Lords Sitting of 18 March 1970

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

MAGISTRATES' COURTS
LORD MERTHYR: 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, following the publication of the Report of the Royal Commission on Assizes and Quarter Sessions (Cmnd. 4153), they will now appoint a Departmental Committee or some similar body, with comparable terms of reference, to inquire into and to report upon the work of the magistrates' courts and to make recommendations.]
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government will give careful consideration to the future administration of the magistrates' courts in the light of the Government's acceptance in principle of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Assizes and Quarter Sessions. For the moment all available resources have to be concentrated on the reorganisation of the higher courts, in order to bring the Royal Commission's proposals into effect as soon as possible. As soon as we are in a position to do so we shall consult those concerned with the magistrates' courts about the administration of those courts, but we do not consider that it will be necessary to appoint a Committee for this purpose.
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, in thanking the noble and learned Lord for that Answer, may I suggest that it might be sensible to start the review of magistrates' courts, so as to overlap with the carrying out of the proposals of the Beeching Commission?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, as the noble Lord will appreciate, the magistrates' courts were outside the terms of reference of the Royal Commission, and we must concentrate our resources at the moment on implementing the recommendations of that Commission. I can assure the House that no conclusion will be come to about the administration of the magistrates' courts without full consultation, particularly with the Magistrates' Association of which the noble Lord, Lord Merthyr, is the distinguished chairman.
LORD ROYLE: My Lords, may I ask my noble and learned friend whether he is aware that among leading magistrates in the country there is an opinion that 28 years is a long time since a Royal Commission reported on magistrates' courts? In view of the tremendous growth in the work of the courts many of them feel that it is time for a complete reappraisal.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I should not have thought that there was any case for a complete reappraisal so far as the nature of the justices' work was concerned. Their procedure is in part the subject of the Criminal Justice Act. So far as their accommodation and staff are concerned, I agree that these will have to be looked into.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, will my noble and learned friend be inclined to agree that the magistrates' courts are fulfilling very worthily a very necessary function, and that the less they are interfered with at the present moment the better? Secondly, in view of the enormous number of cases that come before them, would it not be possible to increase the establishment of magistrates in some of the courts?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I am sorry, my Lords, but I did not hear the last part of the noble Lord's question.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I asked whether my noble and learned friend would agree that in view of the enormous number of additional cases that are now coming before magistrates' courts—my own court, for instance, deals with over 100 cases each Friday—an increase in their establishment, so that there would be more justices available to deal with

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cases on the rota would perhaps be an improvement.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I agree of course about the valuable work done by the magistrates, and in view of the fact that 98 per cent. of all criminal cases are decided by the justices the taxpayer, in particular, has every reason to be grateful to them. So far as their complement is concerned, that is being increased in proportion to the increase in work.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, will my noble and learned friend agree that the functions of the magistrates' courts have been greatly increased and that the findings of the Royal Commission, which are now more than 20 years old, may not be appropriate? In particular, there is the finding of the Royal Commission that what was wanted in a magistrate were certain requirements of character and intelligence and an ability "to follow proceedings in court". Will my noble friend agree that it is time we had a new review which would perhaps set down a different standard? Will he also agree that there is no source of information at present about the composition of the body of magistrates, other than that contained in the Royal Commission's Report of more than 20 years ago?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, it is, I think, getting a little late to start appointing Royal Commissions in the lifetime of this Government. But, having read, and continually having in mind, the Reports of both Royal Commissions, I can see nothing really wrong with them; and, as my noble friend knows, the appointment of justices is a matter on which every Lord Chancellor takes an infinity of trouble. I know justices who think that they are appointed by somebody in my office, but in fact no justice is ever appointed without my personally seeing all the details about him, and I think there is no more important work that the Lord Chancellor does.
LORD WELLS-PESTELL: My Lords, may I ask my noble and learned friend whether he is aware that there are many months between the commission of an alleged offence and the case coming before the magistrates—so long, in fact,
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that sometimes crucial evidence is forgotten?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, that is so in some places, and in some places it is not a question of more justices; it is a question that there simply are not enough courts. That is a question which we certainly have to consider.

RHODESIA: PROBLEMS AND STATUS OF RESIDENTS
2.37 p.m.
LORD SORENSEN: 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 what agency is now recognised in Rhodesia as competent to deal with the problems and needs of British citizens resident in that country; what is the official status of Rhodesians resident in or travelling to the United Kingdom; and whether the black African majority of those now living in Rhodesia are nominally recognised by the United Kingdom as British subjects.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD SHEPHERD): My Lords, the answer to the first part of this Question is, "None". As to the remainder of the Question, persons who possess Southern Rhodesian citizenship may also possess the citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies. Whether they do so or not, citizens of Southern Rhodesia, whatever colour they may be, like all other Commonwealth citizens are British subjects. This citizenship status is not affected by the fact that they may be resident in or travelling to the United Kingdom.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, while thanking my noble friend for that reply, may I ask him whether, if people going from this country to reside in Rhodesia for academic or business or similar purposes have been informed as to their status, it is assumed that so long as they remain there they are in some way conniving at the illegal Rhodesian régime? Further, as there has been a salutary withdrawal of so many consulates from Rhodesia, may I ask my noble

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friend to whom these people can now turn in the event of difficulties in that country?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I should have thought that anyone who resides in Rhodesia must know by now what is the state of affairs in that country; that is, that Rhodesia is in rebellion to the Crown. It therefore follows that United Kingdom citizens who live in, or stay in, or visit Rhodesia must, as the Prime Minister said recently in another place, do so at their own risk. As regards the overseas consulates that have been closed, clearly these could not render any assistance to United Kingdom citizens residing in or visiting Rhodesia, and our own residual mission that was withdrawn after the referendum was not there to help British citizens.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, may I ask a further question? By what means do British citizens now living in Rhodesia communicate with this country? Is it possible to communicate by post, by cable or by telephone?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, until recently, of course, they could correspond through the post, through the telephone and Through the telegraph. But now, as a consequence of Republican status being taken in Rhodesia, the question of the stamp which the régime has produced has had to be taken into account; and as my noble friend will know, such a stamp will not be regarded as a legal postage stamp for delivery in this country.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, then how can they send letters?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, that is one of their difficulties. Clearly, if they were to write a letter addressed to this country it would be delivered, but there would be a collection of postage when the letter was delivered.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, can my noble friend tell me whether there is any British businessman in Rhodesia who ought to be having business in Rhodesia?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, we have said that it would be wrong for a British citizen, or, for that matter, anyone else, to trade with the illegal régime in Rhodesia.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: My Lords, have Her Majesty's Government considered the position of missionaries?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, clearly we have had to consider all aspects, but the fact is that if we were to have a mission in Rhodesia of the normal consulate type it would be construed by those who wished so to construe it as recognition of an illegal régime.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: My Lords, that was not exactly the point I was making. My point was whether Christian missionaries come under the rather sweeping condemnation that I thought the Minister had expressed.
LORD SHEPHERD: I beg the right reverend Prelate's pardon. Clearly, I think Christian missionaries, certainly from my experience, are in quite a different class from businessmen.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, could the noble Lord offer any opinion as to how long the Government expect this state of affairs to continue?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, it will come to an end a good deal sooner if those who have in one way or another given support to the illegal regime cease to do so.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord a rather simple question about a rather small point? Suppose I get a letter from Rhodesia which I have not asked for. Do I have to pay the surcharge, or can I send it away again?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I think it is up to anyone in this country to do what he wishes with a letter. He is not forced to accept it.
LORD GRIMSTON OF WESTBURY: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there is a good deal of opinion in this country that it is Her Majesty's Government who by their policy have driven Rhodesia into the present position?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, only those who do not face up to the facts and read recent history.

THE FIRE SERVICE: HOLROYD COMMITTEE'S REPORT
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will state when the Report of the Holroyd Committee on the Fire Service will be published.]
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the Committee has not completed its Report, but I understand that it hopes to do so shortly. There will be no avoidable delay in publishing the Report.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that reply, I should like to ask him whether he recollects that it is now over three years since this Committee was appointed, and that very recently the Fire-fighter, which is the official organ of the Fire Brigades' Union, has referred to the state of stagnation which is resulting from what they describe as "hanging on to Holroyd"? Further, is the noble Lord aware that the 1969 figures for fire losses touched the new black peak of £120 million In all these circumstances, does he not feel that the Government ought to press for publication of the Committee's Report?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the Chairman of the Committee is well aware of the importance of early publication of this Report, but it is not, of course, open to the Government to dictate to the Chairman of a Committee of this kind when it shall actually complete its labours. But in view of the recent serious fires that we have had, I am sure that the Chairman is doing all he can to expedite publication.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend this question? When the Holroyd Committee was appointed, the fire authorities were a certain type of local authority—county councils or county boroughs. In view of the Maud Report, which will redistribute the responsibility for the Fire Service, will the Committee add a postscript to its recommendations bringing them up to date in the light of this new change?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the Holroyd Committee was invited to give its
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views on this aspect of the matter to the Royal Commission. This it did, and both the Committee and the Commission have taken these affairs into consideration.

SOUTHERN YEMEN: PUBLIC SERVANTS' PENSIONS
2.47 p.m.
LORD TREVELYAN: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement about pensions for indigenous public servants in Southern Yemen.]
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, I apologise for the length of this Answer, but since this is the last of the Starred Questions on the Order Paper to-day this is perhaps the appropriate place to make a Statement on this subject. In the view of Her Majesty's Government, responsibility for the payment of pensions to public servants in Southern Yemen rests with the Government of that country. However, the circumstances in which Southern Yemen became independent in 1967 were such that it was not possible at the time, and has not been possible since then, to conclude a Public Officers' Agreement such as is normally reached when a dependency becomes independent. The Southern Yemen Government has never acknowledged responsibility for public service pensions, and payment of the great majority of them has been discontinued by that Government. Her Majesty's Government, therefore, are already paying the pensions of expatriate civil servants by way of ex gratia loan advances. Having regard to all the circumstances and having carefully considered the situation, the Government have decided that so far as concerns indigenous pensioners of the civil administration and civil police they are prepared to make ex gratia loan advances equivalent to the amount of pensions due with effect from April 1, 1970, in respect of service given up to November 30, 1967. In taking this step to alleviate hardship to individual pensioners, Her Majesty's Government in no way modify their view that responsibility rests with the Government of the Southern Yemen.

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The estimated cost of the necessary loan advances in the coming financial year is £430,000, and a Supplementary Estimate will be presented in due course. Meanwhile, advances will be sought from the Civil Contingencies Fund.
LORD TREVELYAN: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that very welcome statement, may I ask him whether it means, in effect, that the indigenous civil servants will receive the amount equivalent to their pensions and will not be led to believe that they have at some time in the future to repay these loan advances?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, who has been as concerned as I have to assist in seeing that these people should have pensions. I understand that there still remains a claim against the Government of the country concerned but that it would be contrary to practice for Her Majesty's Government to seek to have the loan repayed by the individual pensioner. In other words, these people are being paid their pensions by Her Majesty's Government.
LORD TREVELYAN: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for that very welcome statement, may I ask him if he realises that it will be a source of great satisfaction to all those who have served in South Arabia when they see that justice is being done to those who have served us in the past?
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, while welcoming the action of the Government in this matter, may I ask whether any subsidy or financial assistance is at present being given to the Government of Southern Yemen; and, if so, whether this payment, which ought to be made by the Yemeni Government, will be deducted from any financial assistance which Her Majesty's Government are now giving?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I would not wish to comment on the particular type of conclusion to which the noble Lord is coming, but I would say that no financial aid at all is being granted to Southern Yemen at the moment. May I add, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, that it is certainly a matter of satisfaction, and it is noteworthy that the British civil ser-
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vants who served in South Arabia, some of whom either lost their lives or were severely injured, all felt that it was right that these payments should be made.
LORD SORENSEN: My Lords, may I ask whether this decision has been reached with the complete collaboration of the Southern Yemen Government, and also whether it applies to the Indian civil servants who have since retired from Southern Yemen and who live in some other part of the world?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, to take the last part of the question first, I referred in my main statement to expatriate civil servants. So that there should be no doubt, I should add that "expatriate" is not confined only to British civil servants; Indians are already, I understand, having their pensions paid. It will be for Her Majesty's Government, through the Embassy, to make such arrangements as are necessary with the Southern Yemen Government; but it will be our intention to see that these pensions are paid. Of course, the Southern Yemen Government are being informed of what is proposed. Indeed I think that by now they will already have been informed.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, can my noble friend give an indication of the number of persons affected by this latest generous concession on behalf of our Government?
LORD SHACKLETON: About 800, my Lords.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, in welcoming what my noble friend has said, and expressing appreciation of his personal concern in reaching this decision, may I ask what is the difference between Southern Yemen and other colonial territories about which we welcomed a statement this week that pensions are to be paid? Why is it that in this case it should be made a loan rather than a permanent grant?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the decisive difference is that we have never negotiated a Public Officers' Agreement with the Southern Yemen Government. Having worked through the night and having spent the best part of 24 hours in trying to negotiate an agreement at the time that we were withdrawing

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from Aden, I must make it clear that they never did accept or acknowledge responsibility. I will not go into the rights and wrongs of the matter. This is the important difference between Southern Yemen and every other territory where in fact such agreements were negotiated. I do not think that I will comment further on the loan point: the noble Lord, whose interest I am aware of, will understand it well enough.

AGRICULTURE: FARM PRICE REVIEW
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, with the leave of the House at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. I shall be making a Statement on the Annual Farm Price Review.

GUYANA REPUBLIC BILL [H.L.]
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to make provision as to the operation of the law in relation to Guyana as a Republic within the Commonwealth. I beg to move that this Bill be read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a. —(Lord Shepherd.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

BRITAIN AND THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
2.54 p.m.
Debate resumed on the Motion moved yesterday by The LORD PRIVY SEAL (LORD SHACKLETON), That this House takes note of the White Paper, Britain and the European Communities: An Economic Assessment (Cmnd. 4289).
VISCOUNT WATKINSON: My Lords, it is rather a responsibility to resume this great debate after the long and expert discussion that we had yesterday with so many penetrating contributions from so many noble Lords; but I have at least one cheery recollection. It is exactly a year ago that I was asked to address the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris on a businessman's view of Britain's entry into E.E.C. Together with my French business friends and colleagues I felt very
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gloomy at that time about the prospect of any progress in Europe for Britain. What an immense and beneficial change has come over the European scene in this twelve months! In these circumstances we should obviously be crazy if we did not seek to press our application to join E.E.C. Yet—and many noble Lords with great expertise and knowledge said this yesterday—we all know that when the negotiations come to the crunch it will not be an easy task to secure a conclusion acceptable to Britain and to the E.E.C.
I want to make a plea this afternoon that when the negotiations come—and I was delighted to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, that they are now likely to come in the summer—we concentrate them as much as possible on the practical and industrial aspects of enlarging the Community. As did many other noble Lords, I should declare my position. It is that I hope as much as any that we shall succeed. That is a view that I have held since I was a member of Mr. Macmillan's Cabinet.
My Lords, if it be true that some of the emotion that surrounded past discussions of Britain's membership of the E.E.C. has now evaporated, this may be a better basis on which to face what may be the last chance for the Community and for Britain to come together. Because many of the political barriers have fallen, perhaps the business facts of the case are now easier to assess. I believe that it is in the British interest, and very much in the British interest, to highlight these industrial and practical facts because they suggest quite plainly not only that Britain should enter the Community but that the Community itself badly needs the accession of industrial strength that would be provided by Britain's entry. To start with the one basic business fact that matters: the Community is there. It is a sophisticated market of nearly 300 million people. It is 25 miles from us at its nearest point. I have always felt that however much we may try to ignore it, it cannot go away. We cannot ignore it because although only some 20 per cent, of our exports at the moment go to the E.E.C., obviously it is a growth area. If we are to maintain our export figures—and this, I believe, will not be so easy as the months and years go by—we need this growth area, and we

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need to have it on the best terms we can get.
I think it fair to say that the converse is also true. From the point of view of the Community it could be said, and fairly said, that in terms of international business the E.E.C. is not, in its present form, a large enough trading unit to form a satisfactory base for maximum technological growth, particularly in a situation where, as the noble Lord, Lord Natham, said, large transnational business groups are becoming increasingly dominant. Proof of this is to be found in NATO, as some noble Lords said yesterday, and in the general field of European technological development. Perhaps the Concorde is a good example. Neither Britain nor the Community could have got into the supersonic air transport market by themselves. Together they not only have got into it but have a chance of establishing a commanding lead over the U.S.A., if only all concerned will not lose their nerve at this stage.
Yet even on a joint basis this project has still been a heavy burden on the resources of the Community plus Britain. I think it worth noting that when we try to assess the value of the Community plus Britain we are assessing the vulnerability of the Community without Britain. Even an enlarged Community would still not form a large enough base for the most advanced technological ventures; for example, a massive thrust towards space exploration. So I believe that if one examines the problem from the basis of advanced technology, arguments about whether the Community is ready for Britain or whether Britain is ready for the Community are really completely irrelevant. If European industry is to flourish and expand, if it is to match the drive and marketing expertise of its chief competitor, the United States, it is inevitable that the Community must enlarge itself to include Britain and probably, I hope, other EFTA countries.
So, my Lords, as a background to the discussions when they start, I hope that the British will remember that it is the successful solution of the technological and industrial growth problems that matter to the future prospects of Frenchmen, Italians, West German or Englishman. Those are the things that matter rather than, perhaps, an argument about the price of butter or the rules of some
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supranational political authority. While these matters have to be discussed and will present great difficulties, if one can look at the proposition in terms of what it means to people; in terms of industry; in terms of incomes; I think it becomes a much more logical and attractive proposition. I hope, therefore, that the Government will see that this consideration is very firmly in the minds of those who have to do the negotiating.
I must say that I do not think they will get much help in this area from the White Paper which we are discussing this afternoon. I understand only too well that White Papers tend to come along, and once you are "stuck" with a White Paper you can hardly suppress it, and presumably have to publish it. But I do not think it is unhelpful to say that if I had to select an industrial background paper I would follow many other noble Lords in preferring the recent C.B.I. publication, Britain in Europe, to the economic assessment in Command 4289. I see all the difficulties and I accept that probably there is a necessity for a White Paper, but I doubt the wisdom of its production in this form at this time. As we all know, White Papers have to deal with the ascertainable facts. They are produced by very able and eminent people who will not go beyond the ascertainable facts, and who probably should not do so. What I am trying to put forward, my Lords, is that what we are really dealing with in negotiating Britain's entry into the E.E.C. is a matter of economics and industrial judgment—one might almost say "hunch".
This judgment must be based on the facts I have tried to outline, and surely what matters in these negotiations is the future of the people who live in Europe and in Britain. It has to be judged by their technological strength, their marketing ability and by the financial viability of this new grouping if we can bring it about. As many noble Lords said yesterday and as I think that we are all agreed, on this basis the logic of the thing becomes very difficult to refute. Once we move on to problems of food prices and supranational authorities, some kind of Common Market Parliament and all the rest, there are many difficulties. Surely what really matters is just the simple question: can we create a kind of new industrial unit so that within that unit there will be enough orders for

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its industries to build its standard of living quickly enough to provide the amenities and benefits which the future generations will demand? So, my Lords, I hope that this will prove to be a problem more of trade and less of terminology. It is a problem, and I think one should say again that it is a problem set in a world of giant economic power groupings, with businesses that are going to grow transnational, whether we like it or not. You have only to talk to friends in Europe to see how worried some of them are about the penetration of American transnational companies into Europe.
The answer to all this is to have a big enough unit of our own, and I would go so far as to say that if Europe in its new form—the form in which it could be if Britain entered—does not match this technological and industrial challenge, then Europe will not become either a political entity or an industrial entity; it will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of some other Power grouping—and we can all make our guesses about what that Power grouping may be. It is my view, rightly or wrongly, that the Europe of the Six is not viable. Perhaps Britain in the long run is not viable in this new world of great Power industrial groupings. But certainly Britain, plus the Six, and perhaps plus some EFTA countries is a very different story.
My Lords, I should perhaps disclose an interest. To speak personally for a moment, I am connected with a company which has six factories inside the Community. They are all growing fast; the markets are the fastest growing markets that we have in the whole world. I have excellent relations with my French, Belgian, German and Italian colleagues. I remember with great pleasure my experience of working with European colleagues in the European Ministers of Transport Conference. Incidentally, I am not sure whether many of your Lordships know that we have been a member of this European body for many, many years, and it has always worked very happily together. Certainly I found that my European colleagues in NATO were easy to work with and were practical-minded men. So I believe I may say, as no doubt may many other noble Lords, that from my practical experience I think we shall find Europe a good place in which
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to do business, and Europeans good colleagues with whom to do business.
I believe that there is an exciting new break-through for Britain if we can join, and thus enlarge, the Community. Although I am one who would like to see our trade ties with North America and Australia strengthened, I still have to say that I do not see any other opportunity that ranks as high as that which is 25 miles away from us, in Europe. So whatever the eventual price of Britain's entry seems to be, it is in this area of business judgment that one has to look for the offsetting advantages to the cost which is only too clearly set out in the White Paper in brackets which I think are somewhat unrealistic, but I accept that they have to be. This is not an easy task for any Government. I believe that a lot more education has to take place on both sides of the Channel if correct judgments are in the end to be made.
In conclusion, may I put three questions to the Government which I hope are constructive? First, will they try to develop the more positive side of the argument, perhaps in collaboration with the C.B.I.? It is not for me to speak for the C.B.I. but, as many noble Lords know, following the publication of their paper the C.B.I. are now having meetings up and down the country to discuss it. I checked with the C.B.I. this morning and I understand that those consultations are going well and are throwing up large majorities of businessmen who are in favour of going in on the hard practical facts that I have indicated. This might be the basis for publishing a further White Paper which would have to contain an element of judgment. I know this would be difficult, but I think it would at least do something to counterbalance the present one.
My second question is: will they try to encourage a continuing dialogue between industrial spokesman in Britain and Europe to highlight the fact that from an industrial and economic point of view we really are necessary and complementary to one another? My third question is: in the final balance sheet will they make sure that the long-term industrial and commercial advantages are given full weight, however difficult it may be to quantify them? My Lords, I sincerely hope that this time we shall pull it off.

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May I wish those who will be concerned with the negotiations all success. It is going to be a very difficult task for whoever does it, but an immense amount hangs on the result. I hope that it will not be thought improper of me if I say that whoever is concerned, civil servants or Ministers, we wish them well in a very difficult and testing task.
3.8 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, BOARD OF TRADE (LORD BROWN): My Lords, I am going to make a rather earthy and possibly unimaginative speech because I propose to single out a particular aspect of our debate and concentrate on it. Some very good contributions were made yesterday. For example, I have in mind that of the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, on ports. I am not going to fall to the temptation of following up what he said, and I hope he will accept my apology for that. My selected target is what is referred to in the White Paper as the dynamic effect on our industry and commerce if we enter the Common Market. I welcome the fact that the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, took up this subject also. I think it is one worth concentrating on.
For obvious reasons, it has been impossible to quantify this effect. I am glad that the attempt was not made, at least for the moment, for I have a constant fear of economists who out of a whole field of variables select those few that can be quantified and base predictions on them, leaving completely out of the equation many more important variables, and reaching quite disastrous results at times. It is a good thing, in another way, that we have not got a quantification in front of us, because if there had been a prediction, the danger would have arisen—it has occurred in our society before—that many of us might have stood back waiting to see whether the prediction came true or not, failing to realise that there was a challenge to be met and predictions would not obviate the need for facing that challenge. In other words, international trade is not a new spectator sport for Britain.
Entry into the Common Market in business terms is an opportunity not only for British industry and commerce but, also, I would suggest, for people in every walk of life. I am sure that unless the
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whole conception of facing this challenge bites pretty deeply into our society we certainly shall not make the best of this opportunity. I think that we are going to enter in due course, after a lot of hard bargaining. It is not too early, therefore, to begin talking about some of the necessary steps which I think will have to be taken if we are to exploit the opportunities which entry will open up for us.
First, I welcome the robust attitude which the C.B.I. have taken, and I hope that their determination will be reflected in the attitude of every British company. Several noble Lords—Lord Jellicoe, Lord Gladwyn, Lord Watkinson and others— have paid tribute to the assessments made in the C.B.I. Report and have drawn attention to the fact that their results differ from those of the White Paper. These two studies were conducted independently. All their estimates depend on the assumptions which were made and the statistical methods used. There seems little point in arguing whether or not those assumptions and methods were realistic. Every reader can reach his own judgment. For my part, I think it is useful, in this highly uncertain field of economic prediction, for the public to have before them several independent estimates, and I greatly welcome the work which the C.B.I. has done. I feel that at this stage it would be unfortunate, for many reasons, if pressure were brought on Her Majesty's Government to try to make predictions which rest on dubious or uncertain assumptions. It would be better for these assumptions to be made by others from an independent point of view. We may be able to advance further into this field when we know a little more about the facts. It is very difficult to make predictions based on how industry and commerce are going to meet the challenge.
Perhaps I may at this early stage reply to some of the specific questions put by the noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson. He suggested first that we should develop the positive side of the discussion with the C.B.I. Certainly I think that this is necessary; indeed, it has already started, when the Board of Trade met the C.B.I. recently. He also suggested that we should try to arrange opportunities for a continued dialogue with European businessmen. Personally I should very much welcome this. I know that it took place between the countries of the Common

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Market when they were in their formative stage and it is highly important. I will certainly bring this to the attention of my colleagues in the Government. The noble Viscount also suggested that we should see that due weight is given to the advantages of the dynamic character of the Common Market arrangements. I am going to try to do this this afternoon. All of us must face up to this and try to speak of these advantages, especially in the face of the rather positive statements made about the disadvantages.
Perhaps I might attempt to illustrate the magnitude of the opportunity before us by looking at some samples of the experience of some of those countries already in the Common Market. In the ten years from 1958, the French share of the German import market increased from 7½ to 12 per cent., aided by two devaluations of the franc. British exports to Germany over the same period, despite an impressive increase in absolute value, did not quite maintain our share of about 4 per cent. The noble Lord, Lord Macpherson of Drumochter, referred to these figures yesterday. If we look at manufactured goods alone, so as to exclude French agricultural products, which we could not hope to match, we see that the British share of German imports fell from 9 to 6 per cent., whereas the French share increased from 13 to 16 per cent.
I do not make these points in any way as a criticism of British export efforts in Germany. They are a reflection of what happens when others become part of a wider trading community of which the United Kingdom is not a member. The German import market is a very large one, and today every one per cent. share in it is worth over £90 million per annum. If we, after entry, take advantage of the opportunity and could increase our current 4 per cent. to, say, 10 per cent.—I would put that as a possible target over a few years—that would increase our exports by over £500 million per annum.
Smaller but similar opportunities can be hoped for in the other countries of the present Community. I must be careful not to mislead by giving these examples. The figure of £500 million extra exports to Germany is not a net addition to our balance of payments. German, French, Italian, Belgian exports will increase to our country. There will
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be possibly a loss of exports to Common-wealth countries because we shall lose some of our tariff preferences. All sorts of other circumstances will affect our imports and our exports, one way and another, as a result of our joining. Nevertheless, as a part of a larger market we shall have greatly increased opportunities for trade, if we can meet the challenge.
The main functions of business are the design, manufacture, and marketing of products or services. The main factors which affect these functions are the dynamism of management, the sophistication of the technologies which they employ, the flow of investment which they need to support these technologies, the enthusiasm of their marketing effort, and, very seriously, the relative wage rates in this country compared with other countries.
May I take some of these items and examine them in turn? I will start with the last item—wage rates. This subject is rightly causing most of us a great deal of anxiety at present. Some noble Lords may have been surprised to hear the figures quoted by my noble friend Lord Shacklelon in the debate yesterday which showed that the rate of increase of earnings in the United Kingdom has been generally less than in the Six over the last ten years. The problem is not one of the absolute level of wage rates. It is two-fold. First, it is the differential between our wage rates and those of other countries, particularly those of the Six when we enter the Common Market. Secondly, the problem is what you get for the rates which you pay. Is it possible that we can present entry into the Common Market as a challenge not only to management and technologists, but also to those who work on the floors of our factories? I think that we must certainly try to do so. It will be an immense psychological effort, but I think that we must try; and if we succeed it will have a great effect on our entry. Furthermore, we must remember that we are not alone in this problem. One of the major future problems of every industrially developed country lies in this area of industrial relations and wages. And this problem is one that will grow bigger, not smaller. But let us not exaggerate our plight: we must not be too gloomy, especially when we share the problem with others.

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Mr. Edison, of inventive fame, is reputed once to have said that if you make the best mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door. I happen to think he was wrong, because it is the maker of mousetraps who has to beat a path to the doors of his customers. We have had to learn this. Nevertheless, I shall plagiarise Mr. Edison on more than one occasion in the course of my speech. And my first plagiarism is to suggest that if you have a bigger market for your mousetraps you have the opportunity— no more than that—to make them more cheaply, provided that you have the technical imagination. That is the commonplace argument for entry into the Common Market. It is a sound argument, because many consumer goods and consumer durables are going increasingly to be supplied by the big battalions in the future: and those who have not got the volume of sales to justify investment in high degrees of mechanisation and automation will not succeed. Entry into the Common Market will provide mass production opportunities, but only if companies are prepared to risk massive investment, based on the prospects of high sales volume.
But, my Lords, this is not the whole story. Industry does not produce capital goods, or industrial goods, or scientific goods, or many other forms of goods in great volume by mechanisation. It always surprises those totally un-familiar with industry to find the mechanisation and the automation in the factory making pharmaceutical pills or washing machines and the like: and to find when they go into an engineering factory where they might expect to see the hub of automation that it is not there, because they are making the "tens off" and "twenties off". I believe that we have a special genius for making "tens off" and "twenties off" in capital goods. It is born in the bones of the people of Yorkshire, the North East Coast and Scotland to tackle engineering jobs of that sort and I think that they are going to have a pretty good time in the Common Market if they stick to these native skills that they have exhibited so well in recent years in our capital goods exports.
In my present job I constantly visit small and medium sized exporting companies in the United Kingdom. Some of
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them—not all—impress me very greatly. They have youngish men either in charge or near the top. They make beautiful aesthetic goods, or complex electronic goods, or scientific goods, or ingenious goods which have found their own niche in the market. Those firms are going to do well if and when we enter the Common Market. I trace much of their success back to the period when we started increasing the number of trained engineers and applied scientists in our universities. At first when they emerged in small numbers they flowed into our big firms, but later they began to arrive in the small companies, and this is creating something of a revolution. Now they have reached a mature age, and some of them have started their own small technical companies. Others have reached high office in companies that used to be asleep. I have seen what really bright, analytical minds, employed with energy, can do to an old-fashioned company. And so have many Members of your Lordships' House. Such companies are already searching for growth. Their managers are quite certain that they will benefit from entry into the Common Market. So there is another point of optimism.
I have, however, one deep anxiety about many of these small companies, and that is that their sophistication in the fields of technology and marketing skill is often not matched by a corresponding insight into their own financial structure. Too often they will attempt to finance their own growth from their own cash flow, and this can be disastrous. They are too anxious to hang on to total 100 per cent. financial control. Many of them must be influenced to seek the help of our great financial institutions in capitalising themselves in a manner which will permit growth without hazarding their existence, so that in course of time they may become some of the great firms of this country and of Europe.
Much anxiety is expressed about managers today. There is endless comment on the effects of current rates of direct taxation on the enthusiasm with which managers and others go to work. There may be some truth in those comments, but I think there is a lot of exaggeration, too. What is very little commented upon is the relative size of the gross pay packet of British factory

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managers, British sales managers and British technologists as compared with the gross pay packet of those in similar positions in Western Europe. Admittedly, it is difficult to compare, say, the salary of a sales manager in a British company with that of a similar person in a French or a German company, because one can never be sure that one is comparing the same positions. Nevertheless there is growing evidence that in Western European countries the gross rates of salary are considerably higher than they are in this country.
I believe that the effect of this difference in levels of salary is a good deal more serious than any difference in relative taxation rates. Personally, I was never able to convince one of my subordinates in industry, when I was in industry, that it was not any good giving him a rise because taxation was so heavy that it would scarcely benefit him. That argument is overplayed. It has been used in some quarters as an excuse to underpay people. And if you underpay people who have serious responsibilities on their shoulders, then too much of their emotional energy has to be spent dealing with their own personal financial responsibilities. That is an aspect which will have to be looked at closely as we approach entry into the Common Market. Otherwise British companies are going to lose many of their best to Common Market competitors. A decade ago a high proportion of our graduates preferred not to go into industry. Indeed some referred to it as "the rate race". Furthermore, some parts of our industry were suspicious of graduates. Things are changing to-day, but it is still true of this country that the status of the industrial manager or the engineer or the salesman who works in industry is lower than it is in, say, West Germany or Japan or America. They do not get the respect from our society to which I think they are entitled. That is something else we must struggle to change. We need the support of the mass media in this struggle, and I am afraid we are not getting it. There are too many arts graduates connected with broadcasting and the Press and not enough industrial people to teach them the facts of life.
Now, my Lords, I am going to mount a hobby horse.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (LORD CHALFONT): What, another?
LORD BROWN: Yes, another.
Sophisticated markets, such as those of Western Europe, are increasingly more interested in the design, in either æsthetic or in performance terms, of the products which they are offered. They are becoming correspondingly less interested in sheer price comparisons. Mr. Edison might well have said that if you design a better mousetrap your profit margin will be much higher than that of your competitor; you will attract a greater volume of sales; and you will be able to increase the sophistication of your manufacturing methods. My Lords, if, with entry into the Common Market, there were to develop a firm resolve in the majority of British manufacturing companies to place in charge of the design of the product an executive directly responsible to the chief executive, with the same status and salary as the men in charge of manufacturing and marketing activities, then I think we should have made a very important step in facing up to the challenge of entry to the Common Market.
I want to make a point of psychological importance about product design. Many manufacturing companies continue to refer to the function of product design as "research and development". Now you may say that this is merely a semantic distinction. But whilst admitting that research is one of the techniques used in developing new products, as it is in developing new markets or new manufacturing processes, the use of the term "research" instead of "product design" for this function leads to trouble. I have seen it. It results in waste because some of those employed in so-called research and development departments believe that it denotes on their part the right to spend their time searching for new knowledge or doing things which redound to their own self-reputation, instead of devoting their efforts to seeing to it that their firms products are better than those of their competitors.
I have had my little gallop. Suffice it to say that in my view investment of growing resources in product design and the correct positioning of the man in

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charge of this function in the organisation of the company may well be one of the determinants of our success in the wider markets which will be open to us after our entry into the E.E.C.
That brings me to a consideration of our financial and other services for which the City of London in particular is so justly renowned. All Governments since the war have tended to have much greater insight into the processes of manufacturing and exporting goods than into some of the operations concerned with the exports of financial and professional services. We in the Board of Trade are trying to put this right, and I greatly welcome the work of the Committee on Invisible Exports. They have done a great deal to evaluate the contribution which these exports make to our balance of payments.
It is necessary, but not easy to-day, to bring home more forcibly to the public at large the size and nature of this great contribution. It will be noted that the authors of the White Paper which we are discussing had some difficulty (as your Lordships will see if you look at paragraphs 91 to 93) in estimating what effect our joining the Common Market will have in the field of services. In insurance, banking, merchanting, commodity markets and portfolio management, the City of London can offer more than any other city in Europe. I should have liked to speak in detail about the services and their opportunities in the Common Market. But my personal experience in that field is virtually nil, or certainly very slight. I was happy to hear yesterday the excellent speech by the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, and his insistence that the City and other firms were already very international in outlook. I hope he was not exaggerating. I also noted the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Plowden. He also sounded optimistic about the future of the income earning proclivities of these services in the Common Market.
Nor must we forget what we have to offer in the professional services provided by lawyers, accountants, actuaries, surveyors, management consultants, consultant engineers and so on. I hope that I am not being chauvinistic, but I believe that in these professions we have some things which are a little better than the
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services enjoyed from similar professions in Western Europe at the present moment. They are going to help us to earn our bread and butter and help our businesses in so doing.
Edison might have said that if you make the best mousetrap you still may not be able to sell it because of economic policies, such as a credit squeeze imposed on your market by anxiety about the balance of payments. If we enter the Common Market, there is surely reasonable hope that, because we have become a member of a larger economic bloc, we should at least be somewhat more insulated from the worrying and sometimes drastic effects of that unpleasant ebb and flow in our balance of payments which we have had to endure since the war. In the last week or so we have had a vision of how far monetary integration may go in the next decade in Europe. The Six have been discussing far-reaching proposals for economic co-ordination and monetary integration. We are following these developments with great interest and expect to play a full part in them as soon as we are a member of the E.E.C. We would be prepared to go along with the best of them in this field.
I have been speaking, perhaps rather selfishly, of the unquantifiable benefits which could accrue to this country if we can face the challenge of entering an enlarged market. Nevertheless, I believe that we shall bring some very substantial advantages to other members of the Community when and if we join them. We shall take in an extremely valuable heritage and a portfolio of scientific and technological development. This has already been much commented upon. But what is less often mentioned is the value to other members of the Community of our rather different business tradition in which I happen to be a believer. We have traded for a longer period in a wider range of countries in a wider range of goods than most individual members of the Community. We are highly experienced. We are, I think, also more relaxed in our dealings with each other and fairer to each other in business than many other nations. We are conditioned to a rather franker exposure of our individual businesses and our commercial affairs than others, although I was not always sure of this when trying to take the last Companies Act through this

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House. These different traditions will, I think, be of great value to the Community in many ways that are subtle and intangible, but are extremely important. I believe that we are admired for many obvious things among those whom we hope will become our colleague nations in the future.
There is one other intangible asset which was mentioned yesterday, but which I want to emphasise; that is, the traditions of our own Civil Service. I believe that its example will be of great assistance to our partners of the future. My period in the Board of Trade has convinced me that although this Service is not perfect and has faults, in general it is a series of truly admirable institutions.
The fact is that we do not have the alternative of staying as we are in this country, and I agree very much with the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, in his excellent speech yesterday. He said that it was happening in front of our eyes; and several other noble Lords have already noted that the Common Market is like a magnet, attracting a growing array of nations into its orbit. These things are going on, and clearly we should enter only on fair and equitable terms. But I for one should not like to face my children in 15 years' time if. because we failed to grasp a fair and open opportunity, they are then struggling with the appalling difficulties of an increasingly isolated Britain. I believe that if the economic challenge of our entry is sufficiently understood, it will be met by dynamic changes in Britain which will produce results which will more than offset the price which we know we shall have to pay.

AGRICULTURE: FARM PRICE REVIEW
3.36 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, with your permission I should like now to make the Statement about the Annual Farm Price Review. Details are in a White Paper now available in the Printed Paper Office. The Statement is as follows:
"During 1968–69 the agricultural industry had a difficult eighteen months largely as a result of poor weather
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and the aftermath of the foot-and-mouth epidemic. These factors, coupled with the tight credit situation, affected the momentum towards expansion. Even so, progress towards the objectives of the selective expansion programme continued, although in varying degree. It is against this background that this Review has been conducted, and the Government's aim is to ensure that the industry is enabled to overcome these problems.
"There are also some encouraging signs on this occasion. This year net output and net income are forecast to have risen substantially. Output in the 1969–70 farm year is expected to reach as high a point as it has ever done. Net income at over £535 million is expected to be the highest ever. We are anxious to maintain this momentum of production so as to make further progress towards the objectives of the selective expansion programme. In order to do this and to tide the industry over until this year's improvement has worked through, certain of the industry's needs must be met. These needs are clear: to replenish cash resources, to contain costs and to increase investment. This cannot be done simply by sticking to the traditional Annual Review methods of price adjustment and production grants. The leaders of the industry have recognised the importance of the Government's willingness to adopt a more flexible approach and to design the measures to meet the real need.
"The four-point package we are introducing is this. First, commodity prices. We are again making effective increases for the priority commodities —beef, pigmeat, wheat and barley. Because of the special circumstances this year we are doing the same for milk, sheep and potatoes. The increases on these seven commodities will not only offset costs but give farmers money over and above this. They amount to about £54 million. In accordance with our policy we shall reduce the guaranteed price of eggs by l·43d. per dozen. We are ending the Small Farm (Business Management) Scheme which has run its course.
"Second, extra resources in the way most quickly to hand. We are raising the rates of fertiliser and lime subsidies

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for the next 12 months. Nearly all farmers use fertilisers and we calculate that, depending on uptake, this will put an extra £10 million into the industry.
"Third, we shall introduce new incentives to eradicate brucellosis through premiums on milk and on beef cows in accredited herds. These should amount on average to £5 million annually in the first years. They will automatically increase as more herds become accredited. The impetus to eradicate the disease will also help further to reduce costs. There is public concern about this disease and I am anxious to make rapid progress to eradicate it.
"Fourth, there will be further incentives and resources directly linked to investment. We shall raise substantially for two years the rates of the agricultural capital grant scheme. The injection of cash through our other measures will, I believe, enable farmers to take full advantage of this improvement. The increased rates of capital grant should make available another £20 million or more for direct investment over a period of about two years.
"The Orders providing for increased rates of fertiliser and lime subsidies and of capital grants will be laid before the House at once. The changes will come into effect tomorrow.
"This four-point package cannot be precisely evaluated in conventional Review terms. But the measures more than recoup costs as an exceptional arrangement this year and leave the industry with its efficiency gain in full.
"In total, very substantial resources have been committed to the agricultural industry as a result of this Review. These, including the increased capital grants spread over a period of about two years, amount to about £85 million. We have provided the opportunities and conditions for the industry to keep up and to improve the momentum of selective expansion. I believe that farmers will respond. The trends to greater production and productivity must then result in a substantial move towards their income objective this year and the achievement of the selective expansion programme."
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for repeating this Statement in this House. Is the noble Lord aware that we welcome the news of the increase in production, and indeed some of the innovations in this Award? At £85 million, it is in fact the highest Award that has ever been given, but it has to cover about £60 million worth of increased costs, so that the net gain is relatively small. Is it a fact that the National Fanners' Union have refused to agree it? If this is so, is it because the purchasing power of farmers' incomes will still be lower after this Review than it was after the last Conservative Government's Review in 1964? Have further cost increases that will have to be faced later this year, arising out of the current wage awards throughout the economy, been taken into account in making this Review?
On a more cheerful note, may I ask whether the noble Lord is aware that I welcome his capital grant scheme, which will undoubtedly be a help to expansion? Is he also aware that the brucellosis incentive scheme will be generally welcomed; and may I ask him whether it will be joined shortly by an area eradication scheme, which of course will be needed as soon as possible? Is he aware that I am sure this will bring great satisfaction to the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, and to my noble friend Lord Rowallan, in their splendid campaign on this account?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, for his generous welcome. I doubt very much whether it was thought possible a month or two ago that anyone on the other side of the House would have found himself able to give a general welcome to the proposals which my right honourable friend has been able to make. The noble Lord made some calculations about the net gain in income. I am not sure that his arithmetic or his method of achieving this figure is absolutely fair. Much will depend upon how fanners respond to the additional grants that have been given. Their net income will be a result of the efforts which they make. It will not be determined by any simple adjustment in prices; it will be determined by the way they use the additional capital which is being made available to them.

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I was asked about the brucellosis scheme. The proposals which are embodied in this Review package are, of course, in addition to the area eradication scheme. There will be additional costs in relation to that scheme—compensation for the slaughter of animals, for example—but of course the incentive given here will enable that area scheme, when it is started next year, to be more effectively implemented.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord just one supplementary question on this matter? Is he aware that my assessment of the net income effect is based on a well-informed article in the financial section of The Times last week, which indicated that the purchasing power of farmers' incomes had been falling over the last five or six years; that it is less by some 5 per cent. than it was in 1964–65, and that all the calculations which his experts will make will show him that that could not possibly be picked up by the net effect of this Award?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I know that some complicated calculations have been made as to this, but I am simply saying to the noble Lord that I do not think, from the figures I have given about the estimated cost of this package, that one can deduce what the net income of the farmers will be. Their net income at the end of next year will be a factor of their utilisation of the opportunities that are being afforded to them.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, I rise from the Liberal Benches to welcome this Review, but I would ask: has it gone far enough? We are now entering negotiations to join the Common Market, and the sooner a large home agricultural expansion takes place the less the cost is going to be for us in joining the Common Market. I welcome the brucellosis scheme, and I am glad to hear that the eradication and slaughter policy has not been abandoned. Can the Government give me an assurance on two points? Brucellosis in cattle, and also in humans (when it is known as undulant fever), should be a notifiable disease. The other point I should like to ask is whether the Government will make undulant fever an industrial disease.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord asks whether this Review goes far enough. I have no doubt that it does not go far enough for some farmers; but it goes a long way. As for the notification of brucellosis, we debated this matter at some length on a recent Order and I am afraid that the position as then stated is not affected by this Review Award.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, the noble Lord said that this Review goes far enough for some farmers. Could he answer my noble friend's question and say whether it goes far enough for the National Farmers' Union?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am not sure that the noble Lord heard me correctly. I said I had no doubt that it does not go far enough for some farmers. As to the attitude of the National Farmers' Union, this is not an agreed Award but they accept that it represents an imaginative approach to their problems.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, in view of my noble friend's most welcome statement on brucellosis, may I ask him whether there is any chance of a special area being designated this year, without our having to wait until next year?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, we have debated this matter, as I have said, at some length. The scheme which will start next year is geared basically to the availability of veterinary skill. The effect of this voluntary scheme which is now being started, or encouraged, by these incentive payments will mean that the areas selected will be more easily designated, and the progress with the compulsory scheme will be expedited by the progress made by the present voluntary scheme.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, while I am glad to see that the Government have put emphasis on financing long-term improvements and re-equipment which are impossible in this age of inflation without quite exceptional help, may I refer to the questiton of income and ask the noble Lord whether it is not true, looking at the departmental figures which are published in last year's White Paper, that whereas he may say, correctly, that farm

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income last year reached the highest figure ever, in fact it is only 4 per cent. up on the figure of two years ago, and that without allowing anything for the drop in the value of money. Is that in accordance with the Government's policy for industry?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, it is not in accordance with the Government's trading policy to reduce anyone's income, but if the noble Lord wishes to get an absolutely accurate assessment of the net income to farmers he should also take into account that the total figure is divided among fewer farmers.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, while welcoming most sincerely the results of this Review, may I ask my noble friend three questions? The first relates to the capital grant. This is an admirable means of providing, in effect, cheap capital for farmers, but would not my noble friend agree that it is now time to consider means of providing cheap credit, not only for farm buildings but for all forms of agricultural capital requirements, on the analogy of the cheap credits which are provided, for instance, for the ship-building industry, and also on the analogy of the special cheap credits provided in most of the countries of Europe through their agricultural credit corporations. Secondly, can my noble friend give an assurance that the increased subsidy on lime and fertilisers will in fact result in cheaper fertilisers for farmers, rather than in higher profits for the fertiliser manufacturers? Thirdly, would not my noble friend agree that the time has now come to call a halt to this annual farce which is called the Price Review and which really results in very little other than wasting the time of extremely busy and usually (possibly I should say "unusually") intelligent men, and to consider the desirability of having this Price Review every three or every five years?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, on the question of cheap credit, I recognise that there is a very—I was going to say "plausible" case, but perhaps persuasive case is a better term, for cheap credit; but if the credit were to be made available for this industry, as distinct from other industries, there would be an element of subsidy. It is the view of the Government that this subsidy is better
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employed in this selective way. What we really want is cheaper credit all round, and I am glad to see that there has recently been an improvement in that direction.
As to the fertiliser subsidy, the point raised by my noble friend is a relevant one. My right honourable friend took the precaution of consulting with the principal fertiliser manufacturers and has received from them an assurance that there will be no increase in the current prices of fertilisers over the next 12 months unless there are exceptional circumstances, and even then there will be full consultation with the Government and the farming interests.
I was asked about an annual review, as against a biennial review—
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I referred to a triennial review.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, if there are problems and difficulties and rises in temperature over the annual reviews, I hesitate to think what would happen if everything were stored up for a three-year review.

BRITAIN AND THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
3.55 p.m.
Debate resumed.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWARK: My Lords, like most of your Lordships who have declared themselves I, too, am a keen supporter of the idea that Britain should go into Europe, and that is why I am glad that in many of the speeches, both here and in another place, the point has been made that the White Paper cannot be treated in isolation. Inevitably it must come within the context of European policy as a whole. Indeed, were this discussion to be confined to the figures given in the White Paper the debate could well have been conducted by economists and statisticians only.
We cannot separate the economics of the European Community from the concept of some sort of political union. Yet some leaders, both in England and abroad, seem reluctant to admit that we may have to accept some limitation of our sovereignty if we are to take our place in a United States of Europe. It is true that Herr Brandt said earlier this month

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that we must move towards a political co-operation which is less than supranational but much more than the conventional type of inter-Governmental relationship. But I wish he would be more specific. Our own Prime Minister is even less specific. At a European dinner in the Guildhall last July, he quoted Hugh Gaitskell to the effect that:
"Whatever the future may hold, the creation of supra-national and federal political or defence institutions is not a reality in ten or twenty years."
Perhaps so—perhaps not. My belief is that the speed of modern events will overtake us, and if we do not go into the Market we shall find ourselves in a situation that compels decisions which presuppose a European political structure. The sort of decisions I have in mind affect the future, among other things, of agriculture and industry.
Let us look at agriculture first. As I see it, unless there is some sort of political union, some sort of supranational planning authority, we shall fail to solve Europe's agricultural problems. The alternative is grim. If Britain does succeed in entering the Common Market as it stands and no steps are taken towards greater political union, then the already serious problem of huge food surpluses in Europe may get progressively worse. Your Lordships know that representatives of the Common Market countries have been trying to solve this problem within the complex of existing Common Market arrangements, but they have not been particularly successful.
Surely the problem should be lifted to a new level. Instead of six separate Governments haggling with each other from their respective national standpoints, a common government in Europe should see how, having fed themselves, it can best deal with large agricultural surpluses to feed the hungry of the world. But such a food disposal scheme would need to be financed on a common European basis, requiring a common budget; and this of course presupposes a common government. Yet this is precisely what our Prime Minister and Herr Brandt say should be left over for twenty years to the next generation. If they are right, if we confine ourselves to the Common Market apart from the structure of a United Europe, what then will happen to agriculture? I think there are two
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possibilities, both of which are alarming. First, surpluses could be liquidated through the Mansholt Plan, which envisages a big reduction in the acreage devoted to agricultural production. There would be a ten-year programme removing 10 million acres from production—an area roughly the size of Belgium—and some 5 million farmers and workers would leave the land as a result. Of course, the scheme would reduce the surpluses, but at what a price! And it would restrict food production at a time when the hungry of the world are crying out for food. It would also drive into the factories and towns thousands of small farmers and other producers whose whole life has been spent on the land. Indeed, it would be a repetition of the less agreeable features of our own Industrial Revolution.
A second method would be to reduce the surpluses by a vast reduction in farm prices. This would discourage production and there would be a smaller output from the existing acreage. This would lead to poverty and hunger. When we have poverty and hunger it is not long before we find ourselves in a revolutionary situation. How much better to encourage full production throughout the whole of Europe, including Britain, through good price arrangements and an assured market. The assured market would consist of some 350 million Western Europeans, all on a rising standard of life secured by wage/price leadership in the hands of a common European Government. There would still be huge food surpluses, of course, but an organised marketing system could dispose of them to the underdeveloped countries.
Indeed, far from finding surpluses a disadvantage, they would become a necessary part of the process of production, and machinery could be established to dispose of them regularly. By disposing of them to Pakistan and India and the underdeveloped countries, an act of charity would become practical politics. It would also be a strong instrument of real policy, as when the hungry are fed and standards are raised the basic cause for political upheaval and revolution is removed. To finance the whole scheme the European Government would have to carry the project on a common European budget, and the burden would have to be fairly shared by all Europeans. But

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in helping others we should also be helping ourselves. The British farmer would benefit, because no longer would he find the French or Belgian fanner obliged to cut his throat by dumping surpluses on the British market. All food surpluses in Europe would go to relieve the starving.
If this seems starry eyed, may I remind your Lordships that the United States of America were able to feed a devastated Europe after the war in addition to maintaining a high standard of life for its own people. From 1944 to 1952 American aid to Europe in grants and loans under UNRRA and Marshall Aid totalled millions of dollars. Not only has Europe greater resources and more people at work than America, to say nothing of the improvements in methods of production and technology in the quarter century since the war, indeed Europe should be able to help India and Pakistan and other underdeveloped countries elsewhere even more than America was able to help Europe a quarter of a century ago. We have to think in bold and imaginative terms, but these bold and imaginative terms will never be realised without some sort of common Government, which, alas! the Prime Minister and Herr Brandt declared could be left for another twenty years.
I said that there were two decisions at least which required a common Government. The first was agriculture, at which we have just looked, and the second is industry. This second problem just cannot be solved without a common European Government either. It is what I might call the problem of super-capitalism; and when I speak of super-capitalism I am thinking of the great industrial groupings now taking shape in Europe and spanning national frontiers and outgrowing their original national bases. Unilever has long been an example of this tendency. The oil companies and the motorcar industry are others. Even the Co-ops are coming together on a European basis with their inter-Co-op organisation, which will link up their manufacturing and bulk buying operations. And the tendency will continue as this decade proceeds. Indeed, it is inevitable, and made doubly so by the growing competition of the Americans and the Japanese.
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These developments will make obsolete the economic and industrial legislation of small national States, and if there is to be no political union in Europe and no European Government to guide the development of these giants and to curb their excesses, we shall have a situation in which the individual countries will have little control of or influence on their affairs. All political Parties in this country accept the need, to a greater or lesser extent, of some Government intervention in the British national economy, and it is all the more surprising therefore that a number of our statesmen do not seem to appreciate the need for a measure of intervention by a central political authority in a European supra-national authority.
My Lords, before I sit down may I say a very few words about what I envisage when I speak of European Government or a central political authority, as I know that the concept itself can conjure up a bogey of centralism and bureaucracy that is worse even than the Kremlin, a bogey that destroys national freedom and inherited values. In fact nothing could be further from my mind. May I give your Lordships an illustration from our life here in London itself. My job takes me to most of the boroughs South of the river. Each of those boroughs has its distinctive life, its peculiarities, its way of doing things—in fact its character. Greenwich is different from Lewisham and both are different from Southwark and Wandsworth. Again all four are different from Merton and Richmond. Yet all of them on certain matters take counsel together in the G.L.C. and abide by their common decisions.
What I want to see established is a G.E.C., a Greater European Council, which will be a genuine and democratically elected Parliament for Europe with the power to make decisions that will be binding on each of the constituent members. Let us learn from history so that we may avoid repeating our worst mistakes. Forty years ago the Government of Ramsay MacDonald, because it refused to act in time, because it was timid and lacked foresight, hastened the slump conditions of the 'thirties and brought disaster to our country. It would be tragic if another Labour Government, or a Government of any sort, by failing

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to read the signs of the times plunged Britain into an even greater disaster. The days of the nation-State are over and the next step towards world community is, for us in the West, a united Europe which, while retaining all those valuable diversities of national cultures and traditions that constitute their originality, will give sense and direction to our common social and economic interests. To turn the vision of this larger Europe into a reality is one that we shall cast aside at our peril.
4.9 p.m.
VISCOUNT CHANDOS: My Lords, I do not propose to go in any detail into the economic subjects. I shall, of course, endeavour to follow the right reverend Prelate, so far as I can, not in the hope of rewards in this particular life but as an insurance in the next. But I want to keep as closely as I can to the subject and the proper issues. It is quite clear, I think, that on economic grounds alone we are not to-day in possession of the facts upon which we could build the cloud-capped towers of the Community: or, for that matter, to pull them down.
But the White Paper has given me one great piece of satisfaction. It has given birth to a philosophical aphorism from the Foreign Secretary which I hope has tickled the fancy of your Lordships as much as it has mine. Here it is:
"The more one attempts to give a truthful picture, the less precise necessarily one must be."
This sentence is perhaps a fitting pendant to Sir Winston's famous phrase:
"My views are a harmonious process which keeps them in relation to the current movement of events".
By which he meant, and it was something of a joke, "I have changed my mind." The Foreign Secretary's phrase is serious and means "We haven't a clue!". One or other of these two quotations will serve right honourable gentlemen who are Ministers in good stead when they come to answer supplementary questions on almost any subject from almost any quarter.
I personally cannot attempt to judge the economic issues. I am not that presumptuous, in face of what has been said in another place, besides what I have
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already quoted. In a felicitous phrase Mr. Thorpe said:
"The White Paper makes the Delphic Oracle seem decisive."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 24/2/70, col. 1033.]
Then, of course, there is the famous spread, between fine weather and dirty weather, of £100 million and £1,100 million. So I think it is obvious that negotiations must bring—indeed, must be made to bring—the figures more into focus. With that we shall all agree, I think. If they do not, then we should be taking in the dark the most momentous peace-time decision since the Reform Bill. Speaking of negotiations, we can, I believe, make one prophecy with some certainty that it will be fulfilled. If the negotiations succeed, and we are admitted, the Opposition Leader, whoever he may be, and the Leader of the Liberal Party will harmoniously declare that the Government have sold the British birthright for a mess of Continental pottage. That I think we may take to be certain in our Parliamentary system.
Having spent all my life in negotiations of one kind or another, I am inclined to believe that a sensible bargain, or bargains, can be struck by negotiations on the economics. Certainly such negotiations will be long and complex. It is probable that they will be out of the reach of someone like myself who, at my age, has become somewhat weary of statistics and White Papers; and perhaps the general public sometimes share my views.
Behind the White Paper, however (and several noble Lords have referred to this), there loom the political questions which appear to me to be primary and which, even in this House, have been largely put into the background. The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, whose powers of persuasion seldom fall short of his powers of perseverance—which are very high—seems in a recent article to have put his finger on this very spot. He said:
"We should stick out"—
not his most elegant phrase, my Lords—
"in common with the vast majority of public opinion on the Continent and indeed, as it now appears, in France itself, for a minimum of supra-nationality."
I am very much with the noble Lord when he talks about the political matters being very primary, but I lose him entirely when he talks about "a minimum

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of supra-nationality". Yesterday, again, he said:
"I do not think we can avoid discussion of these great problems"—
he was referring to the political problems—
"with our prospective partners during the negotiations..".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17/3/70; col. 1026.]
I agree wholeheartedly about the need to bring the political aspects more into the foreground, and I have departed a little from my noble friend Lord Watkinson, who concentrated entirely upon the Common Market increasing the income and the prosperity of its inhabitants. We have also to think about what the effect is going to be on our Government; and I think that phrases like "a minimum of supra-nationality" require analysis and much further explanation.
Let me put my difficulties by way of a wholly imaginary example. Country A, a member of the Community, pursues an over-extravagant policy with regard to social services; or, if noble Lords opposite prefer, pursues an overxtravagant policy regarding defence and armaments. This extravagance, pardonable though it may appear to the political Party advocating it, appears to the rest of the world as inflationary, and this leads to a fall in the relative value of the currency of the extravagant country—relative, that is, to the currencies of other countries who are members of the Community. If this relative value is allowed to continue to fall, then the prohibition of tariffs, or the quantitative regulation of imports, becomes something of a fraud, because devaluation has the effect upon imports of a tariff, by making them dearer, and on exports of a subsidy, by making them cheaper, both of which concepts, of course, are against the whole basis of the Community.
It will be said that this will not happen; that it cannot be allowed to happen if the concept of the Market is to remain intact. But, my Lords, what will happen? The alternative is that the Central Bank—and there obviously must be one—will say, "We cannot buy or support your currency unless your policies are reversed, and unless a much more austere budgetary control is imposed." I should be interested to hear (and I am not asking a rhetorical ques-
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tion, but genuinely asking for information and clarification on these vital points) how this is reconcilable with the subject of "a minimum of supranationality". I do not understand it, and I should like to be instructed.
I am not frequently in agreement on political matters with Mr. Michael Foot, but I sympathise with what he said in another place when pleading for "the fullest possible discussion about what those institutions will be". Later on, he said:
"These are matters on which we should not surrender our parliamentary and democratic rights unless these matters are made much clearer than they are now."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 24/2/70; col. 1046.]
I think they must be. Even the Motion on the Order Paper refers only to the White Paper and not, unfortunately, to the still wider issue. I earnestly beg the Government to address themselves—I do not say necessarily this afternoon but before very much more time has passed— to these questions. The instrument of government in this country is, after all, financial, and I want to understand how it is to be reconciled with the kind of action that would be necessary in the imaginary example which I have given.
Again there is some opinion of the extreme Right which supports our entry into the Community because it would curtail the powers of the trade unions. That is not my thought at all. It is, of course, quite true that if you enlarge the pool of labour, whether skilled or un-skilled, you will pro tanto reduce the shortages which the trade unions have been able to exploit; they are bound to be reduced. I want to see the trade unions in this country strengthened, but only, of course, if their leaders are democratically elected and some new rules are formulated.
Finally, I wholeheartedly agree that the entry of Britain, if it can be sensibly arranged, will have far more important results than mere economics. Several noble Lords have eloquently drawn attention to the need for the European genius and tradition to make itself more felt in the councils of the world. The late Lord Attlee, if I remember aright, was very apprehensive about our mature democracy, with its manifest faults and failures, becoming a partner in a semi or largely federal system in which the

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three largest partners have had either a short or a tempestuous history—and in some cases both—of democratic government. However, there is another side to this, with which I wish to close. Is it not clear, looking at the world, and perhaps in particular to the United States, that this European point of view should have a greater weight in reshaping the institutions and policies of the Free World? And in this task, participation by the United Kingdom is considered to be little short of essential if the European contribution is to have the weight which it deserves. We in this country have developed the most sophisticated form of democratic government, and it would be a tragedy if our experience was not put to work in the wider context of Europe.
4.20 p.m.
LORD FRANCIS-WILLIAMS: My Lords, I find myself on this occasion on the contrary side to the Church, to most of big business and indeed to what appears to be a majority of my own Front Bench. It is not a position which disturbs me very much, and I feel sure I shall survive it, because, try as I will, I have, on the whole, found it impossible to accept the view held by many of those whose judgment on such matters I normally endorse that it would be a good thing in the short-term, the medium-term, or the long-term for us to go into the European Common Market. The impact effect of entry has been talked about a good deal, and clearly there is no doubt on either side, whether one is for it or against it, that it means a rise in our cost of living and fresh difficulties in our balance of payments.
For the whole lifetime of the present Government we have been seeking to get incomes and prices in balance, and fighting to improve the position in our balance of trade. If we now go into the Common Market the immediate result will be "Back to the drawing board"—or perhaps for most of our people "Back to the treadmill", because we shall have to ask the people of this country again to put up with sacrifices which in the past they have, on the whole, borne with considerable cheerfulness, in order to right the economic condition of this country. There is not much evidence either way that that belief will ultimately
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turn out all right. It has been said that although prices will rise, wages will follow suit. In the light of past experience one asks oneself whether they will do so, or whether there will not be the same battle to try to prevent them from doing so. One knows for an absolute surety that the income of the old-age pensioners and of those who live on fixed incomes will not go up at the necessary rate to keep pace with this rise in the cost of living, however temporary we are assured its effect will be.
Many of your Lordships have already dealt with considerable force with the impact effects of this decision, notably in the brilliant speech from a former president of the National Farmers Union, in the speech of my noble friend Lord Moyle and in other speeches, and I am sure they will be dealt with with equal force when my noble friend Lord Blyton rises to his feet. Therefore it is not simply the impact consequences—to use that favourite but not very explanatory term—that I am concerned with, but with the long-term view. What I ask myself is what are we doing if we join the Common Market? We are paying very heavily, in the first instance, to join what is a closed-in community, an exclusive club with a strong tendency, as we know from our own past experience, to black ball those who would like to join it. When we talk of all these increasing markets, this benefit from partnership in a great Community, we must make no mistake in realising that it is a closed community.
The extent to which its policies so far have made that clear is perhaps shown by the change of attitude of many people in the United States who were originally all in favour of our getting into the European Common Market, and of every-body else doing so, too. There was only recently strong criticism by the United States Ambassador to the E.E.C. itself about the extent to which the policies of the E.E.C. were undermining the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The attack on the E.E.C. as an instrument which was closing, not opening, the doors of world trade was renewed by the official United States spokesman at the annual GATT Assembly. He and others have warned that it is a matter which we may expect to see reflected in the attitudes of Congress not only to European

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economic policies but also to European defence policies.
I would recommend to your Lordships a remarkable book, as I think, produced by a number of eminent economists under the editorship of Professor Harry G. Johnson and entitled New Trade Strategy for the World Economy. This book, in a series of articles, endeavours to show— and to my mind shows undeniably—that Britain's best economic future lies not in the European Economic Community but in seeking to develop a free trade area, at first round the North Atlantic but, unlike E.E.C., open-ended and available for others to join—not a closed Community, but one seeking to liberalise all world trade and not sectionalise it.
One of the arguments in an extremely interesting speech by the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, yesterday was that one of the reasons why we should join the European Market was that it would help to avoid the commercial domination of European industry by American interests, which would be bad both for Europe and for America. But I would have your Lordships note that one of the strong arguments of the White Paper itself, set out on page 32, is that if the United Kingdom entered the European Common Market it is likely that we should attract substantially more American investment in this country than if the United Kingdom remained outside. They say, remarking on the amount of American investment in 1968, that "the stakes are high"; and indeed they are.
I remember that I wrote a book some eight years ago which I called The American Invasion, in which I noted that on the basis of estimates by the United States Department of Commerce, the United States investments in British industry already totalled £1,250 million, and that it was increasing by more than 13½ per cent. every year. What is interesting is that, contrary to the experience when Britain was a great capital provider and lender to the world, that money was not going into capital industries to build new permanent works, but primarily into the consumer market industries. Indeed, it is the case that increasingly the British kitchen, the British dining room, the British lounge, the British bedroom, the British bathroom and the British garage are dominated by United States-controlled
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products. It is also the case that more than half of the English feminine complexion, of which we are all so proud, comes out of American bottles. It is surely the case, as the White Paper states, that if American investment is going to flow into this country at a greater rate than ever, and this is one of the attractions of joining the European Market, we might as well apply for State membership right away.
I ask your Lordships, as I ask myself thinking on this matter for a long time, what would be the ultimate end for Europe if the idea of the Common Market were to succeed, as fortunately I myself think it cannot hope to succeed? The noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, said that the judgments must be made largely on a business basis, but I am concerned not only with business, as we all must be, but with the quality of life, and I ask myself how this search for a common market affects the quality of life. I begin to fear that if it is the common market, the large identical market, for consumer goods that is going to dominate our lives, then we are headed for a sort of American waste of identical supermarkets and deep freeze foods. Because I think that nobody who over the years, as I have done, has regularly visited America can help but be disturbed by the extent to which, even in the quarter-century since the war, all the idiosyncracies and delights and changes and varieties of American life are becoming ironed out because of the need to accept the values of an enormous con
sumer market where the value of being a good American becomes increasingly that of eating, dressing, behaving and thinking like all other Americans.
One need not be a Marxist to recognise that the primary economic mood of a community closely affects and patterns its whole social life, and if we are to tie ourselves to this belief that what ought to dominate our economic and even our political thinking is this building of a great consumer market which will buy more and more of the same things, then I think we should accept the fact that in the process of doing so we shall throw aside much of what we have long regarded as the true quality of civilised life. I do not believe that, if we become more like the French, or more like the Italians, and buy the same things as they do, and eventually pro-

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duce the same kind of mongrel political constitution which will take in bits from all of us, we shall be bigger than we are now. I think that in all essential things we shall be smaller and so will they.
Goethe once said that the great quality of the British was that they had the courage to be that which nature made them. Nature made us the inhabitants of an island with our eyes turned outward to the whole world, partners in a world-wide Commonwealth of every colour, race and creed. I believe that at this moment in time, when one of the greatest problems of the future is to bridge the gap between the rich nations and the white nations, and the poor nations and the coloured nations, Britain, above all countries, should not seem in any way to be turning its back on that wider world, to seek membership of a white man's club which hopes to be rich, and in the relative terms of the world is, and which is primarily dedicated to seeing that it remains rich whatever may happen elsewhere.
I believe that if we are to be true to what nature made us, we should remember the value of variety and differences among peoples. We should not seek to enclose ourselves within one continent, but should seek rather to develop the markets of the world and assist the un-developed countries, which in the long-term present, even in economic terms, by far the greatest opportunities and markets that lie ahead. Of course we cannot, and must not, turn our back on Europe, but let us not seek to think in European terms alone or primarily. To my mind, because of these considerations both in the short-term, the medium-term and the long-term, the price for entry into this club is altogether too high.
4.38 p.m.
LORD WILBERFORCE: My Lords, I join in this debate, only very briefly as a non-economist, because I believe that figures, whether they are good or bad, statistics whether they are useful or misleading, and economic arguments, whether they are sophisticated or fallacious (and there are plenty of all those categories in the White Paper) have not very much meaning apart from the institutions and the men who have to work them. I should like for a few minutes to address my remarks to the institutions which compose the Economic Com-
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munity, following in spirit the speech of the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos. Let me recall a few prosaic details, which I venture to do because over the last seven years or so I have personally had an opportunity of making acquaintance with the Community's institutions and with a considerable number of the personalities who are at the head of various branches of them.
The main treaty which we have to sign, the Treaty of Rome, is a document of some 250 Articles in four languages, soon to become five languages, with Annexes longer than the Treaty itself. There are of course a number of other treaties as well. In addition, there is a mass of subsidiary legislation which puts this Community together. There are directives, decisions, recommendations and, most important, regulations which have the force of law. These regulations, some of which are now long and elaborate documents of economic control, are now running at the rate of over 1,000 per year. On all of these documents, the Treaty and the subsidiary documents, there are numerous decisions, of a lengthy character, of the courts in Europe—the European Court at Luxembourg, and the Superior Courts of the member States.
All of these together make up the structure which composes the Community; and when we join the Community it is not a question simply of jumping over a wall and finding our-selves inside a garden of paradise in which we can pluck the now forbidden fruits. What we have to do is to enter this enormously elaborate network, subject to any transitional arrangements that may be made. The members have had ten years to adjust themselves to legislation as it comes through. We have at one blow, subject to what we can negotiate, and subject to any transitional period, to swallow the whole lot. After we have entered, we have to play this game according to its rules, its very elaborate rules.
The member States, their enterprises, their companies and their businessmen are occupied a good deal of their time in scrutinising this legislation—the Treaty, the regulations and so on—to see whether they apply to their businesses; whether there is any legitimate way they can get round them; and whether the other fellow in another State is evading their

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provisions. That is a full-time and very expert job for a large number of people. That is why and where, my Lords, I believe it is very necessary that, if we are to estimate our chances of doing well or badly out of our entry into this Community, we must look to our expert and legal resources. Mr. Enoch Powell, who has a knack of hitting nails on the head, said the other day:
"On the whole, Europeans have sharper minds than we have",
and I believe that to be true. It is certainly true that very many European politicians, administrators and diplomats have had a legal training. That, in this country, is an exception. Fortunately, the remarkable man who is going to lead our negotiations, Sir Con O'Neill, happens to be trained as a lawyer. That is very exceptional, however, and unless we are able to strengthen his team and the infrastructure of business lawyers in this country, we shall stand very little chance of engaging on equal terms in this work.
There have been formed, fortunately, in the last five years a number of associations of business lawyers training themselves and equipping themselves for precisely this job. I was present only last week at two meetings of different associations of such lawyers, attended by people from the Communities. Another interesting figure (I apologise if it has been given already, but I cannot find that it has) is that there are no fewer than 26 universities in this country which have courses of one kind or another on the European Economic Community, many of them including courses on business law. That is a very good thing; but I think it worth while, if I may, to try to encourage Her Majesty's Government to back, so far as they can, meetings of this kind; to encourage and support courses and seminars and interchanges. I know that on many occasions they do just that, but there is always more that can be done. I would also urge them to give good travel allowances to people who want to go and study these things outside this country; and to support, as I am sure it will become necessary to support, the setting up of a central research institution which will compile, bring together and give advice upon these extremely elaborate and technical matters. Whether that is done as an extension of Chatham House or the British
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Institute of International Law or both of them, I feel sure that something of that kind will have to be done and greatly expanded in the next year or so; and I therefore appeal to the Government to give whatever help they can.
The lawyers are doing what they can to improve and train themselves. Of course, lawyer-baiting is a popular pursuit nowadays, second in popularity, perhaps, only to the baiting of vicechancellors; but we do depend, and we shall depend very much, on these people, and our economic success or failure can be very largely influenced by their skill or otherwise. This does not come in only as to negotiations for entry, important though they are. It does not come in only as to such constitutional safeguards as we want to get in order to preserve the sovereignty of Parliament, and so on, important though they are, too. There are also a large number of constructive matters on which those who combine knowledge of business and law can help, some of which are already of concern and in development in Europe. Some have been mentioned already in this debate: the formation of European companies, overlapping national boundaries; the construction of a European patent law; the development of a consistent law as to concentrations and mergers. All of these are important enterprises which, if developed in the right way, can fertilise and stimulate economic activity. I believe that the widening of the horizon in this way is one of the items—the invisible, intangible items—which has to be brought in, together with the figures which we find in the White Paper, before we can properly assess what we are going to gain or lose by joining the Community.
I have spoken of the widening of horizons in a limited respect, and I must, if it is proper to do so, record my conviction that this technical, limited and economic widening of horizons in the respect which I have mentioned is, in my belief, only a part of a much larger and more general process of escaping from our present slough of parochialism, frustration and dissatisfaction with ourselves— a reason which alone would justify our joining the Community. But that is another story. I said that I wanted to confine my remarks to one particular aspect, and I will not enter into these very much broader and wider aspects.
4.49 p.m.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, in this debate to-day we have heard Lord Watkinson and Lord Brown put the point of view of big business for joining the Common Market very impressively. Therefore, they need no help from me. But in the course of my speech I want to say something about what the working man and the man and the woman in the street are saying about this issue. Since the publication of the White Paper, Mr. Maudling has accused the Prime Minister of turning the Common Market issue into a political football. Apparently, the question of our entry into Europe must not be a political issue. But unfortunately for all those who want to go into the Market, it is a political issue already. It is a matter of such national and historical importance that the Prime Minister is right to highlight the Tory Party policy of adopting the Common Market principles of the value-added tax and the food import levies with all their implications. And he was right to ask what their terms of entry would be.
Whatever may be the attitude of the Government—and they keep their options open to go either way, either in or out— at least in my attitude I am voicing the views of the Labour Party Conference which is nearer to my views than those of my noble friends who wish to rush us into the Common Market. I say to the Prime Minister that he should fight the issue of entry itself. He was of my view for years; and I have seen nothing that has happened over the past few years to have changed his views over this. What I am certain of is that if he fought the issue of "no entry", now that the White Paper has spelled out the awesome cost, he would find the people of this land behind him, and he would unite the Labour Movement behind him if he took this line. There is no use in blinking the fact that the majority of people in Britain are against going into the Common Market. I know that the Prime Minister refuses to go that far; but if the Government persist, then I am sure when the Election comes they will go to the country as a Party bitterly divided. If he takes the line that I suggest, there will be unity against a Tory leadership in which they will have to set out their entry terms.
Of course, our opponents would cry "cynicism". It is not electoral opportunism now at work in the Labour move-
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ment; it is quite simply that Common Market entry, on what terms we can foresee, carries the greatest threat to our living standards since the 1930s. During the years since 1955, the proMarketeers have changed their ground many times. In 1955, we were told by Mr. Macmillan, the then Premier, on his application, that there were great prizes for us if we went in and dire perils if we stayed out. Then the Marketeers shifted their ground and said that in the short term it would be difficult, but that in the long term there would be an El Dorado with great benefits.
Now we are told that it is not so much the economic case for going in as the political case. In all this controversy we have never had spelt out to us what these great benefits on entry are. The alleged advantages are remote and unintelligible.
When the White Paper speaks of these supposed benefits, as my noble friend Lord Brown did to-day, it abandons facts and figures and hides behind meaningless words like "dynamic", "quantification", "specialisation", and other words that convey nothing at all. There has been one result since the White Paper was published. It is that the opinions that I hold are now held by over 60 per cent. of the people of Britain. No matter how the political Parties manoeuvre to prevent this becoming a political issue for the people to decide they will miserably fail.
In speaking on the White Paper I want to deal with the economic and also the political aspects. I am sure that I may be told that the White Paper does not deal with the political aspects, and I will accept that; but for all that the economics and politics in this issue are inseparable. The effect produced by the White Paper on the cost of going into the Market is, I think: "Pay more for a reduced standard of life". The housewives of Britain are in no doubt that their grocery bills are going to rise tremendously The White Paper admits that going into the E.E.C. will put prices up by as much as 26 per cent. But the White Paper then states that the food bill may be reduced a little, "allowing for changes in the pattern of consumption". This simply means that the poorer people will have to be content with a meaner diet. It will be margarine instead of butter; and with meat at 15s. 4d. a lb. (against 8s. 7d. here) they, like the Continental poor

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people I have seen, will be forced to eat horsemeat—which will be the likely portion of the British housewife.
It also means that our vast improvement in the standard of life over the last ten years will be thrown away in order to pay the housekeeping bills of the Europeans. The price of foodstuffs of the people is to go up on entry, whether the transitional stage be short or long. From reports from Brussels, we learn that it is likely to be short; and so far as France is concerned, we must pay the whole price. For what? Where are the advantages to compensate us for this huge sacrifice? The White Paper says:
"It has not been possible to quantify the beneficial effects of entry at all."
This, in plain language, is to tell us that the Government are aware of the massive disadvantages in joining but have not the slightest idea of what good it is going to do us if we get in.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, does the noble Lord really think that if we go into the Common Market the people of this country will be reduced to a diet of horsemeat and margarine? If he does, does he think that any Government in this country would be likely to accept such terms?
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, all I would say to the noble Lord is that I went to Strasbourg years ago; I have been through this for twenty years. If you go to the working class areas of Paris and Brussels, you will see that the people eat horsemeat because they cannot afford to pay the price of other meat.
My Lords, since I came to your Lordships' House I have consistently said that a huge economic burden would be inflicted on Britain if we entered the Common Market. The White Paper has confirmed what I have said in this House over the last four years: that the damage would be great. It is not my intention to quote the prices of Common Market foodstuffs against our prices; they are in the White Paper for all to see. But they are exceedingly harsh and sharp for everybody with small incomes, and they are particularly hard on old and retired people who spend the highest proportion of their income on food, as do the large families in our country.
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In the 1967 White Paper the rise in the cost of living was calculated at between 2½ per cent. and 3½ per cent. Now we are told that it will be from 4 per cent. to 5 per cent. because food prices in the Common Market have been going up. My experience over the last ten years has been that they never come down! The White Paper does not estimate what further addition there will be to the 4 per cent. or 5 per cent. rise if on entry we were forced, as we would be, to adopt the E.E.C. value-added tax. This value-added tax is a tax on consumers; and, in passing, I recommend your Lordships to read a pamphlet by Mr. Alfred Morris, M.P., on this important issue.
There are only five lines in the White Paper on this vitally important subject of entry into the Common Market. If you read the unpleasant story of the value-added tax, it shows that it could have an even more serious effect on the cost of living than the E.E.C. agricultural regime. In Holland, when this tax came in, prices rose immediately by 5 per cent. In other countries the increase was 7·9 per cent. Holland had to delay the second stage of the tax at a cost of 500 million florins to their Treasury. So I say to the country and to the housewives at large, "Be warned!, because this has got to go on top of the other 4 per cent. to 5 per cent. if we enter the Market."
Again, my Lords, we have the Confederation of British Industry saying that we shall have to adopt this tax and add 1½ per cent. to 2 per cent. on the cost of living. As I said, it goes on top of the 4 per cent. to 5 per cent. At the present time there are millions of workers requesting a rise in their wages to compensate them for existing inflation. What do your Lordships think will happen when this terrific burden is placed on them? Demands for increased wages will come in from everywhere, and where will be our competitiveness in world trade? The most gratifying cause of our increasing exports has been the keenness of British prices compared with those of other countries, and this in a large part has been due to low food costs in this country. That advantage will be thrown away. We have been told that the primary reason for entering the Common Market is to increase our industrial exports, but I think that the cost of

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admission will make that objective impossible.
My Lords, let there be no mistake about the outcome of entering the Common Market. Organised workers will fight bitterly against this planned attack on their standards of life. Already large unions have given notice of this. So has the Trades Union Congress. There will be a steep rise in wage and salary levels all along the line, and consequently a rise in the cost of manufacturing our exports. That will affect us alone and not any of our competitors; not the E.E.C., the Commonwealth or countries in the outside world, like Japan. It will be a huge kick at our competitive power in the export markets. At present we are doing very well in trade with the E.E.C., without the rigidities of the Treaty of Rome. We increased our exports to the Community by £230 million in 1969 compared with the figures for the previous year. Why do we want to change the present arrangements for a system fraught with such parlous problems under the Treaty of Rome?
As I said, my Lords, organised workers will fight. But what about those who cannot fight? What about the pensioners and folks on fixed incomes, and those who are already struggling to keep going? There are hundreds of thousands of these people and they will be crushed. That is what entry means in human terms. The savage blow to our competitiveness will be only a beginning. We shall have to pay tremendous sums to the Common Market Agricultural Fund. That is a fund to bolster up inefficient farmers in Europe, especially in France. Do the Government think they will be able to reduce the price of agricultural goods by negotiation? I do not think for a moment that they will succeed; and after the agricultural policy of the Six is there any room for negotiation on that issue? The financial regulations governing payment to the E.E.C. Agricultural Fund were fixed at The Hague in December last. The French have pronounced them fixed and irreversible. In fact, no negotiation can start at all until those regulations, which will impose a huge burden on our Budget and balance of payments, have been ratified by all the Parliaments of the Six.
It is only three weeks ago that all attempts to reduce the price of a single
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commodity again failed, and the present policy is fixed until late in 1971. The Government are superoptimists if they think that the Six will change their attitude for us. It must also be remembered that the largest political Parties in Europe, and especially France, Italy and Germany, are still largely dependent on the agricultural vote. However, my Lords, as much as I am against being swallowed up in Europe, if the argument is that their food policies will be altered, the time to negotiate is after they are altered and not before. We cannot afford voluntarily to add a great weight on the already heavy burden that the British public is carrying. The agricultural payment means that the British taxpayers and housewives will have to pay for inefficient Continental farmers to save Continental taxpayers from having to meet the bill.
The White Paper estimates that this annual cost might be between £150 million and £670 million a year. I would put the figure at £500 million for this alone. Our balance of payments will have to bear a higher price for imported food. We should have to take food from inefficient Continental farmers at high prices instead of from the more efficient Commonwealth producers. The White Paper puts this at a figure of about £100 million, which I think is an under-estimation. But even at this figure it assumes that Britain will eat less.
The document frankly admits that, together with all this, we shall lose exports, for two reasons: first, the higher labour costs and export prices will lose us trade; secondly, our far-reaching preferences with the Commonwealth, South Africa and EFTA would disappear. The White Paper also suggests that, allowing for all the gains in exports within the Common Market, the trade balance would be between £125 million and £275 million worse off. The effect of entry, summarised in paragraph 76 of this White Paper, represents both a loss of preference over a wide area and a handicap to our exports over a world area; and I believe it must follow that the loss will be the higher figure, if not even more than that.
My Lords, that is a striking conclusion. I believe it to be the truth that if we stand to gain £250 million a year in exports within the Common Market, the White Paper must then be assuming that

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we shall suffer a loss of exports else-where and an increase in competitive imports of the order of £450 million. Surely this makes nonsense of all the talk that we have heard over the years about a wider market being opened to British industry if only we join the Common Market. On the admission in the White Paper we shall lose more exports to the Commonwealth, EFTA, South Africa and the rest of the world than we shall gain in the Common Market. British industry sales at home would also be lower than they would have been, due to the great increase in competitive manufactured imports caused by our higher costs.
Therefore, on balance, the market for British goods, far from being widened, would be narrowed. Exports would be smaller than they would have been, and our imports higher. The C.B.I. make a contribution on this subject and calculate what we gain in the E.E.C. and what we lose. They find that the loss in exports in the preference area would probably cancel out the gain in the E.E.C.— and this without counting in the loss of EFTA or the loss throughout the world due to the higher labour costs on cur exports. So we see that the C.B.I. and the White Paper arrive at the conclusion that joining the E.E.C. under their present policies would in the long term narrow and not widen the total world market open to British industry.
Both the White Paper and the C.B.I. report reveal that all this campaign about a wider market for us is just fiction, an illusion and the reverse of the truth. Both, having done these sums, say that it would be narrower. And all this talk of a market of 300 million and what it means to us is given a severe blow. All this damage would be permanent and would grow as our trade grew. The loss to our balance of payments, admitted by the White Paper, would be anything up to £1,100 million. Many of the economic articles I have read since the publication of this Paper regard it as imprudent not to expect an extra permanent burden of about £1,000 million a year, rising there-after year after year in proportion to our trade and national income. That does not include capital movements.
This must mean political weakness for us, as we become again a borrower and
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a debtor. And surely we have learned by now that this means freezes, squeezes, slow growth and stagnation. We have all experienced since 1947 up to 1969 that all Governments have imposed credit squeezes and deflation, not because they liked it but because they were compelled to try to correct the balance of payments.
Those on the Labour Benches know that we have been faced with political un-popularity in the last four years because of credit squeezes, wages restraint, increased prices and higher bank rate to get the balance of payments we have now. If we join the Common Market, are the people going to face all that over again, probably more stringently, with a burden of £1,000 million a year on our balance of payments? To inflict that burden needlessly on our country would open up a new, depressing prospect of deflation, slow growth and stagnation, as we struggle again over the years to get clear of the burden of chronic deficit.
The White Paper admits that defensive policies might be enforced on the United Kingdom Government to restore the balance-of-payments position at the cost of damaging the growth of industry's market in the United Kingdom. The worst effect of all of joining the Common Market on those terms must mean stagnation and technical backwardness in British industry. "And for what", the people are asking, "should we be asked to inflict these huge burdens upon ourselves?" There is no answer in the White Paper or elsewhere that I can find.
The disadvantages and sacrifices are immediate, certain and heavy; the alleged advantages are non-existent, for the White Paper, as I have said, uses words that are jargon. Anyone who reads the White Paper, let alone all the other evidence available elsewhere, must realise that joining the Common Market under the conditions of the Treaty of Rome would impose on us large and unnecessary sacrifices and give us nothing in return. It is often conveyed to the public that joining the E.E.C. would give us economic growth, as if the Treaty of Rome held some magic formula for us. I hope that we are not going to be deceived by that kind of thinking.
First, it must be remembered that the Six countries did not suffer at all under the adoption of agricultural protection, because they were already suffering from it. On the other hand, the effects on them

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were entirely different from what the effects would be on us. Then it must be remembered that the economic growth of the Six was greater in the years before the Treaty of Rome was signed than it has been since. From 1955 to 1960 the average rate of increase of the gross national product of the Six was 5·3 per cent.; after signing the Treaty it is down to 48 per cent. Again, between 1960 and 1968, since the Treaty was signed, the growth rate of the Six was 4·8 per cent., while the growth rats of the O.E.C.D. countries other than the Six was 5·1 per cent. The simple truth is, as the record makes clear, that the Treaty of Rome has little to do with growth rate, one way or another. Our slow growth rate in this country has been the result of exceptional balance-of-payments deficits. By arguing on growth rates one could prove that we should not join any country. The lesson of this is that, if we are to get out of the position of slow growth, Britain must avoid future payments deficits.
No matter how one analyses the White Paper and all the evidence available, joining the E.E.C. will certainly involve us in a heavy chronic deficit. Often one has to pay an economic price to maintain political freedom, but we are invited, in joining the Common Market, to pay a large and lasting economic price for the spectacle of giving away for ever a large part of our economic freedom, without even asking the people or without our Parliament having any control over the future. Therefore we cannot ignore the political implications that arise if we go into the Market.
I think that the Government might agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, that we ought at least to have a White Paper on the political implications, which would give us a clear under-standing of where they stand. We have the Foreign Secretary, talking abroad, accepting all the political implications of federalism or supra-nationalism while the Prime Minister tells us here that federalism has no place with him.
The Brussels Commission is not a democratic institution but a bureaucratic one. It makes its report to the Council of Ministers and is not responsible to a Parliament. It can make decisions affecting a nation's economy, and the nation must accept its views. The real question
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that we must all ask ourselves (I do not want to go too deeply to-day into the political issues) is this: are the people of Britain prepared to abrogate their sovereignty; to have defence and nuclear strategy, their economy, social services and commercial policies, all controlled by a Parliament in Europe, with no power resident in Britain? Or do they believe in supra-nationalism, as we have it under the Treaty of Rome?
Once we have entered under the Rome Treaty, a loss of sovereignty also takes place. Once we have ratified the Rome Treaty and surrendered legislative powers we can never recover them. Signing this Treaty is legally irrevocable, with no provision for denunciation or secession. Signing this Treaty would not only be unprecedented, it would be taking out of the hands of the British public for ever a major part of their power, which it has taken them centuries to secure, to legislate on their own affairs. It will destroy the Commonwealth that we have built up—and I know that many have no use for the Commonwealth to-day. It would be intolerable if a decision to go in were taken without gaining the approval of the electorate.
The whole concept of the Treaty of Rome is founded on the central belief that modern society ought really to be ruled by the expert, the bureaucrat, the technocrat, and the scientifically wise men who find all the answers to questions unaffected by the pressures of interests or politics. It is rooted in an essential distrust of the people, and that is why its constitution is illiberal and undemocratic, not merely in its legal form, but in its basic philosophy. That is why we should have a White Paper on the political issue, in which the Government set out fairly what the Rome Treaty really means to the people.
My Lords, if there is to be a great debate, then it is imperative that the people should have a say in this important decision, the most important in any of our lives. There is no plan that I know of to allow the public to speak the final word on one of the biggest constitutional issues ever to face our country. The Leaders of the three Parties are committed, in varying degrees, but the Labour Party outside is not; and our Conference is not. Are the direction of people's lives, their control over their own

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affairs, their standard of living, all to be taken out of their hands without a voice? This would be a shameful way to do it. I am hopeful that, whenever the Election comes, every candidate will have to declare where he or she stands.
It is well to remember that seven years ago Mr. Harold Wilson, our Prime Minister, wrote these words on the Common Market:
"This issue is beyond the power of a dying Government to determine. Before any irrevocable step is taken, the British people must have the final decision."
I agreed with these sentiments then, and they hold as good to-day as when the Prime Minister wrote them seven years ago. Let us give the people the facts; let the debate prevail in the country, and let them decide whether we should go in or not. That is the democratic way. My Lords, it is their future that is involved, and it is they who should decide.
5.23 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I should declare at the beginning that I find myself unable to follow the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, by so much as a footstep in his Jeremiad, addressed more to a dying Government than to your Lordships' House. As between Parties, though patently not between individuals, this has been one of the most harmonious debates that I can ever recall on a great issue in this House. The single ripple which I shall reactivate will not disturb the inter-Party placidity of this discussion, but it is something which I consider needs saying at least once again.
Together with many others, I have to admit myself perplexed as to why the White Paper was produced in this form. Those who compiled and set their seal of approval upon the White Paper before its printing are people, we know, who tread alertly and watchfully the paths of political life. They must have known in advance what its reception would be in Parliament and in the country. In the corridors and the meeting places of your Lordships' House on the day of publication there was a festive climate, a climate of jubilation, among the opponents of Britain's entry. I was myself told by one noble and jovial and defiantly insular Lord: "This as good as buries the whole question. It's all over bar the shouting."
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I am told that the same mistaken atmosphere existed at the other end of the building. This was inevitable, despite the cautious and anodyne ministerial statement with which the document was introduced in both Houses. It was inevitable once the text, and in particular the tables and the astounding span of statistics, had been studied.
It was certain—and it proved to be the case—that the upper bracket of estimated costs of entry would be seized upon and bandied about by the opponents of entry; but the proponents, I am pleased to say, have been too responsible to seize upon the lower bracket as if the eventual figure were bound to be in that close proximity. Even the noble and highly responsible Lord, Lord Silkin, speaking in favour of entry yesterday, suspected that it would be "in the order of £1,100 million or something less." Even such reasonable men have picked the higher and alarming figure as if it were the indicator, which I believe it certainly is not.
As a result, a great many people in this country have been shaken to the depths of their pockets. To the best of my knowledge, the Government have never answered the question as to why those significant and essential words in paragraph 44 were tucked away so in-conspicuously. The words are:
"But in the crucial area of our financial contribution to the Fund, there is just not sufficient basis, in advance of negotiations, for making reliable assumptions either about its cost or our share of it."
I should have liked to see that statement so placed as to focus attention upon it, since it governs everything set out in paragraphs 12 to 44, which contain or cause the most obvious and pervasive anxiety. It would have been useful to see that passage in the opening words of the introduction to Chapter II, on Agriculture and Food. In fact, that introduction opens by saying that the chapter will examine the effect on our agriculture, food costs and balance of payments, whereas the closing paragraph contradicts that claim by saying that no forward-seeking examination can be made in advance of the negotiations themselves.
The noble Lord the Leader of the House did much yesterday, and with great skill, to interpret the White Paper. Unfortunately, from what I have seen from

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the Press this morning, his comforting interpretation has not been given the publicity received, so generously, by the misinterpretation, to which he himself caustically referred in his speech, as did my noble friend Lord Harlech. Last night I attended a dinner, for which I regretfully had to leave this debate, at which M. Théo Lefévre, former Prime Minister of Belgium and the present Minister of Technology of that country, made the principal speech. In the course of it no diplomatic stop was left unpulled. Nevertheless, he made it plain that the White Paper had been read within the Community as being an intended rebuff by Britain, which I am satisfied it was not. This accorded with what I had myself heard from the Continent, and is in some conflict with the reassuring remarks made yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Caccia, whose opinion on such matters I normally take as something close to Holy Writ. I mention it not as anything grievously burdensome, but as a gratuitous additional weight with which the Government, however unwittingly, have saddled themselves. It will require an extra effort of diplomacy to free themselves of that needless handicap.
That is, I think, the only faintly critical note that I have to raise in a deliberately low-keyed and prosaic speech. I should like to comment that, although the noble Lord, Lord Brown, announced modestly an "earthy" speech, I personally found it positively uplifting from beginning to end. I believe that the prospects for entry are better than reasonably rosy. I believe that anyone who regards the concept of European unity as "a good thing" in the definitive phrase of 1066 and All That, will be in a sunny mood at the outcome, and that even the most anxious doubters will have ultimate cause to be well satisfied. I do not believe that the present Community will make an artificially low price, detrimental to their own existing progress. I am equally confident they will not make an artificially high price to our detriment.
In my thinking, which I do not wish to force on anyone else, the cost of food has been given an importance, an alarmist importance, out of all proportion to its danger or potential harm. I speak both as a farmer and, at times, an over-consumer. The negotiators for the Six are likely, it seems to me, to say to the
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applicants, though no doubt in more polished terms: "You wish to come in because you think that commercially and industrially you will benefit, as will we. Between us we must strike a balance so that this benefit will more than offset, and permanently offset, the temporary problems you will experience in the context of food and agriculture—that is, consumption and production." If they also have reason to say, "But you now declare yourselves unwilling to pay even a reasonable price on the roundabouts for that greater benefit which you expect on the swings", then I fear the negotiations may well founder. Logically, if crudely expressed, if more money is flowing into this country because of increased trade, and supposing that money will be equitably distributed, there will be more wealth to pay for dearer and better food.
Although the noble Lord, Lord Blyton, has now left the Chamber, I must say that his dismay about the idea of anyone in this country being forced to eat more inferior food is really romanticising, it seems to me, from the platforms of many years ago. Because if he had studied the figures given in his noble Leader's speech yesterday he would have had a more correct view. It is only, in my submission, if our negotiators were to insist upon the best of both worlds outstripping, by a private and artificial arrangement, opportunities enjoyed by other members of the present or enlarged Community, that in such a case our price would be declared too high. From what we heard in the opening speech of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, this is not the kind of clumsy or selfish or expensive error that his colleagues are likely to make. Equally, if we were to be excluded by terms too stiff to be tolerable, I believe that that would be widely regarded within the Community as a betrayal of Europe, and the Community as a whole would suffer from that internal as well as external injury. It would bear with it a stigma that no individual country would wish to inflict upon itself.
When Mr. Edward Heath and Mr. Christopher Soames were negotiating in 1961 to 1963 they approached each problem—and there were many—by seeking the best solution for the future Community as enlarged by the United Kingdom, not permitting British interests to eclipse the common interest. They threw

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nothing away in terms of true British interests. They won immense esteem among those they dealt with on the Community side. This I have heard from many of those engaged at the time, including, notably, M. Pisani, who was the French Minister of Agriculture during that time in the Government of General de Gaulle. I also know, from more recent visits to Brussels and Paris, that Mr. George Thomson is building up the same sort of valuable reputation in the six months since he was assigned to this task in advance of negotiations. There is also, needless to say, great satisfaction that Sir Con O'Neill is once more at work in the field he knows so well.
There is one way in which the next negotiations will be not more difficult but more circumscribed than those on the last occasion, and other ways, more decisive, in which they will be conducted under far more favourable augury. I think I must describe them together because they are interacting. The earlier talks were held in a period when the Community was still in a fairly fluid state—still settling upon its modus operandi. In this way, for example— and this is particularly appropriate this afternoon—and directly as a result of our negotiations, the British pattern of an annual agricultural review referred to yesterday by the noble Lord, Lord Walston, was introduced into the Community system. This could be done because the Six were still in their own transitional period. That 12 year period is now over for them, and the system is in working order, although, as we know, and as they admit, some very important and even drastic adjustments are needed to make it work perfectly. Therefore the new applicants, of which we shall be the first in order of presentation, cannot expect to negotiate the mechanics on which the E.E.C. will operate and is already operating. We shall have to fit into the system or not, as the case could conceivably and lamertably be.
What we have to recognise is that a European coalition—and a very powerful coalition—exists on the Continent. Others have existed in history. Britain has never taken up a posture of indifference towards them. Some we have joined, some we have aided in destroying. There is no question of the latter here.
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It would be totally at variance with our history, and unworthily so, willingly to stand outside a coalition which is in being and permanent beyond a peradventure. Others, in particular the Leader of the House and my noble friend Lord Harlech, have already put this more lyrically, but I believe it bears repetition, because it will be a fundamental factor in the minds of those who meet across the table in Brussels, or wherever the table may be located.
The negotiations will not, as I under-stand it, take the form they took between 1961 and 1963, for evident reasons. There will be three main divisions in the search for settlement. There will be the mechanics of the Economic Community as they stand, and questions as to how the applicant country will fit into these mechanics. Such discussion, as I understand, will most likely be handled by the Commission.
Secondly, there will be a range of decisions which still have to be taken by the Community, related, for instance, to Parliamentary control, nuclear energy, transport and the development of a monetary policy. In these, each of the applicant countries will rightly be accorded a voice and a share in decision-making from the moment negotiations begin, and the Council of Ministers of the E.E.C. will clearly have to be involved, perhaps together with the Commission. Finally, there will be purely institutional questions created by the act of enlargement, such as what representation each acceding country will have on the numerous existing bodies. This will logically be a matter for Ministers of the Six, reporting to their own Governments.
What will be different this time, and advantageously so, is that prior responsibility to negotiate and agree on the terms will be given to the Ministers representing the Council, and their word once given will be binding. This will be in contrast to the earlier process by which, whenever a point of issue rose, the Community team had to gather apart from our team to decide between themselves what their stand would be on that particular point. It was a frustrating, time-wasting formula, which has been wisely superseded. Here there are likely to be two or three Ministers, given agreed terms of reference by the Council, and power to make decisions within those terms of reference.

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There is another circumstance of almost certain value which, it seemed to me, the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, tended to rather underestimate, perhaps for the wise sake of caution. Last time we should have been in but for the veto of General de Gaulle. This time, it is confidently agreed, there will be no French veto. The noble Lord assumed, however, that the "xenophobic element in the Government and especially in the Assembly" would be strong enough to "insist upon pretty severe terms". Well, I do not pretend to know the individuals as he does, but what impresses me is that we shall have three French Ministers most closely concerned in the negotiations, and all three of them are cordially and powerfully in favour of Britain's entry. They are, M. Schuman the Foreign Minister, M. Giscard d'Estaing, the Finance Minister, and M. Duhamel the Minister of Agriculture. We could not wish for a more friendly trio. Undoubtedly their views and intentions will have to be submitted to the Prime Minister and the President at least once a week when the Wednesday Cabinet meeting is presided over by the President himself. The Prime Minister, M. Chaban Delmas, is a convinced European, and M. Pompidou, to put it no more hopefully than that, is open to conviction in a way that his predecessor never was.
There is, of course, as the noble Lord has just reminded me, in the French Government M. Debré, the upright sentinel over the Lares et Penates of Gaullism. But, as Minister of Defence, he has little immediate influence over the course of economic negotiations. Moreover, I am told by those who know him that he is the reverse of antagonistic to Britain. He is, however, more doubtful than most of our sincerity. It will be the task of our negotiators to offset or dissipate or cure that genuine scepticism.
Last time the length of the transitional period for the "easing-in" of the new member was a matter for earnest discussion. That is also far more circumscribed now, since the meeting of the Foreign Ministers on the 6th of this month. There they decided that by the end of 1978 the Commission would have its own resources, its own permanent income as it were, and be no longer dependent on annual votes from member Governments.
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That revenue will consist of the whole customs duties received through member countries, collected at their ports or frontier posts, but passed directly to the Commission. This, plus 1 per cent, of the value-added tax, will be the source of income for the Commission and for its spending role in the Community. This means, self-evidently, that no ceiling can be fixed for the British contribution to the Agricultural Fund beyond 1978. If we enter in 1973, that would give a transitional period which could run to 1978 but not beyond—a period of five years for what I have called the "easing-in" process.
There is one final matter which I would automatically have left out of my speech had it been touched upon directly by any other speaker so far. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark went plunging bravely through the general area, and at one moment I thought my noble friend Lord Chandos was going to deal with the present state of play, but neither did so. It must have a direct bearing on the economic negotiations. At the historic meeting of E.E.C. leaders at The Hague in December a very important task was allotted to the Foreign Ministers. They were told to prepare a report before the end of July upon the progress of political unity, in the prospect of an enlarged Community.
They met on March 6, a fortnight ago, when, by agreement, each instructed his Director of Political Affairs (a post which does not precisely exist in our own Foreign Office) to act as the Deputy of the Foreign Minister himself on this question. The Deputies were to put their ideas together and submit those ideas to the Foreign Ministers gathered in Rome immediately after the Nato Conference at the end of May. In one or two or three days, conveniently following upon the Nato Conference in 10 weeks' time, they will decide on what proposals will be put before a meeting in July, at which almost certainly Britain will be present.
Up to that point in July, the four present applicants will be kept informed of the thinking on this cardinal matter, and invited to make their comments. Once negotiations are opened, the applicant will take part in these discussions as an equal with the existing members.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, may I intervene for one moment? Does the

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noble Lord think that the other applicants will come into this, too?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, as I understand it, the agreement between the Foreign Ministers is that as applicants present themselves they will join as equals with the others in these discussions. The overriding significance of that is that if an applicant Government were to say that its country wanted no part whatever in an eventual concept of political unity and would take no part in the advance towards it, that would be sufficient to exclude the country itself from membership of the Economic Community. It is clear that no conceivable British Government will take such a line, but it seems worth appreciating that qualification, for membership hangs upon it. My Lords, for whatever little my personal blessing may be worth, let me say that any Government who can guide this country honourably and beneficially into Europe will have my blessing on that act, however that Government may be composed.
5.46 p.m.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, it would appear that the balance of opinion in the country is opposed to our joining the European Economic Community. I believe that the reasons fall under four headings. First, it is much easier to communicate the short-term costs than the long-term advantages, although estimates of the short-term costs are nothing more than informed guesses and lend themselves to exaggeration. Secondly, there is a tendency either to ignore or to underestimate the significance of changes that have been made and are being made at the present time. One of these changes is the gradual erosion of the captive colonial markets which we once had. Another change is the diversification of the economies of the countries of the white Commonwealth as a natural consequence of the increase of their population. Furthermore, they have far greater opportunities of trading more economically with countries nearby. And, as the White Paper points out, in the course of one decade the share of our exports taken by the Commonwealth fell from 38 to 23 per cent. Another change which is ignored is the greatly enhanced advantages of scale which flow from the sophisticated methods of manufacture that have developed in the last few years.
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Thirdly, there is some misunderstanding as to the duties and responsibilities of the Commission within the Community. In our debate yesterday my noble friend Lord Moyle objected that the Commission were responsible only to the Council of Ministers. Surely, in practice, in this country the civil servants are responsible to Ministers, and it is the Ministers who are in turn responsible to Parliament. In so far as the responsibilities and the duties of the Commission are different from those normally given to civil servants, it is because the Commission have some additional functions. The representatives of the several countries within the Community represent fluctuating interests, and it is one of the duties and responsibilities of the Commission to conciliate and to reconcile these interests so that there is eventually agreement.
The fourth category of reasons why there is a balance of opinion against our joining the Community is perhaps the most regrettable. There has developed in the last few years, perhaps as a reaction to de Gaullism, a feeling of nationalism, in that there is a lack of willingness to give and take with our neighbours if that would involve the sacrifice of any part of our security—whether or not that give-and-take would be for the common good, and particularly for the benefit of this country. That is most regrettable, and the time has come when all those who are willing to give and take, because they believe it is in the interests not only of the common good but of this country, should speak up loudly and clearly.
All my life I have believed, and still believe, that the greatest advantage which the United States has is that it has free movement of labour, of capital, of goods and services over a very wide area—an area in which there is a substantial population, a variety of climate and other natural resources. It follows that with that free movement there are inevitably specialisation and benefits from large-scale production—benefits from large-scale production without the disadvantages of monopoly. In recent years the benefits which flow from scale have increased enormously, and success breeds success. Only those who have the scale can afford the research that is necessary in order to get the next advance and development.

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Europe has only commenced the reorganisation of its market; it is at the initial stages. But in spite of that, as has been pointed out in our debate, both yesterday and to-day, every one of the countries within the Community, except Italy, already has a higher standard of living than we have in this country. The difference will continue to increase unless we get inside. Eighty five per cent, of our exports consist of manufactured goods; one-third of those exports go to the Continent of Europe. In the course of one decade our exports of manufactured goods to the Community declined from 10·6 per cent, of their total imports of those manufactured goods to 7·1 per cent. That decline will continue so long as we have the tariff barrier. We shall find it increasingly difficult to compete with the Continent, either on the Continent or elsewhere, so long as they have the benefit of the greater market and the greater possibilities of specialisation and large-scale production.
The White Paper has been criticised because it does not give more accurate estimates of the short-term costs. My Lords, there are two kinds of short-term costs. The first is the cost of the Common Agricultural Policy. We shall not know that cost until the negotiations have been completed. The second cost is what is known as the cost of the impact effects; that is to say, the cost arising from the changes in our level of costs and the changes in tariffs. This will not be known even when the negotiations are finished: we shall ascertain it only by experience. This is a commercial adventure in which it is not possible to forecast beforehand what the cost will be. It is like most other commercial ventures: one has to be prepared to take some risks, and this is one of the risks that we have to take.
The best estimate that can be given of these costs put together is that given at page 44 of the White Paper, where it is stated that the total cost is likely to be considerably less than 1 per cent. of our gross national product. I think that is as near as it is possible to get. We can swallow that cost, provided that we are given time for the development of the dynamic effects. We need a transition period of at least five years. I believe that our experience, so far as the dynamic effects are concerned, is likely to be
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similar to that of Belgium, where the increase in the gross national product per annum was previously a steady 3 per cent., as ours has been, but in the last few years within the Common Market has increased to 4½ per cent, per annum. I believe that those are likely to be the dynamic effects so far as we are concerned, and that would give us ample opportunity to swallow the short-term costs.
In conclusion, I would say that if we enter the Market we shall need all our ingenuity to deal with two internal problems. The first is the question of the cost of living. We ought not to allow the increase in food prices to affect the cost of living by more than 1 per cent, per annum. No doubt the trade unions will take care of their members, but there are many people with small incomes who do not have that protection. It will be the bounden duty of the Government of the day to see that those people get the protection to which they have a right. The second kind of internal change that we shall have to face is change in industrial structure even greater than the changes we have faced in the post-war period. Those changes will have to be handled with a sense of urgency, in order that the operation shall be as painless as possible, and so that we can make the best use of the talents of our people and of our capital resources, both social and private.
Let us, then, enter these negotiations in good faith, with a real desire to get in. If we were to fail, then I think that, in the words of the White Paper:
"… the world would have lost a contribution to its peace and prosperity that neither Britain nor the countries of the European Communities can make separately."
5.56 p.m.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, I must apologise to your Lordships for not having given notice that I wished to speak to-day, but I can assure you that I shall intervene for only a matter of three or four minutes. My excuse is that I arrived back from Africa only yesterday, so I had no time to put my name down. But having heard most of the speeches to-day, I feel impelled to make a few remarks before the final speeches.
My experience of the last few weeks has convinced me personally that, apart from the effective defence of our trade in the Indian Ocean, round the Cape

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and across the Atlantic, the conception of a viable multi-racial Commonwealth is really a myth, both from a political and from a commercial point of view. It does not exist any more, and it will never exist in the form or shape that it did in the past. That does not mean that our relations will not be very cordial, but our trade with the Commonwealth is going down and is likely to go down a little further. Anyway, the whole political conception does not add up to anything any more, either in Asia or in Africa. We still talk about the "Commonwealth" as if it were a viable proposition: I do not believe that to be the case.
Where, then, my Lords, lies our future? Surely, as leader of what Churchill once described as "some kind of a United States of Europe"; the alternative being an off-shore island of no great importance. This was the idea and the appeal of the 1950s, when we could have had the leadership of Europe on our own terms and deliberately rejected it. When I first went to Strasbourg—and I was a member of the first delegation there and attended regularly for seven years—we had all sorts of high ideas and ideals in common. They were shared by both political Parties—a common foreign policy, a common defence policy, a coordinated investment policy including investment in the impoverished and underdeveloped countries overseas, specialised international industrial production, a common monetary policy (in view of what happened later, perhaps the most important thing of all), culminating in a single currency for Europe.
My Lords, in fact we turned everything down. Both Parties were responsible— this is not a Party issue at all. We turned down the Coal and Steel Community; we turned down the European Defence Community—although Churchill had demanded in the Council of Europe the creation of a single European army under a unified command—and we turned down the Strasbourg Plan, which would have associated some of our associated States overseas with the emergent Europe, and was the most ambitious plan of all. The British Treasury, not uncharacteristically, pole-axed that over-night. Finally, we turned down the Common Market—we did not even go to their negotiations—and we drove the
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Europeans (and I was there at Strasbourg, and saw us doing it) to what amouted to desperate action in selfdefence; we drove them to the policy of the Six, to the Common Market, in sheer desperation against our policy.
It has become the fashion to say that M. Spaak did not mind. He minded tremendously; he resigned from the Presidency of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe because he was so upset by our refusal to take part in the E.E.C. He and M. Monnet, and De Gaspari and others, set about the formation of the Six, and they still asked us to send a delegate to Messina and Brussels when they were negotiating the Treaty for the Common Market. We refused. We sent an observer, who was politely shown the door. After that we became the envious spectators of an almost unprecedented Continental economic upsurge which took place in the 1960s and in which we played little or no part.
It is really a tragic and sad story; and I think that it is sadder still now that the level of argument has been reduced from those days practically to the level of the price of butter. I am no great critic of the White Paper, but I think the whole tone and level of the argument has been brought down, to an unnecessary extent, to details, especially as the details can only be wildly inaccurate, ranging, as they do, from £100 million to £1,000 million; these statistics are all guess-work, and as the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, has said, we can prove the effects only by the experience once we have negotiated our way in, which I hope we shall do.
The main thing I wanted to say, and this is all I want to add, is that we should get back to the larger ideals of the Strasbourg of 1950. If we are going into a purely commercial Community, inward-looking, not looking out overseas, not with the idea of becoming a World Power, then I agree with those noble Lords who say that it would be better not to join at all. If it is going to be an inward-looking, purely commercial, hard-graft concern, dealing in terms of £.s.d. and nothing else, it is not worth joining. But in Strasbourg in 1949 we wanted a Council of Ministers with limited functions, but with real powers, under the ultimate control of a Consultative Assembly appointed by the

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Parliaments concerned, and we passed a resolution to this effect. This, I think, is what we should be aiming at now: in short, a confederation, which I can best define by calling it an association of sovereign States for the purpose of exercising certain functions in common. I believe that the answer to many political problems lies in confederation. I believe that monetary policy is tremendously important. I believe that investment policy and defence policy are tremendously important. I believe that, so far as we can manage it, a common foreign policy is tremendously important.
But, my Lords, it is the future that matters. And this is not an issue of bread and butter; it is not an issue simply of the cost of living. It is a great political issue, one of the greatest political issues that has ever confronted this country. It seems to me, and it has seemed to me for the last twenty years, that the issue is: are we going to be part of, and possibly leader of, the most formidable international confederation since Rome; or are we to be doomed to political isolation and absolute economic domination, which we have now, by the United States of America?
6.4 p.m.
LORD WINDLESHAM: My Lords, no debate on Europe would be complete without a contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, and we are pleased that he has returned from his travels in time to take part. His has been the most constant voice in national politics arguing that Britain's future lies in a united Europe. When the history of the last twenty years, to which he has referred, comes to be written I believe it will be shown that he was as right about events since the war as he was about the events that led up to it.
This has been a long debate over two days and based, as it has been, on a White Paper containing the results of an economic assessment, there is obviously a risk of becoming over-whelmed by statistics. Of course the fullest possible statistical evidence should be made available, and it would be foolish to ignore its value. We should also remember that whereas many people arrive at their political opinions by talking to their friends or from tradition or inference, others do so by a process
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of reasoning, and this process is sometimes based on a study of statistics. For that reason, among others, I welcome the publication of this White Paper.
It is nearly three years since the present application for entry into the E.E.C. was debated in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Now that it is going forward it seems right that up-to-date figures should be published and that there should be a major debate in both Houses of Parliament. With such a wide range of statistics having been published, the next step is to determine how to use them. Both the noble Lord the Leader of the House and my noble friend Lord Jellicoe. when they opened the debate yesterday, interpreted the relevance of the main categories of information in some detail and with considerable clarity, and I do not want to go over the same ground again.
It seems to me that the most important figures in the White Paper are the indicative ones; that is, those that point to significant trends. So we can note that the economies of the Six member countries of the European Community are growing much faster now than the economy of the United Kingdom. Over a ten-year period, from 1958 to 1967, the increase in gross national product per head per annum in Europe was, on average, 4 per cent., as against 2½ per cent, in the United Kingdom. But the figures for G.N.P. overall in 1969, if we take one more statistic, was 7 per cent, on average in Europe, against just under 3 per cent, in the United Kingdom; so the gap is getting wider. It appears smaller than it is now by taking a ten-year period. We can also note that the external trade of the Community is growing substantially more rapidly than our own. This point was made in the debate by the noble Lord, Lord Brown, and others, and is shown in Tables 10 and 11 of the White Paper.
Again, industrial output in each of the categories listed in Table 15 has risen faster in the Community than in Britain.
It is impossible to explain these achievements without pointing to the benefits of larger markets, keener competition, greater specialisation and wider opportunities. And yet at the same time, as several noble Lords have pointed out (the noble Lord, Lord Roberthall, in his very authoritative speech last night,

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remarked on this), the standard of living has gone up steadily throughout Europe. It has gone up in the United Kingdom, too, but not so fast as in Europe. In the ten years since the E.E.C. was formed in 1958, real wages in Britain—that is to say, wages less the increase in the cost of living—increased by 34 per cent. But in France, the comparable figure is an increase of 43 per cent., in Italy 53 per cent., and in West Germany 69 per cent., all over the same ten-year period.
It is in this context, as so many noble Lords have argued in the course of the debate, that the higher level of food prices in Europe must be considered. I should like for a few minutes to re-interpret the White Paper statistics for the information of the noble Lord, Lord Blyton. Prices are artificial in a sense. What matters is what people need, what they can afford, what they buy—in short, what they consume. Here the statistics on food consumption in Europe, compared with the consumption of foodstuffs in Britain, make interesting reading. We have heard a great deal about the high price of meat in France. Does it surprise us to learn that the consumption of meat per head in France in the years 1965-66 was substantially higher than consumption of meat in the United Kingdom? The figures are 87 kilos per head in France, against 70 kilos per head in the United Kingdom.
The noble Lord, Lord Blyton, mentioned the consumption of horsemeat in Europe. I have checked up on this, in case the figures I have just quoted are distorted. The figure of consumption is very small. Horsemeat consumption in 1966–67 in France was only 2 kilogrammes per head per year. So, if you deduct that from the total of 87 kilos, we still have a net meat consumption per head in France of 85 kilos, as against 70 kilos in the United Kingdom. It could be said, though, that people prefer to spend more of their income on food in France, Germany and Belgium than we do here. The noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, with all his experience of France, indicates this may be the case in France. But the published category, which includes drink and tobacco with foodstuffs (so it is these three taken together) shows that this is not so. In fact, 37 per cent, of total
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private expenditure in France goes on food, drink and tobacco, compared with 39 per cent, in the United Kingdom on the same category. If we include drink and tobacco with food, we find that the United Kingdom in 1966 spent 39 per cent., a rather higher proportion than the average figure for the Six, which is 37 per cent, for the same items over the same period. I do not want to give any more statistics, but I believe that the figures concerning the consumption of food are an important part of the public debate which has so far been mainly concerned with food prices.
In preparation for this debate, I made a short visit to Brussels at the beginning of this week, to visit the Commission and the United Kingdom Delegation to the European Communities. Anyone who has recently been in Brussels, or any other European capital, will probably agree that the progress made since the meeting of Heads of Government of the member States at The Hague, to which the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, referred in his speech, has been extremely rapid. The Community has now completed its first stage of development—the establishment of a Customs Union and a Common Agricultural Policy. These decisions need to be ratified by the Parliaments of the member States, and when this has been done, but not before, the Six will move on to decide the question of the enlargement of the Community.
To reach agreement on such far-reaching structural changes, even though few would deny that some of the policies are still a long way from being perfect, is an immense and historic achievement and one we should recognise as such. We cannot expect the Six to go back on what they have agreed over 12 years, and with much difficulty. To seek to do so would be unconstructive and incapable of being carried through. If we try to force a choice between the strengthening of the Community and its enlargement, there is no doubt the founder members will prefer to consolidate and deepen their own existing association, rather than risk its being Weakened by the accession of four new members. But there need be no conflict between the addition of new members and the rapid and determined pursuit of new objectives, particularly in the

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field of monetary policy and institutional developments. Both of these are now, rather suddenly, real and immediate possibilities. Indeed, the ideals and the opportunities facing an enlarged Community will be greater than if the Community remained limited to the present Six.
It is for reasons of this sort that, while taking proper note of the very real problems and difficulties contained in the White Paper and shown in public concern over this subject, we cannot afford to lose sight of where we are going in the future. If we are concerned with the standard of living, with industrial prosperity, with technological advance and with international security, we have an obligation to think out how these things can best be achieved. I am not going to embark on a discussion of any of them now, but I can say that, for the reasons which were so forcefully argued by the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, in his notable speech yesterday, I am convinced that Britain's future lies in Europe. A vision of the future and a desire to attain it in partnership with our European neighbours are pre-requisites for successful negotiations. Some of the enthusiasm and idealism which we have heard in this debate and in another place last month (particularly in the speeches of Mr. Heath and the Chancellor of the Exchequer), will I hope do something to offset the impact of opinion polls and newspaper stories which provoke doubt about our intentions in the minds of some of those in Europe who would most like to see the entry of Britain to an enlarged Community.
I was particularly struck by some remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Thorneycroft, in his excellent speech yesterday evening. He spoke about the tendency he has seen in business, in scientific and technical research, in banking and elsewhere for a coming together in Europe. Once events begin to run in a particular direction, as the noble Lord pointed out, they take on a power of their own, and politicians, if they are wise, do well to take them into account. The European tide of events is running strongly now. The noble Viscount, Lord Watkinson, when he resumed the debate to-day, and the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, last night, spoke about transnational
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links between like-minded companies. These are already making a reality of European integration, and it is no coincidence that some of the largest British companies are moving in this direction. They are doing so as equals, in the belief that agreement between technically competent and commercially strong organisations will lead to more effective competition on a world scale.
My Lords, the past is filled with examples of people who failed to detect the direction of events and to evolve policies to meet them. Like Lord Brown when he opened for the Government this afternoon, I should like to take the same perspective, to try to stand outside our current situation, with all its complexities and uncertainties, and ask: What will be the verdict of the next generation, 25 years from now, looking back on this period? By this standard I have no doubt: British policy should continue to move steadily closer to Europe. Not only should we join the Community, but we should set ourselves to work towards a more united Continent in which greater prosperity and security and contentment are the ends.
6.20 p.m.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, this has been a long debate. There have been a number of thoughtful speeches, and one or two speeches to which I would apply a less amiable adjective. But, generally speaking, I think we have covered most comprehensively the substance of the White Paper. I should like to mention the. speeches not only of what I might call the Front Bench speakers on both sides, but the notable contributions, on this side of the House, of Lord Silkin, and on the other side of Lord Harlech. and for me perhaps the most notable speech of the two days of this debate, the brief but unforgettable intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Boothby. I mention those not to create any distinctions but simply to make the point that those are the speeches that have, in my view, set the debate into its proper context.
I am not going to attempt in this winding-up speech to answer all the questions that have been put in the course of the last two days. Indeed, if I tried to do that, we should be here all night. In any case, it is perhaps unfortunate that many

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of the people who made the most rousing speeches are not here to have them replied to. Many have done me the courtesy of explaining why they are not here, and perhaps they will now accept my apologies if I do not answer their questions and take up the time of those who are here.
There are two speeches to which I should like to refer, however. The first is the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Gladwyn, because he specifically asked me to reply to two questions of his. Perhaps I may take up one of them now and come to the other at a later stage in my remarks. The noble Lord quoted the C.B.I, as saying that it was reasonably probable that the total cost of the common agricultural policy to the balance of payments might rise towards the end of this decade to about £400 million a year, and thereafter might decline to a level of £200 million to £300 million in the 1980s. The noble Lord asked whether the Government regarded this as a reasonable conjecture.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, I think I also quoted that the expected rise in the cost of living would range between 4½ per cent, and 2 per cent.
LORD CHALFONT: Yes, my Lords. I was not attempting to quote the noble Lord in extenso, but merely to refer to the question he asked. I would, in turn, draw his attention to the sentence immediately following the quotation, which says:
"It was recognised that these calculations are subject to a wide margin of possible error in either direction, and that there is no telling what might be the circumstances at the time of negotiation nor what terms the United Kingdom may be able to secure."
If that qualification is taken in conjunction with the calculations of the C.B.I., then that is indeed the Government's position; namely, that all calculations of cost are inevitably subject to margins of error, and the actual cost can be determined only in the course of negotiations.
Perhaps I may turn now to another remarkable speech in the course of this debate—remarkable, to me, for an entirely different reason. I refer to the speech of my noble friend Lord Blyton. My noble friend's speech was a familiar rehearsal, albeit an extremely powerful one, of the anti-Common Market argument. It was indeed familiar, because the "Blyton Group" is a well known
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"pop" group, and its songs are familiar. Indeed, to me, they are in some cases rather like some well known pieces of popular music: they are familiar, exciting, and the sound is marvellous, but sometimes you do not get very much out of listening to the words. However, on this occasion I listened very carefully to the words of my noble friend. I am not going to rebut all his arguments in detail, for obvious reasons; they have been put, rebutted, and put again endless times in the last 10 or 15 years, not only in this debate in your Lordships' House.
I should like to say, however, that I found my noble friend's speech, like all similar statements of the anti-Common Market position—that is to say, the fundamentalist anti-Common Market position—based on at least three major fallacies, three false assumptions. The first is that the future world economic situation is a static one; that it will never move, and that it will never develop. The second is that if we stay out of the Community we shall continue to enjoy the rapid growth of exports that we have enjoyed over the last decade. The third —and I think this may be the most serious one—is that economic relations with the Commonwealth and with Efta will remain unchanged if we stay out-side the Common Market.
In the real world, as distinct from the rather unreal, static model constructed by my noble friend Lord Blyton, and those who think like he does, the Community, as we have heard over and over again in the course of the last two days, is steadily growing in economic power. One of the consequences of this, as anyone who studies these matters constantly will know, is that even the Commonwealth countries to which he and his friends are constantly making reference are now beginning to come to arrangements with the Common Market at our expense. In the real world, as opposed to this dream world, we have to make a choice between going into the Common Market or staying out indefinitely with all the risks, commercial, economic and political, which that entails.
There is one other point that emerges from what my noble friend Lord Blyton has said; that is, the constant emphasis nowadays by the people to whom I refer as "anti-Europeans" on the public opinion polls, and the state of opinion

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which they are supposed to show in this country. In fact, I should not be surprised at all if the people of this country, after two vetos and a long wait for the negotiations, were beginning to exhibit signs of frustration. But if in fact we look at some of these public opinion polls as closely as some of our critics have looked at our White Paper, we might find some doubtful propositions here, too. It is true that when the plain and simple question was asked: "Do you want to go into the Common Market or not?" a majority of people answered, "No". That is true, but of course a great deal depends upon exactly how the questions in these public opinion polls are framed.
It is perhaps interesting, and it ought to be pointed out, that although a large number of people said, "No", the largest group of people said that if we would be better off in the Common Market, then of course they would like to join. That is a very different matter altogether, and we shall only know whether or not we are going to be better off if we negotiate. What do people say when they are polled on the question of negotiations? A large majority are in favour of beginning negotiations. So if we look at these famous public opinion polls which are supposed to give such comfort to the anti-Common Marketeers, I think we shall find in them some very doubtful propositions indeed.
Perhaps before summing up in general, I could make one brief reference to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald. It is pleasant for me to congratulate him on an excellent speech, because this does not often happen in your Lordships' House. However, I am afraid that even so I have to put a little gall and wormwood into what I have to say because I really must, for the record, assure your Lordships' House that although the noble Lord's picture of how the negotiations might take place was an interesting one, in fact no procedure for negotiations has yet been fixed. The arrangement sketched rather authoritatively by the noble Lord is only one of many possible arrangements that could be used for negotiations, and I am afraid I have to say, from my experience, not even a very likely one. Having said that, may I nevertheless congratulate the noble Lord on an excellent and most helpful speech?
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Perhaps we could now look at the arguments that have been adduced here, and try to put them into some kind of perspective. We have had the economic arguments at very great length, and I do not propose to develop them any further. I think they can best be summed up, as they have been summed up often before and at least twice in the course of this debate, by saying that in the short term the economic advantages are finely balanced; they can be argued either way, depending upon what set of statistics you use and from what point of departure you begin. The long term advantages are less easily quantifiable but, in my view, are comprehensively and persuasively arguable. I believe that in the long term there is great economic advantage to this country and Europe in the creation of an enlarged economic community.
But I should like to pass on from the economic argument to the political, because, after all, the only thing we are committed to at the moment is to negotiate. We are committed to no more than that. As has been said before— I am not now saying anything new—we shall not go into the Common Market unless the price is right; and we shall not know whether the price is right until we negotiate. So I think what we should be doing now is not to try to pre-judge, to pre-empt, these negotiations, but to look, as the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, suggested, at the whole of this subject in a slightly more imaginative and forward-looking way.
Let us try, as the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, put it at the beginning of this debate (and the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, followed him), to put the matter in its political context. Let us lift our eyes, if we can for a moment, from the dread spectacle conjured up by my noble friend Lord Blyton, of all these unfortunate European peasants eating horse-meat and margarine—not the Europe, I may say, that I know and love; but perhaps Lord Blyton knows them more recently than I do—and let us look, as the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, suggested, when he made his extremely interesting speech yesterday, at the kind of world into which we are all moving.
Let us look, first of all, at the great super-Powers, the United States and the

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Soviet Union, those vast agglomerations of industrial and military strength, with the power to destroy each other, and the rest of the world, if their strength should ever get out of hand, but, realising that, beginning to have an increasing dialogue with each other—a dialogue that may well be, unless we are careful, over the heads of the rest of us. They are beginning to realise their common interests in the world, and they are beginning to talk about those common interests. And one of the things that is going to be increasingly at stake in the kind of dialogue that these two giants are having, is the future of this Continent of ours. I think that we should bear in mind, first, that this is increasingly becoming a super-Power world, unless we are prepared to do something about that kind of eventuality.
Let us remember, too, the growth on the other side of the world of another super-Power, China—not all that far away. To-day, China has a population of 800 million; at the end of this century it will probably be between 1,200 million and 1,300 million, and by the middle of the next century—to continue the extra-polation—if the population curve continues as it is going now, one person in every three in the world will be Chinese. This is a power—you do not have to be a Marxist to correlate population and power—of immense potential.
It has already conducted, successfully, nine or ten nuclear tests. It will have within a very short time a nuclear capacity and a nuclear delivery system that will enable it to strike, if it wishes to, certainly at the Soviet Union and possibly at either of the two super-Powers. Its military strength is enormous. It has a standing army of 2,500,000, and an effective militia of 15 million; and on one authoritative calculation there are 250 million people in that country who have had some form of military training. Let us look at that Power growing up over the horizon, and remember that in a very short time it could change the whole strategic balance of the world.
Let us look at one or two other threads in this pattern. Let us look at the way in which it is possible that weapons of mass destruction may spread around the world. I am not talking now only of the spread of nuclear weapons. We have
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recently concluded a treaty to stop that: but unfortunately we have to admit that many of the significant countries in the nuclear equation have not yet signed the treaty. The danger of the spread of nuclear weapons, of chemical weapons and of biological weapons continues. The expenditure on arms continues to grow. In 1962 the total world expenditure on arms was something of the order of £50,000 million. In 1969, seven years later, it was £83,000 million, and the figure is going up monthly.
We have to combine with this the tremendous explosion in technology, particularly in the technology of communications. We have to remember the fact —and this is relevant to all that I am saying, and to all that I am going to say—that very soon we shall probably have a system of direct television broad-casting by satellite, which will bring pictures direct, in the measurable future, into the homes of people all over the world, or at least into the homes of anyone who can afford a simple domestic television set.
I say all this simply to point to what I think—and I know that many of your Lordships agree with me—is the real problem of the rest of this century and the beginning of the next. It is the familiar problem of the Third World: the fact that there is a growing gap between the rich and the poor. The rich are getting richer, while the poor look on and see the scientific, human and material resources of the world in the hands of a privileged few. And, as the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, pointed out, it is more than a coincidence that, by and large, the rich people of the world are white and the poor people of the world are coloured.
Your Lordships are probably already beginning to ask: what has all this to do with Europe? Well, my Lords, it has everything to do with Europe, if we know what we are talking about when we talk of the future of Europe. I am not talking now of Power politics. I am not talking of the politics of self-interest, the realpolitik of the 19th century: I am talking about what Europe is going to do in that kind of world. I do not see Europe—and here I agree fully with the noble Lord, Lord Boothby—or the Common Market as an inward-looking Community bent upon its own prosperity,

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concerned only with how many television sets it gets or how many pounds of steak it can eat in a day. If that were the kind of Europe that was growing up across the Channel, I should want no part of it at all. I believe that it is something greater than that, and I should like, for the last few minutes that I have, to tell your Lordships what I think this Europe can do in the kind of changing and hideously dangerous world that I have tried to describe.
There are possibilities—I think it is clear from what I have said, if my premises are acceptable—that we are on the fringe of a great confrontation, a great conflict of interests in the world: a conflict that may make the cold war of the last twenty-five years look like a very small and cosy affair indeed. It is the confrontation between the rich and the poor, and the racial confrontation that goes with it. It seems to me self-evident that the poor people of the world are not going to be prepared to stand by for ever and see the rich getting richer and the fat getting fatter, while they themselves die from starvation.
When they decide that they have had enough of this, let us remember the great super-Power growing up on the other side of the world that might provide the focus for this kind of revolution of rising expectations—or perhaps it is more accurate to call it a revolution of disappointed expectations. Let us remember, too, that in time some of those countries might have nuclear weapons, or even cheaper weapons of even greater destructive power. That is the kind of confrontation towards which I think we may move unless we are quick enough, wise enough, intelligent enough and imaginative enough to do something about it.
If we are going to guide the world in a different way, then there are many great decisions that will have to be taken in the course of the next 25 or 30 years. They are decisions about disarmament and arms control; decisions about aid to developing countries and how that can best be applied; decisions about solving the political problems of Europe which have remained obdurately insoluble since the end of the last war; problems of food and population; problems of disease and starvation; problems of how we preserve the environment and the quality of life— not only the quality of life in this country,
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upon which a good deal of this debate has seemed to me to concentrate, but the problems of life and the quality of life in Europe and in the developing world, where the quality of life is as yet something that is a matter not of debate but only of aspiration.
Again, perhaps your Lordships are saying, "Yes, very interesting. But what has it to do with Europe?" The question that I ask in answer to that is: "Where do we want all these great decisions to be taken? Do we want them all to be taken in Moscow and in Washington, or perhaps very soon in Peking?" For my part the answer is, "No: I should like many of those decisions to be taken here in Europe." What we must understand is that the voice of the small nation State is no longer heard in the councils of the world—I think perhaps rightly so.
Let us think now, for the last few minutes of what I have to say, of what our views are on all this. Most of us have had the greater part of our lives, and we see things perhaps in familiar, conventional ways. What about the young people, to whom we are going to hand all this over, whether it is a world fit to live in, or a mess? What do they think of it all? In my view, they are tired: tired of the world of super-Powers, tired of the realpolitik, tired of the Hobbesian concept of the sovereign nation State. I believe, and I know that many young people believe, that in as little as a hundred years' time people are going to look back on us and wonder whether we were not some kind of barbarians, who organised ourselves into nation States and, when we disagreed with each other's policies, went to war and killed each other with bigger and ever better weapons; and who spent nearly one-tenth of the world's resources on the means of destroying each other when two-thirds of the world's population had not enough to eat.
Young people simply do not understand this, my Lords, and they believe, as I do, that we shall be looked upon in the future as some kind of barbaric society. They will want us to move away from that. I believe that we can move from it; and this is what I believe is meant by the opportunity for Europe. I believe that, through a united and integrated Europe, we can move away from all the fissions and the frictions we have

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had in this great Continent in past years. We can apply our European values and our political traditions to establishing a really civilised world community, living in peace and devoting its resources to what my noble friend Lord Francis-Williams and others have called the quality of life. But let us, as I said before, not concern ourselves only with the quality of life of our people in this country, or even of our own people in Europe. We are members of a human and a global family, and we ought to be concerned about the quality of life of everyone.
Of course we have to come down to brass tacks. We have to get our feet on the ground. We have to take account of the economic factors which are contained in White Papers of this kind, and about which we have to negotiate when we go into the Common Market. To the people of this country the price of food is not a trivial matter. Indeed, to the poorer people of this country it is one of the most important matters in their lives, and I should be the last to diminish it. But it has been said before in this debate that it is not only the cost of living that counts; it is the standard of life and the quality of life—and I am convinced that even on the narrowest possible calculation this is bound to improve when we move into the Common Market and when we begin to help in transforming that Common Market into a united Europe. Indeed, if the negotiations show that this is not the case, if the terms turn out to be unacceptable even in this narrow context, then we shall have to think again. So it is of course in the interests of Europe as a whole that a fair and realistic agreement should be negotiated. Because if we fail to negotiate a fair and effective agreement on the basis of the kind of assessment that is made in this document, then a great opportunity will have been lost, not only to us but to the whole of Europe —and it is possibly, my Lords, an opportunity that may never come again.
This is, as I keep on saying, a matter for negotiations. Some of the speeches I have heard in the last two days and in the last two years seem to assume that there are not going to be any negotiations; that we are simply going to pay the price that is asked. This, of course,
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is not the case. We shall negotiate, and we shall negotiate hard. This is an economic problem, and we shall look at it as hard negotiators and hard bargainers. But the tragedy would be if in this country, or across on the mainland, insular nationalism or xenophobic prejudices of any kind, or tired politicians with outworn policies and outworn ideologies, were allowed once again to deprive us of one of the great political visions of the century.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

REPTON R.D.C. AND WATERWAYS PLEASURE CRAFT CONTROLS
6.45 p.m.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied with the power possessed by the Board of Trade to license pleasure craft on British Waterways Board waters and to fine offenders £100, added to the powers of the British Waterways Board to remove the offenders' licences instantly without giving reason, hearing or appeal; and whether it is also necessary to grant additional powers to the Repton Rural District Council and other councils to fine the offenders £2. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, after the great and weighty debate to which we have just listened, perhaps it is right that we should end our Sitting to-day with a touch of light comedy. I think that, briefly, I had better put the House in the picture on the Question that I am now asking. The Board of Trade, for obvious and necessary reasons, has power to license pleasure craft which are hired out for passengers. Their powers cover the whole range of pleasure craft, but in fact they do not bother with pleasure craft which carry fewer than 12 passengers; they have never considered it necessary. Their powers, of course, operate on all the waters of Britain, not only the sea coast but the inland waters as well. They have power to take offenders to court, where they may be fined up to, I believe, £100.
On top of those powers, a number of harbours and large waterway systems have their own Acts of Parliament giving them further powers to license pleasure craft, and these powers include those given to the British Waterways Board for the nationalised inland waterways,

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which are almost entirely rivers and canals. The British Waterways Board's powers are indeed now vast, because they can issue licences on any conditions they see fit; they can refuse to issue licences to anybody whom they do not think fit to receive one; and they can not only refuse to issue licences but, having issued a licence, can snatch it away again at a moment's notice without giving a reason, without giving a hearing, without trial and without appeal, not even to the Ombudsman. As a matter of fact, in some cases they do that. In those cases in which I have seen it done, I was in entire agreement with the Board, believing that they acted rightly and properly.
Now there are some areas in the country where it is obvious that further licensing is necessary. There are sections of open coast and places where there are small harbours of the type of say, Clovelly, where an inspector of the Board of Trade would not be likely to find himself except possibly on holiday, and where there is no waterway authority of any other kind. To cover those small harbours there is the Public Health Amendment Act 1907, by which these small authorities can apply for an order; and when they have got that order they can themselves license pleasure craft. However, it permits them only to license pleasure craft which are not already licensed by the Board of Trade. So in practice it means that normally they license rather smaller pleasure craft or small harbours. That type of order is also applicable where there is a lake or similar inland water of which there is no navigation authority but which is nevertheless navigable and where some operator may be hiring out boats. There a local authority can get power under this order to see that he carries out his trade safely.
Now we come to the case in point. Some time last year it came to the notice of a councillor of the Repton Rural District Council that for some time previously a boat had been carrying passengers without a Board of Trade licence. Repton Rural District Council is an entirely inland authority. It has no navigable water at all except for two short sections of the Trent and Mersey Canal —two sections because the outlines of Repton rural district zigzag, and so does the Trent and Mersey Canal; so the
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Trent and Mersey Canal looks into Repton at two short curves at two different spots.
The worthy councillor considered the matter and went, rightly, to the Board of Trade and laid information about this matter. The Board of Trade inspected the vessel, which had belonged to a publican who had been taking passengers from outside his public house the previous year. Apparently he had not renewed his trade, and I am informed that there is no passenger vessel at all operating in the Repton area at this moment. The Board of Trade inspected the vessel. They found that an offence had been committed, but apparently they considered it a fairly venial offence because, apart from uttering a "Tut tut!", no doubt, they did nothing about it.
Not so the Repton Rural District Council. They decided that the safety on the canals was inadequate. Whether my noble friend is prepared to say that the Board of Trade regulations are inadequate I do not know, but this was decided by the Repton Rural District Council. They also took no account of the vast powers of the British Waterways Board, which would certainly have taken action if Repton had complained. As a matter of fact, at that moment there was nothing to complain about because the vessel was laid up and has not been used since. I have here a letter from the clerk and chief executive officer of Repton saying that this case is the ony one which has come to the notice of the council. In other words, there are no other vessels operating from Repton.
Nevertheless Repton decided to apply for an order. I cannot imagine how it happened, but they were granted it—and this in spite of the fact that the British Waterways Board, which controls all these waterways, objected, and so did the Inland Waterways Association. The British Waterways Board say:
"In spite of our representations and the representations made by the Inland Waterways Association, the Home Office stated that they proposed to give the authority to the rural district council on the assumption that no valid objections were raised by other persons or organisations."
Is it not enough if the nationalised organisation which controls the entire inland waterways raises an objection to this sort of thing on its waterways; and if that is

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backed up by the users' association of the waterways? One would think that that was adequate. Indeed, I do not know what more you could have.
Anyway, to get on with this comedy: they got their order and a copy of this order appeared in the local papers (as it had to by law). I read from the order published in the local papers:
"The order will enable the council to grant licences on such terms and conditions as they think fit for pleasure boats and boatmen in charge of such boats. It will be an offence to carry passengers for hire in an unlicensed boat."
Further, it is clear that Repton intends, whenever they find a hire boat, to issue it with a licence plate, to inspect the vessel, and to test the boatman to make sure he is capable of handling his craft.
Naturally, one or two people were surprised and the clerk and chief executive officer of Repton, replying to one of them, said:
"Thank you for your letter of February 12, 1970. Only pleasure boats whose usual place of mooring is on the waterways within the rural district need be licensed with the council. As it appears your boats will only occasionally pass through the rural district, licences are not required."
That is what he writes in one letter. In another, he sings a different song. In this letter, issued to an official of the Inland Waterways Association, he says:
"Only boats used for carrying passengers for reward will need to be licensed. The order is in force in the rural district and therefore all boats carrying passengers for reward on waterways within the rural district will need to be licensed."
Not just the ones which are resident in Repton; but all boats carrying passengers for reward on the waterway. That sounds harmless, but on this canal system nowadays a large part of the traffic at holiday time is hire cruisers which pass along the Trent and Mersey Canal by the dozen every week. They come from some 30 or 40 bases scattered round the country. There are large numbers of boats.
The Clerk of Repton says that as only one instance of a pleasure boat being operated in the rural district for reward has arisen, it is expected that the cost to the ratepayers should be negligible. Under the powers they have taken and which they now must use by law, they have to license every single vessel passing through their area for hire or reward and to
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license its boatman. I know that one operator of hire cruisers has written to them asking for their investigator, or whoever it is they have, to come and survey his 100 vessels. How the council are going to survey the abilities of the boat-men on these vessels I cannot conceive But they have to, according to their order. This matter gets funnier and funnier. Under the council's order, every such vessel must carry a licence plate; and presumably they must issue it. They can charge only five shillings for the licence, and if the licence is not attached to such vessels they can take the case to court and obtain a maximum fine of £2.
Really, my Lords, do we need it? Is this really essential in addition to the vast powers of the Board of Trade to examine such vessels? If the Board of Trade considered that there was any danger to vessels carrying less than 12 passengers no doubt they would do something about it; but they never have, so far as I know. On top of those powers, the powers of the British Waterways Board are vast. Indeed, I remember I succeeded in persuading your Lordships that those powers were too vast. But that is history now. On top of those huge powers, power is given to Repton Rural District Council to fine an offender £2. It sounds like the 13th stroke of some mad clock, which might well legitimately strike 12, but when it strikes 13 you begin to think that something has gone wrong with the works.
If this were the only case of its kind we might laugh and pass on, but already other rural district councils and local councils are starting to take out the same orders. Already there is the beginning of a flow of these,. Along the Trent and Mersey Canal alone there are 12 authorities. Are they all to issue 5s. licences? Are they all to test our boatmen? How many councils are there along the entire 3,000 miles of navigable inland water-ways? How many licences and how many sets of regulations (they may be different regulations; we do not know) are going to be brought into force? If the argument is strong enough to allow this order to be made in the case of Repton, it is equally strong enough to allow orders to be made for all these other organisations.
My Lords, this is "Mad Hatter land". Imagine if this happened in respect of

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car licences; if a rural district council could take out an order empowering it to stop all cars on the M1 and test them for road worthiness and check their licences. Imagine each rural council doing that along the length of the road. It is unbelievable. But apparently this is what it is intended to do with cruisers for hire. If it is not intended, what is the order for? What are the council supposed to be licensing? If this boat which they think might possibly offend again is the real bugbear, they cannot catch it with this order, because the owner has only to move his moorings a couple of hundred yards and the boat would be outside the territory of the Repton Council. Then, apparently, according to at least one of the letters from the council, it will escape them.
Do the Repton Council need this power anyway? Is there any real need to licence vessels and their boatmen if those vessels carry only 12 passengers, or fewer? The Board of Trade has never suggested that there is. I should like my noble friends to tell me whether they agree with the Board of Trade that the present powers are adequate. If they are not adequate, why have they not said so? We are in a position where if anything needs to be done it ought to be done by the Board of Trade. If it does not need to be done, silly little orders issued to all these separate little rural district councils would make "Cloud-cuckoo land" of the entire licensing of boats on the inland waterways.
My Lords, I will not take up the time of the House any longer. Again I ask my noble friends whether the powers of the Board of Trade to license passenger craft on these inland waterways are adequate. If they do not consider them adequate, do they consider that the enormous powers granted to the British Waterways Board, which go far beyond the powers of the Board of Trade, are adequate? Are the powers adequate when combined? Is it really necessary to issue an order so that Repton District Council, on top of the enormous powers of those two great authorities, can take offenders to court and fine them £2?
7.4 p.m.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, it is always a great pleasure, even at this somewhat late hour, to listen to and follow the noble Viscount, Lord St.
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Davids, on the subject of canals, and particularly because of his expert knowledge. I should like to congratulate the noble Viscount on raising this rather curious but important issue of the Repton Rural District Council and on the entertaining manner, and eloquence, with which he has explained the situation. I should like also to congratulate him on his alertness in spotting it. I am sure that his noble friend Lord Winterbottom will also be grateful to him.
The noble Viscount's speculation about what might occur in the future if other local authorities adopted the Repton policy was, I thought, tinged somewhat with a mixture of imaginative anticipation coupled with a long experience of canal administration. But I believe that it led on to making one realise that this relatively small issue could germinate into a much larger issue; namely, a serious frustration of the general enjoyment and amenity of the canal system. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, will agree that this situation was not envisaged by Her Majesty's Government when the White Paper on the future of canals appeared only some three years ago.
One of the most curious features of the noble Lord's Question is the purpose behind the action taken by the Repton Council to ask the Home Office for the necessary by-law powers under the old 1907 Act. I am advised on reasonable authority that this action was stimulated, as the noble Viscount has described, mainly to control one boat and a particular boat operator, who I understand came outside the Board of Trade's regulations. The purpose, one assumes, so far as the Repton R.D.C. were concerned, could not have been for additional income; for under the 1907 Act, as the noble Viscount, Lord St. Davids knows, they may charge only 5s. per boat for the licence and a shilling for the operator per year. The purpose, one must assume, was for safety regulations. If this was the case; if this was the ground on which the Home Office gave this local authority the power to act, despite, as the noble Viscount has said, protests from the British Waterways Board and the Inland Waterways Association, I shall look forward with great interest to hearing the reasons behind the Home Office decision.

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One wonders whether this is a matter where there is a loophole between the Board of Trade regulations and the British Waterways Board's powers. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, could comment on this later. Or was there, as one suspects, a lack of communication between Government Departments leading to absurd overlapping of powers? On this question of the Board of Trade regulation, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, could tell us whether the Government have ever considered reducing the number of passengers (I think the number is at present 12) which are covered by these regulations. One interesting point arises regarding safety regulations, because I understand that the Trent and Mersey Canal is one of the shallowest in the country. It averages between 2 and 3 ft. in depth.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, that is so.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: As I said at the start, my Lords, the noble Viscount has raised what appeared, at first sight, an innocent-looking Question on a rather narrow issue. But I support him in his argument that it could lead to very wide consequences. The noble Viscount has vividly described the consequences, and I will not repeat them. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, has taken the point. It appears that a situation might arise where operators could find themselves breaking differing by-laws because they were peculiar to certain local authorities. Surely he would agree that this would be an intolerable position. I look for-ward with quickening interest to hear the reason behind the Home Office decision and to learn why the power of the British Waterways Board was considered inadqeuate to deal with the situation, and why the local authority considered it necessary to have a special by-law to deal with it.
7.10 p.m.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE, R.A.F. (LORD WINTER-BOTTOM): My Lords, my noble friend has a great gift for digging out oddities in the field of legislation surrounding inland waterways. Both he and I, in our different
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ways, are concerned with the large increase in the number of people who spend their leisure time messing about in boats. My noble friend has done great work in this field, and as chairman of the East Midlands Sports Council, under which this canal presumably comes, I am. also concerned with encouraging people to spend their leisure time in this way. But the trouble is that more and more people are taking to the water without adequate experience either of waterman-ship or of the necessary requirements for the safe condition of their boats. It is for these reasons that the legislative machine feels bound to concern itself more and more closely with this innocent but potentially dangerous pastime.
I think I must point out to my noble friend that he is slightly behind the times, because one indication of the concern of the Government is that the fines which he mentioned in his Question are out-of-date. I do not know whether this is a measure of the seriousness with which the Government regard the dangers of messing about in boats, but the Board of Trade can now fine offenders £400 and a rural district council can now fine them £50. The Criminal Justice Act 1967 increased the fines up to these much higher figures. The reason for that is that from time to time disasters occur. My noble friend will remember the "Darlwyne" disaster in the summer of 1966, with a tragic loss of life, after which the Government took various steps to improve safety measures in small boats. On January 12, 1967, the then Minister of State at the Board of Trade wrote to all local authorities, including presumably the Repton Rural District Council, and to all harbour and river authorities, inviting their co-operation in enforcing the Board's regulations for vessels requiring passenger certificates and reminding them of the powers they can exercise. Guidance was given also on the kind of conditions the authorities may consider desirable to impose. Among the powers available to local authorities are those conferred by Section 94 of the Public Health Amendment Act 1907.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether the Board of Trade also wrote to the Waterways Board at the same time?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, I cannot say whether it was at the same

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time. From the wording I have given, I would say that it was at the same time, but if I am incorrect I will let the noble Earl know.
As a result of this, in May, 1969, the Repton Rural District Council applied for an Order applying Section 94 of the 1907 Act to the rural district. The reason for the council's application was because information had reached the council that the licensee of a public house adjoining the Trent and Mersey Canal at Findern had been operating a boat on the canal between Findern and Willington, carrying fare-paying passengers. The licensee of the public house confirmed that he had done so. The boat in question was over 20 feet in length, and it was admitted by the licensee that on one or two occasions more than 20 passengers, mainly children, had been carried. The only licence held was a hire and reward one issued by the British Waterways Board. The application for this licence contained the customary certificate, signed by the owner of the craft, that he would not use the vessel to carry more than 12 passengers. A Board of Trade surveyor who inspected the boat drew the conclusion that it would require a considerable amount of work before it could be certified by the Board of Trade to carry more than 12 passengers.
It was against this background, therefore, that the Repton R.D.C., recognising that craft carrying less than 12 persons do not require to be certified by the Board of Trade, decided to take powers under Section 94. This strikes me as entirely reasonable. They had been advised by the Board of Trade to look into this.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt again, but at this stage could not the British Water-ways Board have withdrawn his licence?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, presumably the Board might have done that, but they did not. The point was that an objection was raised against the licensee and there was nothing at that time that the local authority could do about this breach of the regulations.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, did the Board of Trade fine the licensee for this offence? If not, perhaps they did not consider it very serious.
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: I think that this was entirely a sensible approach by the major central Government authority. I agree that in many ways there is an element here of using a steam hammer to crack a nut, but the rural district council had been asked to look into this matter of danger arising from an improper use of pleasure craft, and it was properly concerned when this breach of regulation was discovered. At that time it had no power to do anything about it, and for this reason it took power under Section 94 of the 1907 Act. Therefore, there is no overlap between the Board of Trade's powers and the powers given under the Act.
The British Waterways Board share the concern of the Repton Rural District Council for the safety of passengers carried by pleasure craft. They have a pleasure-craft licensing system which enables them to exercise control over craft. Persons navigating on the Board's system must observe their by-laws, many of which are concerned with the safety of craft and passengers. The powers which the Council have obtained will be exercisable concurrently with those of the British Waterways Board and will provide an additional safety element.
One other aspect of the matter has given cause for concern. This relates to the intentions of the Council under the Order. The Inland Waterways Association, Ltd., questioned the position of craft from other parts of the country entering waterways within the Repton Rural District. It is the Council's intention that only pleasure boats plying for hire or operating from within the Repton Rural District will be required to be licensed. If it appears to them that a particular boat plying from outside the district does not comply with the licensing requirements of the Repton R.D.C., information will be passed on to the local authority in whose area the craft is or should be licensed. The Council have indicated their full agreement with the view that there ought not to be a multiplicity of licensing authorities, but their great concern has been all along with the safety of those using the waterways. As recently as February 19 the Clerk to the Council has reaffirmed that it is the Council's intention to apply their powers under Section 94 only in respect of craft plying for hire or operating from within the

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Rural District. This is in line with the practice adopted by their neighbouring authority, Burton-on-Trent, where Section 94 is also in force.
I agree with my noble friend that we have a rather complex set of legislative powers under three separate Ministries. The Board of Trade are responsible for the safety of vessels carrying more than 12 passengers. The Ministry of Transport are responsible, under the Transport Act 1962, from which the British Waterway Board derives its licensing powers; and the Home Office, of course, are responsible for the Pleasure Boats (No. 2) Order 1969 in force in the Repton Rural District. In a perfect world we could expect that the legislation covering inland waterways and pleasure craft would be consolidated. But this is really not a matter of very great importance, I think. The growth of small pleasure craft on inland waterways is too small a matter for consideration by the Board of Trade; and I think it is sensible that the actual supervision of pleasure craft should be carried out by local authorities at the point where they are moored, where the owner lives or the boatman lives, and where the craft can be inspected.
Whereas the legislation, although apparently cumbersome, is necessary, I think we may expect—and I myself do expect—that the powers that local authorities are taking on in order to license boats under the orders that I have mentioned will be sensibly applied. I hope that I have given my noble friend the assurance that there will not be the sort of nonsense that he foresees—of, as it were, boats being stopped at the boundary of every rural district, being checked and then sent on. I am certain that this power will be applied sensibly. If it is not, I am also reasonably certain (although this is not an undertaking) that in my capacity as Chairman of the East Midlands Sports Ground I shall hear about it very quickly; and so I am certain will my noble friend, who will doubtless bring it to my attention.
THE EARL OF KINNOULL: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, would he answer two small points on this issue? In the first place, he said that the Repton Rural District Council took the powers. In fact, they had to apply to the Home Office for the powers.
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Did the Home Office confer with the British Waterways Board before they gave these powers? Secondly, what is the price the local authority charge the operators for the licence?
LORD WINTERBOTTOM: My Lords, if the noble Earl will permit me, I will write to him on those two specific points. I should have thought that consultation did not take place, because the legislation exists. The Repton Rural District Council applied to the Home Office, and presumably, since they did this in the proper form, the powers were conferred upon them automatically. However, I will check this point, as well as the cost of the licence.

BARCLAYS BANK D.C.O. BILL [H.L.]
Reported, without amendment.
SALOP COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.
WELLAND AND NENE (EMPINGHAM RESERVOIR) AND MID-NORTHAMPTONSHIRE WATER BILL
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments; a Special Report made, and to be printed.