Lords Sitting of 20 November 1969

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chichester.

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was a follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, in view of the number of pupils in many schools whose parents are adherents of non-Christian faiths, whether any local education authorities have taken steps to provide pupils with an appreciation of non-Christian faiths, particularly in schools where a larger proportion of the pupils are non-Christian, in order both to gratify the non-Christian parents and also to acquaint nominally Christian pupils with the nature and moral values of the religious faiths of their fellow pupils.]
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, schools with significant numbers of pupils of non-Christian faiths are increasingly providing opportunities for all pupils to learn about each of the faiths represented in the school. This may be done both through curricular instruction and through joint or observed acts of worship. It is a trend which is well supported by local education authorities and which my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science would wish to encourage.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether she knows of any instances where these opportunities are provided. Further, would she not agree that it would be worth while to give some encouragement to local authorities to consider this matter sympathetically, particularly in view of the fact that in many schools a large proportion of the pupils do not know of
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the Christian faith, even though often they attend Christian services?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I accept my noble friend's comment that there are a number of children of non-Christian faith in schools at the moment, but I would remind him that this is primarily a matter for the schools, rather than for the local authority. Local authorities encourage this discussion and teaching through agreed syllabuses. The Inner London Education Authority is a good example, and it encourages the development of religious education along these lines.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER: My Lords, would the noble Baroness agree that, in view of the complexity as well as the importance of this matter, as opposed to what might be called the comparative religion at an early stage, there is need of a good deal more in-service training of teachers It is a complicated matter. Does not the noble Baroness think that this ought to be encouraged on a wider scale?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I agree with the right reverend Prelate, and I am sure that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science would also agree. Many noble Lords will know that the Education Committee of the British Council of Churches has set up a Working Party on this subject. The Schools' Council is also looking into this question and has made some splendid recommendations.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, would not the noble Baroness agree that it is rather extraordinary that in a Christian country we should be paying so much attention to the education of non-Christian children (and may I say, in passing, that I by no means disagree with this?), but at the same time are giving no education in our schools to those of Christian faith?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I must at once refute what the noble Lord says; and I do not think he could have meant it as it sounded. We do give Christian instruction in our schools, and I am sure the noble Lord will agree that the example of the teachers is much more important than any precept which they could utter. The first principle of a Christian is surely to be liberal and tolerant.

BLIND PUPILS AND RELIGIOUS SERVICES
3.10 p.m.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether attendance at religious services is compulsory for blind pupils or students in any educational establishment for which the Government or local authorities are responsible.]
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, such schools, like maintained schools, must under the law make provision for pupils to attend religious worship, provided that no pupil shall be required to attend religious worship contrary to the wishes of his parents. For pupils whose parents express no such wishes, an individual school may require attendance at religious worship, but my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science has no record of the schools where this is done.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether this applies to independent schools; and would she say whether the Worcester College for the Blind. which I think was criticised on this ground some time ago, comes within the orbit of the Minister?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, the particular school to which my noble friend has referred was criticised, but I would point out that the deputy headmaster denied the allegation that the boys were required to attend compulsorily on Sundays. As my noble friend will know, this is a boarding school managed by the Royal National Institution for the Blind; it takes about 65 boys and provides a grammar school education for the State ones. There is normally one compulsory religious service on Sunday morning but, in accordance with the regulations, the boys may on their parents' request be excused attendance.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that the Worcester College for the Blind, which is a most admirable school, has a great admiration for your Lordships' House, and that the headmaster brings the sixth
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form to listen in the Gallery here at least twice a year?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I am of course wholly in favour of anybody who is also a fan of your Lordships' House.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords. is my noble friend aware that I cast no reflection on this school, which in other respects I know to be excellent?

EXPERIMENTS ON LIVE ANIMALS
EARL FORTESCUE: 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 intend to implement all or any of the recommendations made in 1965 by the Littlewood Committee on Experiments on Live Animal; and whether they consider that nine to twelve inspectors suffice to oversee experiments now running at the rate of over 5,000,000 per year.]
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, the Littlewood Committee recommended against piecemeal implementation of its proposal's, and the Government do not propose to introduce changes in the present system of control in advance of new legislation. With the present pressure on the legislative programme, I am afraid I cannot say now when it may be possible to introduce a Bill. The noble Earl will be glad to know that new appointments have recently been made to bring the strength of the inspectorate up to twelve. The inspectors' task is to ensure that licence-holders understand and fulfil their responsibilities under the Act rather than to supervise actual experiments, and that view was endorsed by the Littlewood Committee.
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Baroness for that reply. I feel gratification at the increase in the number of inspectors, but are the Government sufficiently aware that the Littlewood Report was not written by starry-eyed humanitarians but by a cross section of sensible and well-instructed opinion? Further, they made nearly a hundred recommendations, most of which are not contentious, and there is considerable feeling in the country

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generally that it is high time something was done about it.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, we are indeed aware of the excellent quality of the people who made up the Littlewood Committee. It is true that they made 83 recommendations, some of which undoubtedly require legislation. The Government are very sympathetic to the recommendations made and intend to bring in legislation, but the Littlewood Committee themselves made no suggestion as to the urgency of the legislation required.
LORD BROOKE of CUMNOR: My Lords, I realise that the noble Baroness is in a difficult position, because she does not arrange Government business, but is she aware that the delay by the Government in implementing the recommendations in this Report is becoming a scandal? Is she aware that the present law was passed in 1876, and the Littlewood Committee said the provisions of that Act did not match up to modern scientific and technological requirements? More than four years have passed since then and nothing has been done.
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, I could not accept the word "scandal" in reference to this matter. We are all aware, the noble Lord more than anybody, of the difficulties of arranging Government business. Obviously the Government are sympathetic; they have planned legislation. Four years is not all that long when you consider the complexity of the numbers of bodies involved, or the different interests which must be brought to bear on this issue if we are to get proper legislation. I think it is better to proceed a little more slowly and arrive at a more complete solution.
LORD AILWYN: My Lords, while Government dilatoriness continues to prevail in the matter of this odious activity of torturing live, helpless, in-offensive animals, can the noble Baroness give an unequivocal assurance to the House that these experiments are undertaken expressly and for the sole purpose of demonstrably benefiting mankind, and not with a view to proudly proclaiming and advertising the wonders of science and producing horrific and obscene
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things like a dog with two heads, and other abominations that we see illustrated in certain organs of the Press from time to time? Such evils—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Question! Order, order!
LORD AILWYN: My Lords, I do not often ask for your Lordships' indulgence. I should like to finish my question—
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord? He is being very interesting, but I think he is just beginning to over-try the patience of the House. If he would ask a question, it would be helpful. He has managed to make a considerable number of points, but perhaps he could now ask his question. There is also a Resolution about not reading speeches, and I think his question is turning into a speech.
LORD AILWYN: My Lords, I have to accept what the noble Lord the Leader of the House has said. If these unholy animal experiences have to continue, can the noble Baroness say whether veterinary advice is available at all—and I repeat, "at all"—veterinary laboratories?
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for his question and say that I can give him that assurance. Inspectors are highly qualified medically and in the veterinary sense, and some of them are qualified in both respects. We have tremendous confidence in them. We know the advice they give is accepted. We know that the people who have the licences are given them only after the most stringent inspection. Furthermore, the premises themselves have to be licensed. I have absolutely no shadow of doubt in giving the noble Lord that assurance.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, would not the noble Baroness agree that one of the chief evils in this practice is the element of wastage—that is to say, the making of between 60 and 100 experiments where perhaps two would do? Would she not agree that one way possibly to avoid this wastage would be to make the purchase of animals for experiment a great deal more expensive?
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, the Littlewood

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Committee themselves found very little evidence indeed of wastage. It is quite true that the number of experiments has increased and will continue to do so. That is because of the therapeutic revolution and the need for new drugs. I should like to remind the House that many of these experiments are required by law. Before you can put on the market new drugs which have been discovered, each batch has to be tested. Nearly all those experiments are not in any sense horrific, as the noble Lord said; they are injections and that kind of thing—the same treatment as is given to humans.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, would the noble Baroness agree that the putting up of the price of animals can lead only to an increased risk of thieving for unlicensed sellers of animals?
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, yes, I agree, but it is an extremely complicated business.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, would the noble Baroness agree that experiments on animals are quite in order to beautify her sex, and that a great number of experiments are carried out on animals for cosmetics—for instance, for eye drops?
BARONESS LLEWELYN-DAVIES OF HASTOE: My Lords, I do not think that most of our sex needs beautifying; I do not know about the other sex. But I should like to say that in fact very few experiments are done purely for cosmetic value. It is very difficult to draw the line between research on skin disease and skin conditions and that done purely for cosmetic purposes.
LORD McCORQUODALE OF NEWTON: My Lords, would the noble Baroness agree that those who carry out these experiments are no less humane than any Members of your Lordships' House?

NIGERIA: GROUP CAPTAIN CHESHIRE'S VISIT TO BIAFRA
3.20 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: 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 it was suggested after consultation with the Foreign Office that Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, V.C., should visit Biafra, prior to the Prime Minister's journey to Lagos in March, 1969, to secure information about Biafran intentions; whether Group Captain Cheshire presented a report; whether it was considered by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; and what conclusions were reached upon it.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, the suggestion that Group Captain Cheshire might undertake this visit was initially made privately to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by an unofficial source in January, 1969, well before the Prime Minister's journey to Lagos was contemplated. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office welcomed (as they had done in many other cases) Group Captain Cheshire's willingness to visit Colonel Ojukwu for the purpose of building up a picture of the Biafran attitude. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office discussed the visit with Group Captain Cheshire before he went. His journey was made in a private capacity and the arrangements were entirely his own. After his visit, Group Captain Cheshire reported his conclusions to Her Majesty's Government orally and in writing. His impressions were carefully considered by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and, together with other evidence of Colonel Ojukwu's attitude, have been fully taken into account.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while appreciating that very full reply, may I ask my noble friend whether he is aware that in view of the hopeful developments which have taken place since these interviews I do not want to press questions about the past, except about a particular proposal which Group Captain Cheshire made? May I ask what is the Government's response to his proposal that there should be an aircraft carrier in international waters which would carry observers to the Uli airstrip, to prevent military action on either side? Further, may I ask this question? Even if British participation in such a project is not acceptable to Biafra, would Her Majesty's

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Government encourage the United States of America to extend its assurance into action, and accept the co-operation of Governments like that of Canada in a project which might bring relief to these million starving children in Biafra?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I have seen the reported suggestion of Group Captain Cheshire about an aircraft carrier, but I think this would raise very considerable problems, because Nigeria is a sovereign State and clearly we should need to have the agreement of the Federal Government, as I suppose we should need to have the agreement of the Biafran authorities. In regard to the airlift, I hope the House will forgive me if I give the noble Lord a perhaps unusually lengthy answer, but I think this is well worth stating.
On September 13 the International Red Cross signed an agreement with the Federal Government of Nigeria allowing an internationally inspected relief airlift during daylight hours for an experimental period, with good prospects for renewal. But the Biafran authorities refused to accept such flights, apparently because they feared that the daylight airlift might be misused for a surprise attack on Uli airfield. They therefore asked for assurances about the good faith of the Nigerian Government in this respect.
The United States Secretary of State, Mr. Rogers, issued a statement on November 13, in which he stated that, to meet the Biafran concern, the United States Government, at President Nixon's direction, took the following initiatives:
"1. Sought and received the solemn assurance of the Federal Government of Nigeria that it would ensure that no hostile military action would be taken against the International Red Cross relief aircraft.
2. After consultations with us,"—
that is, the United States—
"other Governments agreed to offer impartial observers to accompany International Red Cross aircraft on their relief flights.
3. Ambassador Ferguson went to West Africa to give the Biafrans the specific pledge of the Federal Government of Nigeria as to the inviolability of the International Red Cross relief
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flights. On October 24, 1969, the Biafran authorities formally rejected this assurance."
In the light of this action by the United States Government, putting as it did the prestige and the good faith of the United States Government behind the assurances which had been given, your Lordships may well wonder what further assurances are required to persuade the Biafran authorities to allow relief to flow to the people for whose welfare they have assumed responsibility. My Lords, I should wish still to know what further assurances are necessary.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that I have indicated my regret that General Ojukwu did not accept that assurance? But is it not now the case that we must try to do something to prevent the further starvation of the million children in Biafra, supplementing the million and a half who have already died? Is this not an intense responsibility for Her Majesty's Government? When this hopeful proposition which I have indicated is made, may we ask Her Majesty's Government to contact the Governments of the United States of America and of Canada to co-operate in putting this project into operation?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, we have a responsibility, and so has the world, but the real responsibility, I fear, lies in Nigeria and in Biafra. I do not see any way other than the suggestions which we have put to the International Red Cross for relief to get into Biafra.
LORD VIVIAN: My Lords, may I ask the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, whether Her Majesty's Government would agree to Group Captain Cheshire's going out once again to Nigeria—that is, if he were able to arrange to do so—and to give him full co-operation and let him report back to Her Majesty's Government once again?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, many individuals have gone to Biafra, including my noble friend Lord Brockway. We have always welcomed their visits, particularly if they can bring us back news and perhaps some basis upon which action can be taken. If Group Captain Cheshire himself or others wish to go there, naturally we shall continue to welcome it.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, if I may venture to say so, all the questions appear to have been slightly one-sided. Is it not now up to General Ojukwu to make some responsible contribution?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the fact is that the airfields in Biafra are closed by day and it is only during the day that the major airlift of food can occur.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I wonder whether I may ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House this question. I recognise—of course, all of us do—the importance and interest which your Lordships attach to this Question. But the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, in answer to a supplementary question from the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, made a very long statement indeed, and a carefully prepared one, which so far as I know is very much contrary to both the rules and the spirit of the Orders of the House on Questions. It seems to me a little hard that the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. should get away with this while my noble friend Lord Ailwyn should not.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I hope I always try to act impartially in your Lordships' House. I think my noble friend Lord Shepherd was trying to be as helpful as he could. I was myself beginning to wonder just how long his reply was going to be. It is always a difficult question for Ministers. but I believe that the views and the customs of the House in regard to these matters should apply equally to Ministers as to noble Lords generally.

GOVERNMENT STATEMENTS
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m., my noble friend Lord Shepherd will be making a Statement on the Falkland Isles, after which I shall be making a Statement on the Swann Report on the use of antibiotics.

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND BANKING GROUP BILL
3.28 p.m.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords,
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in moving the first Motion that stands in my name on the Order Paper, I think I should say a very few words to explain why I am asking your Lordships to agree to it. To permit this Bill to be deposited on November 27, as laid down in our Standing Orders, a representation has been made to the Secretary of State for Scotland. This representation was in fact made two days late. In order to allow the Bill to be deposited in time, I am now asking the House to dispense with the provisions of Standing Order No. 193. I would add that a similiar Motion was agreed to last Tuesday in another place. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That Private Bill Standing Order No. 193 [Deposit of Bill under section 1(4) of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936] be considered in order to its being dispensed with to allow the Bill to be deposited on or before the 27th November—(The Earl of Listowel.)
On Question. Motion agreed to.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL [H.L.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to make further provision about the courts (including Assizes), their business, jurisdiction and procedure; to amend the law respecting the enforcement of debt and other liabilities; and for miscellaneous purposes connected with the administration of justice. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a. —(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

EDINBURGH CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report.

SPECIAL ORDERS COMMITTEE
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I beg to move that the Lord Molson be appointed a member of the Select Committee.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

ARMY ACT 1955 (CONTINUATION) ORDER 1969
3.33 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE, R.A.F. (LORD WINTER-BOTTOM): My Lords, I beg to move that the Draft Army Act 1955 (Continuation) Order 1969, laid before the House on October 28 last, be approved. A similar Motion in respect of the Air Force Act 1955 (Continuation) Order 1969 also stands in my name on the Order Paper. With the leave of the House, I propose to speak to both Motions together, in the hope that at the end of our debate we may take the Air Force Motion formally.
As I had the opportunity of explaining to the House on a comparable occasion nearly a year ago, in the early days of my present appointment, the Army and Air Force Act 1961 and the Armed Forces Act 1966 continued the system of annual Orders in Council and quinquennial Acts provided for by the Army and Air Force Acts 1955. The Orders of which the drafts are before the House to-day will be the third pair to be made under the 1966 Act. The Acts themselves, of course, will be due for renewal in 1971. By tradition, our short debate on the Orders gives us an opportunity to discuss personnel questions in the two Services. I propose to speak mainly about discipline, with which the Acts are so extensively concerned, and recruiting, to which I referred last year as the Army's most difficult preoccupation.
The importance of military discipline and an organised force has been demonstrated particularly powerfully in Northern Ireland. I would not wish to divert the attention of noble Lords to the wider issues of the problem there; we had a full debate on the subject here only last month, and we shall shortly be debating the legislation which is to follow on the Report of the Committee which sat under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. But it is not inappropriate for me to record to-day that the troops in Northern Ireland have been required to face a uniquely difficult situation and they have overcome it magnificently; their skill and restraint have been exemplary. The purpose of military discipline
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is, in a sense, to instil self-discipline, and it is this quality which has stood out.
The Army Act imposes restraints on the liberty of the individual which would not be accepted in civilian life. It is because troops may be required to deal with situations which only disciplined bodies of men could control that they accept these restraints on their liberty as part of their way of life. Service discipline is not merely a matter of petty restriction: it is training for tackling dangerous and unpleasant tasks, and surmounting the handicaps of poor accommodation, fatigue and provocation. Noble Lords will, I am sure, recognise that there could be no more telling justification for the continuation of the Army Act than the behaviour of our troops in Northern Ireland.
As regards discipline in the Royal Air Force, I have satisfying statistical evidence. The number of minor offences dealt with summarily by commanding officers has again shown an encouraging decrease. The number of courts-martial continues at a very low level, although the figure of 252 for the twelve months to September 30 this year was slightly higher than the 240 in the previous twelve months.
My Lords, I can assure the House that the disciplinary system within the Armed Forces continues to operate in a fair and efficient manner. Much of the credit for this satisfactory state of affairs is due to the individual commanding officers, and it is on their leadership, judgment and sense of justice that discipline and morale in the Services depend.
I turn now to recruiting. There has been some improvement this year, particularly in the month of September, when we recruited to the Army and the Royal Air Force 1,350 more than in the same month last year. In 1968–69 we recruited about 24,000 male other ranks to the two Services. In the first six months of the current financial year there was an increase of about 2,500 for the Army and 480 for the Royal Air Force over the performance in the same period last year. If this improvement continues, we shall be able to repair, to some extent, the defects of last year's shortfall which, together with this year's requirement, amounts to about 40,000 men for the two Services.

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The problem is that the Services, by the very nature of the active and sometimes combatant role which they have to play, must recruit men young, and they are mainly interested in the 15 to 20 age group. And there are important trends affecting this. The number of young men available for employment in this recruiting age group of 15 to 20 is declining because of later school leaving and the expansion of higher education. This trend will continue until the mid-1970s. Again, the effects of the Industrial Training Act, which aims at increasing the quality of industrial training, will be to reduce the traditional attractiveness of the Services' schemes of apprenticeship. The tendency to marry younger may also affect recruiting, although the recent decision by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, following the report of the National Board for Prices and Incomes, to extend the full range of marriage and associated allowances to all officers and men, without regard to age, should offset many of the disadvantages which previously deterred some young men from joining the Services.
There is still some misunderstanding arising from the contraction of the Services. We have to convince young men, and those who influence them, that they can look forward to an interesting and worthwhile career, and that the future role of the Forces poses new challenges demanding high qualities to match first-class equipment. To keep forces balanced in age, rank and promotion prospects, although reduced in size, requires a steady infusion of fit young men—and perhaps naturally this is not generally appreciated. My Lords, having stressed the importance of the 15 to 20 age group, perhaps I should digress for a moment to mention that, as my honourable friend the Minister of Defence for Administration announced in another place last week, he is setting up a Committee which will inquire into the conditions of Service life as they affect boy entrants and young Servicemen.
Turning to the specific question of Army recruitment, I hope the House will bear with me if I tend to dwell to some extent on the statistical side of this problem. From the figures I hope to show that, so far as soldier recruiting is concerned, there are signs that we may have passed the most serious period, though I must urge that there is no reason for
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complacency. Taking first the problem of officer recruiting, I am sure that noble Lords are aware that our re-shaping of defence policy has resulted in the need for a smaller Army. An Army which comprised 180,000 adult males in early 1967 will reduce to about 152,000 in 1974. The smaller Army will require fewer officers. Since it takes some years to train an officer, we are now recruiting for the Army of the early 1970s, and so we need fewer officer cadets to meet our target number of young officers. We are just about holding our own. Even allowing for this decreasing requirement, however, the Army will have a difficult time in reaching its target next year, since the trends may be running against it. This year the number entering Sandhurst as cadets for permanent Regular Commissions was 259, only 26 less than the target. This year has also seen the first entry to Sandhurst of cadets to be trained for Special Regular Commissions—32 in all. The universities are valuable sources of officers. The Army has also a university cadetship scheme. Twenty-three cadetships were granted in 1968, the same number as the year before. This year we have granted 29 and we have received more applications than ever before. We should like to commission more university graduates with the necessary qualities. Even so, we expect to commission at least 31 this year.
Non-permanent officers form a very valuable part of the Army's officer cadre. We require 460 non-permanent officers each year. They are granted commissions of two types: Special Regular Commissions, granted for a minimum of 16 years; and Short Service Commissions for 3 years which may be extended to a maximum of 8 years. We require 300 Special Regular Commissioned officers of various ages each year; and in 1968 we were able to commission only 219. Better results have been obtained with the Short Service Commission. There was a shortfall of 26 in the number commissioned last year, but the trend towards the end of the year was encouraging. There has been a continuing improvement in 1969, mainly as a result of an imaginative joint scheme which we have been promoting with industry. This scheme allows a young man who obtains a Short-Service Commission to meet and negotiate with his

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future civilian employers before he begins his Army career, or at any time during it. This arrangement benefits all the parties to it—the Army, the civilian employer and the young man himself. Through this scheme, the number of inquiries for Short Service Commissions has risen by 60 per cent.; 157 applicants for the scheme have so far passed the Regular Commissions Board, 68 of them have already been commissioned, and a further 25 are under training at Mons Officer Cadet School. The success of the scheme is having a snowballing effect among employers too; the original 90 participating companies have now been joined by a further 32.
For soldier recruiting, there is no doubt that 1968 was the worst year that the Army has experienced, though the falling off in the recruiting of boys was much less serious. There are, however, signs that that year may prove to have been the nadir. The indications are that 1969, after a poor January, will show that there has been a recovery. The Army has, in fact, recruited nearly 20 per cent. more adults and young soldiers (excluding boys) this year than by the same time in 1968. This improvement is most encouraging. Some of it results from our amendment of the Regulations from April 1 last to allow more men to enlist on a three-year engagement, although one must recognise that we do not yet know what proportion of those young men who come in under the scheme are prolonging their engagements. Recruitment of boys has also improved. We have obtained 900 more in the period from April to September this year than we did in the same period in 1968.
Noble Lords may recall that we said in this year's Statement on the Defence Estimates that the Army was making efforts to improve its methods of selecting recruits and so to reduce wastage. To this end, it had started pilot schemes for the centralised selection of adults and junior recruits. We hope that the improvement of selection processes will have a significant effect on the job satisfaction of recruits and on the wastage figures. Since the pilot scheme for adults was started in October, 1968, 1,914 men have been put through the new selection process. Of these, 300 have been rejected.
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This figure may seem high, but it shows that unsuitable men have been weeded out early rather than being passed into the training machine where they would increase the handicap to themselves and to the Army. The remaining 1,614 have been placed in Corps and trades to which they are most suited. A number of these men have expressed surprise at the care that the Army is taking to ensure that each individual finds his most suitable niche. The pilot schemes have made an encouraging start, and we are now studying ways in which we might extend this method of selection.
I should like to refer next to the Army Cadet Force which clearly has a contribution of special importance to make to Regular Army recruiting. Twelve years have passed since the Army Cadet Force was last reviewed and in that time there have been considerable changes in both the Army and the Youth Services. A committee under the chairmanship of my honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army has therefore been set up to review the aim, organisation and equipment of the Army Cadet Force and to make recommendations.
To complete my review of Regular Army recruiting, I should like to say a word about prolongation. The Army depends on a fair proportion of men to extend their service to provide it with senior ranks and the more technically qualified. The prolongation rates for men joining on six-year engagements have risen from 36 per cent. in 1966 to about 50 per cent. in the last two years. I find this most encouraging. It is also pleasing to note that the number of voluntary retirements of officers has fallen off from a high peak reached last year. For me, these facts seem to point the lesson that there is nothing wrong with the Army as a career and that the men now serving realise this.
Before I turn to the Royal Air Force, perhaps I should mention the TAVR in which several noble Lords have a very active interest. As the House is aware, the TAVR was recently the subject of a review which led to changes designed to strengthen its role in support of our Regular forces. These changes have been consolidated over the

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last year. Recruiting has been satisfactory and the strength—disregarding the Territorials (TAVR III), who have been disbanded—has increased from about 40,500 in December last year to nearly 47,000 at the end of September.
Now may I turn to the Royal Air Force? As in the case of the Army, recruiting to the Royal Air Force has not been either easy or satisfactory, in terms of meeting our needs, during the last year or so. This is the pattern for both officers and airman recruiting. On the airman side, however, I am glad to say that we have done noticeably better in the six months up to September 30 last, with the numbers of men up by 5 per cent. on the previous six months' results, and those of airwomen up by 35 per cent., while in the field of apprentice recruiting things are even more encouraging. Although we are still not getting all the men and women the Royal Air Force needs, we are doing considerably better than we should have dared to hope twelve months or so ago. It is the shortages caused by the lean years of the past which we now have to make good, and this will take time and the effort of all concerned.
As with the airmen, officer recruiting is also stronger this year, and we are encouraged by the response to our publicity, in terms of inquiries about commissioned service, especially in the ground branches. If we can convert enough of this renewed interest into actual applications for commissions, we shall not be far from our targets this year, except, of course, in areas such as the Medical and Engineer Branches where recruiting is to some extent affected by national shortages.
The progress of the R.A.F.'s new Graduate Entry Scheme for officers is encouraging. We have achieved what we set out to do at the beginning of the year; namely, to award as many university cadetships as possible in lieu of Cranwell cadetships. In the round, we have achieved the same number of cadetship entrants as in 1968 but with a much increased university element. In addition to this year's university cadet awards to direct applicants, 48 Cranwell cadets transferred to universities after one year at the College. By the end of the year, the number of cadets up at university
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will be about 140 more than we had at the end of 1968—a sound start towards getting the flow of graduates to full career commissions which the Graduate Entry Scheme requires. But once again the field of Royal Air Force officer recruiting is one in which we cannot afford to relax our advertising and other positive recruiting efforts if we are to meet our requirements in terms of both quantity and, even more important, quality.
The modest but encouraging improvement which we have already achieved in Royal Air Force recruiting overall is the result of a number of factors, but the efforts made by the Royal Air Force recruiting organisation have played a significant part. We have, for instance, reorganised and expanded the Careers Information Services, under the Inspector of Recruiting, so that we now have some 60 careers information officers throughout the United Kingdom, backed by a mobile network. These offices are staffed by regular officers and N.C.Os who have undergone special training for the purpose; they do these jobs as normal Royal Air Force postings and so are well in touch with the needs of the frontline Royal Air Force. We have taken a critical look at our recruiting techniques, and have launched special publicity and recruiting campaigns in particular areas with considerable success. For instance, the significant rise in apprentice recruitment follows the special campaigns we have mounted featuring an Apprentice Fortnight followed by a two-day Apprentice Symposium attended by headmasters and others eminent in the educational field. Similar campaigns are in prospect. For example, one for mechanics has just ended, and another for the electrical and electronic trades is planned for early next year.
Despite these encouraging trends, recruiting in the ground trades continues to be a challenging prospect. We still have to bridge a 25 per cent. shortfall on recruiting requirements, and the market in which we compete is becoming ever more competitive. Would-be recruits nowadays are more selective and discriminating in committing themselves to a future career and are thereby harder to get. But the number of airmen already in the Service and wishing to make it a lifelong career

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is such that the numbers of applications for extensions of service and for pensionable engagements continue to show healthy increases, and we are of course encouraged by this and other evidence that men and women who have sampled life in the Royal Air Force are keen to stay.
To sum up, my Lords, I am sure that, having looked at the recruiting picture in both Services, noble Lords will agree that the satisfactory rate of re-engagement shows that those who have experienced Service life find it a career worth following. It remains for us to convince those with no experience of Service life, or whose information is outdated, that the life and activities of the modern Serviceman offer an interesting and challenging career, with good pay and prospects of promotion. Satisfying as the re-engagement rate is, it is not possible to regard it as a substitute for new recruits.
I have already referred to some of the considerable improvements which are being made in our processes of selection and in the use we make of manpower. The Forces are increasingly technical, and it is essential that all the most modern management techniques should be used in determining aptitudes and in training a man for a job which is satisfying and which improves his personal and technical qualities, and in the course of this prepares him for his second career. Naturally, entry standards are continually examined to ensure that the optimum use is made of young men who wish to adopt a Service life.
We are also studying the relationship between the current role of the Services and the personal way of life of the Serviceman and his family in order to analyse and implement whatever possibilities there may be for improving the conditions in the Armed Forces with particular reference to family life. Efforts in all these areas must be supplemented by effective external publicity on an adequate scale. We are spending an additional £1 million in 1969–70 on a really high-pressure recruiting publicity campaign.
Not only must we go out to the young men in order to convince them of the worthwhileness and challenges of a Service career. We hope also to bring the public to the Services by organising "at
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homes", open days and similar arrangements to enable the community to see the Services close at hand. In the current year we have increased funds for this by some quarter of a million pounds. We do not expect dramatic results from all these measures. We recognise that it may be a slow haul before the competitive pull of the Armed Forces begins to show a sustained and steady improvement. It is however a fact that, even in these difficult times, there is a really good career— testing as well as rewarding—for anyone who joins the Services. It is also a fact, but one little better recognised in many circles, that the Services are essential to the real interests of our nation. I welcome the opportunity of our debate to-day to invite noble Lords to join me in making all possible efforts to convince leaders of opinion everywhere of both these facts. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Army Act 1955 (Continuation) Order 1969, laid before the House on October 28 last, be approved.—(Lord Winterbottom.)

THE FALKLAND ISLANDS
3.56 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, yesterday, referring to a Question on the Falkland Islands, the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition drew attention to a tape report. As a consequence of his observations I undertook to keep the House informed. Therefore with permission, I would now repeat a Statement that has just been made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. I will use his words:
"As I informed the House on the 11th of December, 1968, discussions with the Argentine Government have continued. In accordance with the practice for several years past, letters will be sent by the Argentine Government and ourselves to the Secretary-General of the United Nations describing these discussions.
"The text of these letters will be made public tomorrow at 7.30 p.m. Falkland Islands time, a time agreed by all parties and convenient to the Falkland Islanders.
"With the permission of the House, I will make a fuller statement on Monday. Meanwhile, I can assure the

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House that the undertakings which Her Majesty's Government have repeatedly given both to Parliament and to the Islanders remain unchanged; namely, that the Governor and his Executive Council have been kept informed and that there can be no transfer of sovereignty against the wishes of the Islanders."
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, for repeating that Statement, and of course I shall defer any substantive comment until we have seen the text of the letters. I hardly need remind the noble Lord, however, of the very great interest which this House has taken in this matter, and of the considerable disquiet which has been aroused in the past. In view of that, I should like to ask the noble Lord this question: would it not have been better to arrange for these letters to be published at a time which would have permitted a simultaneous announcement to be made to both Houses of Parliament?
LORD BYERS: My Lords, since presumably this House will not have an opportunity of questioning the Minister on Monday, as we shall not be sitting, may I ask him whether we are now approaching the moment when we shall have to ascertain what the true views of the Falkland Islanders are? If that is so, what opportunity will Parliament as a whole in this country have of deciding what is the best way of doing that?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, since I have already been reproved once for giving a lengthy answer, I will say to the noble Lord, Lord Byers, that he will find, on Monday, his question to be hypothetical; and to the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, that there is nothing sinister about the fact that this is to happen on a Friday. The reason for it is that four parties are involved and that was the most convenient date possible.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, when the noble Lord says that my question will be found to be hypothetical, may I ask him whether that means that we are never going to find out what the views of the Falkland Islanders are?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, if the noble Lord will look at Hansard to-morrow he will see that he put that
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question in the light of the letters which are being sent to the United Nations on Friday. To that extent, as I said, the question was hypothetical.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, how are these letters going to get into Hansard to-morrow, if they are not going to be published until to-morrow night?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I suggest that the noble Lord reads the paper, and if he looks at what I said about Hansard, he will see that it was in the terms of his question.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, may I assure the noble Lord that I was not putting forward a sinister interpretation? All I was suggesting was that the convenience of one of the major Parties here, and the convenience of Parliament, surely is an important consideration.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, when I used the word "sinister" I was perhaps suspicious of what might have been behind the noble Earl's question.

FARM LIVESTOCK: USE OF ANTIBIOTICS
4.0 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, with the permission of the House I will now repeat the Statement made in another place by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It is as follows:
"The Report of the Joint Committee on the Use of Antibiotics in Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine has been laid before Parliament and published to-day. My right honourable friends and I would like to thank the Committee for its detailed and precise analysis of a most complex matter and for its clear findings and recommendations.
"The Committee found that the administration of antibiotics to farm livestock poses certain hazards to human and animal health since it has led to the emergence of strains of bacteria which are resistant to antibiotics. The Committee was satisfied that these hazards can largely be avoided and has put forward a number of recommendations to that end.
"We accept, in general, the Committee's proposals for the control of antibiotics.

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"The Committee's principal recommendation is that antibiotics should be classified as either 'feed' or 'therapeutic' and that in future only 'feed' antibiotics should be available without prescription for use in feedingstuffs. The Committee also defines 'feed' antibiotics in a way which will enable us to ensure that hazards to human health cannot arise from their use in feedingstuffs. The use of antibiotics on prescription by the veterinary profession would not be limited. We accept these recommendations.
"As a consequence of its main proposal, the Committee recommends that the use of penicillin and the tetracyclines in feedingstuffs should be prohibited; and that certain other drugs which are now freely available should also be available only on prescription. We also accept these recommendations.
"Some of the Committee's more detailed recommendations and longer-term proposals on research and veterinary epidemiology will need further study.
"The implementation of these recommendations will require consultations. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services and the other Health Ministers will therefore be consulting medical and pharmaceutical interests. I and the other agricultural Minisiters will be consulting veterinary, agricultural and animal feedingstuffs interests. We are proceeding to these consultations immediately".
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for that Statement, and add my personal welcome for the Swann Committee's Report which I had a chance to read briefly this morning? It has been a constant surprise to me that whereas I need a doctor's prescription to buy a few pills of an antibiotic, I can buy hundred-weights of antibiotics for my farm without any control at all. Therefore I welcome the main recommendation here that these antibiotics should be differentiated into those of therapeutic value and those of feed value, and that the former should be supplied on a veterinary prescription only.
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There is one point on which I should like the noble Lord's further assurance, and that is with regard to the Report's recommendation, to which the noble Lord referred, about further work in veterinary epidemiology. This is obviously urgent, and as more and more antibiotics come out it will be necessary to put a value on them and to give advice on how they can be used for disease purposes. Would the noble Lord give me a firm assurance that it is the Government's intention to promote this research and make available all necessary resources, especially in the field of veterinary epidemiology where it tends to overlap into human epidemiology, because here there is undoubtedly a field of great danger about which the public is feeling some anxiety?
LORD HENLEY: My Lords, I very much welcome this unanimous and forthright Report, with its clear recommendations on what is in fact a very frightening subject. I notice that the noble Lord, in repeating the Statement, quoted the words "these hazards can largely be avoided." He did not quote other words used by the Committee which say, "and should not therefore be allowed to continue." This is in my view very important indeed, and I wonder what proposals the Government have for going into action immediately. I notice that there are certain things which require further study— and I quite understand that. But before further study takes place, and before further legislation is introduced, it is important that the Government should do something. Furthermore, I hope that they will start consultations internationally. because this matter affects not only our own meatstuffs but what we import.
Lastly, I notice that the Government are to consult other interests. Among other interests is the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry bears a very heavy responsibility in this respect, and I hope that the Government will press the pharmaceutical industry to put its own house in order. I am sure that the pharmaceutical industry is only too aware of this, but there are weaker brethren within any industry, and I hope the Government will make it absolutely certain that it will no longer be possible for drugs to be manufactured in a way that enables the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, to point out that they can be bought by the hundredweight.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, and the noble Lord, Lord Henley, for the welcome they have given, both to the Report and, as I understand it, to the Statement made about the Government's reaction to it. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, asked me about the action to be taken. I should have thought that what we are now proposing to do would meet any reasonable requirements. The drugs which will not be allowed are carefully defined, and those which will be allowed, as I stated, will be on the prescription of a veterinary surgeon, a veterinary officer.
I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, about the further work that is required. I think that if he looks at pages 53 and 54 of the Report he will see that the recommendations on epidemiology are very wide and very detailed, and that it would not be possible to take action in the immediate future. However, I can give him an assurance that the consultations about the implementation of those recommendations will proceed immediately, and that the Government do take the recommendations very seriously indeed and accept them in principle.
I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, about imports. He will find it stated in the Report that there is no hazard from imported foodstuffs, but my right honourable friend has indicated in the Statement that a survey will be taken of imported foodstuffs to see whether there is any hazard arising from the residue of the stock feed in which antibiotics may have been given. I think that I have answered all the questions put to me.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, in view of the importance of this Report, and indeed of the whole question to the consumer, may I ask my noble friend whether he will consider giving time for a debate in this House, not only on the findings in this Report but on the whole question of the indiscriminate use of drugs which have been inadequately tested? I feel that the country is very concerned about this matter.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I accept what my noble friend says about the concern of the country in this matter. It so happens that before Christmas we unusually have a very heavy legislative programme and I do not see any possibility
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of a debate before Christmas. But I will certainly see, through the usual channels, what can be done after Christmas. I was asked a further question by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, about the pharmaceutical industry. I am sure that what he has said in that regard will be noted.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, could the noble Lord say whether, as a matter of routine, this information is passed to other countries whose schools of medicine are similar to our own—for instance, to members of the Commonwealth?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am not sure whether it is done as a matter of routine, but arrangements will be made to see that this Report is freely available.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, will the Government make arrangements whereby they can discover to what extent antibiotics are put in the feed of animals imported into this country?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as I said in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, the Report says that so far as the Committee could see there is no hazard arising from this source. Nevertheless, Her Majesty's Government feel that a survey into this matter would be justified.

ARMY ACT 1955 (CONTINUATION) ORDER 1969
4.10 p.m.
Debate resumed.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, for the information which he has given us, and although none of us wishes to have a major Defence debate this afternoon—we must not keep the South—West waiting too long—I think it is useful for us periodically to look at the nuts and bolts of defence policy. Like the noble Lord, I propose to confine myself entirely to personnel matters, and I should like at the outset to say now grateful I am to the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, for having given us such a comprehensive review of the picture as he sees it to-day. I know that these matters are those in which he is deeply involved, and indeed deeply interested, and his very considerable personal interest and concern for these matters came through very much in what he said.

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I should like, first of all, to associate myself straight away with what the noble Lord said about our forces in Northern Ireland. They have done and are doing an extraordinarily difficult job extra-ordinarily well, and they are doing it just as well as I think we all expected them to do it. Many of us, of course, have been very concerned at the conditions in which many of our troops in Ulster are now serving. If I felt that the Government were not fully alive to the need to look after their material welfare, in so far as that is possible, I should have been extremely critical of them this afternoon. But I am persuaded that these needs are recognised and that action to repair the most obvious and glaring omissions and problems is being taken. May I say that I consider the decision to move the "Maidstone" to Belfast to be both sensible and imaginative. I spent a number of weeks aboard "Maidstone" myself during the war and I know what good accommodation she has. It was perhaps a stroke of good luck that Mr. Healey had not yet sent her to the knacker's yard. That said, I turn to the darker side of the picture.
For the past five years we on these Benches have expressed our concern about the rundown in our Armed Forces. Time and time again we have emphasised that a sensible defence policy must make provision for the unexpected. With that in mind we have deplored the Government's emasculation of our reserve forces, and we have emphasised that they were cutting the cutting edge of the British Army—the infantry battalions—dangerously fine. Now the unexpected has occurred. Who would have thought a year ago that it would now be necessary —and, indeed, it is very necessary—for us to station ten military units in Northern Ireland? This is, I think, the first time that this Administration has been confronted with what is only to be expected; namely, the unexpected. And what do we find, my Lords? Immediately we find all the signs and symptoms of overstretch and overstrain.
There is the undermanning of our units —or at least some of them—in Northern Ireland. I think we have it on the authority of Mr. Healey that 25 men is the minimum number in an infantry platoon. And of course numbers are particularly
1088
crucial when one is dealing with internal security. But when he visited Northern Ireland recently, my right honourable friend Mr. Ramsden, a former Secretary of State for War found that there were in fact less than eight men per section in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Green-jackets. Can the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, assure us that this under-manning is exceptional to that particular unit? I hope he can.
Another sign of overstretch is that in order to provide the necessary 10 units in Northern Ireland, Mr. Healey has had to call upon composite units. One of the units is an amalgam of two squadrons of the R.A.F. Regiment and a battery of a light regiment of the Royal Artillery. I very well remember the criticisms to which we were exposed when, confronted by a number of emergencies all around the world—in East Africa, in South Arabia, in South-East Asia—we called upon the Royal Artillery to fulfil infantry roles. But those Artillery units were trained for the internal security role, and it cannot be a good thing, especially when troops are undertaking internal security, the most delicate of tasks in a highly charged political atmosphere, to have to rely upon hastily-formed mergers.
The third sign of overstretch is the extent to which Northern Ireland has forced us to draw upon our strategic reserve. Despite all the fine words of our Minister of Defence about our general reinforcement capability, five of the nine battalions of the 3rd Division are now in Northern Ireland. Again, I recall that at all times, even when we were dealing with a number of simultaneous emergencies, we managed to retain in England up to strength a full brigade group of the strategic reserve. I hope and trust—and I shall be very surprised if this is not the case—that the noble Lord can assure us that that is indeed the position to-day.
Finally, and most important, there is the warning that the Government may have to draw upon B.A.O.R. in order to keep our garrison in Northern Ireland up to strength. Here again we have been subjected to a great deal of talk about the reinforcement of the British military presence in Europe. But of course those who speak a great deal about that refrain from reminding us that the Government have withdrawn one

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brigade, the 6th Infantry Brigade, from B.A.O.R., and that that brigade is physically stationed in this country at the present time. Now we are told that it is probable that a battalion from B.A.O.R. will be needed in the new year in Northern Ireland. The Ministry told us that it was not for reinforcement but for relief purposes. Well, my Lords, whatever the verbiage they wrap this around in, the fact remains that that battalion will not be with B.A.O.R.
Last spring my noble friend Lord St. Oswald and I spent some days in Belgium looking at our NATO force. We were both concerned, as all of us must be, with the signs we saw of the weakening of the Alliance's conventional military posture in Europe. There are threats of withdrawal from the NATO conventional strength all across the board. Time and time again it was brought home to us that the one obvious thing which we could do to stop this potential rot was to move the 6th Infantry Brigade back to B.A.O.R. I notice, incidentally, that there is a report in the Guardian that that may be our intention, and I should very much like to ask the noble Lord whether he can say anything about that report when he replies.
Be that as it may, I should also very much like to ask the noble Lord what is the actual strength, the actual numbers of British Army personnel at present physically on the ground in the British Army of the Rhine to-day. I hope that he can give me a perfectly straightforward and simple answer, excluding Berlin, excluding Belgium, excluding the 6th Brigade and excluding those units associated with it, like 36 Heavy Air Defence Regiment. By the same token, when the Government draw the contrast which they are very fond of drawing between the 19 battalions physically present in this country in June, 1964, and the 30 battalions present to-day, are they or are they not including the 6th Brigade in that total?—because I think there is sometimes a tendency for that Brigade to be double counted.
I have indicated some of the signs of overstretch and overstrain which this emergency has caused and I should like to explore the Government's intentions a little further. The emergency has of course high-lighted—if high-lighting was
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needed—the need for adequate reserves. I am not expecting any great change of heart from the Government here. I am glad to see that the total of TAVR II has climbed from 40,000 to some 47,000, but I need hardly remind the noble Lord that this is still over 10,000 below strength. Another thing which the Government could do is to defer the disbandment of our infantry battalions, at least until we can see the picture in Northern Ireland more clearly. We had 66 infantry battalions in June, 1964, and the total is now down to 59. We are due to lose six more next year and two more in the two succeeding years. In my view, a prudent Administration would, in prudence, review this programme, which, unless it is changed, will further erode our very slim reserves of infantry manpower.
The Government may, of course, be relying upon better recruitmenl—and, goodness knows! they need it. It is my understanding that in April of this year the Army was nearly 9,900 men short of peace-time establishment, and the Under-Secretary told us in June [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 25/6/69, col. 270.]:
"If the present trend in recruiting continues I estimate the shortfall on 1st April, 1970, as about 8,750—
and that, of course, is with a considerably reduced establishment. The noble Lord has given us—and I was glad he was able to do so—some rather more hopeful figures about recruiting trends at the present time. He has told us that it is 20 per cent. up on recruitment for the corresponding period last year but he rather took the gilt off that gingerbread by reminding us that last year was in fact the nadia of our recruitment. He has also laid emphasis on the encouraging re-engagement trends, and he is quite right to do so—it is exceptionally important. But of course we cannot tell where we are going until we know much more than we do now about what the re-engagement trends are going to be with those who have enlisted on a three-year engagement; and he quite rightly said that. But I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he could tell us what is the present estimate of the Ministry of Defence for the Army shortfall, given the rather more encouraging recruiting trend at present. They were able to calculate that last summer: I am sure that their computers and their statisticians can calculate it now.

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There are two aspects of recruitment which the noble Lord touched on and which I should like to explore a little further with him. The first is the question of specialist skills, where competition with the civilian market is at its most acute and where the shoe pinches most, because all three Services now make extraordinarily clamant demands on specialist and highly-skilled manpower. We read in the Defence White Paper this year that in the Navy, for example,
"there are major shortages of recruits for the seamen, communications and electrical branches "—
all absolutely key skills in the Navy of 1969. We also read that there were serious shortages in certain of the essential trades of aircraft mechanic in the Royal Air Force. I may have missed it, but I think that the noble Lord, when he was saying that the shortfall was something like 25 per cent., was referring to those specialist branches in the Royal Air Force; but I am not certain.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: In the Royal Air Force, yes.
EARL JELLICOE: I am grateful to the noble Lord for frankly disclosing that figure. It is a very serious one, and no one knows that better than he does. Anything which he can say in amplification about that I should be glad to hear, because all three Services—but above all, perhaps, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force—depend tremendously upon these specialist skills and specialist manpower.
May I dwell, secondly, for a moment on the officer position? I know that we are concerned here primarily with the Royal Air Force and the Army, but I noticed that the Under-Secretary of State for the Army disclosed on a similar occasion last week—and, as a former naval person, I cannot help reminding the noble Lord, also as a former naval person, about this —that officer entries for the Navy this year were nearly 70 below the entries for last year, and that for the first time there is a shortage of entries in the Seamen (General List). I read those words with very great concern indeed.
I was also concerned at what was said in the White Paper on the shortfall of recruits in what I have always thought is one of the most important and most
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interesting avenues of entry into the Forces these days, and that is through the university. I read that the number of cadets for the R.A.F. in residence at universities was 137 against a target of 201. What I think the noble Lord has told us this afternoon has put a much more favourable gloss upon that particular figure, but I am still very unhappy about the position here as regards the Army. I think he told us that the number of Army university cadetships was now something like 29 or 31 (I forget the precise figures) and had risen, but in the White Paper we were told that the target here was 65. It therefore seems, if I am right in my statistics, that we have still reached only 50 per cent. of target, and that worries me.
Two further "nuts and bolts" questions, my Lords, because they both have a bearing on recruitment. The first concerns pay. In the debate in another place last week the Government spokesman produced figures designed to show that the Serviceman will gain a lot when the new scales are introduced next year. I would ask, first: can the noble Lord categorically confirm that the Government are certain they will be able to meet the April deadline for the introduction of the new system? I assume that he can, because his colleagues in another place last week expressed every confidence that this was so.
As for the figures themselves, I am uncertain whether I understand the new system—in fact I am pretty certain that I do not understand it, because it is extraordinarily complicated. But the Minister of Defence for Administration told another place last week:
… the increase which Grigg would have produced since 1966 is between £75 million and £80 million".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 13/11 /69, col. 630.]
He went on to say that under the new formula the Services wage bill will have increased, by comparison, by £130 million. This, I think, was designed to show that the Forces will be £50 million better off, paywise, under Aubrey Jones than they would have been under Grigg. That is all very satisfactory, if that is the case, and it obviously has a bearing (although one can exaggerate that bearing) on recruitment. But what I should like to ask the noble Lord is whether these two sets of figures are really comparable.

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As I understand it, the new system means that the Armed Forces will receive gross pay and will then have an amount deducted from that pay—doubtless before they get the actual cash—for such things as accommodation and food. Moreover, if they are receiving more pay, there may well be an increased taxation liability. What I should like to know is whether those elements had been taken into account in the figure of £130 million—that is to say, was the figure gross or was it a net figure—and is it strictly comparable with the figure of £80 million? My second question is to ask the noble Lord when the Government hope to receive the Report of the Committee on Boy Entrants—and here I may say that I think the Government have been right to establish this Committee to look into this very difficult subject.
My Lords, there is one further matter that I should like very briefly to touch on, and that is the question of our Service attaché representation abroad. We touched on this, of course, in the context of the Duncan Review Committee's Report yesterday. My noble friend Lord Selkirk drew your Lordships' attention to the very important contribution which our Service attachés make to our representation abroad, not least when the unexpected, the emergency, occurs; and I entirely endorse what my noble friend, with all his very great experience in this particular matter, said. It is quite obvious to any of us who know what Service attachés are sometimes called upon to do that they perform far more than a purely ornamental role.
As I understand it, the Duncan Committee, who looked into this matter pretty thoroughly, made a number of minor recommendations and three major recommendations. They came to the conclusion (in their own horrid terminology) that in the "Outer Area" we could cut our Service attaché representation by about a third. Next, they concluded that our Service staffs in the United States, which include the British Defence Staff in Washington and which amount to almost 300 people, could probably be cut by about a quarter. Thirdly, they recommended that it was vital for the Services to appoint Service attachés who were on their way up in their career, rather than on their way out. Here they were merely crossing a "t"
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where the Plowden Committee of five years before had dotted the "i". We learned only in general terms yesterday about the Government's standpoint: on Duncan—let alone on this part of Duncan —and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, will take this opportunity of telling us a little more about: their thinking on these specific recommendations regarding our Service attaché representation abroad.
My own views in capsule form are very simple, almost simpliste. I personally have some doubt whether it would be sensible to make the full cuts recommended by Duncan in the Service attaché representation in the Outer Area where the fabric and the crust of security is very thin in so many very neuralgic places. Secondly, I venture to say this. I am personally inclined to think that we could afford to make perhaps rather deeper cuts in our representation in the United States. This is only a personal hunch but I am a little inclined to doubt whether, but for the accident of history and the wartime heritage of the Combined Chiefs, we would accept anything like this figure of 300 as being in any way reasonable. My personal view is that what we need in Washington is a very high-level, small, military nucleus to which task forces for specific purposes like Polaris or Phantom could be attached—in fact one might be able to fly out short-term experts from London (Duncan's "flying Missionaries") when necessary. These are purely personal views.
Finally, on the question of Service attaché representation, I should like to say that I concur with what Duncan said about the quality. The only surprising thing is that Duncan felt compelled to repeat this recommendation when it was made five years ago by Plowden and, so far as I know, accepted then by the Government of the day.
Those are the areas which I wanted briefly to touch upon to-day. I have put a great many questions to the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, and I await a great many satisfactory (or less satisfactory, as the case may be) answers from him.
4.32 p.m.
LORD BOURNE: My Lords, I should like first to say how much I agree with the two noble Lords who have already spoken about the conduct of British forces in Northern Ireland. The only thing I

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would add is that, however unpleasant and however much of a surprise it is to British Army units to be keeping street control inside their own country, I think we can rely on them to perform their duties. I must take slight issue with the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, because I see that a unit of the Royal Horse Artillery Regiment went there last week. I can assure him that they will be at least as good as any infantry battalion—with or without training.
This is not the occasion for a full-dress defence debate, and I propose to touch upon two aspects only—reserves and manpower, and to ask the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, two questions consequent upon my short remarks. It is almost exactly a year ago that we had a Statement on the reserves of the Army (and when I talk about reserves to-day I am referring to reserves of the Army); and during the discussion I asked the question: have the volunteers of the Territorial Army (which up to that time had been called TAVR III) a role? The Territorial Army has since been abolished, so that there is no need to ask that question this afternoon.
I also asked a question about TAVR II, which was, rightly, being reorganised by the Government to an establishment of 56,000—which we have heard they are gradually reaching. The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, told me that the role of this force was to supply reserves for the existing Regular units —I think he meant in Germany—and to replace casualties in them. I called this role "plugging holes". Anyway, however you like to look at it, and whatever expression you use, the fact remains that it is a front-line duty and not a reserve duty. There was no mention of home defence in the role of the Reserve; there was no mention of the damage to the volunteer spirit—which admittedly is not a pure Army question but a countrywide question; there was no mention of having a disposable extra reserve which any general, or any country entering a war, must have in order to be able to swing the campaign in their favour. I got the impression that we were going to war without any true reserves except for front-line duties.
Since the Defence Review was written in 1966, the emphasis on our defence
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role has been very much on Europe. I do not happen to agree with that; but that is not what we are discussing this afternoon. But in the European role I find it very curious that every NATO member except this country has a reserve Army separate from its contribution to NATO. That is what I am really talking about. In the Defence Review three years ago the emphasis was on very quick war. It said:
"The danger of deliberate war in Europe at any level is small so long as the potential aggressor believes this is likely to lead to a nuclear response."
It was on that basis that we destroyed our reserves. The Defence Review later went on:
"We urged on the Alliance that it should abandon those military preparations which rest on the assumption that a general war in Europe might last for several months."
Of course, it is anybody's guess what the future war is going to be like, but at least we in this House have learned to prepare for the unexpected. I cannot help feeling that the Government were right when they emphasised in successive Defence White Papers that defence policy must never remain static; that it must be kept constantly under review.
Since that Defence Review in 1966 and many similar Statements there have been many more Statements emphasising the need for preparation for conventional war. As a matter of fact, we had an example of conventional way, but without shooting, when the Russians put 250,000 men into Czechoslovakia very quickly. Admittedly that was behind the Iron Curtain; but that is the sort of thing that we might have to meet. So the question I should like to ask is this: have the Government had second thoughts about the character and duration of war, especially of conventional war, and consequently of the need for proper reserve forces?
I will now turn to manpower, a subject which will not take me many minutes. Nine years ago we had a Navy, Army and Air Force 608,000 strong. Admittedly, we were in the middle of a reduction programme from 700,000 down to 400,000 which involved giving up National Service and turning to Regular Forces. Now the plan is to reduce the total Armed Forces to 340,000. Of course, it is a subject for a proper Defence debate whether a force of 340,000 is or is not capable of

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meeting the defence role required by the Government.
An interesting feature of this. very much reduced force is that it is predominantly married and is therefore very expensive. Of the officers, 83 per cent. are married; of the sergeants, 92 per cent. are married; of the other ranks, 62 per cent. are married. I am speaking of all the three Services. The latest Defence White Paper puts the yearly requirement to keep this force going as 35,000 males. I was encouraged and rather relieved to hear the figures for last year's recruitment which the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, gave us, figures in which we are all deeply interested. They do not, unfortunately, prove the future; and I am sorry to say that the general tendency is down. I only have to quote from the present Defence White Paper to show what I mean.
In the Navy, in the last four years—1965, 1966, 1967 and 1968—the number of males recruited dropped from 6,688 to 4,305. I make this a drop of 35 per cent. which is very serious indeed and must eventually mean that the ships do not go to sea because there are not the men to man them. At the same time the figure for the Army dropped from 13,848 to 8,337 in four years, a drop of 40 per cent. We all know that this really hit the infantry, the men on the street, as is indicated by the strength of a platoon on the street—for example, in Belfast or Londonderry. It is vital, in my opinion, that a company of infantry should be 90 or 100 strong; otherwise it has to leave the street to be relieved. There is no getting away from it, if a section consists of only eight men they have to be relieved. We see pictures on the B.B.C. of soldiers patrolling streets, but those men have to be relieved and so the weakness is serious. If I am right in thinking that the long-term trend is a 40 per cent. drop in four years, I sincerely hope that the encouraging figures given by the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, will prove to be permanent. I happen to think the opposite.
I do not believe that at the present time the Defence Services have the status that they used to have. Defence reductions are the biggest single factor in causing this drop in status. The Services no longer have the appeal of adventure and travel which they once had. It is no
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use telling a young man who is thinking of joining the Army that he will exercise in Canada or Australia—Libya has been struck off, by the way, in the last week or two. It is no good emphasising to a young man that he will live on Salisbury Plain and do his exercises in the Commonwealth; that does not make him join the Army. What makes him join is the prospect of taking part in something really active, like the emergency in Kenya, Cyprus, or something of that nature. It is no satisfaction to me that in its latest Report the Prices and Incomes Board agrees with all these remarks.
So, my Lords, my question to the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, is this Assuming that his fairly encouraging recent recruiting figures will prove to be more than a flash in the pan, but observing that any Ministry of Defence must make prudent plans in case they do not achieve these results; if recruiting does not achieve the very modest manpower requirements of our reduced Regular Forces—that is to say, 35,000 men a year—what do the Government propose to do about it? They must, I suggest, make the conditions even more attractive; that is to say, compete even more with industry, which I think is a hopeless chase—and incidentally covers up the fact that recruiting a young man for the Navy, the Army or the Air Force is quite different from recruiting him for industry. Or, alternatively, are the Government prepared to reintroduce National Service on a selective basis? Those are my two questions.
4.44 p.m.
VISCOUNT MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY: My Lords, my intervention will be quite short. Going back to the rather complicated question of pay, the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, said that the discipline accepted by soldiers is different from that accepted by civilians; and this is clearly tight. But now the noble Lord is going to put soldiers on a civilian system of pay. Those who are in the forces are finding it increasingly difficult to understand and accept it, and those who are out do not even begin to understand it. There is a fear among those who are serving that this will be the finish of the "backbone", which is the unit system in the Army; the officers' mess, the sergeants' mess and

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the corporals' mess. If the men have to pay to live in mess and in addition have to pay for their food, they will live out. One has seen from the example of Continental armies the disastrous results of men not living in mess but in various places in a town. I am sure that the noble Lord will agree with St. Benedict, who said that if men must live without women they must not live without rules. I think that too much attention has been paid to the married officer and soldier and too little to the single soldier and to those who are married but who have to live as single men for operational or other reasons. That is the only point which I wanted to raise.
4.46 p.m.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, may I say how much I agree with my noble friend Lord Jellicoe. I believe people in this country are getting worried that our defence system is too theoretical. We have a Secretary of State who is extremely theoretical. He is an able and indeed a vigorous Secretary of State, but what happens if his theories are wrong? In the debate on the Address the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, made a remark which I think went like this: that the question of reserves is a question of philosophy. My Lords, it is not. Reserves are a fact of life in any form of armed service; you cannot dispense with them in any theoretical form whatsoever.
May I say just one other word on the question of military attachés overseas. This question really turns on the structure of military government. I have come up against it once or twice, and it is not always quite what it appears. The man at the top is not really in charge. What normally happens is that there is a committee, composed of Colonels or perhaps Generals, who are very difficult to approach. In a sense they are rather like Parliament, except that they meet in secret. They appoint the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary or the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or whoever it may be. You may perhaps see the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary, but you very rarely get to the source of power, which is a semi-secret bloc of officers who sit back and really command the situation. Into that sort of fortress a military attaché can gain admission very much more easily than the ordinary diplomat,
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if I may say so with respect. The military attaché understands military language. There are many places to-day where there is military rule, and for all we know there will be more. These are places where a man with some military background may gain information which would not be readily available to other people. It is for this reason that I ask the noble Lord, and the Government, to think carefully about the kind of recommendations contained in the Duncan Committee Report.
4.47 p.m.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, I wish to make one point on the references by the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, to the new policy for officer entry into the Royal Air Force: that in future the normal entry will be through universities, and from the universities to particular air training, a policy which I was glad to hear welcomed by my noble friend Lord Jellicoe. The purpose of my intervention is to make an appeal to the universities to look after these young men. They may be scattered through the different faculties and departments of the universities, but they are being educated for a specific profession every bit as much as a medical student, a law student or a divinity student is being educated; and the universities, in accepting this policy, are undertaking a very considerable responsibility not only to the young men but also to national defence. It is to make that appeal to those noble Lords who are connected with universities that I have ventured to speak.
4.49 p.m.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lords who are about to debate the problems of the South-West will not think that the discussion we have had has been a waste of time. I found it extremely helpful and interesting. I accept that no policy is perfect and that all the policies of a Government must be supervised by the Opposition of the day. Nevertheless, I am encouraged by the general agreement on goals, even though we may disagree on methods. I will first try to answer, as well as I can, the various points that were raised by the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe; and I am grateful to him for having given me advanced warning of most of his "punches".

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The noble Earl was entirely correct: I think it would be dishonest to say that there is not an element of overstretch in our present position. We should not have the shortfall in our requirements for soldiers and airmen at the moment if we were not overstretched. I think that one is associated with the other. The noble Earl, unfortunately, is correct in his information about the 1st Battalion of the Green Jackets. They are exceptionally under strength for that very famous Regiment, and are undermanned in comparison with other units at the moment in Northern Ireland. The noble Earl will also remember, although he will not, I think, be very pleased about it (he has, in fact, already said that he regrets it) that the Green Jackets are due to contract to two battalions. That is all part of the reason for the undermanning of that unit.
Perhaps if I could get the B.A.O.R. position out of the way we might then turn to the question of drawing on our strategic reserves. The latest figure I have available to me is that there are at the moment in Germany 48,150 men, give or take a few. This excludes Berlin, NATO headquarters outside Germany, the Advanced Base in Belgium and 6 Brigade which, while redeployed to this country, remains under the operational command of B.A.O.R. The figure of 48,150 includes Headquarters Northern Army Group, some 600 men, and the Royal Malta Artillery, about 370 men. That is the position in B.A.O.R. at the moment.
It may be convenient if I touch on the question of the return of 6 Brigade to Germany. As the noble Earl knows, 6 Brigade was withdrawn in 1968 for balance-of-payments reasons, and there has always been the possibility that the Brigade, which has remained part of B.A.O.R., could be returned after the balance-of-payments problems were resolved: and I am sure we are all glad that, if we are not out of the tunnel in that respect, there is at any rate light at the end of the tunnel. This was one of the contingencies which was bound to be/considered in the context of NATO'S studies of remedial measures following the Canadian decision to withdraw some of its forces from Europe. It would, however, be premature to suggest that a decision is about to be taken. This is a matter in which NATO as a whole has an interest. That is the position to-day.
1102
I have tried to find out the precise position on the matter raised by the noble Earl on strategic reserves. This, unfortunately, depends very much as a matter of definition on what is meant by strategic reserves. At the moment five of the battalions in Northern Ireland are out of the 13 battalions of 3 Division and the Parachute force, both 3 Division and the Parachute force being earmarked for assignment to NATO. This means that there is something more than a Brigade Group available in this country. The sending of battalions to Northern Ireland does not really withdraw them from the United Kingdom as a whole. They are tied up there, and if there arose an emergency more serious than that which exists in Northern Ireland to-day they would have to be recalled to face that more serious threat. But the skill with which the Army has handled matters in Northern Ireland—and I am grateful, as I am sure the Army is, to noble Lords who have expressed their congratulations in to-day's debate—should not lead noble Lords to think that the strategic forces of this country are stretched to a point of danger. They are of course taxed heavily, but there is still a substantial reserve capacity in this country which could be at once reinforced by recall from Northern Ireland.
I was glad that the noble Earl gave his support to the attempts being made to draw an increasing number of graduate officers into the Armed Forces; and I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Balerno, for the encouragement given by him to the universities to help in this way. He is preaching what he practises because, if I recollect correctly, he is chairman of the military committee of one of the great Scottish universities, and he has been a tower of strength to us in recruiting North of the Border.
The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, also mentioned R.A.F. mechanic recruiting as a major problem. I mentioned in my speech that this year we have introduced the R.A.F. mechanic apprentice scheme in an attempt to overcome this substantial shortfall of our requirements. I said that we had had a special presentation, followed by a conference of headmasters, in order to encourage applications to enter the R.A.F. Apprentice Training School, which is so famous and has produced so

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many famous men. I myself opened that conference and spent a substantial time discussing the problem with headmasters from all over the United Kingdom, including one from the Hebrides. I think they were surprised when they saw the quality of the training that we were giving to our young men and I believe that they will be extremely good as recruiting officers.
EARL JELLICOE: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but I am not quite clear about the position. In the White Paper particular emphasis was placed upon the shortfall in R.A.F. mechanic recruitment. Has there been any improvement in the last nine months parallel to the improvement to which the noble Lord has been able to point, in, for example, general Army recruitment?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: What I said was that the actual recruitment of apprentices was extremely encouraging. Apprentices, of course, are not frontline troops. They are given a very thorough training, and it will be some time before this increasing number of young men who are coming through the training machine actually reach the front line of the Royal Air Force. But we are very encouraged by the number of young men who are starting to train in the Royal Air Force, and we believe that in due course, although it will be in a substantial time scale, we shall get the numbers and quality of young men that we require. It is of course quality that is important in this field, because weapons of war get more and more complex and they cannot be maintained by untrained or semi-trained men.
The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, I think, put his finger most pertinently on a key question of recruiting. He asked, quite clearly: if Her Majesty's Government do not by their existing methods obtain the men required, will they introduce selective conscription? I think that, so far as this Government are concerned, the answer is No; we have pinned our faith to an all-Regular Armed Force, and we have to make our existing policy succeed. Success must depend to a substantial degree on the comparability of pay between what a man can earn in industry and what he is allowed to earn in the Armed Forces.
1104
Perhaps I may have one more attempt to clarify the position of the military salary, and the other ancillary payments that it is proposed to make, and try to make a comparison between what might have been paid under the Grigg system and what will in all probability be paid under the Prices and Incomes Board's proposals. I sent the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, a copy of a letter written by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, but, of course, other noble Lords have not had the benefit of seeing it. I will do my best to make the position clear. Let us take the period 1966 to 1970—a period of four pay years. Using the Grigg formula, over this period, the Services might have expected increases of £80 million. My honourable friend, the Minister for Administration in another place gave a rather lower figure, but if we take it at £80 million, for simple arithmetic, this approximates to £20 million a year. The noble Viscount, Lord Monckton of Brenchley, mentioned the matter of tax. Grigg was gross, too. It was not a net figure; it was a gross figure, just as the Prices and Incomes figure is a gross figure, before tax.
May I make one point clear. There are three elements in this: the concept of the military salary, which is one element; job evaluation, which is a second element, and there is the x factor, the wear and tear of military life, which is the third element. In 1968 the forces received £27 million. In 1969 they have received £20½ million. In addition, it is calculated that £52½ million will be paid to them to implement the military salary; that is to say, the first element of the new concept. This is £100 million compared with £80 million over the same period for Grigg. In addition, for the financial year 1970–71, there will be £30 million made available to cover job evaluation and the x factor. This is the provision that has been agreed; it does not necessarily forecast what the Prices and Incomes Board's findings will be. They have made it quite clear that they are not in any way influenced by this figure. They are going to evaluate the equivalent of the various trades in the various arms of the Armed Services; they are in no way tied by this particular figure.
We are working against time, and time in fact means, first, job evaluation and, secondly, translating all the data into

1105
an appropriate form for including it on the computer, which has to pay wages from April 1 next year. Therefore, £30 million is the provision for the two other elements, the X factor and the job evaluation for the coming year. If this is incorrect it will have to be put right in the future.
The noble Earl in opening the debate from the other side of the House asked me if I was in step with my Service colleagues on whether or not we should achieve the carrying into effect of this new pay structure by April next year. Acts of God apart, we are confident that we can do this. The computer might have a mechanical breakdown; individuals might have breakdowns, but acts of God apart, we believe that this will be carried into effect.
5.5 p.m.
LORD BOURNE: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves the point of manpower, may I thank him for the clear reply to my question when he said that this Government would not contemplate the reintroduction of National Service on a selective basis. That is quite clear and is rather the answer I had expected. The noble Lord did not answer the other part of my question. His very interesting description of the new military salary, which contains the three elements, the money, the X factor and job evaluation, and also how many more millions of pounds a year it was going to cost than Grigg, really amounts to paying people to attract them away from industry. I suggest—and other noble Lords may not agree with me—it has been proved many times that one thing that does not attract young men into the Services is money. What attracts them is adventure. If they want money, then they had better stay where they are in Birmingham, Liverpool or a place like that and not join the Army, the Navy or the Air Force. I am a little unhappy about the non-answer to that question.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I was going to come on to the point made by the noble Lord. I thought that he had a double pessimism. He did not think that we were going to succeed in our policy. He seemed to say we would only succeed if we had a steady flow of troubles, or disturbances throughout the world, requiring military attention. I feel this is not quite the case. I am
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afraid that troubles come however skilled our policy is in trying to avoid them. We are always running into unforeseen difficulties. I feel that the people of the generation who will have to face the troubles of the future—those of them who think about the matter—are willing to join the Armed Services and face up to what may not have been as glamorous a life as existed in the days of the North-West Frontier, but, nevertheless, is a worthwhile life.
I have been enormously encouraged by visiting the university air squadrons and finding that for every young man that we take into them we have to reject none. I think I indicated that the Army, too, was receiving some real inquiries for the new types of commissions that are being offered to young men who are willing to make a career in the armed forces. May I say at this point that whereas it may not attract young people into the forces, the wage of a young unmarried soldier under this scheme is a very major advance on what he was getting before. If pay is satisfactory once a man has joined the armed forces, a larger number than the 50 per cent. who re-engage at the moment will, we hope, stay on, and re-engagement rates will increase. Thus, the hard core of trained men in the armed forces will be built up at comparatively small expense. I hope that I have made myself reasonably clear on the military salary question, which is a tricky one.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord very much for what he has said. He said that he would attempt to clarify this point and he has made a very gallant attempt to do so. I must admit that it is as clear as mud to me. He told us all about the x factor, but he did not tell us about the L.I. factor—that is my "Lack of Intelligence" factor. I will have private tuition from the noble Lord at another time.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, the noble Earl has had private tuition from me on the subject already. I can go no further until the job evaluation has been carried out, and until we finish this particular operation. We hope to finish the evaluation by the end of this month, and we are hoping to get the £30 million allocated by the end of February so that the computer can be "fed" in March. That is roughly the time scale.

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Let us hope that the computer does not let us down. I think I have covered all the military points made by the noble Earl, but may I turn for a moment to Service attachés. Before doing so, I would say that the point of the noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, is very interesting and will doubtless be noted by my right honourable friend; I will bring it to his attention.
However, more generally, since the publication of the Duncan Report, officials have been working on the assumptions and criteria which will form the basis of a comprehensive review of all the Service attaché and adviser posts and of the complement of the British Defence Staff in Washington. Service attachés perform important functions in liaison work, in the gathering of information and in facilitating the sale of British defence equipment. The essential question is to what extent it is no longer necessary to perform all these functions on the scale which has hitherto been accepted as right. The review will provide the Government with an accurate indication of future requirements in this field and of any changes that may need to be made in the light of defence priorities.
That is a rather careful statement on the lines upon which the official committee will be working. What noble Lords have said will doubtless be considered by the committee. In view of the pressing business that still lies before the House, I hope that the House will accept that I have done my best to inform noble Lords, and if I have not been able to satisfy them I hope they will forgive me. But, once again, may I thank everyone who has taken part in this debate for the constructive attitude shown by noble Lords towards the problems which we on both sides are facing in ensuring that, within the limitations of finance and manpower, we get the best defence forces we can to serve us in the 'seventies.
LORD BOURNE: My Lords, before the noble Lord completes his winding up of the debate, I wonder whether he could give me a reply to my question about the Reserves. Can he say whether the character and duration of war, particularly of conventional war, have been reconsidered, and whether the Government have had second thoughts and, con-
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sequently, whether there is any need for reserves as in a good many other nations in NATO?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I was in fact reproved by one noble Lord for using the word "philosophy". The point is that we are moving from a situation, the only situation open to us, of immediate nuclear response to an enemy attack, to a position where we have bought some time and are able to respond more flexibly to a threatened attack or a minor incursion across into allied territory. I do not think we have yet reached the point where reserves in the—what shall I say?—conditions of the 'thirties are applicable to our present needs. This is, however, a most important subject of defence theory, and perhaps might be better discussed in a full-blooded Defence debate, rather than in a debate on these Orders.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

AIR FORCE ACT 1955 (CONTINUATION) ORDER 1969
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Air Force Act 1955 (Continuation) Order 1969, laid before the House on 28th October last, be approved.—(Lord Winterbottom.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PROBLEMS OF SOUTH-WEST ENGLAND
5.14 p.m.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the need to keep under review the problems of the South-West. The noble Lord said: My Lords, it is with no little diffidence that I rise to ask the Question standing in my name on the Paper to-day, mainly because there are so many noble Lords who are more competent than I to do so. I am glad to see some of their names on the list. When the enormity of what I had done hit me, I made a thorough examination of my conscience and came up with the answer that the motivation for what I was doing was one of the most loathsome of human failings, in that, speaking region-wise, I had a most colossal chip on

1109
my shoulder. In your Lordships' House we have heard discussed the problems of the North-West, the North-East, Wales, Scotland—every week—and East Anglia, but never heretofore those of the South-West.
A couple of months ago I left the depths of darkest Devon to visit a couple of your Lordships North of the Border—I see one of them here this afternoon. I went up the East side of the country and came down the West, and there was not a sign, not a sniff, of a motorway until one reached North of Bristol. And what a nice complex they have in South Wales! In Scotland (I do not know whether or not they were boasting about how good they were at extracting from the central Government) they led me astray with the colossal amount they were able to get for roads, compared with those of us in the depths of the South-West. Perhaps it is somewhat our own fault. I was brought up to understand that the definition of "a gentleman" was a chap who considered other people's feelings at all times. I think that heretofore we have been far too gentlemanly. It is now time that we made some vulgar noises.
Owing to the form which this discussion is taking I shall not be allowed to speak at its conclusion, so I should like, if I may, to thank the noble Lords who have come along to support me in putting this Question to-day. I cannot of course refer to them all, but I think that a couple of ex-Ministers are very kind to condescend to come along. The noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, who was on the C.L.A. Committee for the South-West Region, which produced an excellent report and had long and intricate discussions with the Economic Planning Council for the South-West, should have a valuable contribution to make. The noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, is very forgiving, because in 1941 I was a young company commander and I had my company billeted in his house; I had an officers' mess in his agent's house. Then we went away to the war in the Middle East, and when I came back I heard that he had had to pull the place down. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton, is to make his maiden speech to-day. Your Lordships should not be misled by his natural humility, for he is a valued member of the North Devon community, a justice of the peace, with large
1110
land-owning and woodland interests and expertise especially on forestry.
Hardly anyone can discuss the area in which he lives and works without declaring an interest of sorts, and I hereby declare mine. I am a member of the National Farmers' Union, an official of the C.L.A.; I own farmland in Devon and land in Somerset. My family no longer have land in Cornwall; we have married five times in the last hundred years into Dorset. I think that that more or less covers most of the far South-West. My last but one Territorial Army appointment, before our rulers decided that reserves were no longer necessary, was as deputy-brigade commander of the South-West Brigade Group, which took me from Somerset to Land's End.
My Lords, what is the South-West region? Going back to the area I have just mentioned, which was that of the 43rd Wessex Division, it came its far East as Berkshire, and included Oxford, Wiltshire. Hampshire and Gloucestershire. The Government's South-West, as per their tome, is mainly Gloucester, Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. My South-West would be the old Kingdom of Dummonia plus the latter Kingdom of Wessex. That gives us roughly, I suppose, a line from Southampton to Bristol. Before I go on further with a definition of the region, it may interest those who have not studied their atlases recently to be reminded that the Eastern part of Devon is as close to Land's End as it is to Hyde Park Corner. Many people, I am sure, do not realise that.
Our problems come under many headings. The most important are the three main headings on which we in the South-West depend: agriculture, tourism and the extractive industries. Talking about the problems of the South-West, I may say that I do not go along with a certain Tory politician friend of mine who said, "What! Problems of the South-West? There is only one problem in the South-West." I said. "What's that?". And he replied, "The Liberal Party". I think that our problems are of far greater substance, and I will deal with some of them. I should like to re-emphasise that my remarks are based mainly on the part of the region that I know best and on those parts in which I have what might be called a vested interest.

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Let me deal first with roads. If we take the map which is at the back of the Government's Green Book on roads and we draw a line across the South-West, as I have just been describing it, there will be seen the minimum amount of colour of that or any other region. In addition to that, as the South-West peninsula narrows so these minimal roads get more crowded. Not a motorway to be seen; and in any other county but Devon—and also perhaps Cornwall—the 700 miles of trunk and class I roads would not, with few exceptions, justify an "A" classification. With a few notable exceptions, all other roads should also be downgraded. It is my bet that the bureaucracy which briefs Ministers responsible on this occasion went first of all to find some sort of excuse for the country's long and continued neglect of the roads in the South-West. For over twenty years we have been hearing what is supposed to be done. So far as Devon is concerned, what have we? The Honiton bypass and the Cullompton bypass.
My Lords, this roads racket is strangling the South-West more than anything else. A "crash" programme for a motorway or dual carriageway from London to Penzance, say on the line of the A.303, A.30, A.38, joined by the promised M.5 from Bristol and the Midlands is the first priority. That should be followed by additional financial grants so that the counties can bring the minor roads up to a standard where they can be used by rural buses and milk tankers. Anything less, and we shall come to a grinding halt. I think that everybody knows about the continued rail closures in our part of the world before adequate road services had been provided, and I will not labour that point for the moment; but under every sub-heading with which I am dealing to-day there is bound to be a "moan" about road communications.
Let me illustrate how badly we in the South-West have been treated, and are being treated, by quoting just a few comparative figures. I will quote the example of the amounts spent, in the last reportable years, in the West Riding, Lancashire, Durham and Devon on major road projects. In 1965–66, the figure was £5 million in the West Riding, £2½ million in Lancashire, £2¾ million in Durham and £800,000 in Devon. In 1966–67 the
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comparative figures were £13 million in the West Riding, £4 million in Lancashire, £5 million in Durham, and £965,000 in Devon. In the year 1967–68 the figures were £17¼ million in the West Riding, £10 million in Lancashire, £l1 million in Durham, £2½ million in Devon. The reason why we in the South-West have been treated so badly is that Whitehall operates its road priority system on an out-of-date formula known as "E.R.R." —economic rate of return. This is wrong, because it leads to an excessive rate of concentration which is in itself expensive to the nation. An example is the London Box. Unless this system is abandoned the Government might as well close the borders of the South-West peninsula and permit travel only by buggy and stage coach.
I now come to agriculture, which is our main interest in the South-West; we are all mainly agricultural people. But, more than that, the South-West is predominantly an area of medium and small farms, a large percentage of them being owner-occupied. That can be illustrated by the fact that the C.L.A. membership in Devon is the highest for any administrative county in the country. Basically, the main problem is that over the last few years the gross income of farmers has increased by only 2½ to 3 per cent., whereas the gross expenditure has gone up by about 50 per cent. My Lords, this state of affairs cannot go on. Three of my tenants have given up the unequal struggle in the last few years. I have amalgamated, as the Government suggest, and carried on with their farms in that way. However, I do not think it is the right social answer, because I believe that it means getting rid of the first step in the farming ladder.
We in the South-West are predominantly a dairy farming area, and I would say that the first essential is that the dairy farmer should get nothing less than an increase of 2d. a gallon on milk. The next essential, of course, is roads to get our fertiliser in and our produce out. How can a farmer modernise with bulk milk supply if we have not got a road that will take a bulk milk carrier?—and most farms are on minor roads.
It is not only the small farmers who are going to the wall. In the last year six large farmers, knowing of my interests

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and connections in Australia, have approached me for advice (not that I am a good one to give advice) on how they could move their agricultural interests out to that part of the world. What they are worried about more than anything else seems to be the taxation side of farming. I venture to suggest that a wealth tax such as is proposed by the Labour Party, starting at even £50,000, would hit the 150-acre farm—which is not a large farm— right from the beginning. And I think that, were such a tax introduced, the exodus would then be immediate.
We have a great many problems: those of our hill farming, of cubic measures, and of people who would take our land for a hundred and one uses for which we do not think they should take it. There are present to-day many noble Lords who are experts in the agricultural side of the South-West, so I will leave it to them to dot the i's and cross the t's. But I should like just to mention a few examples of what we are up against. Of all sections of the community I believe that the dairy farmer is the hardest hit by credit restrictions and the high rate of interest. I should have thought that we must have a land bank where farmers could borrow at a reasonable rate of interest, such as the 3 per cent., or lower, in Western Germany, the 1½ per cent. in Belgium, the 1 per cent. to 3 per cent. in Italy, or the 1 per cent. to 3 per cent. in France. I confess that those are all 1966 figures. But look at the rates at which we have to borrow in this country.
In a generally depopulated area specialist enterprises like horticulture are unable to carry on, once an area like the North Devon Development Area is designated, because the farmer who has to employ a great many people in the specialised activities will lose his labour. Farmers who are unfortunate enough to earn their livings in a National Park are particularly unfortunate—and we have two well-known National Parks in Exmoor and Devon. The Biblical exhortation praising him who makes two ears of corn grow where before only one grew is to be put into reverse. In fact the Lord's Prayer for them should be re-written to read: "Give us permission this day to earn our daily bread", let alone grow it. The example of a moorland farmer who was not allowed to
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put in mains electricity unless he put it underground at a cost of £6,000 is, to my mind, scandalous. If the country wants amenity it should pay for it, and should not penalise the farmer who happens to live and work within the boundaries of a national park.
While on land use and amenity, we feel that the Government should get their priorities right and make certain that productive farm land is never used for roads, reservoirs and so on, even though some of these parks are beloved of a very small minority, if there is any alternative. Flooding people's land and homes is indefensible in these circumstances. On this subject, I have declared my interest and am speaking as a farmer in this day and age and as of now. However, I must say that from 1980 onwards the authorities must really look to desalinisation and barrages instead of to the more traditional type reservoirs which takes agricultural or national park land, with the accompanying tribal warfare which will probably put the noble Lord. Lord Foot, on one side of the fence and myself on the other in our part of the world.
In all aspects for farmers' communications are vital, and they have been scandalously neglected. Given good road and rail services we could get our produce out. As it is we are hampered. North Devon particularly has need of a new main link road and no more rail closures. Recently it has been reported that cattle transported by rail from that area face a 50 per cent. increase in charges. "Take it or leave it", seems to be the attitude of British Rail. I think it should be repeated ad nauseam that the industry has been forced by successive Governments to use the benefits accruing from increased efficiency to offset cost increases, most of which are due to the Government failing to control inflation. In 1968–69 farm income was in real terms only one half per cent. higher than in 1954–55, whereas net output was up by 45 per cent.
We are small farmers in the South-West, and I think we should remain so. In social terms the amalgamation scheme is a questionable step. The trouble is, I confess, that some of the small farmers, especially since the recent pay increase, are getting a smaller take-home wage than their men. I know that speaking farm-wise it is certainly so in my case. Perhaps

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we could make ourselves slightly more viable by cashing in on the tourist industry. I know some of my tenants do. Government taxation policy over recent years has made it increasingly difficult to get any money from the borrowing point of view, and it is now more expensive than ever.
Perhaps I might finish on the agricultural scene so far as I am concerned by saying that it seems to me that farmers and soldiers are only appreciated in time of peril and the rest of the time we have to battle against the inertia of the rest of the country. Perhaps your Lordships know the story of the Dartmoor farmer who at the end of the last war had saved a bit of money. He was an old bachelor. He went to his builder in Tavistock and said, "Look, George, come out and build us one of these 'ere pull and let go's. I'm getting a bit fed up with going down the garden path in winter." This chap built it for him. He only had one near relative, a niece who was married to a city slicker in Plymouth; she used to come and visit uncle once a year. When she came he said "My dear, you know about these things. You go down and see if it's all right". When she came back she said, "Yes, everything is lovely uncle. There's only one thing, there's no lavatory brush, but don't you worry, when I get back to Plymouth I'll send you up one." A year passed and she came again, and she said, "Uncle, didn't you get that lavatory brush I sent up?" He said, "Oh yes, my dear; I tried it for a while but I found it a bit rough, so I went back to the Western Morning News."
That brings me to the Press. I think we have some of the best provincial Press, so there is nothing to worry about there. Under the same heading as agriculture might come the fishing industry, and the Western Morning News recently had an article entitled "Devon crabbers' war". One irate fisherman commented:
"What a state of affairs! We have to keep 12 miles off France but they creep in six miles off Devon. Why don't they come right in—they could get free teeth and medication, and if they haven't got any fish from our waters, perhaps we could give them National Assistance as well".
Seriously, my Lords, we should protect this industry from losing their gear and
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having their pots fouled. May I suggest that in this House your Lordships have the answer. Could not the admiral of the Brixham Trawlerman's Race Association, who is none other than the Captain of the Yeoman of the Guard, lead his combined forces out to protect this industry in which we know he has such an interest? Perhaps he could change his uniform every eight bells.
I come now to the holiday industry. The West Coast of Somerset and the South Coast of Dorset and both coasts of Cornwall and Devon are the biggest holiday areas in the country: one-fifth of all United Kingdom holiday expenditure goes there. I do not want to labour the point too much, but if there is one factor which has depressed the holiday industry more than anything else it is the incidence of S.E.T. What was meant to divert labour from service to productive industries might work well in Walsall and Birmingham but it is plain lunacy in Torquay. One medium-sized hotel I know of had an extra £2,000 to find when the last increment was made, so they cut down service and sacked some of the staff. But there are no local industries to which these people can go. So what do they do? They go on to the employment exchange, National Assistance benefits and so on. In a proper accounting system I do not think this pays, especially in that part of the world. Our local industries are few and far between, and those there are, like Centrax in Newton Abbot, seem to be at the moment on strike or else laying off men as well.
The South West Travel Association, which covers Devon, Somerset, Dorset and Cornwall, have produced an annual report for 1968–69 which highlights the effect of things like British Rail closing the Swanage-Wareham line and the 10 per cent. Saturday surcharge on fares. The latter is surely the meanest thing one industry could do to another in the same country. Day return first-class has been abolished. Carpark fees at Exeter Station have gone up 33⅓ per cent.; and booking fees are practically double. I do not think they do anything to help the holiday trade. Worst of all is the increasing difficulty of travelling by car. More and more people are crying off, or so we are led to believe, because of the Exeter By-pass and Telegraph Hill

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snarl-up, bottlenecks which have been national headlines for twenty years, and getting worse.
I am glad to hear the Tories say that they will abolish S.E.T., but I am always dubious about any taxes being abolished by any Government. One of our local stories which was going the rounds was of a garage which was mainly employed in repairing heavy agriculture machinery which was paying the S.E.T. in full; it was next door to another factory which was making plastic Dartmoor pixies and gnomes and which was receiving the bonus.
I come now to the extracting industries. This is a subject in which I have an interest, but I feel that with such an expert as the noble Lord, Lord Arwyn, in your Lordships' House there is no need for me to go into details. My interest is purely from sand and stone, which I have in both Devon and Somerset. The clay industry is a most important industry to both Devon and Cornwall. Now there is a resuscitation of the mining industry. There are many hindrances, especially in the South-West, to this mining resuscitation. First of all, there is the inability to acquire tenure of land owing to the mineral rights position not being certain and the landowners being put in a position where it would not pay them to let the land because of betterment levy and capital gains tax. May I quote one case of which I know? An owner refused to allow an operating company to have an extension, as he would have had, as the rules then stood, to find £15,000. He said that it would have been much easier to lose £3,000 a year, taxed at the highest rate, than try to find £15,000. Your Lordships may remember that I asked the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, a Question on the subject, which he later kindly answered satisfactorily by letter.
Secondly, local authorities, generally speaking, are unfamiliar with mining and tend to fight shy even of discussing something that they know little about. Moreover, in Devon the area of geological interest is around the edge of Dartmoor, and the amenity societies are, generally speaking, vociferous against any mining at all. Thirdly, taxation is too severe for a high risk, high investment industry to consider developing in the area. Depletion allowance for income tax and reduction in tax during the early part
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of the mine's life is essential to allow the recovery cost of investment and prospecting. Fourthly, as there is no general policy on minerals there is no help which an operator can obtain from Government sources. The Institute of Geological Science exists, but the staff are not mining people. I look forward to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Arwyn, on this subject.
Before leaving the extractive industries, I should like to mention the ball clay industry with which my family have had a long connection, although we have no financial interest. The first ball clay came from our area. By 1785 the tonnage shipped—this all from the small port of Teignmouth—was already 10,000 tons; by 1949 it was 73,000 tons, and by 1968 it was 330,000 tons. Shipments are made everywhere: to Finland, Greece, the Lebanon, Israel and Egypt, arid by trans-shipment in Holland all over the world. This is all done through the port of Teignmouth.
Is this not a success story and would it not be good Government policy to follow the old military precept of reinforcing success? That could easily be done in this case by making Teignmouth into a harbour into which something larger than small coasters, which can get in only at high tide, could go and so cut down on the cost of transshipment. If the road between Kingsteignton and Teignmouth were improved, again it would help this industry. One plan is to improve the area at the same time as increasing the amount of beach that is available for the holiday industry. That would kill two birds with the same stone. I may add here that if the Plymouth area had been given the same development status as Cornwall, as suggested by Professor Tress and reinforced by the Hunt Committee's Report, the clay industry there could have greatly assisted prosperity in that area.
The general economic situation in large areas of the South-West is not healthy. Away from the coastal and tourist areas the villages are dying, whereas many of the coastal areas, owing to the introduction of S.E.T., suffer from large seasonal unemployment. There is also a large measure of hidden unemployment and under-employment compared with the rest of the country, though the households have to carry the average weight of rates

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and taxes. North Devon, for example, has now been made a development area, but I cannot see that that will really be effective unless there is a good dual carriageway, spur link road, and the ceasing of railway closures. Moreover, why was the Okehampton area left out? Without the Service camps on the edge of Dartmoor, it could be in a poor way economically.
The whole of this area cannot grow at the moment because of the lack of adequate water, sewerage and roads. The rest of Devon can be, and is being, helped by the Board of Trade with industrial development certificates. The holiday industry is going through a bad period because of S.E.T., and the amount of run-down is concealed (this applies all over our area) by the large influx of people who come into the area to retire. That brings other problems which are peculiar to our part of the world. The increasing number of old people who are getting poorer and poorer as the value of their savings decreases through inflation, and the increasing number of young people who are leaving the area, creates an unbalanced society, both in structure and age. The local community cannot be expected to go on bearing the cost of carrying this increasing burden. It is estimated that the elderly population of Devon increases by many thousands a year, by reason of old people coming there to retire. What happens is that the husband dies and leaves a widow; the savings are not enough to carry on with, and we get this increasing geriatric problem.
Statistically, the area as a whole is slightly phoney, because Bristol and the Gloucestershire area, where they have a higher standard of pay, makes our position seem a little better than it really is. The Western Morning News recently displayed a couple of headlines. One read:
"October Jobless Highest Post-war Figure".
The figure for the region was then 35,583, and I have explained how that is a little out of balance. Another heading from the same paper said:
"£6 million State aids for jobs, but one for West. Protest by Dunwoody."
I should like to use those two headlines to explain why I think it is important for us to consider the South-West to-day.
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Only three days ago in another place an announcement was made that there were more jobless elsewhere. I do not believe it. Yesterday, there was announced a record figure of persons jobless in our part of the world: in Ilfracombe alone it is up to over 11 per cent., and in Bideford it is up to 5·4 per cent. I should like to know whether the areas to which this money has been allocated by the Government have a higher rate of unemployment percentagewise than that.
We are the Cinderella of the United Kingdom. I think this can be proved by official statistics relative to Government assistance in development areas. If the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, would refer to Appendix 2 of the Ninth Annual Report of the Board of Trade for the year ended March 31, 1969, I think he will get the answers: that in each of the three years examined the numbers wholly unemployed in the South-Western Development Area were higher than in any other development area, being 4 per cent. in 1967, 4·6 per cent. in 1968 and 4·7 per cent. in 1969. For the period April. 1960, to March, 1969, the South-Western Development Area had 1·6 per cent. of the total spent on new development, whereas the percentage of population was 3·6 per cent. This, I think, compares with the Northern, Merseyside, Welsh and Scottish Development Areas.
I quote these figures only to reinforce my main point; namely, that we are the Cinderella, that we have been the Cinderella for too long, and that it is about time that the situation was changed. A recent economic and social survey on North Devon, sub-titled "Rural Depopulation" has suggested a sort of Highlands and Islands Development Board for North Cornwall, North Devon and West Somerset. Have the Government any views on that suggestion? Has the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who lives in that part of Somerset?
My Lords, I leave the economic side and, just for a moment, come to the question of law and order, the matter of the police. The main problem of the police in the South-West can best be illustrated by a quotation from Autocar in 1962, under the heading "A Western Canute". It said:
"If there is one job I would not have it is that of Chief Constable of Devon. His summer traffic problem is appalling."

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That was seven years ago. As we have the most neglected-by-Government roads in the country it follows that the police traffic problem is the most intractable in the country. That is bad enough in the winter, but what about the summer? Our police force area, now Devon and Cornwall, has a population of about 1¼ million, and every summer 7½ million people take a holiday in the South-West. We reckon that one in five of all holidaymakers come to the South-West and that one in ten come to Devon; and the level of car ownership among the holidaymakers is 65 per cent., compared to 45 per cent. elsewhere.
The whole of the peninsula is dotted with holiday resorts, all of which must be policed, allowing no possibility of reinforcements from one part of the area to the other. Should adequate recruiting be permitted by the Government, the answer would be to have a mobile reserve which could be sent to reinforce the hard-pressed summer resorts. But when will the Government permit adequate recruiting? To emphasise the recruiting problem, I may say that the reduction of police working hours from 42 to 40 per week will necessitate another 100 men to maintain even the present level of policing. But, my Lords, crime apart, traffic is hell; and even if the modest plans of the Green Book are carried out, will things be any easier? The answer is "No", unless corresponding improvements of roads within Devon and Cornwall are also carried out. When it rains in the season the holidaymaker just gets into his car and drives round and round in ever-decreasing circles. Unfortunately for us residents, he does not meet the end portrayed in the Rugby club rhyme that somebody wrote.
Crime itself gives the defeated police force no respite. From 21,000 reported cases in 1963, the number rose to 29,000 in 1968. In 1965 seven persons were prosecuted for dangerous drug offences; last year the number was 103. Over the years there has been a 700 per cent. increase in disorderly conduct in Torbay, compared to a 50 per cent. increase of police. And so one could go on. One improvement for which we can thank the Government is the decrease in the number of escapes from Dartmoor Prison since the Mountbatten Report: only
three have occurred this year. But I
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ask your Lordships to visualise the extra strain on the police forces when the worst of the country's criminals escape in a local area, and of course, the extra cost to the locality involved. The problems under this heading could be solved eventually if more finance were made available; and that would enable us to sleep more soundly in our beds.
But, my Lords, as always nowadays, our troubles, or most of them, seem to come back to the neglect of our roads. An immediate motorway from London to Penzance joined by a Midlands motorway, as planned, is the minimum requirement. The recent police planned holiday routes had one major effect in that we local yokels can no longer get about in the lanes which heretofore have been our summer lifelines.
I was going to mention the Services, but I think I will leave that out, except to say that we in Plymouth, particularly, are very anxious that the dockyard is riot run down. We are very frightened that, with the abolition of the aircraft carriers it might be. Also, we in Devon and Cornwall believe that we have always produced the best sailors and the best pirates, and we are rather annoyed that the C.-in-C., Plymouth, was downgraded.
To end, I should like to make just a couple of remarks on the countryside and local government. If I were speaking from a personal and entirely selfish point of view I should dig a metaphorical moat around my own particular county and allow in only those of your Lordships who would come and keep me company for a bit of sailing, shooting, fishing, hiking or whatever it is. However, I recognise that that would be a selfish attitude, and neither right nor fair to the rest of the population. Basically, if land has to be found for new roads, new towns, and new reservoirs, then the land taken must be the least valuable land from an agricultural point of view. The beauty of the English agricultural counties— and there is none more beautiful in the whole world—is due to the work of the landowner and farmer, and his men, over the centuries. The trees in their clumps, and on the hillsides, that I now enjoy were planted for me by my great-grandfather. Would that those I am planting now could be enjoyed by my son, let alone my grandson!

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I personally feel that we have far too many organisations and petty bodies telling us what to do and what not to do. One example is that of a friend of mine who bought a place near us. He found an old design of the place and he started to cut down trees here and plant trees there. Along came a local official who asked him, "What are you doing?" When he replied, "I am only trying to make it more like Capability Brown intended", the answer he received was, Who is he?" I have another example, a local one, of what happens when the planners run riot—as they often seem to me to do. For twelve years we have fought to get the Chudleigh bypass from the A.38 put to the North of the town, where the agricultural land is not so valuable as that to the South. We won that battle, only to read in the papers a week later that they are now planning to increase this village of 2,000-odd people to 10,000. And where are they going to put them? On the very land that we have saved from being a bypass. Consequently, we are not particularly enamoured of too many planners.
My interests, as I have shown, are in and of the countryside, and when we are discussing the South-West we are discussing mainly, I think, the countryside. It will therefore come as no surprise to your Lordships to hear that I am not enamoured of the Maud Report. I think that we are lucky in that we have county councils slanted towards the rural population—but that situation will not necessarily last for ever. Before finishing. I would remind the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, that when we were discussing in this House the Torbay Order, one argument I used was that the Government should not go ahead with the Order, because we should wait for the Maud Report. That argument was laughed out of court. I find it rather interesting, or ironical, that that argument which was then laughed out of court is now being used by the Government as an excuse for their constituency boundary—but I will not use the word. To summarise, I am of the opinion that the South-West has got the dirty end of the stick, whether it be in agriculture, development area treatment, taxation or mining. The experience of other regions suggests that they complain more and get more, and the object
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of my exercise to-day has been to do a little more complaining in the hope of redressing the balance in the future.
5.58 p.m.
EARL BATHURST: My Lords, it is a great honour to have been asked by the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, to take part in what is now a marathon debate upon an Unstarred Question. The honour to me is more so because, after hearing him, I must confess to him that I live 40 miles the Edinburgh side of Bristol, which I suppose is a very long way from where the noble Lord and many of his colleagues live. Your Lordships will have noted that the noble Lord is wearing a Wessex tie that seems to be of some original design. It is not in fact an original design, but it is indeed the tie of the Wessex Division to which he referred. There are a good many noble Lords who could come to your Lordships' House "armed"—if that were allowed— by that tie, and no doubt the honorary leader would be the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Harding of Petherton, who is sitting next to the noble Lord. The wearers of that tie in five or six years' time will require the Government, of whatever political colour, to do something about the implementation of the Report which is the subject of the noble Lord's Unstarred Question.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, as a loyal supporter of his Party and Prima Minister, I am certain will be keen to see that this country goes into the European Economic Community, into the Common Market. All three Parties are united in that view, but some of us are keener than others, and if we can see that there is advantage to the country as a whole we shall be very keen indeed. At present the only advantage that I can definitely see of joining the E.E.C. will be that £500 million to £600 million will be spent by the English housewife towards supporting one agriculture policy or another in Europe. That is because of the levy principle. The temperate foodstuffs that we require in order to keep up our standard of living will have to support that amount of levy. It will not be spent in this country; it will be spent in Europe. Many of us on the C.L.A.—and I have the honour of being a member of the committee to which the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, referred—are firmly of the opinion that the more temperate foodstuffs that can he produced in our own

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country, the less will be the amount of levy that will go overseas to Europe. If prices of food must increase, why not keep the results of those price increases at home? Governments of various political colours have ways and means enough of taxing that money back into the Exchequer, but abroad it would be lost.
The reason I introduce this subject is that there will be a levy system if we join the Common Market, and although it is operating with almost embarrassing success so far as their own agricultural interests are concerned, there are no doubt "nuts and bolts" problems which might be lessened by the noble Lord's Party and by others. This would be of help to the Common Market people if negotiations were got going to allow us in. The levy system will mean that dumping of livestock products and horticultural products, in particular, which are of special interest to the South-West region, will not be possible during glut market times. If that dumping is not possible, the market prices will rise and agriculture in the South-West region will be at the benefit end, instead of at the "dog-and-stick" end as we tend to be at present when dumping takes place.
Many of us believe that the present system of price support is out-dated and that a levy system should be gradually brought in to tie in with the Common Market system if we join them. If that is done, there will be little wrong with the price structure of the livestock products and horticultural products, which are creating such a problem within the region and which mean that the earnings of the region are considerably lower than those of the industrial regions elsewhere in the country. A small unit increase on agricultural products means a very large increase in prosperity for the agricultural industry within the region.
The noble Lord, Lord Clifford, mentioned the taxation system of the agricultural industry in relation to the system in the E.E.C. countries. The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, and his Government pay good lip service to prosperous agriculture and so forth, but how, by its very nature, can agriculture survive against competition by such dumping as is happening now and against the levy system if we join, if there are all the effects of the capital gains tax and estate duty in particular—making for smaller units instead of bigger units which Her Majesty's
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Government purport to support—and also the betterment levy? Many of us agree with the noble Lord, that a completely new system of taxation peculiar to the agricultural industry alone should be developed, as indeed has been done in Europe in those countries which will no doubt one day be our immediate competitors.
The noble Lord has mentioned the service industry. There are more people employed in the service industry and the construction industry in the South West region than in any other region in the country. The noble Lord also mentioned S.E.T., which causes more hardship, not only to employees but to employers in the service industry, than any other financial measure which this Government have introduced. If that tax were removed the problems of the hotel and catering industry would not disappear overnight, but they would be alleviated to an enormous degree. Furthermore those old people who wish to find part-time jobs would be able to find them far more easily but for the effect of the S.E.T.
As is brought out in paragraphs 68 and 69 of the Report, the holiday and tourist industry in the South-West region is in a difficult position. Less money is being spent on holidays at home. Perhaps this year the position will be reversed, but every further difficulty which is put on to the industry makes it harder to stop currency from going out of the country for holidays abroad. The industry is encouraged to make itself attractive to visitors from abroad. It must be one of the only industries which, to a very large extent, can earn foreign currency without previously having bought its raw materials from another country; in particular, from a dollar source. Why in the world the hotel and catering industry in all its branches cannot be treated taxation-wise, grant-wise and in every other way on exactly the same footing as a manufacturing industry is beyond the ken of almost all of us in the South-West region, and certainly those in the hotel and catering trade.
We are low on industrial population, and there is a reason for that. Obviously, there is not so much industry, but there are something like 408,000 people employed in all classifications of manufacturing industry. But the industry which is prospering is modern industry and

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industry which employs relatively small numbers of people. That trend is going to spread all over the country and all over the world. Production industry, manufacturing industry, is getting out of date. The machine and automation will take over to a very large extent. It is the service industry, the construction industry, and all that goes with it which is the industry of the future. Anything that the present Government or any future Government can do to foster something which is not a manufacturing industry must be of benefit to the people who are working now, or who will seek jobs in years to come, and it will be of benefit in particular to the South-West region.
The noble Lord, Lord Clifford. mentioned roads, and there are expert Members of your Lordships' House who will speak specifically on that subject; but we believe that the spine road is essential, and money spent on it will help to solve many of the problems which are expounded in the Report. Of course the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, will say, quite rightly, that the cash is not available. My Lords, what is there to prevent the imposition of a toll on whatever route the noble Lord and others consider it necessary? Why cannot we have toll roads, so that if people wish to spend five shillings, or whatever the sum may be, and have a quick and easy trip, they may do so, whereas if they do not wish to do so they can go on the minor roads and the by-ways? We already have one of the greatest modern bridges in the world—we share this honour with the North Country and Scotland—the Severn Bridge, and I understand that the toll figures for that bridge are such that it is paying its way far better than had ever been expected.
The problem of old people is dealt with in this Report at great length, and with much sympathy, and there is no doubt that the population in the South-West Region is older than the average in the rest of the country. But that does not present an altogether true picture. The birthrate of the younger people there, of the families already there, is level and equal to that in the rest of the country.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: Hear, hear!
EARL BATHURST: The noble Earl says, "Hear, hear!" That is perfectly
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true, and some assistance is being given to those figures, no doubt. But the reason is that, while there is good education in the South-West Region—probably as good facilities as exist anywhere outside London—the jobs are not available. so the younger people tend to move out. But even if the jobs are available, there are no means of getting to those jobs or back home again. Moreover, the sort of people who will work at them, the younger people, wish to have some sort of entertainment in the evenings or weekends. Yet there is no public transport to enable them to attend that entertainment.
Practically all our motor-bus system in the South-West region is run by rather quaint-sounding and very patriotically-named companies. In fact, as the noble Lord well knows, they are all under a British Transport subsidiary of one sort or another. One can admire British Transport's aims and objects, to provide a service, and we can sympathise with the extraordinary problems they face in rural areas. But do they really try to serve the small communities, the villages and the outposts which the noble Lord and ourselves are describing? I should like to see the brakes taken off the ordinary person in this respect. Why cannot anyone— of course he must be of good character and repute—run a minibus or his own car for hire and reward, under certain conditions laid down by all the controlling factors in connection with passenger transport at this present time? At present, people cannot get to the railway station from a village, or from the bus station to the railway station, except by taxi—at vast expense. Would it not be possible for a rural taxi proprietor to have a special concession in some way or another? That was the view which some of us put forward; but, of course, it is not referred to in the Report, although the problem which I believe it would solve is referred to at great length.
As to the provision of jobs in rural areas, almost all our villages are especially quaint, preserved, of historic interest, or in one category or another which practically precludes development. We should like to see more positive planning put forward in these areas— with, I admit, great discretion—where it is considered necessary for provision to

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be made for jobs, so that the countryside is not despoiled. I believe that it can be done by proper planning; but it is difficult to attract light industry into these areas so that extra jobs can be obtained by the very people who are moving out, as the noble Lord has mentioned.
All these problems are referred to in this Report, and I should like to give credit to Professor Tress, the first chairman, and in particular to Mrs. Humphries, the Secretary of the Committee who drew up this Report, who is a most remarkable woman. She worked as nobody has worked before to produce the Report, and to make it such a constructive document. I would also thank all those members of the Committee who worked so hard to produce this document. Their hands, however, were very considerably tied behind their backs. All these problems which the noble Lord has mentioned, and which I have mentioned—agricultural prices; S.E.T. and industrial treatment, so far as taxation for the tourist trade is concerned; the roads, which the noble Lord has mentioned; the bus services and positive planning in rural areas—are matters of national policy; they do not come within the orbit of the South-West Regional Planning Committee. I do not believe that the noble Lord opposite and his Party will be able to loosen the restrictions on the policies that are required in order to solve these problems which we have mentioned. If they can, they will receive all the credit due. But I do not believe that they will be able to do so, simply because it is not national policy that is tying the region but, the dogma of the Socialist Party, of which the noble Lord is a member.
6.16 p.m.
LORD CLINTON: My Lords, I rise for the first time in your Lordships' House. It is with pride and honour that I follow a long line of ancestors who have had the honour and privilege of being Members of your Lordships' House from the 13th century. As is the custom in your Lordships' House, I declare my interest, as other Members have done, as a landowner, farmer and forester. The South-West of England, which we are discussing this evening, is, like the rest of our nation, changing very fast, and I believe for the better. However, my con-
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cern on this occasion is with the two primary producing industries—that of farming and of forestry.
As to agriculture in the West Country, I should like to draw attention to two factors which give some cause for concern. In my opinion there is at present a lack of the necessary confidence. For the future, we lack a long-term plan. This makes it impossible for the farmer to know what best to produce, and we have the position of one product being very popular one year and another the next. If only long-term prices could be fixed against costs over a longer period than one year, I am sure that it would be to our advantage and would give us that confidence and stability which are needed.
Secondly, livestock play an important part in West Country farming. The dairy cattle produce the nation's milk; there is the rearing of beef on the poorer land; and, thirdly, there is the raising of stock, especially pedigree stock. I pay tribute to the two local breeds, the North Devon cattle, which produce beef—which I myself believe is second to none—and the South Devon cattle, which are used as dual-purpose cattle. Both breeds are exported. In this connection, we are experiencing extreme difficulties in the eradication of brucellosis. Due to the regulations here there is to be a restriction on the free movement of animals between breeders, and with this in mind I would appeal to the Government to try to speed up their scheme and get this disease wiped out. I believe it has been suggested in farming circles that this could be done area by area, and I feel that the South-West peninsula would be an ideal area in which to start.
Turning to forestry, I would point out that the South-West peninsula has an ideal climate, wet and suitable for growing conifers. These grow extremely fast and well, and already large areas have been planted throughout the South-West. These areas are increasing yearly as land which is uneconomical for agriculture is being planted with trees. This, I believe, is in the best interests of the forestry industry and should be encouraged, since there are still large areas of land unsuitable and uneconomic for farming. I believe that it might be possible to have some encouragement in the form of grants on these new lands planted. With

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this also in mind, and with the increase in the volume of timber coming out of the forests, now and in the future, I believe that some form of pulpmill or chipboard mill situated in the middle of the West Country, preferably further westward, should be contemplated. One of our weaknesses in the South-West peninsula at present is the long distances and expensive transport needed to take our supplies to the present markets further up the country.
Secondly—and this is a very important thing in forestry—the wages, which as your Lordships know are controlled by the Agricultural Wages Board, have risen at least 53s. since 1967. These have had to be paid by the forestry industry without the compensating increase given by the Annual Price Review for agriculture. I know that there has been very little increase in the price of timber sold since the war. To conclude, I believe that agriculture and forestry should go more hand in hand and should not be forgotten in discussing the future of the South-West.
6.22 p.m.
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Clinton, who has made an excellent and well-informed speech. I can say from personal knowledge that he is regarded in the West as an absolutely first-class landlord and agriculturist. I take greater pleasure in congratulating him because his grandfather was my godfather. I must apologise to the House that I shall not be able to stay until the end of the debate, because I am due to take the chair at a charity meeting in less than a quarter of an hour. For that reason I shall be brief.
Many of my points have already been covered by other noble Lords, but there is one thing that I should like to reiterate. It is that communications are the only thing that can bring real prosperity to the South-West. I speak mainly for Devon, but this applies also to parts of Somerset and Cornwall. There is no good railway going farther than Exeter; and branch lines all over the area have been abolished. That has driven all the traffic on to the roads—and the roads are lamentable. We hear about a motorway going to Exeter; but that is a long
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way off, and it is a very long way from Exeter to Penzance.
An outstanding feature of the West Country is the magnificent port of Plymouth. I very much question whether enough has been done to develop that town as an industrial area. In the day,, when we had a bigger Navy the Naval Dockyard absorbed the local labour; but nowadays big business is not going down to Plymouth as it should. Good roads and an improved railway would go a long way towards helping that. The other feature of the peninsular is on the North side, the Bristol Channel where the high ground goes up to the sea in many places. There are few ports: Bridgwater, Bideford, and Padstow—that is about the lot. There is not much development from the sea to be had on that side. Also, the hills go up to the sea and this makes good beaches rare—and on those good beaches bathing is more hazardous than it is on the South Coast because of the suck of the tide up the Bristol Channel. This, as I learned to my terror on at least one occasion, makes bathing most hazardous.
The development of the tourist industry presents difficulties. Until you get to South Devon, there is not much scope for the big glossy-type hotel. The small intimate one is much more suited to the neighbourhood and money for developing that type of hotel is hard to come by. There are grants to be had, but those grants are not paid until the money has been spent. In these days it is very difficult to get money from the banks for the extension of an hotel merely on the prospect of being able to repay it if and when a grant comes along. Making North Devon a development area has not really done the area very much good.
A certain amount of light industry has been developed; but there has always been some light industry there. Its development now has attracted labour away from the farms, and there is one conspicuous case where a very large market gardening and nursery business has had to close down entirely because all the men were going away either into local light industry or further East where they thought prospects were better. Farming is very much held up by want of suitable labour in the South-West. Many of these farms, as we have heard, are family farms and as the owner or tenant gets older he probably finds that he cannot

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get around so well as he could; the rest of the family have gone off elsewhere; and that is doing fanning no good over large areas. As the noble Lord, Lord Clinton, said, the development of forestry in the less productive areas seems to be the answer.
In South Devon there is undoubtedly considerable scope for the tourist industry if only communications could be made a good deal better. Climate plays a part, and the climate in South Devon is definitely equable and suitable for people who go there in the winter. But the climate in North Devon is much harder and winter resorts there would be more difficult to develop. Also, the proximity of the mountainous country to the sea makes it difficult to find congenial occupation in other fields of sport in North Devon in the winter. I would conclude by again congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Clinton.
6.30 p.m.
LORD FOOT: My Lords, it is with some diffidence that I follow the previous four speakers in this debate, all of whom hold such distinguished and ancient West Country names. I should like to add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Clinton, who obviously is able to bring to your Lordships' House very expert knowledge in the field of agriculture and forestry. I should like to thank him for his contribution to our debate. I am not going to attempt to follow the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, and try to review all the manifold problems which beset the West Country; though I was glad that he recognised that the Liberal Party is one of them. As one who has, I hope, made some modest contribution to exacerbating the problem presented by the Liberal Party in the past, may I assure him, and I hope that he will take it from me, that this problem of the Liberal Party in the West Country is likely to become more intractable and more tiresome as time goes by.
I also do not feel able to follow the noble Lord in the way he approached the problems and difficulties of the South-West, because, as I understood him, he was attributing most of them to the neglect or wickedness of this or preceding Governments. I do not share that point of view. I think that the problems—and they are very real—which beset us in the South-West arise not from any
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wickedness or ineptitude on the part of Governments but from the nature of the area. This morning I looked at the Maud Report to pick out certain particulars and figures about the South-Western area. As your Lordships will know, the Maud Report proposes that there should be a South-Western Province which would extend from Land's End up to Gloucester and as far, I think, as Bournemouth in the South. I looked at the figures of the population and the square mileage of the area and I think that they disclose and identify the problems of the South-West.
The population figure for this proposed South-Western Province is some 4 million. The square mileage is not far short of 10,000. Those figures contrast dramatically with the figures for all the other proposed Provinces given in the Maud Report, apart from the South-East, which stands out by itself. May I take, by way of comparison (I do not want to weary your Lordships with a lot of figures and these are the only ones with which I shall trouble you) the figures for the North-Western Province, where we find that the proposed square mileage is something like 5,500 and the population figure is close on 7 million. Therefore if you compare the South-Western Province with the North-Western Province you find that the South-Western Province is almost twice as big in area but has a population of not much more than half as much. It seems to me that it is figures of this kind which identify the problems with which the South-West is faced, because our problems arise fundamentally from the size and shape of the district and from its geographical relation to the rest of the country.
I should like to try to illustrate to your Lordships how it is that the size and shape of this area create our problems for us. First, its shape and size results in its not being a homogeneous area. The distances within the area are enormous. For example, the distance from Land's End to the North of Gloucestershire is roughly comparable, I believe, to the distance from London to the Scottish Border. That is the length of the area with which we are trying to deal as a single unit. Not only is it shaped like that and is it of that extent, but it cannot really be said in any common-sense way that there is any identity of interest between people living in Bristol and people living in Cornwall, or between people in Plymouth

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and those in Swindon. There is no sort of identity of interest between these extreme ends of the region. Indeed, I would say that Devon and Cornwall are a quite distinct entity in the South-West and have problems and difficulties of a kind which are quite different in general from those presenting themselves in the area as a whole.
The only real point of identity of interest between Devon and Cornwall and the rest of the South-Western Province or region is simply an interest in having a right of way by good communications up into the North country and up to London. That really is the only interest that we have in what planning is done in the counties of Somerset, Wiltshire, Dorset and Gloucestershire. That is the second reason why we have these particular problems. The third reason is, as I said just now, the extreme isolation of Devon and Cornwall from the rest of the country. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, who quoted the figures of comparative distances between Land's End and the eastern border of Devon and the eastern border of Devon and London. It is further from Land's End to the eastern border of Devon than it is from the eastern border of Devon to London. That is an illustration of the peculiar problems which arise in this area and which will arise and be with us for a long time, whatever sort of Government are in power and whatever measures may be taken to try to alleviate them. I hope, therefore, and it is my wish, that when we are considering the South-West we shall not ask for special preferential treatment; but rather that we shall ask that the Government and those in authority should realise that we need different treatment; and that in particular the problems confronting the extreme South-West of Devon and Cornwall are not necessarily at all of the same nature as those that trouble the rest of the region.
The particular problem to which I wish to draw attention is this. Everybody is agreed that the first difficulty and problem besetting the South-West is that of communications. I agree that it is only when we get an adequate system of road communications that we shall be able to see the economic and industrial development which we all want to see, par-
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ticularly in Devon and Cornwall. But this question of the improvement of communications has another aspect. One of the other great interests of the West Country, particularly in Devon and Cornwall, is tourism and holidaymaking. In Devon and Cornwall, and partly in Somerset, we have two National Parks and a vast coastline which is the great magnet for holiday visitors every summer. After agriculture, and, I should have thought, possibly in economic terms before agriculture, tourism is the biggest industry in Devon and Cornwall.
As we improve the communications—and improve them we must—and as we open up this new spine road from the Midlands down into the heart of Devon, use will be made of it not only by people for economic and industrial purposes, but also by the holidaymaker. And what will follow in the wake of the opening of that road will be an increasing invasion of the West Country by the holidaymaker—that is to say, the motorised holidaymaker —and already in the West Country, in looking after the National Parks and these holiday areas, we are confronted with the problem of being choked up by the motor car. This is a grave problem, particularly in the Dartmoor National Park.lb/>
The dilemma is that if people pour into these areas in great numbers in their motor cars, spreading all over them, they will destroy the very thing which they go to see; that is, the natural beauty of the countryside, its isolation and so on. We are in that dilemma already, but once you open up a great spine road which will make it possible for people from the great populated Midlands to descend upon Dartmoor and Cornwall in their millions, and be able to reach the West Country within two hours of leaving their Midland homes, then you will be confronted with a problem of considerable magnitude. That is one of the things that I think we have to anticipate.
If I may say so, when I first read the way in which the noble Lord had phrased his Question:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the need to keep under review the problems of the South-West",
I thought that, on the face of it, it was a little naive in its expression. I thought that we might get from the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, when he came to reply to

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the debate, the simple answer, "Yes". But I am not at all sure that the Question is not rather well framed, because it seems to me that the problem of the invasion by tourists, with which we are already confronted in the West Country, will become an increasingly urgent problem and one that Her Majesty's Government should keep under review; indeed that they should be taking what steps can be taken to try to anticipate the difficulties which it will create.
6.43 p.m.
LORD ARWYN: My Lords, as the first speaker in this debate from this side of the House I should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Clinton. When we hear sincere speeches of the quality of his speech, made by one who is an expert on the subject, one wonders what inducement we could offer to a noble Lord of this calibre to attend the House more frequently. I should not have liked to miss this debate, and I wish to thank the noble Lord for the scope of his questions. I am going to speak chiefly of problems affecting Cornwall. We have heard about the problems of Wales and Scotland, but seldom about the third of the Celtic fringes which bind this island. I have lived in Cornwall twice as long as I have lived in Wales, and I therefore claim on this occasion to be a Cornish Welshman and not a Welsh Cornishman. I agree with Lord Foot's description of the difference between Cornwall and Devon and the rest of the country, especially in a political sense.
The Question before your Lordships' House is whether the Government
"are aware of the need to keep under review the problems of the South-West."
If our telepathic faculties were greatly developed we should, as the noble Lord, Lord Foot, suggested, hear a great shout of, "Yes" from all Government Departments, and perhaps from many Ministers. But using a different wavelength, we should hear the Cornish: "Me dears, down West yon, we be thinking zum different." Thank goodness! my wife is not present, as she is Cornish, and I am sure she would question my accent.
It is true that an affirmative could be accepted, with few qualifications, from some Ministers, but not from others. For instance, we have been appealing for
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over twenty years for a more enlightened policy to encourage base metal mining. At last I hope there is a ray of light, now that the Ministry of Technology have taken over the responsibility for base metal mining. Twenty years is a long time for any industry to feel frustrated. There are several other matters which fall within the scope of this Question, and I will leave that one to the last.
Human nature being what it is, negotiations with any Ministry can vary according to the nature, the training and the experience of the people involved. We are also further handicapped by the fact that too many Ministries each have some degree of control over one industry. We have the same trouble with trade unions. The Fulton Report will, I hope, provide greater facility for fitting pegs in the right holes, so far as the Civil Service is concerned. It is extremely frustrating for an industrialist to explain his views to the technically illiterate, who are often charming people but who are obliged to become sublimely evasive. If I may use a term which a noble Lord used yesterday, they use "figleaf language". There are others, especially in the Board of Trade whose attitude is helped by the fact that they are familiar with specialised vocabularies. I had one delightful experience recently. Not only did this official understand our problem, but he was technically very literate. This, together with natural charm, altered the whole picture. He was not hidebound by Departmental philosophy; he was eager to solve our problem, and he did. The setting up of the Parliamentary Commissioner's Office, and its further expansion, is an event to be welcomed by the dedicated civil servant, as well as by his counterpart in industry. The hindrance to better understanding is the natural bureaucrat in both spheres whose life is bound by the rule book. In order to bring the millennium nearer for all those who carry the can, and for all who strive in political life to achieve a better existence, and who are frustrated by the machinations of all who misuse power, I should like to see your Lordships' House become known as "the House of the Ombudsmen". I suggest that the very first Ombudsmen were the Barons who extracted Magna Carta from that patron saint of bureaucracy, King John. My historical knowledge is rather sparse, I

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admit, but that is how I look at it; and every time the itch to air the idea comes over me it becomes more convincing. Now that I have aired it, I find no remorse. The idea, you will find, is one that grows on one.
Perhaps that feeling of fruitlessness, and even of masquerade, which we sometimes feel will disappear. We shall no longer make careful but futile speeches. So many are masterpieces of prose, and the time spent in preparing them and in their delivery is very precious. Secretly, and very cautiously, I have tried out this idea of the House of Ombudsmen on the few top men I know in Government service and industry. The first reaction was a chuckle, and then a roar of approval. When getting down to the question of how to do it, I admit that we got bogged; but if any idea is sound, it is only a question of time before it is accepted. If it were accepted, we could then say that the House of Lords is amply justified. In your Lordships' House at the present time we are wasting precious assets. We have a galaxy of experience and talent which would be hard to match anywhere. We do not have to look over our shoulders and wonder what we have done or said that will affect our majorities. Our scope is not confined to a parochial constituency; we can discuss regions. Some weeding out will be necessary, we know that; but to be proclaimed as the modern inheritors of those who stuck their necks out at Runnymede will be sufficient to inspire us to safeguard democracy against Communism or any other bureaucratic control system.
The noble Lord, Lord' Clifford of Chudleigh, quoted an example of bureaucracy in the case of a farmer who was deprived of his rights to obtain electricity unless he paid £6,000. You may rightly ask, "Why this outburst?" It is the result of a rapidly growing feeling by those of us who live on the fringes of this Island. There is a strong resentment from the years of frustration. We educate our young people, and they have to leave their homes in order to earn that which their training and ability justifies. They help to cram even more the overflowing industrial towns. No wonder we feel second-class citizens, and no wonder we are joining organisations which it will
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be hard to disperse! Regional government may be the solution, but it is already too late for any further justification of the ostrich tactics which Whitehall found so good in the past.
My Lords, I think it is fair that I should now confine my observations more within the scope of the Question. Our object is to develop such industries in the South-West as to stop migration and, later, to provide for those who want to escape from the present overcrowded industrial areas. First we pray for the continuation of the Board of Trade's and local government's excellent efforts to bring light industry down to the West Country. I have the greatest admiration for the senior officers who have done so much good work. But we are fast catching up with a snag in maximising this type of development, and I should like to deal with this snag now as part of my first observation. It is the problem of transport, and I wish to suggest a short time solution to bridge the next ten years.
One of the big handicaps in developing the maximum light industry, for instance, in the South-West is communication, a matter which has already been referred to earlier. Many of the companies now setting up extra factories in Cornwall complain bitterly about the time it takes to travel to the West Country from the industrial Midlands and London. where their main factories are situated. One of the most disgraceful acts of bureaucracy posing as efficiency experts was the dismantling of our railway system, especially in Cornwall and Devon. It will be 10 years, 15 years or maybe 20 years before we see a 115-mile motorway from Exeter to Penzance, and it will cost at least £115 million if it is put in now—at least £1 million per mile.
Recently I had occasion to talk with one of the managers of B.E.A. Helicopters, and we began to play around with figures and times. First, we found that the time to fly a helicopter from Exeter Airport to Penzance is 53 minutes precisely. It takes over three and a quarter hours by through train and more by nerve-wracking travel over narrow roads, especially in the summer. Two Sikorsky helicopters would cost, with spares and amortisation. over £1½ million.

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The running cost per annum would enable passengers to make the return journey for £12 per head on a 60 per cent. loading. This would be paid usually by business executives: the money would not come from their own pockets, but their time would be very precious. The machines would enable the business executive to leave Birmingham or London, change to a helicopter in Exeter, do six hours work in his Cornish factory, and be back the same night, all for the capital cost of less than two miles of motorway. B.E.A. Helicopters pioneered the service to the Scillies and it is a success. Why cannot they be encouraged to expand it to Exeter? Or are we to wait ten years for adequate roads? The helicopter has been proved ideal for this country. I have been able to use it myself on occasion. Small and medium-sized businesses, however, cannot afford the cost, as any big industrialist can.
My second observation is about the need to establish a polytechnic college in Cornwall instead of adding to the size of the one set up in Plymouth. This would be in line with the 50 per cent. increase we expect by 1981. There are strong reasons why a polytechnical college should be established in Cornwall. Educational facilities are an important consideration for industrialists, in addition to rapidity of communication. During 1968, 14 new firms started production. In addition, 11 firms have decided to establish undertakings, and six of them have factories under construction. Seven firms already established have proposed extensive expansions. I mentioned these figures under this observation to emphasise my admiration for the work done earlier by the Board of Trade and by local authorities. This means a rate of expansion which we have reason to believe will not only continue but increase.
There is already an established nucleus of higher education. We have the new Cornwall Technical College, the Cam-borne School of Mines, which has a very high international reputation—if not the highest reputation. There is the Falmouth School of Art, and I think they have a National Diploma course, and a St. Luke's outpost. The conditions are very favourable for the siting, staffing and housing of a high-standard polytechnic.
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This suggestion might be considered too early at the moment, but in twelve months' time the picture will be different. What we want to avoid is a hasty scramble when the need becomes not only obvious but urgent. The Department of Education and Science is another Ministry who have gone a long way to help Cornwall, and they still do so, and they keep the need for a polytechnic for Cornwall as part of their programme.
My next point is to draw as much attention as possible to the South-West's ideal position in catering for the need of our youth to satisfy their inborn urge to indulge in trials of the kind which increase their self-respect. They must have an outlet for their energy and one they can respect. The country which can treat this increasing need as of major importance will emerge as one of the major leaders of the future, and the most respected leader. The coasts of Devon and Cornwall can provide all the adventurous sailing anyone can experience. Sailing, either alone or with a crew, arouses the best in one. I would call it one of the most cleansing exercises and I bracket it with climbing. We have splendid estuaries, of which the Fal is world-famous. We have the moors where there are sites for all sorts of adventure camps to suit all ages. This problem of diverting energy and providing leisure occupation is a growing one, and its importance is not yet assessed.
The next subject is one which affects the one I have just mentioned and is the last subject, which is mining. I ask the Government to keep under review their priorities when judging the claims of the more vociferous members of amenity preservation organisations. It is quite true that these people can produce dangerous reactions from others of us who have different priorities. First, we must earn our wealth from the earth before we can enjoy any glorious views. Compared with the need to promote economical security, the claims of a small minority can be of very secondary importance. We have to provide work, and adequate relief from its boredom, in the computer age which lies ahead by ample facilities for leisure. Of these, work comes first. We shall have to decide whether winning the metals on Dartmoor, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, for instance, has a higher priority than its use by the

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Army or as a holy sanctuary for minorities, and thus contribute nothing to the national economy.
Too many people are jumping on this bandwaggon in the South-West. There must be an overriding priority. The accusation that industry does not care about despoiling the countryside was very true in the last century—there was plenty of it within three miles of my home. That accusation is no longer true. Neither is the one which accuses the industrialist of being profit mad, of having thoughts only for his shareholders. To-day we have different priorities. We are first responsible for the welfare of all the men and their families within our organisation. Time after time we hear of this consciousness in speeches by those involved in industry in your Lordships' House. There are too many suspect interests involved in this emotional powder keg, and the effect of these continual explosions, whether justified or not, must be minimised.
I come now to my old grouse: the development of our base metal industry, especially tin—the subject of my maiden speech on March 18, 1965, and pursued in detail and in various ways and speeches ever since during the last four years. I speak on behalf of professional organisations and mining companies of the highest standing and of international reputation. My first involvement was in 1937, some 32 years ago, as President of the Institute of Cornish Mining Engineers. I became involved again immediately after the last War. The first Cornish Mineral Development Association's Memorandum of Policy was addressed to the Government in August, 1948. The bombardment has continued and been increased by the Cornish Chamber of Mines, the Cornish Institute of Engineers and the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, besides the efforts of individual international mining companies and mining journals throughout the world; articles on the subject have been written all over the world. We also had a Mineral Development Committee's Report in 1949. I was a member of the Committee.
The fight has always been with the Treasury. All we ask for is that base metal mining risks should be treated here as in other mining countries. We were
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accused of seeking a "tax holiday". These two words have stuck in the gizzards of all of us who are connected with mining. They imply that we seek total relief from taxes for producing priority minerals for industry which can be bought from other countries. It is a distortion of the truth. All we seek is a mitigation of high initial risks, the terms to be comparable with those of other countries. It will not cost the country one penny more than it does now. I want to emphasise this because we have been accused in a snide way of seeking some favours which we are not entitled to. In your Lordships' House I could not use language strong enough to express my own views about it.
Let us now examine the risk run by a mining company and compare it with that incurred by, say, a machine tool company. First of all, the mineral has to be located at varying depths, down to 2,000 ft. This means expensive geophysical and geochemical surveys and the investigation of all geological characteristics from records and reports, and then diamond drilling starts. It is a very expensive operation. This can take three years and easily cost half a million pounds for a moderate set of mines. Then the shaft is sunk and cross cuts are driven to the lode. The whole period between prospecting and production will take some eight to ten years and will cost around £5 million before it is certain that it is a profitable venture. If it is not, it will take at least another year of expensive diamond drilling to prove that it is; otherwise, the whole of the £5 million is lost and perhaps another £1 million as well.
Has anyone at any time ever succeeded in selling a hole in the ground—just a hole, lined as it might be with concrete and reinforced with steel? It is not only the shaft and its equipment which cost money. From the bottom of the shaft extensive tunnelling in solid rock has cost a huge sum. If the mine fails, there is a whole series of holes to sell, plus special machinery and equipment of little, if any, use but for scrap. I emphasise the words "if the mine fails". I should not like to tell your Lordships the number of failures I have seen in my life.
There will be for ever a demand for minerals and the men to find and win

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them. So far as we can see, there will also be a long-time demand for machine tools. But here the risk is one of management in assessing the supply and demand and then producing, at a competitive price, an efficient tool. The great difference lies after the machine tool manufacturer has made his market survey. He builds a factory and equips it with modern machinery, all valued at, say, £5 million, in one year. If he fails—and it might be solely due to market conditions, or bad management, which may not be foreseen—he still has the factory and equipment, both valuable assets and readily saleable. They are real, tangible, saleable assets; not holes in the ground. But if the machine tool company is situated in a development area the manufacturer can claim, while the grants exist, a 40 per cent. investment grant, and therefore his very saleable factory costing £5 million has been built and equipped for £3 million, although as a realisable asset it may be worth Over £5 million.
The mining company also have their prospecting, drilling, shaft sinking and development costs cut to £3 million, because they also enjoy the 40 per cent. investment grant in a development area. But if they fail, all they have to sell are holes which can be partly proved only after a year's production. This is a high risk capital. Machine tool production, which I have taken as an example, like other industries outside mining, is not a high risk. Yet both enjoy the same 40 per cent. grant.
I referred in my maiden speech in March, 1965, to the Prime Minister's brilliant analysis of the position in base metal mining in a speech in another place in 1961. I do not think for one moment he altered his mind about the analysis, but I realise that some time might elapse before the effects of some eight Ministries who had their hands in the pie could be eliminated. Now it has been done. The Ministry of Technology are responsible for the development of base metal mining. The first essential step has been taken, to be followed soon by the second essential step in the proposed legislation on mineral rights, which should solve some of the prospecting problems referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. I hope that at last we shall be able to start on investigations to precede nego-
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tiations on incentives needed for a longterm programme and comparable with those existing in other base metal mining countries. The Ministry of Technology can rely upon the utmost and enthusiastic co-operation from those who know that the development of the industry is one of the greatest importance to our economy. I have been asked to state that very definitely in your Lordships' House.
The terms need careful negotiation, and there should be no reference to the 40 per cent. investment grant being comparable with terms long established in other countries. That 40 per cent. can vanish overnight once other industries reduce the unemployment figures. We want to build a permanent base metal mining industry to attract redundant mining labour from all over the country, not only to solve our own labour problems but to help to reduce others and to safeguard vital base metal supplies.
We are now producing some 1,500 tons of tin per annum, and we in this country use over 20,000 tons per annum which we buy from other countries that could become politically unstable in less than ten years. And if that happened where should we be? We could develop tin production in Cornwall to 6,000 to 7,000 tons, but it will take time to bring mines into production. I have not made any assessment of other minerals, such as copper and wolfram, all of which we buy from overseas. It is therefore essential that we base our incentives on a twenty-year programme.
My Lords, I hope that a new dawn is now approaching and that the Ministry of Technology will achieve that which others have failed to do. The first two important steps have been taken, and I hope that it will not take long. Time is not on our side. Before I sit down,, I should like to declare that I have no financial interest in tin mining, either as a shareholder or as any kind of adviser. The same applies to any other industry which might be concerned with the suggestions I have made. I am concerned only with the future welfare not only of Cornish people but of our country as an economic unity.
7.14 p.m.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, we must all be grateful to the noble Lord,

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Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, for having introduced this subject to-day in such a wide-ranging and interesting speech. He said that he was once in my house which subsequently had to be pulled down. I think this was typical—he was in a unit called the Northumberland Fusiliers, whose nickname was the "Fighting Fifth". He said that in his speech he would make vulgar noises. In fact, he did not make any vulgar noises, but he lived up to his soubriquet of the "Fighting Fifth".
I should also like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Clinton, on such a very good maiden speech. It was short—something that I have never been able to achieve. The noble Lord, Lord Clinton, is a large landowner in Devonshire and there is no one better qualified to speak on Devonshire and its problems. He really knows about farming and forestry there, and we hope that he will address us again on many occasions.
If I may, I should like to refer once more to the Report of the South-West Economic Planning Council. Nobody has yet quoted its title, A Region with a Future. I believe it is important that we should not forget that that is the conclusion they came to. This Report, I may say, was produced in March, 1967. Another Report which is of great interest was the Report of the National Parks Commission on the coasts of South-West England. This was produced as a result of a conference in July, 1966. Time is running on, my Lords, and many of the figures and statistics in these Reports are now getting out of date.
It is interesting to see which figures are getting out of date and which are not. The figures that are increasing are those of the population, and the number of motor cars and tourists. The figures that are decreasing are those relating to the amount of land still left, either for agriculture or its natural purposes, or for amenity. The figure that remains constant is the area of the region—9,000 square miles. This is an enormous region, larger than the whole of Wales. And this surely poses the problem very fairly: how do we develop this vast region, which is larger than the whole of Wales, so that we can produce work and standards of living for the people living in the region, comparable with those in other parts of the country, with-
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out destroying what in the long term may be its greatest asset, its amenity value? The competing demands of residents, tourism, industry and mineral exploitation create the problem with which we are faced. It is easier to state this problem than to suggest a solution to it. Many a politician starts off his speech by stating a problem very clearly but he finds it difficult to solve it.
However, before I state the problem I should like to go back to this Report and very gently take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Clifford, because in a way I believe that his Question could almost have been phrased:
"To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the need to keep under review the problems of the far South-West".
The noble Lord, Lord Foot, also made the point that this is a region that is far too large to talk about as a whole or in terms of averages. Those who prepared this Report realised this and they divided the region into four sub-areas. The Eastern end of this region and the Western end are utterly dissimilar and need utterly different treatment. One always has tremendous suspicion about averages and statistics, and about mathematics. If you take the temperature of the North Pole and that of the Equator, and then add them together and divide them by two, I suppose that you have the average temperature of the world; but it really does not do you much good. If you take the population and industry in the Bristol area and then that in the middle of Dartmoor, add them together and divide them by two you likewise have an average which is meaningless. I do not think that point can be overstressed.
Despite the lateness of the hour, I should like to ask your Lordships to look at Appendix 4 in this Report, which is an interesting one, on the population of this area. We see from this that the population has continued to rise until in 1961 (the latest figure we have) it had reached 3½ million, but as a percentage of the population of the country the figure continues to fall. Whereas in 1821 the population of the South-West was 14 per cent. of the whole country, in 1961 it was only 7 per cent. The absolute numbers are rising but the percentage of the country as a whole is falling all the time. I think that is most

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interesting. If you go through the figures given in those regions— although it is much too late to go into figures now—you will see that this is borne out all the way as you go further from the East to the West. Of the employed population in manufacturing industry, 38 per cent. is in the Northern region, 26 per cent. in the Central region, 22 per cent. in the Southern region, until you get down to 13 per cent. in the far Western region. And only 5 per cent. of the manufacturing employment as a whole in the region is in this far Western sub-region.
Therefore it is difficult to talk about this region as a whole, for it really falls into two halves. You could draw a line from Gloucester in the North down to Poole and Bournemouth on the English Channel and call that your Eastern boundary, and your Western boundary would be somewhere like Minehead to Exeter. In your Eastern region just think what you have. You have Bristol, the eighth largest city in the country, the Gloucester-Cheltenham complex, Bath, two universities, Avonmouth, the Severn-side development, one of the most exciting things that has ever happened; it has not yet happened but it is beginning to happen, and we are tremendously looking forward to the Severnside Report. You have what I may call old Bristol, with its aircraft, tobacco, paper and shoe industries, and you have what I might call new Bristol, out on the Channel side, with its oil-based chemical industry, its gas-oil industry, and I.C.I. and Fisons. It is all laid out and all brand-new. You have this complex of roads coming in from the Midlands and London. Whether or not we get the new port at Portbury, we at least have a bridge being built over the Avon at Avonmouth. There we extend the whole strip that goes down to Portishead and beyond, and you will not have to go up to Bristol to go further West. This is an exciting and interesting part of the world. I would suggest that this area running from Gloucester and Cheltenham out to Swindon, the new town, North Wiltshire, North Somerset down as far as Avonmouth and Portishead, Bristol, is perhaps one of the most exciting developments in England, perhaps in Europe.
Therefore, you cannot talk in the same language of this area, of this great region, as you can of the far more remote areas, the culm measures around Barnstaple
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or the moorland areas and so on. I do not think I need stress the point any more, but it is an interesting one and I commend the Report of Professor Tress to people who are interested in this problem of the development of the South-West, because as he divides his Report up into these regions you see how the character changes and how very important the distinctions are.
I live in the Eastern area—on the Mendips, which is quite close to Bristol. That is my centre of gravity, although with other things with which I am connected I go right out to the Scilly Islands. I have to deal with the Duchy of Cornwall and other things which take me through the whole region. But I live on the Mendips, and "Mendips" is of course "mine dips". We have been mining there since Roman times: lead, zinc—perhaps we will find nickel, I do not know. We had some coal, but not much is mined now. North of that, on this new Severnside development and all round this area, we are not going to reconstruct some tumbledown relic of 19th century laissez-faire mismanagement. We do not have back-to-back house slums to pull down or old factory chimneys, with the smoke and grime and bitterness and past troubles to wash out. We are starting on a virgin site, and the people are going to live in a carefully preserved Green Belt roundabout it. The Cotswolds of the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, are just behind on the higher ground, and I am sure they will be most carefully preserved. My own country, the Mendips, is now an area of special beauty.
We have a great problem. We are not mining lead now, but we are extracting limestone. The limestone from the Mendip Hills is going out as far as Kent; it is going on roads all over England. I believe our region produces something like 20 per cent. of the road stone for the whole country; that is about 10 million tons, and something like 7½ million tons are coming from the Mendips. Yet we have somehow or other to keep that an area of natural beauty, and I think we are doing so.
As you move down the slope further West to the foot of the Mendips, you suddenly come on perhaps the most wonderful mediæval gem that still exists in England, the Cathedral City of Wells, a quite tiny city which is surely an

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educational and cultural and touristic centre. This is what makes one feel that the Maud approach may not be so far off, because it would be quite wrong if the worthy citizens of Wells had to look for rateable value—that awful phrase—by trying to get industry into that little city. Industry is already in the surrounding cities which are small industrial towns; Street, where they make shoes, Shepton Mallet, where they make Bahycham; Keynsham and North Radstock, where they used to mine coal. That is why those unpopular fellows, the planners, are so important to-day, and we must back them up. This is where the industry should go while we try to preserve in the middle somewhere where we can shop, somewhere the tourists can go and see, somewhere which is worth preserving, and in this struggle for extra rateable value we must not try to turn the whole thing into something else.
What a city like Wells needs above all else is a by-pass. But we cannot afford it. It is absolutely useless to take all the traffic going to Penzance, and all the road stone going all over the place, through a little tiny high street in a small cathedral city—because it is not a big industrial city which can have a great by-pass round the side. This is a problem we must tackle and I think it will be tackled. As we go further West a little (I hope that your Lordships will bear with me for one moment) we see that an important and interesting thing is happening in that part of the country which I know so well, the centre of Somerset. Many people do not realise that, other than East Anglia, the centre of Somerset is the largest peat area in the country, and that the whole of this area was under water from Roman times. Then there occurred one of the great tidal surges. Down under the peat, and before you get to the blue clay, you often find Roman remains. This huge peat area is now being worked most admirably by one of the great companies, whose name one ought not to mention in this House, but its chairman is often to be seen here sitting on the Cross-Benches. He is not here at the moment. This is admirable development. This peat is being worked for the horticultural industry. Ultimately it will cover thousands of acres and. we believe, will leave a large 15 ft. hole
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which will fill with water to make a large recreational nature conservation reservoir (I am a waterworks director among other things) which would be most useful.
This is the kind of development that is needed in the West, in an area of great natural beauty, where it is possible to bring about industrial development without spoiling the natural habitat—in fact, almost improving it by developing the archaeology by ultimately having a recreational reservoir there and not taking any good agricultural land. This is all 30 years in the future, because peat goes slowly. But it is a place where boating and sailing could take place.
Continuing still further West, I am bound to say that, coming to the moors and to the culm measures— to Dartmoor, Exmoor and Bodmin Moor—apart from the ball clay and the tin (if that comes back again) we must surely rely on the wonderful coastline for tourism, and agriculture and forestry. I think we must have more forestry. This is a most difficult matter, because the natural forest there is the oak scrub, which is very beautiful but which does not pay. As the noble Lord, Lord Clinton, said, we shall have to have more conifers. Then if we are to have more conifers, we shall need a pulpmill to utilise the conifers.
Agriculture will be difficult, as it is everywhere in the country, because the area is a long way from markets. In many places upon the moors there is not the best of soil, there is a lot of rain, and the crop which must be grown there is the crop in which we are behindhand throughout England—that is, grass. Grass is the best crop of the West Country. We must learn to grow the grass and turn it, not only into milk but into beef and into sheep. In fact, we must turn it into meat as well as milk. But it must be a grass-based farming. Of that, I am quite sure. If you have a grass-based farming and forestry you can keep your rural population, and you are not inimical to tourism. The two fit in together. Grass-based agriculture and good forestry fit in together. This, I think. with fisheries and horticulture in small warm patches. like Mount's Bay, and so on. will more and more be the pattern of development there.
But, my Lords, let us remember that this, as a whole, is a region with a

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future. It has a great industrial future; a modern industrial future at its Eastern end, as I have tried to explain. It has a great recreational, amenity, agricultural and forestry future in the West. It is most interesting that the present Reith Lectures on the radio are about man's environment. Fraser Darling is giving those lectures now. We must learn to develop our country to-day so that we do not outrage the environment in which we live. I believe that we have great hope of doing this in the West Country. We have it all before us. To end, I would say simply that the one thing we must never do in this development of the West is to give way to short-term expediency.
7.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF LYTTON: My Lords, of late there has been some impression that a move to restore the heptarchy is in full swing; and to-day it is a pleasure to come and support the Thane of Chudleigh (if that is a sufficiently respectful term) raising in this House the standard of Wessex, or at any rate that part of it which we have so far recovered.
I join previous speakers in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Clinton, on his speech, particularly on having chosen to mention the pulp or chipboard factory as a key factor in forestry management in that part of the country. I remember how painfully at the end of my forestry activities I struggled to find a place to take chipboard from the Devon border in the North. I delivered all the way by road to the hardboard people in North London and to the paper people at Rochester. Even then, they would not take any conifer. We are still in that position. This is a key factor.
My approach to this subject to-day is, for the whole of the Wessex region, almost entirely on one subject—roads. Almost without exception, every speaker—even those who deplore the loss of land which dual carriageways and motorways necessarily involve—has stressed the need for them. The Wessex boundary stretches from North of Cheltenham to Poole Harbour, 80 miles away from us and 100 miles in depth. So far as I understand them, the Minister's plans are to push through from London, or from somewhere nearby, strategic roads of high quality, four of them pretty well spaced evenly apart as they cross the frontier
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of Wessex. There are the A.40, which goes via Oxford, Cheltenham and Gloucester; the M.4, as it is to be, which I think is to start somewhere neat Kew, to go to Reading. Swindon and Bristol; the A.303, from Basingstoke, Stonehenge and Exeter; and, fourth, a road which it is harder to trace precisely at the London end, because it may branch off at Basingstoke or go down to Portsmouth and then connect up the big South Coast resorts and then, finally, reach Exeter.
All these roads will go into a motorway, the M.5, which I hope is to connect up with the M.6. Until lately there has been a great hiatus at Wolverharnpton, but I hope that the new motorway will connect with the M.6 somewhere near Birmingham, so that there will be a continuous motorway running right away through to the South-West, having its terminus at Exeter and dual-carriageways continuing thereafter down to Penzance.
I want to digress for one moment to refer to Brentford, which might become another terminal of a new and exhilarating method of transport that could possibly be of the greatest service to us in the peninsula of the South-West. I refer to the lighter-aboard ship, "Lash", or its modification, barge on board, called "Bob". I understand that the first "Lash" ship delivers its tenders, barges, in the Medway before long, and that the furthest point it can get to up-river is Aylesford. What are the prospects, I should like to ask, of this brilliant idea of distributing barges from a bigger ship all around the smaller ports of the South-West peninsula, thus saving something in roads and railways?
May I now go back to the motorway, the M.4, via Swindon to Bristol. I was going to call attention to what is obvious when you get to Bristol, but the noble Earl. Lord Waldegrave, has brilliantly expounded what is there—an area of intense development on a great scale. Nothing compares with it elsewhere in Wessex. It is the cross-motorway place; it has industrial hinterlands in Wales as well as in Wessex; it has this great arterial way. Our main traffic line these days is not with London, but with the North or the North-West. The railway comes down, and there are three nuclear power stations not far away. It is an area of power, communications, and people,

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without compare anywhere else in the West.
Now we turn down the motorway, as it goes along the popular kind of amenity that is Weston-super-Mare and other places, to Taunton, the small administrative capital of Somerset. There it leaves the North coast and goes down to Exeter, where it is to be met by two more dual-carriageways at Exeter. That is the last great focal point on the way down to Penzance: there is no other. Exeter is incomparably a better centre of communications than Plymouth. The Tress report suggests that Plymouth must cease to look outwards and must look inwards. Plymouth, it seems to me, is in the wrong place, while Exeter is in the right place. However, we go on with the two planned dual-carriageways, one North of Dartmoor and the other through Plymouth, meeting at Bodmin and going on in a single final carriageway to Penzance.
What does all this amount to, if and when it is done? It amounts to this, my Lords. We get in a motor car at Brentford or Kew, or whatever is the terminal of the motorway. If it is a true motorway it will be properly connected up with the M.5 at Bristol, and we shall drive comfortably in the afternoon from Brentford to Penzance in five hours—because 60 m.p.h., hour after hour, is comfortably possible in a 1,500 c.c. car—no 3-litre vehicle required. In Italy some of the lorries go at the same pace. So a motorist will be able to leave after a snack luncheon and have dinner with the pirates in Penzance at 8 o'clock. On one occasion I had to do most of the journey by night, and it took me nine hours. If I had done the whole journey it would have taken 11 hours or more. It was so difficult, such a strain, that I spent the whole of the next day and night sleeping, trying to get over it. This motorway movement is relaxing, comfortable, and involves no strain. Unless it is overcrowded—as is possible—we can hardly dream of the consequences, the effect and impact that it will have on the way people move. What American would not go from Park Lane to Penzance, stop off for the night and come back again? That is the kind of thing they like to do.
How near is this prospect, or any part of it? I have tried from my small posi-
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tion to find out. My most down-to-earth contact is the chief engineer of the construction unit on part of the road in Somerset, and referring to the M.5 between Bristol and Exeter and the dual carriageway onwards to Plymouth, he said: "Everything is in the pipeline. No political action, no prods at the Ministry, will hasten this by one single day or hour. Everything is in train, and I shall be very disappointed if the whole thing is not finished by 1975". That, I believe. He is a man I have known and relied on for 15 years and more, and what he says is the truth—so far as one can predict the future, of course. I would not ask confirmation from the Minister unless in transmitting this man's words to me I have got it wrong, which is always possible. But what I should like to ask is, first, how near that date will the motorway from Kew to Bristol and the connecting links upwards from Bristol to Tewkesbury and that hiatus at Wolverhampton be completed? Once that is through we shall have a stream of traffic which will come upon us; and all the traffic coming down that pipeline, if you like to call it that, will focus upon Exeter.
I find myself in entire agreement with all these plans of the Ministry. It is not so much that I find fault, as the noble Lord. Lord Clifford of Chudleiah, rightly did, with the past all the way from Dan to Beersheba; I find that a brilliant future is opening up for us in roads if they are built. I have asked the question about the motorways, and I am sure that the answer regarding the rest of the strategic ways is that they will be completed later than 1975. Can the Minister give us any sort of date such as the chief engineer gave me for these particular sections of motorway so that we may have some idea when this will be completed? I agree with what everybody has said, that communications by road are vital to any successful development of the area. It seems to me that a motorway from here to Penzance is not many years ahead, and that most of it is in the pipeline, and that some of it, unless there is some national disaster, is virtually irrevocable. The deed is virtually done, so I am looking into the future rather than complaining of the past. But knowing something of administration, I am aware how long it takes, with our procedure of public

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inquiries and heaven knows what, with hundreds of objectors, to get things through.
There is one omission in what I believe are the Minister's plans which saddened me, although I see the reason for it. He has not chosen to follow the recommended North Devon "strategy" road, the A.361, which runs from Taunton to Barnstaple and Bideford and all the way down the coast. I am wondering whether, as a start, some tee-off to that magnificent area of Barnstaple and Bideford—that really choice area of river estuary, sand dunes and surfing bays, which amount to a real place for an enjoyable holiday—could be made from Okehampton or Exeter. I have no interest in the place. I occasionally bathe in one of the bays, but I do not own any property. The noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, did not ask for it, but perhaps somebody else will support me in thinking that that area of North Devon should have one dual carriageway running from the dual carriageway that is going down, if not one from the motorway. Okehampton is the nearest spot. and I was thinking of possibly taking it up by Torrington and Bideford.
The part which invites some criticism is this. When you have got to Beersheba, what do you do? There are many A roads, and A roads are principal roads if not trunk roads. I can think of one A road in particular close to where I live—although I would not ask to have any priority given to it—where there is not only no dual carriageway but no single carriageway; there is only half a carriageway. Between Minehead and Porlock there are eight places where motor coaches cannot pass, and that is an A principal road. There are two hairpin bends, and at one part the traffic going up the hill swings into the carriageway of those coming down, while at the other end those coming down the hill swing into the other carriageway. On the other side of the village there is a hairpin bend—again, on a one-in-four hill—where half the motor coaches cannot get round on one lock.
I am not asking that anything should be done to this area. I am quite content to leave matters to our own county people, although I do not think that they will give us priority. Indeed, I entirely agree with the Minister's having by
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passed the A.39, the coastal road between Bridgewater and Barnstaple, because it is an utterly impossible road from an engineering point of view, and it could be spoiled. Therefore the by-passing is a most satisfactory negative in the Minister's actions. But we want something else. What. I understand happens is that the Minister contributes 75 per cent. to these A roads and the local authority contribute 25 per cent. But again and again the local authority are willing to contribute their 25 per cent. for their various schemes and cannot get the rest of the money.
Then there are the internal relief roads for some of the major towns. They are not major in any industrial sense, but they are sufficiently large to need an internal relief road. I understand that such a road is one which goes outside the town and produces internal relief. It is a kind of ring road or by-pass, as the case may be. I am informed, I believe reliably, that a reasonable improvement of these bottlenecks is not likely to occur, at the present rate of allowing county councils what they want, in the lifetime of anybody present. Therefore, I think there is going to be a thrombosis in all the veins, when the arteries are flowing swiftly and smoothly down upon them. It is a problem. I hope that the Minister can confirm dates a little better than has been done. In conclusion, may I say that there is something brilliant in the planning of our road system; something which inspires me anyway.
7.56 p.m.
LORD DIGBY: My Lords, so much ground has already been covered that I shall restrict myself to considering the problems of the South-West from the point of view of Dorset, and I am reminded of the old song, "I'm just an in-between". Officialdom does not know where to place Dorset. We were in the South-East Study, but Maud places us firmly in the South-West. The weathermen call us "Central Southern" and the Milk Marketing Board call us "Mid-Western". The I.T.A., with its policy of pleasing all people, gives us Southern, Westward and Harlech. Economically also we are in-between. We do not have the heavy industry and high employment of the Midlands, and we are not a magnet for office and light industry like the South-East, but also we do not have the

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fading industries and unemployment of the development areas. Dorset has a high rateable value per head of the population and an economically viable county council. We have a prosperous farming industry, prosperous light industry and prosperous market towns catering for the agricultural population and for those who wish to retire to the beauty, peace and welcome which Dorset can give them.
Is it then surprising that Dorset does not wish to be carried, kicking and screaming, into the 20th century of high-density housing and industrial giants? We feel we are already an essential part of the 20th century and are moving forward steadily to keep our economy strong. This does not mean that we want to stand still. We want to continue our steady progress, but without the traumatic effects of huge doses of industrial legislation and overspill housing. Our agriculture will continue its increase in productivity, which has outstripped industry in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Our very efficient local building industry will continue to expand to meet the necessary demand, particularly by newcomers to the district who, though not individually wealthy, have done so much to beautify and improve the housing of our villages. Finally, our light industry must continue to develop to provide employment for the young working population of the county and for those Dorsetmen who become redundant owing to the increased productivity of agriculture.
This is where I would ask the Government to help: by providing industrial development certificates for light industry. At present industry is deterred by the belief that I.D.C.s will not be available outside development areas. In fact, very few have been refused, but the belief still exists. I am not asking for a large diversion of new industry from development areas, but only for a very few firms to provide a reserve of employment. A typical firm of this type is Marglass, which came to Sherborne some years ago and draws its work force from a radius of some fifteen miles. Working on a basis of the traditional rural silk industry, they have trained local unskilled labour and have doubled their work force and trebled their output in the last three years. This firm alone puts more than £1 million per
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annum into the economy of Dorset by way of salaries, rates and payments for services. In particular, this type of firm provides employment for married women whose children no longer require their full-time attention, and for their sons and daughters on leaving school. A handful of such firms spread over the county would deal with Dorset's employment problem for several years. The Hunt Committee on intermediate areas recommended selective granting of I.D.C.s, and I urge the Government to reconsider their rejection of this policy and to give us the small development we require.
Another facet of industry that would be welcome in Dorset would be industrial research units which employ highly-skilled and paid scientists, engineers and technicians. The attraction to these men of being able to live and bring up their families in beautiful countryside, without the horrors of commuting, will ensure to any such establishment the best men available. The Plessey Research Unit at Templecombe is a most successful example of this, and they have found that the ease of recruiting has given them the pick of top-class men. Although only one-third of their staff are local, the spending power they bring is a very important factor.
Dorset County Council was a pioneer in local government computer development and is now operating the first of the new generation of computers. We can provide the clean air so essential for computers, and a peaceful environment to attract the highly-paid ana highly-skilled staff required. But all these developments require good communications. The county council is doing its part by acquiring and developing Hum Airport in a joint venture with Bournemouth, and I hope their enterprise will be rewarded by the establishment of this aerodrome as a gateway for the South-West. With regard to railways, the electrification of the Bournemouth line has given a boost to South and East Dorset; but it is in the realm of roads that most needs to be done. The recent Green Paper, Roads for the Future, provides for the improvement of two East/West roads, but no North /South link which is so much required to connect Dorset to the motorway system of the Midlands. This link is essential to the long-term prosperity of the county.

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Another area in the field of communications is causing us grave concern at the present time. I refer to the B.B.C.'s plan for broadcasting in the 1970s. Since the end of the war, the South and West of England have been admirably served by the B.B.C. Regional Broadcasting Service based in Bristol, to which we have looked for news, views and entertainment of a very high standard, entirely free from political and commercial pressure—a standard which has made the B.B.C. the envy of broadcasting services throughout the world. It is through our region that we have been able to make our voice heard at national level, and many of our programmes— "Any Questions?" and "Going for a Song". for example—have achieved great popularity and have entered the national network. Now we are told that this invaluable medium of communication is to be swept away and replaced by a few local broadcasting stations run on shoe-string budgets. The subsequent lowering of standards and usefulness which will result is little short of a disaster for communications in the South-West, and I would therefore press very strongly that the B.B.C. should look again at their policy in this respect.
Dorset is a prosperous county which needs to develop to retain its young men, on whom our future depends. At present they end up in the tourist industry, with its seasonal unemployment, or leave the county. So I ask the Government to take action on three points: first, to assure employment for our young people by granting selected I.D.C.s for light industry; secondly, to revise the Green Paper Roads for the Future to include a North/South road link; and, thirdly, to retain our regional broadcasting system, to foster the identity and pride of the South-West.
8.5 p.m.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I rise to make a few observations—and at this hour they will be very few—upon the mundane and unromantic topic of water supplies, and in particular the affairs of the North Devon Water Board. I regret to say that there is among persons engaged in the waterworks industry a widespread sense of apprehension that the procedure which is followed in this House and by the Minister in determining the powers of water undertakings is unduly protracted, involved and expensive. An
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application is made for powers to construct works, weeks turn into months, months turn into years and still no decision is forthcoming.
I think I can illustrate very well what happens by recounting the experience of the North Devon Water Board. May I give your Lordships a brief chronology of what happened? In 1962 the Board decided to construct a new reservoir at a place called Meldon, which is in a corner of Dartmoor—not, I think, a very beautiful corner, but a corner of Dartmoor—and that undoubtedly aroused considerable opposition and apprehension. I need not say anything about that to-night, because all that has been set to rest by the Minister's having made his Order. In 1962 the Board decided that they required further supplies of water—and indeed they did; they were about one million gallons a day short of their requirements. Accordingly, they decided that they would construct a new reservoir at Meldon. The first thing that happened was that they were refused town planning consent on the ground that the town planning authority did not like certain bore holes which had to be constructed during the course of the preparation of the site. The Board decided to appeal against that decision, and in 1964 the appeal was heard. The decision given by the Minister was in favour of the Board.
In the following year, 1965, the Minister held a local inquiry into the Board's application for an Order. The Order was objected to by, I think it was, eight societies which represented different forms of amenity, so it was quite a complicated procedure. The inquiry took place in 1965, and the Minister gave his decision in 1966. He decided to give consent for the construction of the reservoir. In 1967 the Order was laid in Parliament, and there were Petitions against it; but it was held that the Petitioners had no locus standi. When that decision was given, the Petitioners moved to annul the Order, and eventually the Order was withdrawn by the Government. The terms of the Standing Orders in your Lordships' House were then altered so as to enable the Petitioners to have a locus standi and to be heard. There was a Joint Select Committee in 1968, and they were accordingly heard. The Joint Select Committee decided to confirm the Order, but they suspended its

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operation for, I think, about eight or nine months. The purpose of suspending the operation of the Order was to enable an alternative site to be investigated. That was done. At the local inquiry the Minister rejected the alternative site as being too expensive; it was going to cost about £1 million more than the reservoir at Meldun and it was felt, rightly, that the expenditure on the alternative would not be justified.
I think I have said enough about the affairs of the North Devon Water Board to show that the procedures we follow can be very protracted and very delayed. Meldon is not the only place where works have been caught up in our intricate and involved procedure. There are a number of other cases in fairly recent history in which the delay in getting a decision has been protracted and involved. What I have said to-night will not, I hope, be interpreted as reflecting on anybody, least of all on the officers of the Ministry of Health or of this House.
There must be some way in which we can escape from the net of our present procedure without unnecessarily or needlessly infringing upon the rights of individuals who may be affected by our procedure here. I am not suggesting any change which should be made which would have that effect and which would perhaps shut out somebody who desired to make an objection. That does not seem to me to be necessary. But there must be some way by which we can escape from the present arrangements for our procedure, leading to a more expeditious and more effective procedure than that which we follow to-day. It may be that the Minister of Health could telescope some of these inquiries which in this case were two, but which sometimes run to three. I should have thought one would be sufficient, but I do not know. It is a matter that calls for consideration. It may be that we should make greater use of Joint Select Committees than we have been accustomed to do in the past. Again I do not commit myself; I do not know; but it seems to me a matter that ought to be investigated.
All I am going to do tonight is to invite the Minister to say that he will bring the attention of his right honourable friend to this matter and invite him to give it consideration. I hope that it may also be considered by the Lord
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Chairman of Committees. I hope that this may result in our existing procedure being substantially amended—at any rate amended so that decisions can be given with greater expedition than is possible at present. I hope that the Minister will give us some assurance that this matter will receive consideration.
8.12 p.m.
VISCOUNT FALMOUTH: My Lords, at this very late hour I will try to be as brief as possible. First, I should like to say how glad I am that my noble friend Lord Clifford of Chudleigh put down this Question to debate this very important part of England. I should also like to take the opportunity of congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Clinton, on an admirable maiden speech. His estates and forests are a byword in the South-West of England. I know that his opinion will always be given great value in this House.
My home is in Cornwall, and it is largely of Cornwall that I am going to speak. Set right out into the sea, we have developed a unity through the ages; but what I shall say touches on a number of diverse points. This is because we are so often bewildered by the volume of Government proposals in so many fields. I must declare an interest first as a farmer and landowner, and I start with the subject of farming. Our farmers are obviously a long distance from the markets of Covent Garden, the Midlands and the North. They fear, naturally, that if we enter the Common Market we shall be further handicapped. I therefore make this plea to the Government: that they will do all they can to see that no action of theirs will directly or indirectly lead to increases in freight charges which are so costly because of our distance from the markets. Furthermore, because they cannot make up for the increased costs at each Price Review, our farmers also fear that the standards of husbandry are falling. Cornwall is a land of hedges, farm roads, ditches, gates and roofs at risk to the strong West winds. The less our higher costs are recouped the more neglect there is in this sphere.
In Cornwall last month I was at a presentation of prizes won in a competition called "Farm Buildings in the Landscape" run by the Country Landowners' Association. Farmers in Cornwall won three prizes out of the 12 awarded for the

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whole of England and Wales. A very good effort. In our beautiful county a proper blend of farm buildings with fields and trees needs the greatest care. Undoubtedly those prizes in Cornwall were won because there was the right choice of materials. This is an age-old problem. In the old days in Cornwall, one simply opened a quarry and got one's mason to build a farmsteading from the local materials. Nowadays it is not so easy to hide a tower silo or the sharp outlines of a grey asbestos shed. But by taking much care a great deal can be done by properly planning the site and using the right materials. I have been told, strange to say, that the right colour for a tower silo is yellow.
This is a problem; but I do not think we ought to solve it by total planning control over all farm buildings. Far better is the system of voluntary control linked with applications for grants under the Farm Improvement Scheme. Cornwall leads in the number of applications in schemes for farm amalgamations under the 1967 Act. We have a very large number of smallholdings; but on this subject I would make two points. First, the administrative work for one amalgamation scheme roughly equals the time and administrative work involved in five farm improvement schemes. The second point is that the continuing farmer, when he has bought the land from the man going out, may have spent nearly his all. It may be that there is a case here for his having recourse to a cheap form of borrowing for stocking the enlarged holding.
I now turn to the subject of minerals, which has been dealt with by the noble Lord, Lord Arwyn. Here I must again declare an interest. I am a mineral owner and also the chairman of a china clay producing company. Your Lordships will all know the definition of a mine: a hole in the ground anywhere in the world with a Cornishman at the bottom of it. Cornwall is a very old mining field with a large number of rights of all sorts. A mining company operating or prospecting in Cornwall cannot expect to have the same degree of freedom as obtains in the virgin reefs of South Africa, Australia and Canada. I shall not enlarge further on that beyond saying that the present law is the very recent 1966 Act and I submit that at the
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moment no new legislation on this subject is necessary.
I pass to the great china clay industry —and it is a great industry. Perhaps we should call it the paper clay industry, for as well as the china in your Lordships' tea-room the glossy magazines in the Library are all coated with china clay. This industry must surely be among those that are doing their very best in the export drive. In the first nine months of the year 75·6 per cent. of our products were exported—a most magnificent record. The granite hill which, in geological parlance, forms the matrix for the clay is very near our ports in Cornwall, and I hope that no hastily thought out scheme, arising from the Government's declared intentions as to the ports, will in any way affect our industry by increasing dock charges and freight costs. It is vital to transport. this bulk cargo as cheaply as possible to compete in European and American markets. There are other sources of foreign supplies in America, Czechoslovakia and other places.
The noble Lord, Lord Arwyn, spoke about the taxation of minerals and I do not intend to go into that subject beyond saying that the depreciation allowances for the exhausting of minerals for new and long established companies are very small compared with those abroad. The 1963 Act gave small allowances which compare most unfavourably. We have not heard much to-day about the report of the Committee of the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, and about their Report I have mixed feelings. We are delighted to read in the Report that the highly distinctive character of the Cornish people is recognised; and Cornwall. with its history, traditions and geographical position, and a population of over 300,000, should be a strong and effective unitary authority. We are worried, I must confess, that if Provincial Councils are given executive powers we shall have little or no control over provincial action in Cornwall, for we should have only three votes out of 29 in the Provincial Council.
I will not talk about the wholesale slaughter of our local councils, but I will say that we are very worried at the possible loss of part of Cornwall to Plymouth. At the risk of being compared

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with that most famous American backwoodsman, Henry Thoreau, about whom it was written that he was worse than provincial, he was parochial, I must say that there seems no reason for the loss of Saltash, Tor Point and part of the rural district of St. Germans to Plymouth, on the other side of the River Tamar. I think that Governments should do their best to foster local loyalties which are good and, as in Cornwall, are rightly focused on our own famous counties. In the words of a former Lord Falkland (an ancestor of the noble Viscount who is about to address your Lordships' House) speaking in another place at another time, "When it is not necessary to change it is necessary not to change".
8.24 p.m.
VISCOUNT FALKLAND: My Lords, most of the problems to which I wished to draw attention concerning the South-West have already been dealt with very fully by noble Lords who have spoken before me, so I can cut out two-thirds of what I intended to say. All I seem to be left with are a few grumbles—and very old ones at that. They underline much of what noble Lords have already said. I have lived in the South-West, on and off, for more than thirty years, and for a great many of them have had an interest in the tourist trade, mostly as a boarding-house keeper or as a proprietor of a guest house, to use the more refined phraseology of the day.
I have to complain, first, about the overcrowding of the roads in the summer months. The pressing need is for a motorway down the spine of Devon and Cornwall. That is very "old hat", and your Lordships know all the pros and cons as well as I do. But perhaps one more voice crying in the automobile wilderness may do some good for the future. Tourism has become one of our chief sources of income and it is getting increasingly difficult for visitors to get there and back without delays and discomfort. As time goes on, I feel that we are up against the vast inertia and bumbling of uninspired bureaucracy, and we must have some imaginative longterm plan now or, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, we shall come to a grinding halt, in the not very distant future. At present, the only amelioration seems to be piece-
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meal and haphazard plans for fiddling with short stretches of road, as for instance the Honiton by-pass. These leave serious bottlenecks on either side and do little good.
I can give an example of the present frustration and delay. One day last summer I was foolish enough to try to drive from near Newton Abbot to Exeter along the new dual-carriageway, I think for some 20 miles. I was stuck for two hours before I could reach a turning to the lanes and by-ways that I know and which I should have taken. I must say, my Lords, that the newspaper men and ice cream merchants did a very good trade while we waited. I eventually arrived at my destination more dead than alive. These delays were caused by bottlenecks further North, between Exeter and the Honiton by-pass; and North of that, on the A.303 and the A.30. Much has been said and written about the A.30 and the A.38 roads and, in all fairness, priority must be given to the A.38 from Bristol to the West, since it serves a greater population: the South Devon resorts and bigger industries. This road continues into Cornwall over the Tamar Bridge and joins up with the A.30 at Bodmin. Roads in Cornwall are reasonably adequate for everyday traffic, but with the huge influx of visitors in the summer they are totally inadequate. So a first priority should be a trunk road into Cornwall, leaving intact all the side roads to the South and the North.
Another complaint I had from visitors last summer was about the "take it or leave it", "couldn't care less" attitude of many garages in Cornwall. I feel that the abolition of selective employment tax or some help, as for hotels, boardinghouses, and so on, could put this matter right. In a great many cases boardinghouses are family businesses and can give service early and very late at night. Most garages are not family concerns and cannot afford to employ staff for round-the-clock service in the same way. I myself have no complaint about garages, as I live only 35 miles from Plymouth and usually travel towards London. But visitors do not always realise that the distance from Plymouth to Penzance is 79 miles, which is a very long way to travel on crowded roads in summer, with the garages overworked and often, because of S.E.T., under-staffed.

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Among my friends in Devon the particular grumble is about the lack of service and the expense of the railways. lf, for instance, someone—not an important customer, by commercial standards—wishes to send flowers to London, the railways cannot say to a day or two how long it will take; and it is quicker and cheaper, and more reliable, to send them by road. When I was living in South Devon before the nationalisation of the railways, the Great Western Railway and the Southern Railway vied with each other to give good service for the conveyance of flowers to London from the point of view of both price and speed of delivery. Because of railway closures, large communities in the West have to travel long distances at unnecessary expense. My own station is a case in point. People who live in Fowey are now dependent on buses or taxis to get to St. Austell. Could not there be a "re-think" in respect of rural areas? I understand that the Western and Southern National bus companies are both applying for fare increases—and fairly substantial ones at that. And these, if granted, will cause further expense and hardship.
An air link is needed in the South-West and must be planned; but more industry is required before it can become a viable enterprise. Why not have a hovercraft service on the disused railway tracks in the meantime? That is the only original.suggestion that I have to make. Perhaps it may be worth looking at seriously. I know nothing about the likely expense—it is probably prohibitive. Another way of easing congestion on the roads would be to make more use of various ports in the West Country. Many of the huge loads carried by road could easily be water-borne and the authorities who give permission for the conveyance of these loads by road should be encouraged to look into the possibility of routing them by sea. It might be more inconvenient for a load to be sea-borne but this must be weighed against the present inconvenience caused to road users.
I see that Southampton has been selected as a container port. Plymouth has been allowed to become sadly neglected and, no doubt, could be better utilised. I also feel that, for the good of the economy, publicity should be stepped up, especially from the point of view of boarding-house keepers and the tourist
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trade in general. More effort to advertise the area should be made by the West Country Tourist Board. The librarian at Plymouth library has been flogging the historical interest of the area for some time now, but so far as I can this aspect has been completely ignored by the tourist agencies. Out of the large number of foreign visitors to this country each year only a very few, in proportion, visit the West. I think it important that a tour should be made of all hotels and boarding houses in Devon, Somerset and Cornwall, and a register compiled containing a full report on their advantages. The better publicity would produce a larger increase of foreign visitors and a greater turnover in cash. We have visitors from all over the United Kingdom, but it seems that these clays they are not spending the money that they did in past years.
Finally, I should like to give my three priorities which might go a long way to improving the amenities and to solving some of the more pressing problems of the South-West. First, the pollution of the rivers in Cornwall by English China Clays, Limited, and other industries should be cleared up within the next twelve months. Secondly, I urge the abolition of selective employment tax for hotels, boarding-houses and garages and, thirdly, much more use of broadcasting and television to advertise the area. In the past. the coastal scenery of North and South Cornwall has never been nationally advertised, and greater emphasis should he placed on international photographs.
8.31 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET): My Lords, we have had a long and interesting debate marked by many extremely worthwhile speeches. Let me say at once that everything that has been said will be studied by me when it is my business, and by other members of the Government when it is their business. Of that I can assure the House. Having said that, I think I must remark that just about half of those who have spoken have thought it worth while to remain until the end of the debate. and the number of noble Lords who have spoken in this debate and are still present is precisely equal to the number of officials who have been in the Box

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throughout, advising me on the answers which I could give to the questions that have been asked. I think this may be something of a record in the annals of our House, and, that being so, I take it that what remains of the House will not wish me to detain it very much longer.
The problems of the South-West were, I think, well put by the noble Lord. Lord Foot. when he said that it is a difficult shape. Of course it is. His complaint was against God rather than against the Government, and that was a relief. It is one of the promontories. and it is difficult to maintain economic life on a promontory unless that promontory happens to be on the way to somewhere else, like Kent, which makes life easier there.
I would join with those noble Lords who have already congratulated the noble Lord, Lord Clinton, on his maiden speech. I hope he will speak many times on wider topics than this. I would take up only one point in what he said, when he asked for a three-year price fix for farmers. There is much to be said for that, but I know that my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture will have to bear in mind being able to change quickly if circumstances change. He will have to weigh the benefit of farmers' remaining where they are during the three-year period with the fact that they may suddenly wish they were somewhere else if world circumstances change. The Government ought to be lightfooted and ready to meet them in their difficulties.
I suppose that if one topic has dominated another in this debate it is the matter of roads, and I should like to say a few words about them. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who is unfortunately no longer with us, though he apologised to me for it, asked when the links between the South-West and the rest of the world outside would be complete. He feared that they would be completed later than the road plans in the South-West. On this nobody need have any fear. The M4 from Reading to Bristol should be completed by 1972, and the M5-M6 link, which he also mentioned, should be completed by 1972. The overall road pattern is dominated by the proposal to carry the M5 as a motorway to Exeter and beyond to motorway standards, and all things being well, this road should
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be complete or in an advanced stage of construction as far as Plymouth by 1975. As all those interested in the South-West will know, from Plymouth westwards to Penzance there is a programme of dual carriaging, double tracking and bypassing which is to go forward at the same time.
I think the great question mark which hangs over all this is: What about roads to North Devon? That is something that has been recommended by many of those who have studied the matter and published reports, and it has also been recommended in this debate. All those recommendations are before my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport, and he is considering them at the moment. He knows well the arguments in favour of adding this to the programme.
I now turn to agriculture. It seemed to me that most of what was said about agriculture in this debate could have been said about other parts of the country. Among the difficulties raised, I was struck by the lack of special difficulties in South-Western agriculture and by the prevalence of general agricultural difficulties. So far as that is concerned. I think we might remit a general discussion of the matter to a positive debate on agriculture at a later time. As to farm credit restrictions, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, raised, I would confine my reply to the point that although you get lower interest rates on the Continent of Europe you do not get grants in the way you get them here. That is an historical difference well known to all those interested in agriculture. On the Continent they do it by special concessionary loan interest rates, and we do it by grants. It is fair to say that most noble Lords mentioned agricultural difficulties, but not one mentioned the existence of the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation, which is in operation for this purpose and does quite a lot of business in the South-West.
The noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, touched on the uncertainties about the Common Market, and I will say what I know he would expect me to say; namely, that it would be wrong for anybody at this stage to think that he can make even the wildest guess at what effect joining the E.E.C. will have on farm prices, farm products, food prices,

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subsidies, levies and the rest of it. However fast we go, we are not going to join for a great many months yet, and during these particular months—more than has been the case in any months during the last ten years, perhaps—the Community countries themselves are going to be locked in negotiations on their own farm price structure, and it would be a wise man indeed who could say what will come out of that. So there is no point in our worrying about that until we know where they have got to before the time comes when we can join them.
Several noble Lords touched on the large numbers of old people in the South-West. On this point there is only one thing of which I would remind the House. If old people choose when they retire to go and live in the South-West it is because the South-West is a very nice place to live in. One may, on the one hand, regard this as a problem, because it gives a different age balance in the population figures from that shown up in other parts of the country. On the other hand, one may regard it as an indication that the South-West is doing very well; that it is a nice area for old people to live in, and probably nice for people of all ages to live in—as we know it is.
It may, of course, throw an extra burden on the hospitals. This is a point, true enough. But, equally, the mere presence of people coming to live there provides a source of revenue and of prosperity: they buy food, and they go shopping, like anybody else; it increases rateable value and increases the population. In other words, my Lords, it is far from clear that the fact that a large number of retired people live there because they desire to do so should be regarded as a disadvantage to that part of the country: it might be regarded as an advantage. It is true that there is also a loss of young people, and a certain exodus; and that you get a top-heavy age structure in the population returns. But if young people go out, that means less for children's education, and that is a relief on the rates burden which may to a certain extent compensate for the additional burden of looking after the old people and their health.
I should like to say how interested I was by Lord Waldegrave's wise and really enthralling speech about this region, and
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how much I personally thought he had an imaginative grasp of the whole sweep of the problems, from the top right-hand corner to the bottom left-hand corner. It is of course of the essence of the nature of the South-West that it is divided between a very rich bit, growing like billy-ho, and the bit down on the promontory where God, not man, has created problems, but problems which man is doing his best, in the form of central, regional and local government, to resolve.
Lord Ilford touched upon the point of the history of the Meldon Reservoir. I fully take his point, for it is a subject of which I am very well aware and seized of at the moment. I know that it is the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, to promote a general debate on how proposals for reservoirs should be advanced through the machinery from local to national level. I hope that Lord Ilford will agree with me that we might defer consideration of these difficulties until we can do so in a national context in a few months' time rather than in the regional context of the South-West. I would say only this about Lord Falmouth's intervention. I do not know who told him the right colour for tower silos, but it certainly was not the recent and, I think, admirable publication by my Ministry, the Countryside Commission and the Ministry of Agriculture together, which has some useful suggestions about what colour to make tower silos. Yellow is not on the list. They favour rather darkish greys, shading off toward, very pale greys, if the silos happen to be on the skyline. But whoever told him to make his silo yellow had no Government backing.
In the long run one must look at the record of what this Government, and Governments in the past, are doing and have done about the South-West; and one must look at the record of what the Government are doing for parts of the country which have special difficulties in general. This is only one such part among others. The difficult part, economically, of the South-West—that is, the extreme South-West, as it has been called, and North Devon—is and has been for three years now a development area. This means that in that part of the region they enjoy the full benefit of the preferential payments that are made by Government to industry in order to get

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it to go there and not somewhere else. Generally speaking, it is around 40 per cent. paid straight out of the Government's pocket for setting the industries up. They enjoy the preferential benefit of the negative treatment given to industry in other parts of the country by the operation of I.D.C. policy, which means you get a certificate much more easily if you are ready to go to a development area, and you do not get one if you want to go somewhere else. That is an outline of the broad policy, not the intricacies and details.
Not a single noble Lord has mentioned the fact that there is at present legislation before the House of Commons, following the Hunt Report, to make Plymouth an intermediate area. As you know, intermediate areas are something half-way between development areas and the rest of the country. They get preferential benefits, but not on such a scale as the development areas. This, I hope, will do a great deal for the future development and prosperity of the City of Plymouth itself, and the parts around it.
In the long run Government should probably rest—and I know of no better thing on which to rest—upon the record of the creation of jobs directly attributable to Government policy. Here I should like to give a few figures. I should like to quote the figures of jobs created by the issue of industrial development certificates in North Devon and Cornwall—that is, the development area in the South-West; not the region as a whole, but the really difficult development area—on a preferential basis to the development area in two contrasting periods. The first period is three years, 1960 to 1963, and the second period is three years minus one month, because that is as far as we have gone: 35 months, 1966–69.
In the first period, 1960 to 1963, the total jobs created in the development area numbered 2,760. In the second period, which was one month shorter, they were 10,260. I will be the first to admit that there is a long way to go in the scale of creating economic prosperity there. I would point out to the House that in a period the mean of which is only eight
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years, we have increased five-fold the rate of creation of prosperity by direct Government intervention in this development area. I believe that is a good record. I know there is a long way to go, I know that there are special problems in the South-West which even some of the other development areas do not share, but on the other side of that coin I must remind the House that the general difficulties, the general level of historically-determined depression, is very much worse in some of the Northern development areas, the Scottish and Welsh development areas, than in the South-West. I think it was the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, who emphasised the title of the Regional Economic Planning Council's Report. He was right to do so; it has a bright colour on the cover—he has just shown it to me—and it has a bright title upon it. The Government are with the brightness, both of the cover and the title, and will pursue the policies which are already yielding such good results down there.

CONSOLIDATION BILLS
Message from the Commons: That they have appointed twelve of their Members to be joined with the Committee appointed by this House on Consolidation Bills.