting rather late. I should like to refer to the White Paper we have been discussing this afternoon. Many of its proposals are excellent, and I am quite sure that the planning authorities will do what they can to implement them. But, as my noble friend Lord Gage has said, this is a question of money, and I am sure that Ministers opposite know that as well as we do on this side of the House. Every one of these proposals requires the expenditure of ratepayers' money, and at the present time the ratepaying authorities of this country are tremendously overburdened. I know that, because, two days ago, I was at a meeting of the spending committee of my own county council. We expect a very large increased rate for the next year, on top of the very large increase for the present year. If the Government are not going to help in reducing the burden on the ratepayers, then the proposals in the White Paper will not be carried out? Of that I am quite sure.
Country Parks are mentioned in the White Paper. They would be a most desirable thing, but we already have a good many of what can be called Country Parks, in addition to the fact that Lord Gage, in his county, is a National Park in himself. We could establish these Country Parks, and administer them, but
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it would cost a tremendous amount of money. The product of a penny rate in Somerset is about £100,000 a year. We could spend much more than that on establishing, buying, or leasing a Country Park. We should then have to fence it, provide a warden service, car parks, restaurants, lavatories, and the whole shooting match. It can be done if the Government will provide the money, but I do not think that it will be done from the ratepayers' money.
Before sitting down, I should like to refer to the subject of National Parks. They have done extraordinarily good work, and I am sorry that the Chairman of the Commission is no longer in his place. I agree with everything the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said before he left the House. In Germany and in Switzerland one can find much better arrangements for parking the motor cars of tourists. Many of the mountain paths in the Black Forest, the Bavarian mountains and the Swiss Alps are barred altogether to motor traffic. When you get to the barrier you have to get on your feet.
Restrictions of that sort are tremendously unpopular in this country. Hardly anybody, except certain ramblers, boy scouts and girl guides will get on their feet, walk up a mountain and have a picnic at the top. People want to take their motor cars to the top of the mountain, or to the head of the lake, in the Lake District; then get out, have their picnic, perhaps turn on the wireless, and get into their motor cars again and go home. I do not think that is possible with the increasing number of motor cars now using the National Parks every day, particularly during the holidays. I believe that there will have to be restrictions on the roads in the Lake District, and maybe on Exmoor and Dartmoor, and probably in Snowdonia, beyond which a motor car will have to be restricted. That will mean the provision of very large car parks, and all that goes with them.
I should like to ask the Government one rather technical question about National Parks. As I have not given notice of the question, I do not expect an answer to-night, but perhaps I could be given one at some time in writing. We all know the two principal objects of the National Parks Commission: to enhance natural beauty, and to provide increased

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facilities for recreation, and so on. That appears from the first two or three sections of Lord Silkin's National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949.
It is not until you get to Part VI of the Act (and I think very few administrators of National Parks have ever reached Part VI of the Act, because it is a long way on), headed "Protection for Agriculture and Forestry," that you read as follows:
"In the exercise of their functions under this Act it shall be the duty of the Commission"—
and I hope noble Lords opposite will bear these words in mind: it is not optional—
"the Nature Conservancy and local authorities to have due regard to the needs of agriculture and forestry."
For many months there has been considerable trouble in a good many National Parks about "due regard" being given to the needs of agriculture and forestry, because the National Parks Commission and the local committees say that their first duty is to the enhancement of natural beauty, the enjoyment of leisure and so on, and that, after that, comes any "due regard" to forestry and agriculture. But that is not what the Act says. The Act says that they shall have regard when considering the whole of their duties.
I mention this point because it has led to considerable trouble in one National Park, where the farmers plough up the heather, which in the summer is a great feature of beauty on Exmoor, Dartmoor and the Midlands—all the Parks have heather—and reseed it to grass. Such action, of course, greatly improves the agricultural production from these Parks. But the Parks authorities are furious. They say, "You are destroying the National Park; you have destroyed the heather, and what is a National Park without heather?". I hope this matter can be solved between the two Ministers concerned, the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, because these interminable quarrels cannot be allowed to go on without some decision being reached in the matter.
Finally, there is the point about forestry. Are woodlands to be administered solely from the point of view of amenity in the National Park? The National Parks Commission and
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many of the committees and boards say, "Yes". They say, "You must manage your woodlands for the enhancement of beauty"; but if the enhancement of beauty consists solely in growing scrub oak, how can you reconcile that with the duty of the woodland owner to work his woods in an economic manner? There is a real difficulty in this connection, and this again is a matter which I think the two Ministers concerned must settle between themselves. lf, in the national interest, the old oak scrub is to remain—forever, not for to-day or to-morrow but forever—then surely the owners of these scrub lands must be compensated for not being allowed to use and replant them economically. The same may well go for the farmers, who want to turn their heather into productive grassland. If, in the national interest, heather is to predominate, then in my opinion, and in the opinion of many people in this area of Exmoor and Dartmoor, the farmers must be compensated for allowing their land to remain permanently under heather.
In conclusion, I should like to say just this. The landscape of England, the landscape we know to-day, is not a thing of very ancient existence. At this moment I am not talking about Scotland or the North of England, but the landscape in the Midlands and the South of England—shall we say South of Trent?—and it is not something of very ancient existence. It was not until the Enclosure Acts of the 18th and 19th centuries that the hedges, hedgerow timber and small fields came into being. Before that, as your Lordships know better than I do, there was a system of open fields. There were open fields and small enclosures by the riversides where the animals grazed. I think that we are going back to that pre-enclosure landscape and I do not think it is any good the societies who talk about the preservation of rural England, and do so much good in doing so, wanting to retain that landscape that only originated nearly 200 years ago.
This is an age of technology. Noble Lords opposite tell us that frequently. Well, agriculture has become technological; agriculture uses machinery, and that must have large open areas in which to operate at its most economical. That means that the hedge and the hedgerow timber and much else will disappear

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from the landscape that all of us in this House have been accustomed to look at from our childhood—and, of course, how much we enjoy it! All the great landscape painters of this country have painted it, including Gainsborough and Constable. But I am afraid we must face the fact that however much we wish to protect that sort of landscape, it is not going to be with us by the end of this century.
6.46 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, I, for one, have always thought that this great influx of townspeople to the country is a good thing from the point of view of the national character because environment is important, and I have always thought that the more people from the towns can see the beauties of nature the more of that healthy outlook they will have. It is for this reason that I welcome this White Paper. In fact, one of my prized possessions, which unfortunately has now been stolen, was a cup presented in the 19th century to my grandfather, inscribed, from the working classes of Belfast, in gratitude because my grandfather allowed them free access to the deer park. It was an area of about 750 acres.
I should like particularly to draw attention to the White Paper, although I quite understand that this debate is not specifically on the White Paper. The object of the White Paper is set out in paragraph 3, and it is to reconcile the growth of the population with agricultural production in the country. Probably that is the most important point. Another important point is in paragraph 5. It is that townspeople ought to be able to spend their leisure in the country if they want to, but the problem is for them to enjoy this leisure without harm to those who live and work in the country, and it also goes on to say that it must be done without spoiling what the townspeople go to the country to see.
I think that a great number of young people who go out to the country at weekends do not really go to seek the country; they go to have a thrill, which is very natural. They want the thrill of speed on a good motorway. They like to roar along on their motorcycles, probably to the discomfort of many other
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townspeople who really want to go to the country in order to enjoy the country. I was wondering, when these Country Parks come to be established, might it not be possible near the very big conurbations—obviously we could not have it in a Country Park—to have some form of racetrack where these young men could ride round without roaring about the countryside? I think that might be taken into consideration.
I should like first of all to speak about my experience in the Highlands regarding this great increase in tourism. As we are told in the White Paper, we have at the moment 9 million cars but by 1980 we are going to have 26 million. Under the Access to Mountains (Scotland) Act (or it may be Access to Hill Land; I am not sure), any member of the public can wander anywhere in the Highlands on unenclosed land. From the point of view of farming, we have found that as tourism has increased we have had a lot of trouble through livestock treading on broken bottles, even chewing broken bottles. You often see a Highland cow or Aberdeen Angus chewing a bottle of orange squash—it looks extremely funny. Some hikers who camped on my land had an unfortunate experience because one of my bulls took a dislike to their tent and drove them into the loch. Fortunately a fishing tenant of mine was on the loch and he saved them; otherwise it might have ended in disaster. But this Shorthorn got inextricably tied up in the tent ropes and went charging about the hill for two or three days with a frying pan hanging on him. Of course, the cows took great exception to this and he got in a very bad temper, and in the end he had to be destroyed. We do have these problems in Scotland. Under the Access to Mountains Act I really cannot see how we can avoid it. I wonder whether we could perhaps restrict the Act to areas of great natural beauty. To apply it over the whole country can lead to these complications.
My noble friend Lord Colville of Culross hit the nail on the head, I think, when he was talking about remote and beautiful places. I know one very beautiful glen in Argyllshire. They are now building a new road. The old road was extremely attractive and wound around and went over beautiful old stone bridges. Now they are building almost a racetrack

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right through the glen, dead straight, and having concrete bridges. It spoils the whole beauty of that glen. If people want to go to beautiful places I am quite sure they do not want to drive along at 70 miles an hour. They would far prefer to wind around all the nooks and crannies and over the hump-backed bridges.
Local authorities, I think, show great lack of imagination. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, mentioned tree preservation orders for instance. Tree preservation orders are an excellent thing because, owing to taxation, so many of the big estates are broken up, and when they are broken up farmers and speculators usually try to cash in on everything, and they cut down all the timber. Tree preservation orders are a good thing, but the trouble is that in the councils, speaking from my experience, a great many people on the tree preservation committees cannot tell the difference between an oak and an ash. It is essential, in these committees and in this wider Country Commission which the Government are proposing to set up, to have far more country people on them, people who have been born and bred in the country, and their forbears before them. I should like to make that point because it is important.
The grant proposed to be made in the White Paper to the local authorities for enhancing areas of natural beauty is 75 per cent. I rather tremble when it says that local authorities are to be responsible for enhancing natural beauty. With due respect to local authorities, and a great many civil servants, they really have very little idea of what enhancing natural beauty is. You can enhance beauty by planting trees, but it has to be done extremely carefully. If you take the area in Perthshire called the Sma' Glen, the local authorities have constructed a public lavatory there. Is that really enhancing natural beauty? I should say not. I think it was quite unnecessary.
When we come to Country Parks, which, as I have said, are an excellent idea, if you can reduce the travelling time of the townspeople to an area of recreation it is obviously of great help to them, because it must be extremely frustrating, most exhausting, for people to drive for 50 or 60 miles in an almost incessant queue the whole way. If we can have
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these Country Parks close to great urban populations I am all for it; and I should even go so far as to say that I am for compulsory powers. But of course it would be far better, as the White Paper points out, if the landowner, in many cases by special arrangement with the local authorities, could manage the area that has been designated. I was rather surprised to read that in a White Paper produced by a Socialist Government, but, it is said, power mellows. However, I do not want to go into that.
Where we have tremendous scope in this country is in our waterways. We have all these canals, we have a number of reservoirs and we have beautiful lakes. In a great many cases, by extensive stocking of coarse fish, and in some cases, in suitable areas, trout, I think we can create a tremendous amount of recreation for people. Angling does not really clash with sailing or canoeing. Nor does it clash with the observation of wild life. What it does clash with is water ski-ing. I would suggest that water ski-ing behind powerful speed boats is restricted to the centre of our largest lakes, or to the sea, because it can be most damaging to fish and wild life, and the water can also be polluted by oil.
I would add a word about the Forestry Commission. Some years ago, through Questions in your Lordships' House, I campaigned to get the Forestry Commission to allow horsemen to ride through their woods. I am glad to say that that is now allowed. The Forestry Commission have really opened up their woodlands, and I congratuate them on it. In their planting they are still inclined to plant conifers in straight lines. By all means, have a straight fence but I think it would be far better not to plant conifers up to the limit of the fence but to allow for a gap for the regeneration of natural birch, hazel, and scrub oak, so as to break the severe line which is extremely unattractive on a hillside.
Another paragraph which I was extremely pleased to read was paragraph 55, on the subject of eyesores. It will be an excellent thing if local authorities can get grants to remove eyesores, for we still have a great number of eyesores left over from the war—nissen huts, and things like that. In regard to dumped cars, I think every council ought to collect them—if I they get these grants presumably they

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can—and then they should take them to a central depot for transporting to the nearest car-crushing plant. It is an absolutely horrible sight to see, as one does, these cars abandoned all around the countryside.
I do not think there is any more I want to say, except that I would agree (which probably will surprise the noble Lord, as I have never agreed with him before) with the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, about common land near to large towns. A great deal of this common land is chalk land and is not really good farming land. I suggest that priority be given to the public and that agriculture takes second place. My noble friend Lord Gage was, I think, not right about gypsies. I think he failed to differentiate between the gypsies and the tinkers. They are quite different people. The proper Romany gypsies are, on the whole, honourable people and are most charming. I think my noble friend was perhaps right in what he said about tinkers.
We in England have a most beautiful country and it is up to us to try to preserve what remains of it. A great number of big estates have been broken up, through no fault of their owners, but through taxation. Landowners have, on the whole, left England a great heritage of beautiful parks and beautiful timber, and it is up to us to try to protect what remains of it from the speculator.
I would end by saying that I thank my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross for introducing this Motion; but I cannot congratulate all the maiden speakers, because, I regret to say, I have not heard them. Some time ago I was taken up, on a programme which has now been abandoned—perhaps it is just as well—called "B.B.C. 3" or "That Was The Week That Was", because I congratulated a maiden speaker whose speech I had not heard. But I had heard from somebody else what an excellent speech it was. Therefore, I dare not now congratulate any maiden speaker whom I have not heard. I would conclude by saying that I hope that the Countryside Commission referred to in the White Paper will not be long delayed. It is unfortunate that we cannot have the Bill this Session, but I hope it will soon become law.
7.7 p.m.
LORD SANDYS: My Lords, although my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard is unable, as he humorously said, to congratulate some of the maiden speakers, I have heard some of them and, in particular, I should like specially to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, on his most interesting speech. Lord Hampton's family and mine share a mutual boundary. Our families have lived in the same part of Worcestershire for over four hundred years. Our roots there go deep. The House will not, therefore, be surprised at his enormous interest in this particular problem. Of course, at the same time, it will be aware that Worcestershire is threatened with an influx of a quarter of a million new population from the Birmingham area. Therefore, his knowledge, his great experience and his wise advice are especially well received, particularly in the county of Worcester. We in your Lordships' House will look forward to hearing Lord Hampton on many occasions, because, uniquely, he has followed three careers. He has been a sailor, an architect and an author. Fourthly, he has been a broadcaster. He is a man of many parts, and we have listened with great interest to everything he has had to say this afternoon.
I should particularly like to add my own personal thanks to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for introducing this Motion. It has given the opportunity to three maiden speakers to address the House. It has further given the opportunity to those who do not speak very often, such as myself, to bring such little knowledge as we have to this House. We are particularly grateful to the noble Viscount, because his Motion has allowed the younger element in your Lordships' House to express their views; and it is noteworthy, I think, that among the speakers this afternoon there are many of my generation who have brought their views forward. Perhaps I may venture to suggest that it is because we are particularly alive to the fact of the inherent dangers of the population explosion during our lifetime. We are only too well aware that, in the opening paragraph of the White Paper, we are told that we shall see 19 million more people in this country by the year 2000. It is

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a very sobering thought, and it is even more sobering to know that in the short run to 1980 6 million more people will treble the number of cars on our roads—9 million at the moment, 26 million in 1980. Therefore, the remark of the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, "No cars in the countryside", which was postulated as a suggestion rather than in serious deliberation, is particularly apposite.
It is sometimes suggested that debates in your Lordships' House are not a true reflection of public opinion, but of course this argument entirely falls to the ground when so many of your Lordships are in their own counties the elected representatives of local authorities. We have heard the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, and the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, and many other people who have many years' experience as chairmen of county councils, chairmen of planning committees and in holding similar high offices. For my part, I am a parish councillor; I bring the views of a much lower echelon in the sphere of local government. Nevertheless, it is a step on the ladder.
Turning to the Government White Paper, I feel that even in the first paragraph there is an apparent contradiction in what is said:
"The problem is not primarily one of finding land for new buildings; the task is to site them and design them so that cities will in themselves be pleasant places to live in."
The contradiction is even further emphasised when we look at one of the original Studies; and naturally the West Midlands Study, which was published last year, is of special interest to the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and others, including myself. On page 43, paragraph 128, there is the headline:
"Land, not constructional capacity, the region's real problem."
Then, later, the paragraph says:
"The special problem of the West Midlands is in deciding where the houses are to be built".
It is, of course, a question of land shortage, and the announcement this afternoon from the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, that there is to be a Government grant for derelict land was very welcome. We shall find out no doubt at a later stage precisely how this grant will apply—whether it will be available for reclamation of land on the seashore, or whether specifically for industrial wasteland, or
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whether voluntary organisations will be permitted to apply for this grant and use it along the lines the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, postulated earlier in the debate to-day.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord to say, for the record, that the grant goes to local authorities.
LORD SANDYS: I am most grateful to the noble Lord. It is of particular interest that this grant will be available for derelict land.
In paragraph 161 of the same West Midlands Study there is the remarkable announcement, in regard to a recent survey initiated by the Minister of Housing and Local Government, that
"on the basis of existing information it is estimated that there are about 15,000 acres of such land in the West Midlands, or about one-tenth of the total for England and Wales."
Is this not a very large area of derelict land? Could it not make a significant contribution to the housing needs of the area? I was much disappointed to read later in the Study that derelict land is nothing like so useful as has possibly been suggested. To quote from page 43 of the Study:
"A fifth reason is that many pockets of conurbation land are in practice having to be wasted because they have been left damaged, derelict or isolated in old industrial areas or between part-used or unused old canals and railways".
It is, of course, a question of the heavy cost of converting this land, but nevertheless this will be a very important subject for local authorities to consider, and it will be well worth while their examining the problem, even if the proposal is rejected later; at least the problem will have the chance of being examined.
In regard to the Conference on the Countryside in 1970, views have been expressed from many varying standpoints, by the Nature Conservancy, by the land owners, and so on, but I would seek the permission of the House to quote the words of the President of the National Farmers' Union, Mr. Williams, who stated:
"Inevitably, at a conference where representatives of all these interests and scores of others are present—and vocal—we tend to lose sight of one basic fact, and it is against this basic fact that all our deliberations should be set in perspective; namely, that the prime

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function it our countryside is to grow food, to grow It well, in abundance and efficiently; to grow it in the face of incessant economic pressures; to grow it with the aid of every managerial skill, every technical improvement and every mechanical aid which the second great agricultural revolution of the past twenty years has both provided and demanded; and finally to grow it so that the producers can earn a just reward for their efforts and their investment, and by so doing ensure to the urban masses of this highly industrialised island an adequate supply of home-grown farm products upon which they are bound to become more dependent as the years go by."
Not only as the years go by, for in the course of this present strike it will show itself to the same marked degree as it did during the Battle of the Atlantic.
Many speakers have mentioned the question of the urbanisation of country roads. I do not feel that it would be beneficial to go further into it, other than to say that the introduction of Warboys signs to this country has not been broadly in the interests of the rural communities. In the case of our own village, a beautiful black and white Worcestershire village, the approaches are littered by no fewer than 25 new signs. I feel that they comprise an enormous amount of clutter; they are ugly and ill-placed. Surely, in order to bring us in line with the Continent in regard to direction-finding means, these signs could to some extent have been modified with great benefits to all.
In regard to what is technically referred to as "street furniture", by which I mean lamp-posts—and the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has referred to a particularly abhorrent variety of curly bracketed ones—these are, for the most part, very liable to besmirch our villages in the next few years, because, as time goes by, the increase in population is likely to demand more and more street lighting. The urbanisation of our villages is one of the inherent dangers of this present situation.
We have been highly amused with the comments of my noble friend Lord Massereene and Ferrard in regard to litter and all the special problems of the disposal of very large and bulky items such as cars, refrigerators and so on. Only last week I removed one Elsan, one wheelbarrow, three coils of wire and sundry equipment within my boundaries, and I have no doubt that some objects will be there at the week-end when we return. It is a great misfortune to this
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country, that skeletons of cars and machinery of all types are being discarded so lightly throughout the land, and, unfortunately, the magistrates look upon this practice somewhat lightly at the present time. I would suggest that perhaps it is worth re-examining the litter laws, because at the moment the maximum fine is £10. One might suggest that for very large and bulky items the maximum is doubled, trebled or quadrupled, particularly in the case of later offences.
Finally I should like to quote a prominent landscape architect, Miss Sylvia Crowe, whose views are looked upon with considerable interest by local authorities, and who wrote recently:
"The basic failure of this century's landscape is the inability to reconcile a scale based on machines and mass production with a scale based on organic growth, human individuality and natural land form."
If those who study this debate are able to learn or draw some conclusion to the benefit of their surrounding region and of the countryside in general, then this very useful afternoon will not have been in vain.
7.23 p.m.
VISCOUNT RIDLEY: My Lords, the hour is late and I will be as brief as I can, but I should like to start by saying how grateful we are to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for putting down this Motion to-day. I understand that during the course of the night his wife added to the population of this country by one, and I am sure that the House would wish to congratulate him.
The timing of this debate is extremely important and I hope it will draw attention to this whole subject. The theme of this debate, "Problems of the Countryside", could be stretched to include almost anything from Colorado beetles to the pressing and most powerful problem we have before us of the selective employment tax. But I should like to confine my remarks entirely to the White Paper, Leisure in the Countryside, which other noble Lords have already discussed at length.
I would say, first, that in my opinion it is an extremely good White Paper and I think it is badly needed. I hope it will not be too long before legislation is able to follow it. The problem of traffic in the countryside is becoming more urgent every day. I have often wondered what

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the traffic policeman must feel like, when he sees the sun streaming in through his windows on a Sunday morning and knows that he is in for a really hard day's work. The fine weather which we hope to get at week-ends brings motor cars to traffic jams as readily as wasps are attached to other sorts of jam. Indeed, Professor Parkinson might well have invented a law which read as follows:
"There will always be enough new cars put on the road to overtake road improvements as fast as we are able to make them."
Secondly, I think it is a most excellent thing that people are now using and valuing this wonderful countryside which we have in England. During the 13 wasted years of Tory Government there was a minor revolution, because during that time most families acquired a car which they did not have before, and they are wanting to use it in their leisure hours. I do not know whether in the next 13 years, if we are in for 13 years of Socialism, this problem is liable to get worse or better. However, I have no wish to talk politics to-night and will leave that said.
I think that, in most cases, the countryman has suffered this invasion from the cities remarkably well. The vast majority of townsmen who visit the country respect and value it, and it is only a small minority who, mainly through ignorance, leave behind them a bad reputation, a mass of litter or the memory of their transistor radios. At the same time, I am very relieved to see that early on in the White Paper, in paragraph 3, there is full recognition not only of the part that agriculture plays in the economy but also of the necessity of realising that farmers have to face problems with this increased use of the countryside.
There are some who advocate that land near cities—for instance, in green belts—should be freely open and available to all at all times. Apart from the loss of productive land which that would entail, and perhaps the cost of compensation to rural interests involved, I wonder whether those people who advocate this realise what the land which would have to be so abandoned would come to look like. In a very few years indeed it would revert to a most unholy mess—unkempt hedges, fallen trees and fields thick with thistles and all sorts of weeds. This is not, I believe, the country which we want
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to see or which the public wants to see. So I welcome very sincerely the solution proposed of Country Parks, which is mentioned in the White Paper. It is extremely sound. In fact, the idea has been in the minds of many people connected with the land for a very long time. Some of these parks exist already unofficially, and I do not think there are many stretches of land near large cities where it would be difficult to create these parks.
I should like to make a few suggestions for these Parks, but as they are intended to, and rightly will, vary so much, generalisations may not be very helpful. I believe, first of all, that it is essential that where size warrants such a course there should be some sort of warden service, either full-time or part-time, appointed to supervise them. In any picnic area which we now have in this country, it is only too obvious that the noble Lord, Lord Beeching, was right when he is alleged to have said, "The British are a filthy people". We have all felt indignation at the litter which disfigures not only every beauty spot but every lay-by or gateway beside the road. I have even seen a Member of your Lordships' House throw a cigarette packet out of a car widow.
Litter itself is one of the biggest aspects of the whole problem, and despite the Litter Act it is still a serious problem. I should like to quote a neighbour of mine who some years ago put a notice in one of his woods which read as follows:
"You may picnic here, but if the wood is left untidy the privilege will be withdrawn."
To some noble Lords this may sound extremely feudal, but I would only say that I understand there has been no litter since that notice was put up. I believe that in Canada they have a system which would merit consideration in this country, and that is that on entry to a National Park or similar place you are given by the warden some form of paper bag, not unlike that which they give you in an aeroplane in other circumstances. You fill this with the litter from your picnic and put it into an incinerator or something like that as you leave the Park.
A warden service would do a great deal to keep the Park in condition so that the maximum number of people

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could enjoy it; and that, after all, is what we are after. The friction between the visitors and those who have to live and work in the countryside could then be lessened. The whole matter is one of compromise, but a control of some kind by someone is essential. In the Northumberland National Park near where I live, in the very beautiful Ingram Valley to which large numbers of people go on fine week-ends, there used to be not only terrible and thoughtless damage to farming and other interests but the litter and filth which was left behind apparently beggared description. A warden service was installed some few years ago, and I understand that there is now none of this trouble at all. Relations between public and agriculture are extremely happy, and the experiment has been an outstanding success.
Secondly, I do not believe we should strive to create too much in some of the smaller Parks. I believe that a recent survey showed that nearly 90 per cent. of those who visit the country in cars do not leave the car or its immediate vicinity during the whole time that they are out in the country. What these people want is somewhere where they can get off the road for picnicking, and so forth. They are at the moment, as other noble Lords have said, having to use all sorts of uninviting and dangerous road verges, lay-bys, et cetera, simply because there is nowhere else to go. I do not think we need to build elaborate tarmac car-parks at vast expense; nor do we need expensive road works. Very often we can simply remove a fence which leads to an area of trees or woodland, or we can provide some rough track from the highway which would be perfectly adequate. But I think that if this sort of thing is done all that is essential is that the boundaries of such places should be fairly clearly defined and properly fenced.
My Lords, on the financial side of the White Paper one point disturbs me. Paragraph 21 says that councils will have power to contribute to the cost of Parks which lie outside their own boundaries. I do not like this permissive attitude. My experience of this kind of thing is that the larger conurbations, or city or county borough councils, will find reasons for not contributing to these Parks—and we know that at the present level of rates
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there are plenty of reasons for not con-tributing. We must remember that the people who are going to use these Parks will come from the larger cities; and the cost will fall far too heavily, in my opinion, on the county councils. I agree entirely that they are the right people to create the Parks, but I would ask the Government to see, when the time comes, whether there are some means whereby the urban authorities can be forced to contribute as much as the county councils themselves will have to contribute.
A smaller question arises, to my mind, on finance. The 75 per cent. grants which are now proposed are extremely welcome and are an excellent idea, but I would ask the Government to consider making them available not only to planning departments with a National Park in their area, but to all county councils; and not only available for such services as wardens, and similar services which they provide, but also to the office staff which they will have to recruit in order to carry out this work. Most county planning departments are very understaffed and over-worked, and I believe that help in this direction would be a very valuable thing.
My Lords, I should like to make a further point about mineral workings. I speak mainly from the experience which I have had of opencast coalwork, which has been the scourge of the North-East coast for the last 25 years. When sites are worked in future for opencast coal—and I think that will be done largely on land owned by the Coal Board—I would suggest that the restoration should not always be back to agricultural land. To restore agricultural land has its own serious, disastrous problems, and the landscape which is re-created is by no means beautiful. I believe not only that the Coal Board has a chance which nobody since the Almighty, or perhaps Capability Brown, has ever had of completely re-creating new tracts of landscape, but, also, that it would be much less expensive if we did not have to restore the land. We should be left with something like a vast hole filled with water for boating and other purposes, and a mountain of rock which came out of it, which could in due course provide a valuable natural feature of the landscape. I should like to suggest that this sort

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of thing is something we might seriously consider.
On the question of trees, we have had speeches from many experts on this subpect this afternoon, and even (if I may quote the noble Earl, Lord Haddington) some fanatics. I am not happy that, in paragraph 51 of the White Paper, the Government propose to ask local authorities to embark upon an extensive programme of tree-planting. I do not think that local authorities are equipped with the experience, knowledge or resources to do this. I think my own county's experience of tree-planting has been disastrous, in that none of the trees grew. I agree this planting should be done, but surely we have a State Forestry Service in the Forestry Commission. It seems to me that the Forestry Commission should be asked to undertake this sort of planting on a national basis, and that it should not be left to local authorities.
I have one further point, the matter of eyesores. I am very pleased to see that in paragraph 55 the Civic Trust's forthcoming campaign has been mentioned, and I am delighted to hear that the Government will do all they can to help it. But we have found lately in my part of the world that there will be a need for serious co-operation with a body known as the National Federation of Demolition Contractors. I hope that, when the time comes, these people can be persuaded to be co-operative where necessary. I should like to end by repeating that I think all landowners, farmers and everyone connected with the land will welcome this White Paper, and we shall welcome the sensible and controlled use of the country which is envisaged. Like other noble Lords, I hope that legislation will not be long in following. Perhaps I can best sum up the attitude of the modern, enlightened landowner to-day by saying that it is no longer one of restriction but, rather, can be typified by the slogan, "Trespassers will not be prosecuted; they will be charged half-a-crown".
7.35 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, we are coming towards the end of what has been a fascinating debate on the countryside, covering most subjects pertinent to the countryside, from butterflies to bulls.
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I should like to begin by congratulating my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross on having had the wisdom to introduce this Motion to us, and on opening it in a brilliant speech, in spite of his preoccupations of last night—and I congratulate him on the birth of another son.
The debate has also been marked by three notable maiden speeches. The first was by the noble Earl, Lord Ypres, who said that he was an Irishman. Perhaps it is a happy thought that your Lordships should have an Irishman in the House when the other Irish Peers are trying at the moment to force their entrance. We also had an extremely useful contribution from my noble friend Lord Newall, who spoke to us with expert knowledge of East Anglia, and another very interesting maiden speech from a more bashful "maiden", Lord Hampton, whose name was not designated with the usual "M". Again it was a speech of great interest, based on his expert knowledge of architecture and his particular interest in English villages. It would be invidious for me to mention any other of your Lordships who have spoken, but each one has contributed from his own expert knowledge. Some of your Lordships have spoken with special interest in a particular area, others with very special knowledge of local government or national Government. Others have given long service to voluntary societies and organisations concerned with the countryside. The interest in this subject is shown by the number of your Lordships who have taken part—although, in fact, there might have been many more, because I imagine that there is hardly any Member of your Lordships' House who has not some interest in the countryside, if not a particular axe to grind.
The difficulty in considering the use of the countryside is that people view it through so many different eyes. The countryman looks on it as an area for the rearing of animals and the growing of crops; the townsman often looks on it as a patch of grass off the road where he can have a cup of tea and leave his litter. We should not forget, my Lords, that there are, and certainly have been, people who positively dislike the countryside. Congreve was one. He wrote:
"I nauseate walking to the country diversion. I loathe the country".

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Sydney Smith:
"I have no relish for the country; it is a kind of healthy grave".
But most of your Lordships who have spoken in this debate, representing certainly majority opinion in the country, prize the countryside, and for the reasons that were perhaps best summed up by William Penn when he wrote:
"The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God but in cities little else but the works of men".
Unfortunately, the indisputable fact is that at the moment the very existence of the countryside is threatened by "the works of men." In this country, my Lords, land is very scarce. In the whole of England, Scotland and Wales, including all the wild moorlands of Scotland, there is only one acre of land per head of the population compared, for example, to the United States of America, where there are twelve acres per head of the population; and even that one acre is threatened.
First there is the population growth which has already been mentioned: 19 million more people by the year 2000. Then there is the vast increase in motor cars, coupled with increased leisure: 17 million more cars by 1980, and more leisure for people to use them to visit the countryside. Then there are the demands of industry. In Wales, for example, the Milford Haven area, one of great natural beauty, is now a centre for oil refineries and oil storage tanks; there are great steelworks growing up, like the Richard Thomas & Baldwin works at Newport; and there are the electricity generating stations. In the South-East alone over the next twenty years I believe we shall require something like 90 new generating stations the size of Battersea power station. Then there are the atomic power stations on various parts of the coast.
It was in the face of this threat that the first Conference on the Countryside in 1970 was called by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1963. I think we all owe His Royal Highness a real debt of gratitude for having set an initiative of that sort going and for getting together such a large number of organisations interested in the countryside. Perhaps the most significant effect of this Conference on the Countryside in 1970 and of the subsequent conference that completed its de-
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liberations last year is that it has welded a triple alliance between the nature conservationists, the amenity and rural preservation movement and the outdoor recreational interests.
Bodies like the Nature Conservancy, the National Parks Commission, the Forestry Commission, the National Trust and the Central Council for Physical Recreation, get together with other interested parties, including those responsible country dwellers and farmers, and exchange views on the problem. About 160 organisations took part in the 1965 conference and I think the conference is to be congratulated on having crystallised the problem and emphasised the urgency of action. Now the Government have given us their thoughts in their White Paper Leisure in the Countryside, and, like other noble Lords, I would certainly welcome this White Paper although I must express some disappointment that it is not to be implemented a little sooner. In fact, we do not know when legislation will be introduced.
Unfortunately, as in other fields in which I am interested—the universities, further education, sport and the Youth Service—the National Parks Commission has suffered from the financial freeze. The National Parks Commission, I believe, has done most useful work in the past; and I am sure that we should congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Strang, on the way in which he has chaired it. It had ambitious plans for a new technical group under the principal planning officer and these plans had to be postponed because of the financial freeze. There was also the embargo on capital expenditure under the National Parks Act. In these conditions no progress was possible, but I hope now that the freeze is ended we shall see further progress on the lines envisaged in the White Paper.
I certainly welcome the fact that the National Parks Commission is to be enlarged into a Countryside Commission and that they are to be given additional staff. But I am sorry that the additional powers for which they asked are not to be given them. One of these, the power to purchase and manage land in the National Parks, is, I believe, important. So often an opportunity is lost by the reluctance of local planning authorities to incur

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expenditure which falls on the ratepayer. If the Countryside Commission (or, as it now is, the National Parks Commission) had the power to purchase and manage land it would be of great benefit. I also welcome the statement in the White Paper that there will be close co-operation between the Countryside Commission and the Sports Council. I am sure that is right and that it will not be difficult to accomplish on a national basis. But in the field of outdoor recreation I believe it will be the regional sports councils that will play the most important part, particularly as the secretary in each regional council is the regional representative of the Central Council of Physical Recreation. They will be in an excellent position to assess the recreational needs of a region, including both urban and rural areas. I hope that the Countryside Commission will also be in close liaison with the regional sports councils although, as I understand it, the Countryside Commission does not have a regional organisation. I hope something will be evolved to keep them in close touch.
One of the most significant recommendations in the White Paper is that relating to the Country Parks. Like other noble Lords, I must say that I found this at first sight to be rather an unattractive proposition, but on second thoughts I think it is a wise one. There is certainly no doubt that the demand exists and will grow. In fact, of all forms of outdoor recreation (if one can call it recreation) that of taking out a car and stopping by the roadside for a picnic is the most popular. It should in the long run be in the interests of those who love the natural beauty of the countryside and of farmers that there be provided areas where those who wish to visit the countryside for an afternoon can get off the roads and off the farmland. I am sure that the land need not necessarily be sterilised in these parks. We have already areas like the Forest of Dean, which is an excellent park and which can be used for forestry at the same time, and areas like Richmond Park, where sheep can graze at the same time as it is used for public recreation.
Like my noble friends Lord Colville of Culross and Lord Ridley, and like the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, I foresee difficulties between counties and county boroughs in the provision of these Country Parks because, almost inevitably, it will be the county borough whose citizens
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will be interested in using the park, but it will be in the area of the county that the park will have to be provided. I know there is mention of liaison between them in the White Paper, but I personally was much more attracted by the proposal of the Town and Country Planning Association which suggested joint committees or boards of local planning authorities for each urban region, and their further suggestion that possibly a Government grant could be available to such joint committees on preparation of an agreed regional recreational plan. If I understood him aright, I believe the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, said that this proposal, or something like it, was under active consideration. I am glad to hear that.
There is one other point I would echo which was made by my noble friends Lord Colville of Culross and Lord Gage. It is that wherever possible private enterprise will be encouraged to participate in the provision of facilities in these parks. This will not only save the taxpayers' money but will yield a return on public investment. Water sports are becoming a popular and growing recreation in the countryside. These, too, have been mentioned in the course of the debate. There is only one point I should like to make on this matter. Various noble Lords, among them Lord Hurcomb and the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, mentioned the incompatibility of some of these water sports and difficulties in allowing them to take place at one time on one stretch of water. I am informed by the Central Council for Physical Recreation that they have in draft form a code of conduct for water users, prepared by them in consultation with the governing bodies of water sports. When it is published, this will stress the need for co-ordinating or time-tabling the activities by mutual arrangement to accommodate the different types of water sports. This is an example of what can be done by co-operation between different recreational interests to secure the maximum use of available facilities.
My Lords, there is one paragraph in the White Paper, paragraph 31, which states very sensibly that
"New reservoirs should present no problem. Arrangements … should be made at the planning stage …"

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but I am a little disturbed at an incident which has come to my notice where this does not seem to be taking place. Unfortunately, I have not been able to give the noble Lord notice of this and I cannot expect him to comment on it. I have only just been informed about it myself, but the noble Lord may think it worth while looking into. It is a case where Nottingham County Borough Council is seeking planning permission from Derbyshire County Council to construct reservoirs in Derbyshire, and the Derbyshire County Council made a request that recreational facilities, including facilities for sailing, should be provided on these reservoirs. The Nottingham County Borough Council turned down this request and it was referred to the Ministry.
Only recently a Report was issued by an inspector of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government—and I think it is rather unsatisfactory—that he does not consider that planning permission should be conditional upon the reservoirs being made available for recreational purposes. He goes on to state:
"The Corporation's decision and the representations made in connection with the use of reservoirs for sailing have been noted."
He adds that the Department have no strong views on the subject. My Lords, I think that they should have strong views on the subject, if the White Paper and its provision are to be made effective.
A brief word, my Lords, on the importance of preserving the coast. It was in our Election Manifesto that we were going to set up a Coast and Countryside Commission, emphasising the importance we attach to the preservation of the coast. I have no doubt that the Countryside Commission is a shorter title, but. I hope that it will also comprehend the preservation of the coast. May I say a quick word about eyesores, because this is particularly interesting to anyone who comes from the mining valleys of South Wales. There we have a number of eyesores in the shape of disused pithead gear and derelict buildings which I hope one day may be removed. Unfortunately, in my own area the biggest eyesore is a modern factory which turns out smokeless fuel called "Phurnacite" and which discharges most of its smoke in the valley and offends the sense of smell rather than of sight; but I imagine that no ground could be given for its removal.
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Like the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, I welcome very much the work which is being done by the Civic Trust, particularly in South Wales. They produced a most stimulating Report of what could be done in the Rhondda Valley which is well worth reading. Incidentally, most of your Lordships who read the Western Mail this morning will have seen the attempt which is reported to solve the problem of the countryside by selling tins of Welsh air. I gather that the firm concerned has now discontinued this line.
The problem that confronts us is frightening in its scale and urgency. Action is required without delay, yet in Whitehall there is still a profusion of Ministries more or less interested in the question of the countryside. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, did not seem to be disturbed about this fact, but I think it needs a lot of very careful thought about how the Ministries could best be organised to cope with this vital problem. Now we have the White Paper which is good, so far as it goes, but still we have no news of any legislation to follow it up. I wonder whether in some ways it is sufficiently far-reaching. The Countryside Commission is left without some of the powers and resources which I believe it needs. I do not believe that there is adequate provision for regional planning for recreational resources around urban areas, and I do not read into it any urgent action to preserve our coasts. What we need, my Lords, is bold and imaginative action now to preserve and extend the beauty of our coast and countryside.
7.56 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: My Lords, my intervention will be very brief, no more than a few minutes, and I apologise for the fact that I have to go before the end of the debate, as I have another engagement at a quarter-pasteight. There are two questions I should like to ask the Government as a result of wanting to underline what noble Lords have already said in this debate. The first is with regard to litter. Being Bishop of Southwark, which means South London, this question comes very close to me—the appalling problem of litter in the Metropolis. I could single out many instances but I will single out merely one.
I happen, in the summer, to like bathing in the early morning, and I go to

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a bath not far from Bishop's House. I used to enjoy it, but now I find so often that I am treading on cigarette cartons and ice cream cartons that I wonder whether it is worth while. What worries one is when one takes guests from other countries. I am thinking of a party of Americans who said that this bath was the most unhygienic swimming bath they had ever been in. It certainly does not bring credit upon our country. If one talks to the authorities, they say, "What can we do?", and I have every sympathy with them. I believe that until the Government alter their provisions, there is not very much that can be done. That is the question which I put to the Government: what are the Government prepared to do about the "litterbugs"? Are they prepared to take stronger action?
I suppose that I travel about 14,000 or 15,000 miles in my car in South London each year, and going from parish to parish I have noticed an increase in the number of cars that are just dumped on the side of the road. When I was in Surrey last Saturday, there, in one of the most lovely places, in a glorious wood just carpeted with bluebells, were these motor cars. The same thing is happening opposite my house in Streatham. Noble Lords who live in South London could not only repeat what I am saying, but could give much better evidence than I am giving. I ask the Government, "What are you going to do?". It is unrealistic to say that people can take their cars to a garage. They will not do so. There have to be depots, which are known, where these cars can be left. Otherwise we shall be left with this problem which is a sore on London and no doubt on many parts of England. I say to the Government, "What are you going to do about this? Here you have these ramshackle, decayed motor cars littering the streets, the hills and the country lanes in South London and Surrey, and doubtless elsewhere. What are you going to do to clear up this mess?".
7.59 p.m.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I must start by complimenting the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, upon initiating this debate; and I understand now that he is to be congratulated on another little Colville. If this one turns
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out to be as good as his father, he will not be too bad. The only thing that worries me is, when I think of Gilbert and Sullivan, that he will
"Turn out to be a little Conservative."
He will be born that way, which will rather worry me; but if he is as good as his father he will consider these things for himself and eventually find himself on this Bench.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: On this Bench, I hope.
LORD CHAMPION: Well, on that Bench: but in Opposition, do you think? Never mind. The noble Viscount's speech was an excellent one, and we are grateful to him for his continued interest in this matter. He has shown for a number of years now, although a young man, interest in the countryside and in planning, and we are delighted with this.
Despite the fact that we have had nineteen speakers, there has been pretty well a unanimous welcome for the White Paper. It is, I think, an excellent White Paper, and, as I say, the House has welcomed it. My job in answering the debate is an impossible one. Really, to answer every point that has been made in the debate would take me hours, and I am sure the House would not welcome that. The speeches of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and the noble Lord, Lord Henley, preceded that of my noble friend Lord Kennet, and his excellent speech not only answered their points but, to some extent, forestalled some of the other speeches that were made during the course of the afternoon.
A number of noble Lords have deplored the delay in the introduction of the legislation which will flow from the White Paper. To some extent, I deplore it myself. But I welcome the fact that this delay will enable the responsible Ministers to study thoroughly what has been said in this debate before actually introducing the legislation which will be based upon the White Paper. There is, therefore, some little advantage in this delay which so many noble Lords have deplored.
The noble Earl, Lord Ypres, need not have apologised for the shortness of time spent in the preparation of his speech. It was competent and—what we always welcome in this House—he had something to say. It does not always follow

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that when people get up in this House with a bunch of notes in their hand they really have something to say. But the noble Earl certainly had. He pleaded for more integration between town and country. I understand particularly, and sympathise with, the point he made that everything that is done in the countryside—and people will live in the countryside—should he done with competent and sensitive landscaping and a great deal of architectural care, so as to ensure that the new buildings fit into the countryside and that the countryside is an organic whole. This I appreciate, and I think the noble Earl is absolutely right to stress it.
The question of whether British Railways have ever considered holiday trains visiting beautiful places and houses is one to which I do not know the answer; but I am sure that they will now think of this in the light of what the noble Earl has said. At least, I hope they will, and it will be my job, to some extent, to call their attention to it. The noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, just looked at me in a rather deprecating fashion when I said this. British Railways will look after themselves, in so far as they are able in this connection.
LORD HURCOMB: My Lords, one of the most beautiful lines on the railway is what is known as the Mallaig extension, in the Highlands. We tried all we could to make this popular, and the amount of traffic is most disappointing. I am afraid that you will not cure the railway deficit by this means.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, I am sure the noble Earl, Lord Ypres, was not thinking about the railway deficit but was thinking in terms of getting people to the countryside in circumstances which he thought might be enjoyable. But this is something to be looked at.
The noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, Vice-President of the Council for Nature, talked about some of the gaps and omissions (perhaps an omission of tone rather than anything else) in the White Paper on Leisure in the Countryside. He felt, it seemed to me, that the stress in the White Paper was on the use of the countryside by the townsman, rather than a consideration of the countryside as the countryside, partly for the
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people who live in it and partly for the people who turn out from the town to enjoy it.
The noble Lord also mentioned, to some extent, I thought, the dangers to the countryside. We feel that these need no stressing. The two conferences on The Countryside in 1970 revealed how serious was the threat to the countryside by this pressure which is coming out from the towns. Some would say—and I think I should agree with them—that this is the most immediate threat of all: namely, the threat to the countryside caused by the use of the car, the pouring out at week-ends of people into the countryside. What we have to do, and what the White Paper attempts to do, is to ensure that this pouring out does not spoil the countryside: that the people who come out from the towns will have an opportunity of enjoying a comparatively unspoiled countryside, but, nevertheless, will still be able to get out there and put their cars in places which will not be too obvious: not on great patches of tarmac, but, if possible, hidden in places which, I am sure, judging by experience abroad, can be created by imaginative country planners. This has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords to-day, and I agree with everyone who has suggested that this is a distinct possibility.
The noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, hoped that we should be bolder in the Bill than in the White Paper. As I said just now, the delay in the introduction of the Bill that will flow from the White Paper gives us an opportunity to study this debate, and particularly the words of the noble Lord who is so knowledgeable on this whole subject.
He stressed, too, as did a number of other noble Lords—and I think this is most important—the necessity for educating public opinion and people on the use of the countryside. I must say that I would praise the work of television in this connection. Much that they have done in their nature and other programmes has helped people to sit down and watch that little box in the corner, and occasionally to go out at week-ends to appreciate what the countryside is all about. So many of them did not know. So many of them have had no experience of the countryside. I remember that

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lovely story of the boy who was evacuated to the country during the last war—he was a very small boy, it is true—who looked over a gate at a field of barley and said: "Blimey! what a lovely field of shrimps." Anybody who knows anything about barley will recognise the resemblance. But clearly he wanted a lot of education in the use of the countryside. Then there was the other little boy who was evacuated to the countryside, who, having attempted to milk a cow, wrote in an essay: "It is wrong to say that a cow gives milk"—as anybody will know who has ever tried to milk a cow.
It is true, as the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, said, that the majority of the people respect the countryside. But there are always the few who do not. Somehow we must educate them on the preservation of the beauties of this land which happens to be ours. Incidentally, if we cannot educate them, we might have to tighten up the legislation for dealing with litter, as suggested by the right reverend Prelate. He was talking about the towns and the towns certainly do not come into this debate to-day: we are talking about the countryside. But something of the same sort applies.
What I dislike very much is the dumping of litter in the countryside, this shocking lack of appreciation and the destruction of beauty by throwing away cartons. Another thing that worries me is that the packaging is getting much too good. Much of the old packaging had within it the seeds of its own disintegration. To-day, the packaging is of such a nature that, thrown away, it will remain for ever; it is not likely to disintegrate. This is something which worries me, although I like a nicely packed article. I should like to devise some way in which it would be possible to pack an article so that the packaging will serve its purpose for a limited period of time, and then somehow disintegrate. This would solve part of our problem.
The noble Lord, Lord Newall, entertained the House to some extent with his opening remarks when he talked about the butterflies that were worrying him in his stomach. These are inevitable, I suppose, in a maiden speaker. I must admit that when I made my maiden speech in the other House I was not worried by butterflies: the things I had in my stomach were bats. They were very
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much larger, and worried me very much more. The noble Lord told us of his dislike of caravan sites—and I dislike them, too. But what I hate much more is the development which took place before we took powers to deal with it: the first uncontrolled rash of these things which still remain because it is impossible to find enough money to buy them out. They are really terrible.
Two noble Lords, both from Wales, deplored that hateful sight one gets when running along the coast of North Wales, the caravan sites which stretch from Pwllheli right back nearly to Chester—horrible things! But now we have a possibility of dealing with these, and I hope that local planning authorities, in particular, are paying exceptional attention to the siting and hiding of these sites. I know a place in Cardigan where there is a caravan site beautifully hidden by the surrounding trees, and where all the amenities are provided. This is a first-rate controlled development of a caravan site.
LORD BRECON: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that perhaps alteration of legislation is necessary to prevent local planning authorities from giving their consent to the placing of more than, say, ten caravans on a site? The trouble arises when the local planning authority gives its consent, and the Minister can do nothing about it. This is what is happening.
LORD CHAMPION: My Lords, this is a point which must be borne in mind. Of course, local planning authorities must not be deprived of their powers. They ought to know their areas, and they ought to know how to plan the country which they control. Where there are failures, it is the job of the Minister to some extent to bring a little gentle pressure to bear on them to do something about it. The noble Lord, Lord Brecon, was Minister of State for Wales. If this happened in Wales, I hope that he stepped on it very firmly.
LORD BRECON: My Lords, I said that if the local planning authority gives the consent in the first place, then the Minister can do nothing about it unless he has called it in. If he has not called it in when he has heard about it, then he can do nothing at all about it.
LORD CHAMPION: I am no expert on planning law. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, is, but I will not ask him to intervene now to get me out of my difficulty. Not knowing all about planning law, the only thing I can say to the noble Lord, Lord Brecon, is that I shall be happy to write to him on this point, after making some inquiries of my right honourable friend who is responsible for it.
The noble Lord, Lord Newall, like the noble Earl, Lord Ypres, referred to the necessity for the care of landscaping and architectural design. Like the other maiden speaker, the noble Lord referred to the care which must be exercised in the development of villages so that they do not lose their character, although they must grow to some extent. The noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, deplored the forcible adoption by some other Ministry of the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources. He referred to the fact, as he said, that he was sacked. I must admit that when age decides that I must go, I hope, like him, that I shall not stay away from the House and sulk in my tent, because he comes here and gives us the value of the exceptional knowledge which happens to be his. He referred to some of the work that is being done in connection with afforestation and the creation of forestry schemes. Anyone who has seen these in Wales, and knows of the development in a part of Scotland (the name of which I cannot pronounce, although I can pronounce most Welsh names), will realise that the Forestry Commission are exceptionally careful to try to develop villages which ensure to some extent that our rural areas are not being completely depopulated. I am sure all this is worth while.
The noble Earl, Lord Haddington, complained about inaction on the recommendations of the Merthyr Report on Hedgerow and Farm Timber. There are proposals, of course, in the White Paper for grant-aiding tree-planting by local authorities, and this should go a long way towards meeting the point which the noble Earl made. I hate to see hedgerows disappearing. The farmers are almost bound to remove them in the interests of the use of the capital equipment which they have had to buy at great price. But I hate the thought of our hedgerows disappearing and, with
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the hedgerows, the trees that make the beauty of our countryside.
So I appeal to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, and others who farm anywhere, not to do too much of this, if they can avoid it. Do not cut too many of these trees, and do not do too much about removing the hedgerows in the interests of being able to drive a tractor straight over 50 acres, as against, perhaps, the 30 acres over which they ran before. I agree that there is something in the point about trying to ensure that we maintain our hedgerow timber. There is, of course, a study going on at the moment, and I hope that something will emerge from this to see whether any further powers are necessary to try to safeguard hedgerow timber and to secure that, where it happens to be cut down, something is planted in its place, whether in clumps or by some other method.
The noble Earl, Lord Haddington, asked whether Scottish litter law could be simplified, for example, to dispose of the need for two witnesses. The difficulty here is that the law of Scotland requires two witnesses, I think, in every case and it is not subject to the Litter Act. I have been informed that is so, but if I have made a mistake about this I will correct it.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I do not know.
LORD CHAMPION: If the noble Viscount does not know, I feel happier about it.
The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, apologised for his inability to remain here. Some noble Lords did remain; quite a few who spoke did not, which I always think shows a certain amount of discourtesy to the House. I shall not name who did and who did not, but I hope my words will come to the notice of some who, as it were, came in under their own steam, blew off steam, and steamed out into a tunnel from which they have not since emerged.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Newall asked me to apologise to the noble Lord, so at least he may be acquitted.
LORD CHAMPION: I was not going to mention names in this connection, although the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, did tell me he would have to

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leave early, as did the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie. The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, talked about his dislike of the Minister's statement on the use of Ullswater by Manchester. I do not want to go into this question too deeply, because I think we shall have a chance of discussing it later, and all I would say now is that the Minister was very careful in his consideration and did everything in his power to ensure that the least possible damage was done to the Lake District. But I agree to some extent with the noble Lord, Lord Arwyn, who said that somehow we have to go on living in this island of ours, and Manchester of course must have water, but so far as possible we must try to avoid spoiling this beauty we have inherited.
'The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, another maiden speaker, talked about the population flooding into the countryside and he, too, spoke about the danger of destroying the character of villages. He is especially able to speak in this way because he has written books on villages and is exceptionally knowledgeable about them. Pressure for development in the countryside comes not only from the needs of holiday makers and visitors, but from the increasing number of people who want to live there. In the last fifteen years there has been a striking increase in the population of villages and small towns within commuting distance of the larger centres of population. These pressures are likely to grow with more efficient public transport, more cars, and better standards of services, such as water, electricity, and sewerage disposal in the villages. All this is bound to lead to an increasing population there. I think we all frown on the building of isolated houses in the countryside. No doubt we should all agree that it is best to develop around a village, provided that we do not destroy the essential character of the village itself. This is a problem needing a sensitive approach—and I stress the word "sensitive".
I scarcely like to mention anything which the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, said because I always fear his knowledge of planning matters. I am sure he is as knowledgeable as the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, in these things; both of them have exceptional knowledge in this
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planning field. On the question of the Enterprise Neptune, although I could answer the noble Viscount at some length, perhaps it would be preferable at this late hour if I wrote to him on this and any other point which I feel demands an answer. He will know and realise that what I said at the outset of my speech is correct, that these speeches will be studied in readiness for the preparation of the legislation which will follow.
This has been an excellent debate. There are so many noble Lords, some who are still here, whom I have not answered, including the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, and the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard. I was not quite sure about providing race tracks for young "ton-uppers" (I believe that is the modern name for these boys who want to "do the ton", which I gather is 100 miles per hour), but he, too, spoke about litter and about forestry; about afforestation and its dangers if it is not properly done. I am glad to say that the Forestry Commission are alive to this problem, and I am sure will give careful thought to everything the noble Lord has said.
The noble Lord, Lord Sandys, struck a responsive chord in my heart when he talked about cars being dumped, and litter of that sort in the countryside. I have often thought that if T. S. Eliot were writing to-day an epitaph on our civilisation as we know it now, he would not say
"And the wind shall say: 'Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls'."
If he were writing our epitaph to-day I rather think he would say:
"And the wind shall say: 'Here were decent godless people:
Their only monument the asphalt road
And a million million dumped cars'."
This is something which I shall not talk about to-night. My noble friend Lord Mitchison answered two debates upon this very subject, and I will only refer noble Lords to that and to the fact that we are conscious of the problem of the dumped car. Certainly I am; and I am sure that whoever travels through the countryside is.

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As I said just now, the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, told us something of the respect that most townsmen have for the countryside. He urged us—and I have already said that I thoroughly agree with him—that we ought to be careful, in the provision of car parks, not to have huge tarmac spaces that would spoil the appearance. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, made, as usual a thoughtful speech which the House thoroughly enjoyed. He said that Congreve had told us that he "nauseated" the country. If most people agreed with Congreve there would be no problem of leisure in the countryside; but the fact is that they do not. But the noble Lord praised, as I do, the initiative which brought about the Conference on the Countryside.
My Lords, there is a great deal more that I should wish to say, but there is no more that I am going to say, except that we must all try all the time to preserve the heritage which is ours, and to ensure that it is passed on to our children, including the new little Colville.
8.29 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, it is no formality for me to-night to thank those who have contributed to this debate. If I may say so to my noble friend Lord Hylton, I hoped that noble Lords would take up specific parts of this subject, and this is the very reason why I drew the Motion so widely. I think that has been done. Of course, it is again no formality, but with a real sense of gratitude, that I thank the three noble Lords (the noble Earl, Lord Ypres, is here, and I hope that the others may read my thanks) for their remarkable maiden speeches which have greatly em-
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bellished this debate. I would also say, "Thank you", on behalf of my wife and myself, for the kind remarks on the addition to my growing football team. I think it will require very severe measures now to prevent one or other of them succeeding me in this House, although I do not know where they will sit.
Perhaps the Government will have received some help from this debate. It must be remarkable to have had a debate in which noble Lords from every corner of the British Isles have come to speak, as they have done to-day; and, at the last moment, a representative of the Lords Spiritual as well as the Lords Temporal. I think that at least a message can go forth, from this House at any rate, and I hope from the rest of Parliament, that we here are in broad agreement with what has to be done in the countryside, as the various conferences have been, so that one more step has been taken towards unity of action. We do not need papers, either here or in the countryside. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

MILITARY AIRCRAFT (LOANS) BILL
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill, within the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911; read 1a, and to be printed.
House adjourned at twenty-eight minutes before nine o'clock.