Lords Sitting of 7 December 1971

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Leicester.

SCHOOL TELEVISION TROLLEYS
LORD CROOK: 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 attention has been called to the potential danger of the television trolleys used in schools.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (LORD BELSTEAD): My Lords, early this year a school boy was killed by the fall of a trolley-mounted television set which was being moved. The accident was extensively reported in the local Press at the time, and the causes were later discussed in the educational Press. In general, local educational authorities take great care in safety matters, and the publicity which this tragic accident has attracted will have drawn their attention to this particular hazard in their choice of equipment. Meanwhile, a technical committee of the British Standards Institution has been preparing a new specification for large-screen television receivers for schools, including those mounted on mobile trolleys.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer, and I am pleased to learn that something is now being done by the Government. But may I ask whether the Minister is aware that the slow movement and wobbling of the committee of the British Standards Institution is such that at least one member has already resigned because of their lack of decision?
LORD BELSTEAD: My Lords, the consideration which the technical committee of the British Standards Institution
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is giving in this particular matter is to the preparation of a standard specification for school television receivers. This is mainly for the technical performance of sets but, as I am sure the noble Lord is aware, the committee is also studying degrees of tilt and the diameter of castors. I cannot tell the noble Lord when the consideration will be finished, but it is well advanced.

NORTHERN IRELAND: SERVICEMEN'S PAY AND ALLOWANCES
2.37 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether members of the Forces engaged in Ulster are regarded as on active service and receive additional payment.]
EARL. FERRERS: My Lords, Servicemen's duties in Ulster are part of their normal terms and conditions of service. They are not regarded as on active service and receive no extra pay and allowances for service in Ulster; nor would extra payments be made if they were declared as on active service.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, if these men are not on active service, may I ask the noble Earl how he defines their service? Is he aware when our Forces were in Aden, where the situation was far less tragic and difficult than it is in Ulster, and where the amenities were far better than they are in Ulster—for example, in accommodation and, also, in the assistance of the NAAFI, which is not available in Ulster—the men received the standard overseas allowance? Ought not something to be done for our Forces in Ulster? If, for technical reasons, they cannot receive the standard overseas allowance which is payable when men are overseas, why cannot they be given some ex gratia payment?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, to answer the noble Lord's first question, they are not in fact on active service; they are at present engaged in assisting the Civil Power. With regard to the noble Lord's last point, he will be aware

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that a different scale and system of pay came into operation in April of this year. Under this scale an X factor is included, which takes account of the peculiar circumstances of men in the Armed Services compared with those in civilian life.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, is not the situation in Ulster unique in our history? Can the noble Earl inform your Lordships' House whether there has ever been any similar situation, when men have been engaged in service of this character which is defined as "assisting the authorities to maintain order"? Surely this is something unique and ought to be treated as such.
EARL FERRERS: Yes, my Lords. I think that it probably is unique in this respect; but whether it is or not completely unique is of course a matter of history. In fact, the conditions of pay and service under which the Forces in Ireland are operating at the moment are those which have only recently come into use. As I said earlier, this change has been made only during the last 12 months.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that this problem of active service is one that has confronted us in the past? Is he also aware that for a long time our troops in Aden were not on active service, and it was only in the final stages, after there had been actual open battles, that the change was made? None the less, is the noble Earl aware that the X factor is not intended to cover a specific issue of this sort, and that it is a general factor? May I therefore ask the noble Earl whether he will bring my noble friend's Question, and the various answers, to the attention of the Secretary of State?
EARL FERRERS: Of course, my Lords. I will certainly bring the noble Lord's observations, and those of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, to the attention of my noble friend the Secretary of State. But I am bound to say that I am advised that the only effect of declaring a state of active service is that the Force Commander's powers are increased, and a court-martial can inflict the death penalty for certain offences under the Army Act. It does not mean that those on
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active service will receive any higher remuneration.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, speaking as the father of one of the boys referred to in the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell—who is in Northern Ireland not for the first time, and who is, I believe, serving in the noble Lord's old regiment—may I ask the noble Earl whether the Government will seriously consider additional emoluments of some sort, if only to reduce parental contributions?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I am not sure that the noble Lord's question does not have a slightly different slant from that posed by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell. But I will certainly convey his opinions to my noble friend.
LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY: My Lords, does not my noble friend agree that the increases in pay earlier this year, to which he referred, were intended mainly to bring about better recruitment and to bring the forces up to the level of what they might earn in civil employment? Does he further agree that the job being carried out by Servicemen in Ulster is probably far more difficult than it was in the Cyprus situation? There is some disquiet in the country, and will my noble friend undertake to look into this matter and make a Statement at a future date?
EARL FERRERS: Yes, my Lords, I will certainly bring my noble friend's observations to the attention of my noble friend. I would agree with him entirely that when the new military salary scale came into operation it was in order to bring the remuneration of the people in the Armed Forces in some degree into line with those in civilian employment. But on top of that was added an X factor which was in fact supposed to take into account the peculiar circumstances which anyone who accepts work in the Army is bound to entertain. However, I would entirely agree with my noble friend that the people who are at the moment serving in Ulster are having a quite unique and a most distressing time.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, would the Minister not say that this is extra active service in the light of the fact that our

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soldiers in Northern Ireland do not know who is their friend or who is their enemy?
EARL FERRERS: I entirely agree, my Lords, that the work of the soldiers in Northern Ireland is in this respect quite unique.
LORD HENDERSON: My Lords, will the Minister consider recommending to the Secretary of State the payment of special danger money on top of the ordinary payments which the Servicemen are getting?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I think that that point was considered some time ago. The noble Lord will remember that the new military salary payment was in fact originally suggested by the Prices and Incomes Board, and that it was accepted by the previous Government and by this Government; and when that decision was made the possibility of what is described, I think, as combat pay was considered and, for a variety of reasons, was rejected.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, will the noble Earl say whether or not the dependants of soldiers killed in Northern Ireland are entitled to pensions, or, if they are not on active service, whether they are not so entitled?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, there is the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act, which is a Northern Ireland Act, and which is civilian legislation, of which troops or their dependants may take advantage. They may claim from the Government of Northern Ireland, in the courts, for relatives who have been killed or, indeed, for themselves if they have been maimed.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, is the noble Earl not aware that anybody killed or injured in circumstances which are attributable to service is entitled to an appropriate pension? This applies in peace or war, provided it is attributable to service. Perhaps I may ask the noble Earl to look at this matter again, because there are other defects in what he has said which I will not take up the time of the House in looking at now.
LORD GISBOROUGH: My Lords, would it not also be appropriate, in the case of those who are killed in Ulster, for the rule to be changed so that
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estate duty should be remitted when these lives are prematurely shortened?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, under the Finance Act 1952, I think it is, those who are killed through warlike acts do not have to pay death duties or estate duty.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, may I say to the noble Earl that, in view of the unsatisfactory answer I have received, for which I do not blame the noble Earl, I shall await events and raise the matter again on some other occasion.
LORD CROOK: My Lords, in order that we might understand this matter a little better, can the Minister explain what is the difference between something which is unique and something which is completely unique?
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, I think there has been an unmistakable and understandable concern expressed in your Lordships' House about the conditions of service of our troops in Northern Ireland at the present time. My noble friend has said that he will pass on to my noble friend the Secretary of State for Defence the very strong views expressed. I think we should leave it there now, but, of course, this is a matter of deep concern to us, and noble Lords may well wish to revert to it at another time.

N.A.T.O. AND UNITED STATES FORCES
2.47 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether NATO forces if deprived of U.S.A. forces could be considered adequate to deal with an emergency.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN): My Lords, this is a hypothetical Question, and I venture to suggest that the contingency it appears to postulate—namely, the complete withdrawal of

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United States military support from NATO—is most improbable.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, why does the noble Marquess speak of the Question as hypothetical? Is he aware that there is considerable controversy in the United States about whether American Forces should be retained in Europe, and that there is much uncertainty about the issue? In view of the undoubted weakness of our conventional forces—I am speaking of the NATO forces in Europe—and in particular the contracting out of the French forces, not only troops on the ground but the naval forces in the Mediterranean, what is to happen in the event of an emergency? Can we rely on our conventional forces associated with NATO? Are we not largely dependent upon the conventional assistance furnished by the United States; and if the Senate should change its mind on the subject—and it almost changed its mind the other day—would it not be a very serious situation for us?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, with respect to the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, I think that this is a hypothetical question because the Administration of the United States have repeatedly said, and very recently, that they have no intention of reducing their own force levels in Europe, except possibly in the context of M.B.F.R.'s, which is perhaps a slightly different matter. Indeed, my Lords, the level of United States forces in Europe in 1971 has been slightly above that of the previous year. I really think that the noble Lord is unnecessarily worried.
LORD GLADWYN: My Lords, would not the noble Marquess agree that the old question of the defence of Western Europe inside the Atlantic Alliance is a very important and perhaps even a rather urgent question which might well form the subject of an early debate in your Lordships' House?
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, is the noble Marquess aware that his answers have really been most unsatisfactory? My noble friend has put a Question which I should have thought is well within the realms of contingency planning, for which all Government and mili
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tary establishments are responsible. The question is: what is to happen should there be a reduction of American forces in Europe? Will what is left be sufficient to ensure the security of Western Europe? I do not think that that is a hypothetical question; it is one of contingency planning. It would be interesting to noble Lords on this side to know whether Her Majesty's Government have given the matter deep and mature consideration.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I can certainly assure the House that the question of any sort of reduction from the American side is a matter of concern to Her Majesty's Government. All that I was trying to do was to inform the House that there is no indication of this happening at the present time. Indeed, the American Government themselves have taken great pains to assure their colleagues in NATO that this is not likely to happen. I can understand the noble Lord's fears; and these are things which we are considering. I said that it was hypothetical because there seems to be no likelihood of the American Government reducing their forces.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, would the noble Marquess agree that the defence of Western Europe is entirely bound up with NATO and that the European Community has nothing at all to do with the defence of the West?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I think that we are getting slightly away from the point of the original Question.
LORD CHALFONT: My Lords, may I bring the matter back to the original point? Would the noble Marquess assure the House that the United States Government have assured Her Majesty's Government and other Governments in NATO that there is unlikely to be any reduction of American forces in Europe in the future? Or is this coupled with any particular time scale?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I could not give noble Lords a precise answer to that question without notice. I think I should be right in saying that the Americans have stated that they have no intention in the foreseeable future—I cannot say "in the future" of reducing their forces in Europe except

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within the concept of M.B.F.R. which is something that we shall be considering.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, when the noble Marquess suggests that I ought not to be worried about a matter of this sort, can he understand that I am not worried for myself? At my time of life there is no need to worry. Is he aware that I am concerned about the future security of Europe and of the United Kingdom? And is he further aware that in recent speeches made in the Continent of Europe by people associated with the French the statement has been made that there is no keen interest in the European countries in the West about defence matters? In view of the French situation, is this not a matter which is far from hypothetical and one which should be of concern to every Member of your Lordships' House?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I am sure that every Member of this House, and indeed of the Government, is concerned about the defence of Europe. I did not wish to suggest that the noble Lord was not concerned, for I am certain that he is; but his question as phrased implied that any form of American withdrawal would be considered a total withdrawal. I was suggesting that that was hypothetical.
LORD ST. HELENS: My Lords, is the noble Marquess aware that this matter has been debated exhaustively both in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and recently in the Western European Parliamentary Assembly, and that all the nations concerned are aware of the problem? Is the noble Marquess further aware that earlier this year, in the autumn, at the NATO assembly in Ontario, Canada, an amendment was put forward to suggest the withdrawal of American forces from Europe and that it was voted against by all the American senators and representatives present?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. I can confirm that what he has said is true.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, apart from what his noble friend has just said, is the noble Marquess aware that by going into the European Common Market we are going to be in a most embarrassing position since we are one of the fore
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runners in regard to NATO? If this action is taken and we go into Europe we are going to be in a very difficult position.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, we have debated the Common Market and, doubtless. we shall again debate the Common Market. We have debated general defence policy, and we shall be debating it again quite soon. I believe that we should not turn Question and Answer into a mini-debate. I would urge your Lordships to pass on.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Marquess, in view of his statement that the Question is hypothetical, whether he is aware that the State Department in America yesterday said that the promise of continued arms to Europe was limited to one year? Would it not be much better for Her Majesty's Government to seek a reduction of forces on both sides through the proposed European Security Conference?
EARL. JELLICOE: My Lords, I apologise for again intervening, but I would urge your Lordships that it is time to pass on to another Question. It is my understanding that it was the general feeling of the House as expressed in a recent debate on procedure that your Lordships did not wish to turn Question Time into a mini-debate. I feel that there is a real danger of our doing so.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, was not my first question definitely in order—in commenting upon and in questioning what the noble Marquess said?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, in reply to the noble Lord, I do not think I can say anything more than I have already said. The Americans have given an assurance that they do not intend to reduce their forces in Europe except in the context of the M.B.F.R., which the noble Lord mentioned and which is something which is being pursued.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, obviously I wish to support the noble Earl the Leader of the House, but, with the greatest respect I would suggest that if replies are not directly bearing on particular questions it is likely that noble Lords will wish to pursue them. I would only say that I hope we shall have a debate quite soon on the Defence White

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Paper. We managed it fairly early last Session, and there are clearly a number of matters that we must discuss.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl the leader of the House whether he was trying to suggest to the House that we should avoid turning Question Time into mini-debates?—for on that the House will surely support him.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, and to the noble Lord the Leader of the Liberal Opposition. I have noted what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and I think it would be the intention of my noble friend the Secretary of State for Defence to arrange, if the usual channels so desire, an early debate on defence matters as soon as the Defence White Paper is published. Of course, if any noble Lord wishes to put down a specific Motion before then we can consider a specific debate before that time.

FOULNESS AIRPORT STUDIES
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are in a position to report progress in the planning of an international airport at Foulness.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD): My Lords, we are pressing ahead with the planning on many aspects of the Foulness project and will report progress as the various studies come to fruition.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I am grateful for that reply. No doubt my noble friend will keep us informed. May I ask whether in this particular connection he can say whether there has been any decision about moving the artillery range from Shoeburyness? And can he give an assurance about what might be going on elsewhere, and particularly whether there is any risk
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of relenting in the matter of extending the runway at Gatwick?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, in answer to the first question, the planning of the move of the Defence Establishments at Shoeburyness is one of the matters on which we hope to be able to report shortly. The second question does not arise from the Question on the Order Paper.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, may I ask whether we are to infer from the noble Lord's reply that the studies are now going wider than was intended in the summer, when we were promised an answer in the autumn? Can the noble Lord say whether the studies now include the question of a deep sea port made more feasible by the dredging necessary to reclaim Maplin Sands?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, the nature of the other developments that may be associated with the airport at Foulness is another of the matters on which we hope to be able to report quite shortly.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether the studies at present in progress include an estimation of the additional financial burden which this development is likely to impose on the County of Essex?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, the County of Essex is associated with these studies.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether in this matter the Government are also taking into account the development of short and vertical take-off aircraft, which is extremely important with regard to the whole question of the economics of this scheme?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, not in the studies to which this Question and my Answer relate.
THE EARL OF SELKIRK: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether agreement has been reached about the name of the airport which is to be built at Maplin Sands?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I think not.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, in view of the answer which the noble Lord gave to the noble Lord, Lord Alpert, may I ask whether he is aware that the Essex County Council has already made it clear that it is in favour of the Foulness airport; that it is in favour of a seaport as well and, in addition, is in favour of some industry around that district? May I further ask the noble Lord whether there are Working Parties actively engaged at the moment in considering the various aspects of this programme: first, finance; second, land reclamation; third, transport and fourth the particular nature of the seaport which is envisaged?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, the last sentence of the noble Lord's question prejudges a number of issues, but I confirm that the Essex County Council is associated directly in the planning unit which is considering all those and other matters.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend whether the planning of the associated roads and railways is going ahead equally speedily, and, if so, whether they will be finished before the major part of the work on the airport starts?
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, my Lords, I can confirm that those plans are going ahead, but it will be longer before we are able to report on that subject.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, can the noble Lord say when, if at all, the airports at Stansted and Southend will have to be closed as a result of this project?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, that is an associated matter but a different question. If the noble Lord will put down a Question I shall be glad to answer it.

PROBLEMS OF LOW-INCOME GROUPS
3.3 p.m.
BARONESS SEEAR BARONESS SEEAR rose to call attention to the problems of low-income groups in the United Kingdom and the effect on them of the economic condition of the country; and to move for Papers. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my
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name. I take full responsibility for the wording of the Motion, and I do not like it. Perhaps especially in your Lordships' House, we should be aware, in discussing this matter, that we are not talking about groups, or classes, or types, or cohorts, or any of the other terms so beloved of my scientific colleagues in another institution: we are talking about men, women and children who lack the means of an ordinary decent life, interpreting an ordinary decent life "in very modest terms.
This is a vast subject, my Lords. For the purposes of examination and discussion I should like to divide it into two main groups: the problems of low incomes among people who are either in employment or unemployed but seeking to get into employment, on the one hand; and, on the other, the problems of the large number of people of varying kinds with very small incomes who are not in the labour market or seeking to get into it. It is not only a vast problem, it is also an immensely complex and difficult problem. Only a very naïve person would imagine that there is a simple solution; or that many suggestions could be made which can profoundly alter the position in a short period of time. What I am attempting to do this afternoon is not to propose revolutionary changes, but to consider particular changes or adjustments which could be made in a short period of time and which might make a practical difference to the circumstances of a certain limited number of people in very great need. If, at the end of the day, it is possible to say that even a dozen people are better placed as a result of it, your Lordships' time this afternoon will have been very well spent.
Let us consider first the people in the labour market, in employment but very low paid. This problem of the low-paid workers has always been with us. At any given time it is a fact that those on the lowest level of employed paid persons are getting little, if any, more than half the average national earnings in the country as a whole. This leaves many men and their families at a standard below that which would be the accepted standard for social security. How then can we tackle this problem of the low paid? I believe. as the Liberal Party is on record as believing, that sooner or

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later we shall need to have, not a national minimum wage, which creates perhaps as many problems as it solves, but a guaranteed minimum earning figure, an altogether less inflationary concept, and an earning figure which I believe would be best calculated on a regional basis.
I hope that before long we shall explore in detail the possibility of developing a system of this kind. I do not imagine that we are going to do this through the months of the winter. We have, however, an instrument which we could use to make some impact on this problem here and now; the instrument is already in being. Many of us believe that the time is coming, if it has not already arrived, when we should not continue with the system of wages councils which, in one form or another, has existed in this country since 1909. The wages councils that we have at the present time, and their decisions, affect the pay of about 4 mil-lien people in the low-paid groups. Their decisions are diverse and follow no clear-cut policy. Is it too much to suggest that, as the winter deepens and before the situation of the low paid becomes too acute, the Government should have consultations with the chairmen of the wages councils and suggest to them that, whatever the attitude of the Government may be about norms for pay increases above this level, for the lower paid it is desirable and acceptable that a higher level should be introduced by the action of the wages councils?
I realise, of course, that there are difficulties about doing this. It can be done only in consultation and agreements with the trade unions. If the trade unions insist, in all negotiations, that a rise given at the lowest level sets the pattern for all subsequent increases, at whatever level the existing earners are now drawing their money, this suggestion is inflationary. But, my Lords—and I say this particularly to noble Lords on the Opposition side of the House—the tradition of the trade union movement in caring for those most in need must surely lead them to believe that it is not always necessary to insist that differentials must be rigidly maintained; and that they could surely give their support to the idea that in respect of people covered by wages councils it is reasonable to deal with those apart and not to use the
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system of differentials as a reason for subsequent claims based on the same scale. Of course, my Lords, we know that many of the most badly paid, for whom the problem is most serious, are men with families; and for these the Government have produced the family income supplement. About this there has been a great deal of discussion. All I would say is that we know it is not being taken up by a number of people who are entitled to claim it. May we ask that there will be even more intensive propaganda to get over to the people who need them and who are entitled to them, that the supplements are there for the asking?
While on the subject of the family income supplement I should like to address myself not to Her Majesty's Government but to the various Members of your Lordships' House of different Christian communities. I think that it is a shame to find among the people who are taking up the family income supplement a noticeable number of ministers of religion. May I suggest that all those in any way connected with the Churches should go back to their congregations and find out whether in fact their Churches are (I will not mince my words) so negligent of their Christian responsibilities that they are prepared to leave their ministers in a situation in which it is necessary for them to take the family income supplement. Poverty may be a virtue, my Lords, but it is not a virtue we should encourage in other people.
Not only are the low paid in employment a serious problem at the present time. There is another special aspect of those in employment to which I wish to draw your Lordships' attention. In many parts of the country people who are still in employment are working on short time, and it has been the custom where short-time working is going on for that to be arranged in such a way that it is possible for people to work for perhaps four days a week and draw flat-rate unemployment benefit from the National Insurance. Section 3(1) of the National Insurance Act 1966 lays down that this can be paid only after six days of unemployment, and this waiting period must occur on each occasion before the benefit can be drawn. Obviously this is intended to encourage people to leave industries in which there is no future for

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them and go into industries which are expanding and to which movement is in their own and in the country's interests. In general terms, there is much to be said for this.
This particular section in the Act has not yet been in operation, but I understand that the Government intend to make it operative from January 1, 1972. I suggest that this is a singularly unsuitable moment to be bringing this section into operation. I ask the Government once again—I say "once again", because I know that they have been approached on this matter from a number of quarters—to consider whether they could defer bringing this section into operation in those parts of the country where the unemployment rate is above average. There is little point in encouraging people to move in areas of the country in which there is no other industry into which it is possible for them to move.
I should not like to forget one category, the most low paid of all—that of women in employment: women whose skills, despite the ultimate prospect, perhaps, of equal pay, are earning them on the average about 60 per cent. of the male average earnings. I know that the Equal Pay Act has been passed and that by the end of 1975 it should be in force; but I also know that progress towards that end is not very swift. As your Lordships will remember, under Section 3(3) of the Act the Secretary of State has powers to bring forward the date on which collective agreements must contain only one base rate, the same for men and for women, if he is not satisfied that progress towards equal pay is advancing sufficiently fast. In order that something may be done about the many very badly paid women in this country, I suggest that the Secretary of State should say as soon as possible, certainly early in 1972, what degree of progress he will regard as essential, if he is not to bring that date forward, when he has powers to do so, in 1973. Would it be too much to say that by the end of 1972 in all collective agreements the women's rate must be at least 90 per cent. of the men's pay rate? In many cases progress towards this point is very nearly reached, but there are many cases in which it is lagging very much behind. I would
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remind your Lordships that women in employment are by no means all second breadwinners. Single women do still exist—although we are a dying race. Some of these single women are looking after not only themselves but also dependants who, if those women did not look after them, would be a considerable charge upon the public authorities. Bringing this date forward would do a great deal for the worst-paid women, who are trailing far behind the low rates paid to men in many industries.
So much for those who are in employment, who are in the labour market. How about the unemployed, seeking to get back but unable to do so? I do not intend to embark on a long discussion of that problem, which has been discussed before and will be discussed again. I wish to make only one point, which I have made already in a previous speech and which, I warn your Lordships, I shall make again. Now is the time to embark on training some of the unemployed, whom we shall need very badly when reflation starts again. It must be possible for the Government to tell what workers will be in short supply once the economy is looking up, and to begin here and now on an ambitious scheme of training so that these people are ready when the opportunities come along.
On this subject I should like to make two points. The first is that we need not have extensive and expensive new Government training schemes or expensive expansions of existing Government training centres. Why cannot we do what is done, for example, in Sweden and have the public authorities who desire to get a group of people trained in a new skill go along to a corporation, public or private, which is running its own training programme, and buy training places on those courses? There are plenty of training departments up and down the country which at the present time are slack because they are not taking on new people. They have the premises, the equipment and the instructors, and all the public authorities need to do—and this can be done almost at the drop of a hat because all the facilities are there—is to ask for places on the courses and pay the cost of the training that will be undertaken. In Sweden, two or three years ago, in Stockholm alone the National Labour Market Board was buying up

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training places in 172 different establishments. It would be quick and economic, it would get a move on the training of people we are going to need, and it would make some contribution to relieving the problem of some of the unemployed.
But if we are going to do this, we must look at retraining in a totally different light. We want the unemployed to regard retraining as an opportunity and not as the last resort. Why could we not move in the direction of the scheme that the European Coal and Steel Community adopted a number of years ago, in which they were prepared to support the pay of men in retraining by between 80 to 100 per cent. of their previous earnings and continue to make up the difference for two years after the training programme? That puts the training on a completely different plane, and presents it as the opportunity that it should be.
I turn now from people in the labour market to the many groups outside who are not seeking to get work but who are suffering grievously from rising prices, and increasingly suffering as winter descends. In particular there are the old, still, by far, the category of people in this country who are suffering most from poverty. It is here, and with regard to them, that we can recognise across 600 years the poorer man of Langland's day:
"going breadless to supper, and in winter it is yet worse for wet-shod wanderers, frozen and famished."
That is not a very exaggerated description of the old in these days of hypothermia. This subject was debated at great length in another place only last week. I would only add my plea to the Government that at least they will consider doubling, or if they cannot double substantially increasing, the long-term assistance paid from social security to people who have nothing but their pension payment and have to live on that alone. If we are wanting to increase purchasing power in this country—and we are—then surely this is a way in which we can be certain that extra money will be spent, and will be spent by those whose needs are greatest.
But not only must we consider the problems of the old. There are in our community, and always will be, whatever we strive to do, people who, for one reason or another, are handicapped, un
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able to compete or unable to cope with society as it is to-day. There are, first, the registered disabled persons, who appear on the register of the Department of Employment. When times are bad, as they are to-day, it is the people at the bottom of the pile who always find it hardest to cope with the problem that gets tougher. There is no doubt that the disabled are to-day feeling the pinch of rising unemployment. In the twelve months between August, 1970, and August of this year the numbers of the registered disabled unemployed rose from, in round figures, 72,000 to 621,000.* That is a very substantial increase indeed. And in the areas where unemployment is highest, the rise, as one would expect, is greatest. Along with this we have the fact that there are a substantial number of employers who are still not fulfilling their obligations under the 1944 Disabled Persons Act to employ 3 per cent. of registered disabled people. I think the time has come when the Department of Employment should put the screw on those employers to see that they reach their statutory obligation. I know that the Department of Employment, quite rightly, have dealt by persuasion, rather than by force; but as the figures of the registered disabled out of work rise, surely it is time to take a rather tougher line, if persuasion fails, with these employers who are not fulfilling their statutory obligation.
Finally, I would consider the people—inadequate if you like, for whatever reason—who simply are unable to keep going in society as it is to-day: the mentally ill, the alcoholics, the drop-outs of one kind and another. I think it was in 1968 that we had the high-sounding idea of introducing community care and getting people out of institutions. I am all for getting people out of institutions, but I thought at the time, and I still think, that we thought too little about what community care really involved: the cost that was going to be involved to the community and the degree of care that was going to be required from individuals. The fact of the matter is that community care was largely a fine phrase, and as we moved people out of the institutions we did not match the change with the wherewithal to make community care a reality. What is the result at the present time?
* See correction in col. 740.
The result is that those voluntary institutions which are striving to cope with the problem, which rises as the economic situation gets worse, are almost overwhelmed in their attempts to deal with people who simply cannot cope with life as it is to-day: such organisations as the Salvation Army, whose hostels are full of men who drift into them, whom we encourage not to be in institutions but to leave them, but whom society has not reabsorbed, or to whom we have not given the community care of which we talk.
I suggest that the time has come when we should investigate the reality of community care—I know that this is a longterm suggestion—not with the intention of getting people back into institutions but with the intention of making this something which really works. We should no longer be content to leave it to voluntary associations, who have great difficulty in coping with the size of the problem as it is now becoming. Perhaps, too, there are ways in which in the short run we can give some additional assistance to those voluntary organisations which are shouldering the burdens for us.
I have attempted merely to bring forward a few practical suggestions to deal with some of the larger problems and some of the most important groups of people with small incomes. I have not considered the longer term, the wider questions which arise when we are considering this matter. I should like for a moment, before I sit down, to stand back and look at some of these more long-term issues. I believe that we have lost our way in our attempts to deal with the question of poverty. I believe, for one thing, that it has been a great mistake to make the issue of selectivity or universality a matter of principle. I believe that we should tackle these problems with common sense: that selectivity is often not right, and universality is not always applicable. Certainly it cannot be right that the application of the principle of selectivity, which has been so dear to Governments past, should have led to this mushroom growth of means tests of one kind and another, ridiculous in themselves, bureaucratic, time-consuming and expensive, but, above all, a system of selectivity which is positively discouraging people from earning. It seems to me extra
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ordinary that a Government who believe in encouraging independence—and I am not going to make cheap remarks about "standing on your own feet"—encouraging people to work and to provide for themselves, should be building in disincentives in the form of means tests as they stand to-day.
There cannot be many Members of your Lordships' House who do not know of cases—I certainly do—where it simply does not pay a man to do the work and earn the money that he capable of doing and of earning. We still consider the size of the cake and its distribution. What sense can there be in a system of selectivity, means test and taxation combined, which possibly keeps people from doing work to maintain themselves? Surely, in saying this, I am appealing to the deepest instincts of the Conservative Party. Equally, I do not believe that universality is always right. I think there are many things which would assist, and that in many cases people should pay for them if they are capable of doing so. Can we not forget this ridiculous argument between these two so-called principles and look at the problem of poverty anew?
I believe that over the last two decades we have been greatly confused in tackling the problem—confused in part because we have confused the problems of equality and poverty. I am not saying that either of them is unimportant, but I am saying they are not the same. I believe that in this matter to-day we arc reaching the situation in which it ought to be possible even to abolish poverty. I know it is difficult to define it. I do not accept the ridiculous definition given to me once in another institution that in a society in which some people have a Jaguar it is poverty to have an Austin Seven. That seems to me to be quite absurd, and that is what I mean by confusing the problems of equality and poverty. It is within our means, rich as we are despite our economic troubles at the moment, to get rid of poverty. But we must look afresh at the problem and get rid of the shibboleths of the past two decades. We can do it if we try; and then it will be possible to say, after 2,000 years, that the poor we no longer have with us. I beg to move for Papers.
3.31 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I am sure we are all deeply grateful to

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the noble Baroness, who has introduced this Motion in, if I may say so, such a masterly fashion. I am very proud to be a woman when I have the pleasure of listening to somebody like the noble Baroness. She has relieved me of making a number of points which I had already prepared, since she has already dealt with them so adequately. I have of course been an admirer of the noble Baroness for many years. I have listened to her in conferences, have used her writings and quoted from them, and still do—always, I may say, acknowledging the source.
It is nearly two years since we in this House had our last debate on poverty, which was then introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley. I re-read it, because on that occasion I had to reply for the Government. I noted the remarks and the requests that were made by the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, and the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, on behalf of the Opposition, and I am still checking to see whether the requests which they made to the Government of that time have been granted by the Government of this time, in which they have a much more powerful hand. I am able to tell the Minister that I shall not subject him to such a list of questions on this occasion as that to which I was subjected on the earlier occasion. No doubt my beneficence will not extend to another debate.
The low-income groups have to be defined. I take the point made by the noble Baroness, that we too easily slip into the phraseology of different categories; but one definition of poverty which has been given was in relation to Supplementary Benefits Commission rates: the minimum guaranteed to the retired, the sick, the handicapped or the unemployed. That at least is one definition that we can take; and within that it is not very difficult to identify the low-income groups. One of these is the elderly, of whom the noble Baroness has spoken so eloquently, and I should like to underline all her remarks. When we had our debate on retirement pensions I begged of Her Majesty's Government that there should be an annual review of pensions. I would again repeat this plea. We have long passed the period when we can deal with anything on a two-yearly structure. I find it quite extra
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ordinary that the whole of the pension book has to be collected and reprinted in order to give an old lady a few more pounds. Surely in this day and age of science we could find a quicker way of giving people money. If I may reiterate once again, I would point out that when British Railways want to increase fares they have no difficulty in doing this overnight. I cannot see why, if we are going to give extra money, we cannot be a little more rapid about it.
We have the one-parent families, the single women, the handicapped and the sick; but perhaps we do not always entirely appreciate that there are thousands of people in full-time work who will still remain in this low-income group bracket. I have to-day received from the Department of Employment the latest figures of the distribution of full-time earnings for adults, and it is interesting to see that 10 per cent. of the total still earn less than £19 per week. In this bracket—and this bears out what the noble Baroness has said—women earn 10 per week. Of course, I would heartily endorse all that she said about the need for speed in this direction. So, my Lords, if we are talking of no larger proportion of the population than 10 per cent., we are still talking about a very large number of people, men and women.
When the National Board for Prices and Incomes discussed the general problems of low pay they made this very splendid statement:
"Although poverty must be regarded as a relative concept it is more than a concept for those who experience it. Inquiries into the circumstances of some 50 families carried out as part of an official study…show what is entailed for families whose net income is less than the supplementary benefits level. Out of the families studied, about one-third said that they could manage on their income, two-thirds thought either that they could manage but only just 'or with a struggle'."
They also said that they could not have managed if the mother had not been a very good housekeeper and if the husband had not kept his own expenditure to a minimum. The family could manage without actually getting into debt or squalor only by supreme exercise of self-discipline. Half the families had arrears of rent, and two in five of them had other debts. Fuel bills caused them worry. Most of them used clothing clubs: otherwise they would have been unable to buy

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clothes, shoes or bedding. Food was adequate but lacked variety.
The Board's statement continued—and this is the appalling point:
"All in all the impression derived was not so much one of grinding poverty in any absolute sense as of one of unrelieved dreariness with, in some cases, little hope of improvement in the future."
If people are in that group they are obviously much more likely to fall into debt. Thackeray said many years ago that, "It is easy to be moral on £2,000 a year"—and when Thackeray quoted £2,000 a year it was a very different proposition from what it is today—while a more recently quoted commentator has said that, "There are two certain ways to find oneself in court: one is to be a motorist and the other is to be poor."
I have been studying the Report of the noble Lord, Lord Crowther, on Consumer Credit and there we discover the fact, which of course we knew all the time, that the further down the scale you are the more it costs to get credit. Those of us who are fortunate enough to keep our bank accounts at a certain level will never know what it is to have to go to a moneylender and borrow money that has to be repaid at a very high rate of interest. In his Report, Lord Crowther also makes a comment which is very relevant to the question we are discussing to-day when he says:
"In general, low-income consumers are more likely to default than any other income groups because they have such a little scope for dealing with unforeseen changes in their financial circumstances. Consequently, the more people living in poverty the greater the problem of default."
Then, answering the question of how far poverty is still a social problem in this country, he says:
"We must remember that poverty is a relative concept and that people are regarded and regard themselves as poor when their income, even if it is adequate for survival, falls markedly below that of the rest of the community."
My Lords, there is little doubt that many of the people we are talking about this afternoon have incomes which are only just about adequate for survival. As a result, they fall into debt, and rent may be—in fact it is most likely to be—the first casualty, because other creditors are more vociferous in demanding their money. The next step is eviction, and the third step is that they become
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homeless. Many years ago, Wordsworth wrote:
"And homeless near a thousand homes I stood,
And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food."
Some of us live in London, the capital city of a country which is rich and powerful. It is short of 150,000 to 200,000 homes. Nearly 6,000 people were admitted to temporary housing accommodation last year in England and Wales. Who are these people? Before we write them off as the people who get into debt because they are drunken or profligate let us look at the facts, for these people are the group we are talking about. They are the people who get into rent arrears (the highest percentage); who suffer mortgage breakdowns; or marriage breakdowns (those of us who sit in the domestic court can understand that), and in the process of becoming homeless these families have tried every other means before they ultimately come into the care of the local authority. They have tried to share with relatives and friends, and they seek the services of the welfare authorities only when they have spent every other opportunity to find an alternative.
Not far away from this House there is a block of flats which was built in 1890. There is a sink, with cold water, between every two flats. The flats have no bathrooms. This block is being used for temporary housing accommodation. I will refer to one family who are there: a young man, his wife and one child. The reason they are there is that they were told to leave their furnished accommodation when the child was expected. Your Lordships may say, "Why could they not find something to rent?" Possibly they could; I see advertisements for flats in Chelsea. I see advertisements for houses for sale—at £30,000 for a three-bedroomed house. But whatever one is buying, it is necessary to raise a certain amount of money for the initial deposit. This young couple could not do that. The young man is earning a wage—a low one—and he does not want to remain in that block. How is he to get out? Not far from my office in Bedford Square is that obscene monster known as Centre Point. This has been my bile noire ever since they started building it. It has stood empty for over five years. I understand that it is occupied by 20 dogs and

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two men—surely the most expensive dog kennel in the whole of Europe.
What is wrong with us that we permit buildings of this kind to stand empty in the capital city while young people are forced to live in sub-standard accommodation because we do not build enough houses? Why is progress so slow? I ask Her Majesty's Government this because I know that the Minister is somebody who cares deeply. This is a blot on the capital city. I will not attempt to refer to other cities, though I am equally sure that the same would be true. There is another curious phenomenon that has arisen in connection with the low-income groups; namely, that the burden of taxes paid by the poor is heavier than the burden of taxes paid by any other section in the community. If you are on supplementary benefit your payments are tax-free, and they carry with them other provisions: rebates for rents, rates, free school meals and milk, and possibly free payment of prescription charges. This is right, and no one would question this. But there are others who are living on roughly the same income levels and they are liable for National Insurance contributions, graduated pension scheme contributions, and possibly taxation.
Their costs of travelling to work, if they travel by public transport, are the same whether they earn £20 a week or £20,000 a year. There is no special rate except perhaps for retirement pensioners. Their rent, rates and mortgages all cost the same in the kind of market in which they have to deal. There is another curious anomaly—and I hesitate to use the word "anomaly"—in the assistance which this group can obtain. I feel sure that the Minister will tell us about the family income supplement. If a person is in a low-income group the income limits for assistance vary. The rent-rebate schemes are so different that there are as many different ones as different authorities. If you are unlucky enough to live in an authority that does not have a good scheme then you do not have much opportunity of getting a rebate.
Then, all the means tests have different income levels. I will not go through all of them, but will take the rate rebate. "Income" means the whole of a person's gross earnings and family allowances,
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whereas in a rent scheme family allowances are generally not included. I will take as an example of some of the others: the health and welfare means test, prescription charges and so on. The limits here are what are known as real resources, with the family allowances included, but deductions are made for tax, national insurance, housing and travel. Your Lordships can see why people get into trouble when they go to claim some of these benefits. They claim too much and then are accused almost as if they were criminals. The present system of means tests is a confused and utterly illogical patchwork with different income limits, different definitions of "income", different variations according to family size, different rates of graduation and covering different ranges of income.
Let us take the case which the noble Baroness dealt with, of the man who would lose if he earned more. This is a useful example. Here is somebody who would probably be receiving the family income supplement, a council tenant with three children. He would be earning £19 a week. If his income increased by £1 he would suffer the following deductions: his tax would be more; he would have less of a rent rebate or rate rebate, and his National Insurance contribution would increase. At the end of the day he would be 30p worse off because he had increased his wages. That is what is known, I believe, as an "Irishman's rise"—and I have had several of those in my lifetime. I know that the Minister will tell us that the family income supplement was introduced to help the lower-paid worker, but if the average wage-earner earning just a little above that level is faced by the full force of policies which bring down his average wage, it means that we are creating more and more poor. The gap between the very rich and the poor is widening. This is something about which we, as Christians, cannot be complacent.
My Lords, if you will bear with me I will introduce something which is irrelevant, though I hope related. I was touched by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, when, in the debate on the National Health Services she spoke about the ingredient which must never be neglected, "T.L.C."—tender, loving care. This seems to me to link very much with an article that I read in a

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newspaper last Sunday, headed: "When security grows as cold as charity." In this the writer said:
"Perhaps just doling out money is corrupting. Readers who have never had to sign on or fill in a supplementary benefit form may have experienced a similar chill disapproval from a bank manager sitting in his refurbished office while they were in the red in a credit squeeze."
I watch retirement pensioners in the big post office that I go to to buy my stamps collecting their pensions each week. Nobody is actually rude to them; but neither is anybody particularly kind or welcoming. If I cross the road and go to my bank, where I am doing exactly the same thing, drawing out money, I am received with courtesy, kindness and friendliness. In a world in which everybody needs some kind of love and attention, "T.L.C." must never be allowed to be in short supply—and this is equaly true of our Government and our local government services.
3.50 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE): My Lords, I find it very daunting to have to speak after the very able speeches of the two noble Baronesses who have opened this debate. I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for giving us an opportunity to discuss this immensely important subject. I would say to her with great respect how much I know the House has admired not only the way she delivered her speech but also the very constructive suggestions she made in it. I was relieved to hear her say that she recognised the wide scope of the subject and the fact that there was no simple solution, but I should like to say to her in reply that I will certainly ensure that the suggestions she made are given the closest consideration.
The noble Baroness expressed deep concern, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, for those living on low incomes whose living standards are hit hardest when prices rise and who are least able to protect themselves against the consequences of changes in the economic conditions of the country. We share the concern she has expressed for those who are living on low incomes. We fully appreciate the anxiety and hardship which inflation inevitably causes them, and the
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measures we have already taken during our period of office indicate clearly our determination to take effective action. There are two main ways in which low-income groups can be protected. The first, and in my view by far the more important, is through the achievement of a healthy economy. The second is through appropriate increases in social security and other social benefits. Undoubtedly, the best solution is a healthy economy, free from inflation and with adequate employment opportunities for all. The economic policies of Her Majesty's Government are all directed towards the achievement of these objectives, and over the coming year the outlook is for rapid growth with improved prospects for employment and an increase in real disposable incomes. But it will take time for the reflationary measures fully to work through to activity and employment. We are determined to bring help to those on low incomes, not only in times of good economic growth but also in difficult times.
Although for some purposes it is convenient to talk in broad terms about the problem of low-income groups, there is a danger that this may lead to over-simplification. Neither the groups nor their problems are homogeneous: those on low incomes include the old, the physically handicapped, the mentally handicapped, the sick, one-parent families, and people with particularly heavy family responsibilities or housing costs. Measures to help one category may not be appropriate for others. Moreover, some people are particularly capable managers and may through their own skill achieve a higher standard of living than others on similar incomes. By contrast, there are, unfortunately, a minority who find it hard to cope and whose lives are difficult, however much financial help they receive. Such people we hope will benefit from the recent reorganisation and improvements which have taken place in the social services and it would be wrong to leave these services out of account when considering the problem of poverty.
I should like briefly to remind your Lordships of what the Government have already done to help people on low incomes. I do not intend to go into any detail because your Lordships are already familiar with the legislation that has passed through this House. We have

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raised the rate of pension for a single person by 20 per cent., from £5 to £6 a week, and for a married couple from £8.10p to £9.70p. In addition, for the first time ever, we have provided for the special needs of the very elderly by an age addition of 25p for every person over 80. As my right honourable friend the Secretary of State pointed out last week in another place:
"The last uprating represented the first occasion on which any Government increased benefits substantially without raising contributions for low wage earners."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 30/11/71; col. 267.]
We provided 20 per cent. more in benefit with no increased contribution from the low paid.
The noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, pleaded once again for an annual up-rating. As she is aware, both the last Government and we ourselves have been thinking in terms of an uprating every two years. We shall continue to watch the situation, but there are benefits if we can keep our uprating to two-yearly intervals, although as she appreciates supplementary benefit is considered, or has been recently considered, on an annual basis. We have also increased the rates of supplementary pensions at the same time as those of the ordinary retirement pensions, and for the over-80s we added also the special addition to supplementary benefit.
We accept the value of some universal benefits. May I say to the noble Baroness that we do not believe in selectivity as an end in itself. But we hold the view that the additional expenditure in cash and services that we can find at present should be concentrated selectively on those in greatest need, and it would be at the present moment wasteful to provide benefits and subsidies for people who do not need them. We are guided, if I may say again to her, by common sense; and it was common sense which in fact influenced us to introduce the family income supplement rather than increase family benefits. It was when we had the benefit of looking at what we could do by one means or the other that we came down at that time in favour of the family income supplement. But although entitlement to some selective benefits is assessed on a test of income, we have
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also provided additional help without means testing for certain categories of people. I have mentioned the over 80s. We have also improved pensions for younger widows, introduced a new range of invalidity benefits for the long-term sick, and brought in an attendance allowance for the very severely disabled.
For the first time we have taken special steps to give effective help to low paid workers with children who are living below supplementary benefit level, even though the breadwinner is in full-time work. Payments under the family income supplement scheme have been made since August this year. This is a new form of family support which concentrates help where need is greatest and, unlike family allowances, benefits the family with only one child. If I may quote my right honourable friend once again, he said recently:
"Obviously if it fails to reach the majority of those entitled to it the Government will have to find better methods of helping those people. I doubt whether it will mean withdrawing the scheme but it may mean refining it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 3/8/71, col. 1313.]
At the present moment over 60,000 families with low earnings are drawing a family income supplement and average payments are about £1·70p a week. About one-third of these are single-parent families for whom the scheme is particularly favourable, and the average weekly payment to these families is well over £2. At the last count an additional 25,000 families were getting increased supplementary benefit because of the effect of family income supplement on the wage-stop. The present rate of expenditure on family incomes supplement and additional supplementary benefit, if maintained for a full year, would amount to over £6 million, or more than three-quarters of the original estimate, and I would assure the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, that we shall certainly continue with our efforts to ensure that all those who are eligible for this benefit should apply for it.
But this is not the only way in which we have shown our concern for families with low incomes. Twice this year we have raised the exemption limits for health and welfare charges, and these increases have more than compensated for the rising cost of living. These have

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covered school meals, welfare milk, prescription and other National Health Service charges, and more people than ever are now benefiting from these remissions. The campaign that we mounted has been very successful in increasing the take-up of these benefits, and by October welfare milk, for example, was being issued free to 150,000 low-income families (apart from families receiving supplementary benefit) which compares with 2,000 families before April.
We are also tackling the problem of high housing costs for poor families. The proposals contained in the new Housing Finance Bill for a national system of rent rebates and rent allowances and a major overhaul of the whole system of housing subsidies represent the biggest reform of housing finance for more than half a century. We are concerned that only a small fraction—about one-eighth—of the rapidly mounting cost of housing subsidies is giving help with the rent to tenants in need. The remainder is being used to reduce rent levels for all council tenants regardless of their ability to pay. The proposed system will mean for the first time that help towards rent will be available nationally on a common and realistic basis, redirecting subsidies to the tenants of unfurnished accommodation who most need them. The noble Baroness was somewhat critical of the different rates of rent rebate which exist at the present moment. This will be rectified in the Bill, and I am sure that we can count on her support when we discuss it.
The wider application of the fair rent principle and a national system of rent rebates and allowances form part of our basic policy to promote personal responsibility where help from the State is unnecessary, and to provide real help to those who, through no fault of their own, are unable to maintain a reasonable standard of living. Our concern is not confined to the provision of improved benefits or subsidies. We are also determined to improve standards of care. As I told the House on November 22, we have decided to allocate a further £118 million to speed progress in some of the most vulnerable sectors of the health and personal social services over the next four years. Taking into account the extra allocation which we made last year, this Government have now made available
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additional resources totalling about £250 million at present prices, particularly to help the elderly, the mentally ill and the handicapped. Those three categories were particularly mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, who have already spoken.
Those who oppose selectivity in social benefits often urge upon us that family allowances should be increased, and that the increases should be recovered from those families which pay tax by means of the claw-back system introduced in 1968. Unfortunately, there are several problems involved in this. First, it does not help one-child families; secondly, it means a transfer of resources from the pockets of the husbands to the wives, which might perhaps appeal to the noble Baroness opposite; thirdly, if the increases were substantial, the situation would be reached where the larger a man's family the lower the wage level would be at which he would start to pay tax; and fourthly, the Government would be paying out large sums of money simply to recover them again through the tax system. It sounds simple, but there are indeed massive problems.
Another attractive idea which we have by no means finally dismissed is negative income tax, but the schemes that we have so far examined present formidable practical difficulties. It is also tempting to think in terms of a national minimum wage, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, acknowledged, there are many problems in this, too. But I took note of the point she made about the wages councils and I will see that it is considered.
Low pay is a cause of poverty, though not the only one. But any attempt to cure poverty by wage adjustments is imprecise and non-selective, since wages are related to work done and not to the family commitments of the worker. Moreover, there is no absolute level of low pay. Low pay must be a relative concept—the pay of those at the bottom of the earnings league table compared with that of higher paid workers. This year the National Board for Prices and Incomes produced a Report on the General Problems of Low Pay which indicates from experience in this and in other countries that it is extremely difficult to improve the levels of low pay in

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relation to the pay of other workers. Indeed, their investigations show that the relative position of low-paid workers has remained fairly constant for nearly a century. Even when special efforts have been made to improve the relative position of the low paid, as was done under the Labour Government's incomes policies, nothing has been achieved in practice. On the other hand, the Report showed that the relative incomes position of the low paid has improved significantly since 1938 through tax and social security arrangements, and economic growth has enabled the living standards of the low paid to rise considerably. It is therefore through the tax and social security system and, above all, through economic growth that we must look for the most effective way of improving the relative position of the low paid.
The reason for the failure of attempts to improve their relative position appears to have been that higher paid workers were not prepared to see a narrowing of pay differentials and a consequent deterioration of their relative position. Above average percentage increases in pay for the low paid have tended to be followed by identical settlements in percentage terms for the high paid. Such a leap-frogging process is inflationary and leads to no improvement in the position of the low paid; indeed it can worsen their position, for they are hard hit particularly by rising prices. It is therefore very much in the interest of the low paid that we should continue to make progress in curbing the wage/cost inflation from which the nation has been suffering since 1969.
My Lords, I have been speaking of the past and the present. What about the future? First, we have recently published a White Paper, Strategy for Pensions, in which we set out our proposals for future pension policy. Our objective is to provide everyone with the opportunity of an earnings-related pension through the growth and expansion of occupational schemes—with a State reserve scheme for those without such cover. Secondly, we are engaged in a thorough-going review of family poverty and we are continuing to study the problems of poor families to ensure a sound basis for the further development of our policies, and I believe that this debate will be a useful contribution to that review. Thirdly,
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the committee set up under the chairmanship of Mr. Morris Finer to consider one-parent families is hoping to report towards the end of next year, and when the report is received we shall give immediate and careful consideration to its recommendations.
The noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, mentioned the problems of the homeless. As a result of the Greve Report, on the homeless in London, my right honourable friend set up a Working Party, and as the noble Baroness will know their first Report, which dealt with families with children, was published on May 27, 1971. The Government and the London Boroughs Association endorsed the recommendations, and the London Boroughs Association have asked their members to report back on what action they propose to take. Later reports from the Working Party will deal with adult couples and single persons, the revision of records and statistical returns, and the need and scope for further research. The position outside London is being considered by another Working Party, also set up by my right honourable friend, to study, in the first instance, the Glastonbury Report on Homeless in Wales and the South-West. Neither the problem nor the definition is necessarily the same outside London as it is inside, and we shall need to await the Working Party's recommendations.
My Lords, in a debate on such a very wide-ranging subject it is inevitable that I have referred only briefly to the many difficult and in some cases controversial matters involved, but it should be clear from what I have said that the Government are neither ignorant of nor indifferent to the plight of low-income groups, and that we have already taken and will continue to take effective action both to achieve a healthy economy, which we put as our first priority, and to make the best use of available resources to mitigate the effects of poverty.
LORD GARNSWORTHY: My Lords, I did not want to interrupt the noble Lord in full flood, but he referred to the increased number of persons receiving free benefits such as school meals. Can he tell the House to what extent these increased numbers are due to the increased incidence of unemployment? I think that would be very helpful.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I do not think even the noble Lord would expect my knowledge to be quite so complete as to give an off the cuff answer to that question, but I shall be speaking towards the end of the debate, if I have the leave of the House, and if I have any information then I will be able to impart it to him.
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, may I put this point to the noble Lord. In the course of his speech he made many observations, which seemed to me very wise and timely, concerning attempts to diminish poverty by operating directly on rates of pay. But when he spoke of proposals for a negative income tax he dismissed those in a single sentence. I do not know what to think about a negative income tax, but I think it would be very interesting indeed if Her Majesty's Government could see fit to issue a Green Paper or something of that sort, something completely tentative, in which the arguments for and against are set out in an orderly way so that reasonable people can give more attention to them.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Robbins. I am sorry if I dismissed this subject rather quickly because there is so much that I could have said, and I think it is something that all of us are interested in; but as there are so many different forms of negative income tax the difficulties are formidable. But I will certainly see that the suggestion of a Green Paper to be published at some point is considered; it is a useful suggestion.
4.14 p.m.
LORD BURGH: My Lords, I wish very briefly to share with your Lordships a note of cautious optimism on the subject of this debate. I very much enjoyed the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear. I think she has come to grips with many of the key issues in this question. I will follow up one point she made, and say that people now seem of their own accord to be doing something for themselves when they find themselves hard up; in other words, when for some reason they become members of a low-income group they start to do something about it. Purely by applying simple arithmetic, if you find it is hard to make ends meet when living by yourself in a bed-sitter, you put two
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and two together and with a number of people you can on your current resources do much better. People are getting into this situation, it appears, at quite a rapid rate; they are pooling, as a minimum, things like shelter, accommodation and food; many people are pooling a great deal more. They are finding that this makes life easier financially, and a great deal more rewarding. The question is rather one of finding a way not just of living within their means but of using their means to live in tile best way available to them. So people are pooling themselves together into groups, so far as I know, in all the major centres in the country. Some support themselves by the money they earn, or were earning before they decided to start doing this. They also tend to support themselves by doing craft work, making leather work, jewellery, candles, clothes. Another quite common field of interest, though it cannot bring in very much money, is the general field of education and social service.
What are these groups like? Can one characterise them in a general way? I do not think one can, except that they are consciously or semi-consciously, formally or informally, pooling themselves together, usually to overcome some financial difficulty. Internally the people who are doing this sort of thing are very diverse. They may be doing it from all sorts of reasons. They have all sorts of interests, some very united, some very much more diffuse. They are mobile in the sense that groups seem to form and dissolve. They form and find that things are not going satisfactorily and so they dissolve. In many cases other groups form from the remnants. They tend to be international. A group in, say, England may well contain members from Germany or the United States, and vice versa, and there is no feeling of international barriers in these cases. They are coming together because of some common interest or because it is cheaper to eat well when you eat ten round the table.
This tendency—I do not want to start using the term "movement", because rather than a movement this appears to be a tendency which nobody is pushing or sponsoring—if one starts to think about it throws up a number of interesting implications and ramifications,

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some of which have already been touched on in this debate. I am thinking particularly about mental health—tender loving care. There are groups in this country who are learning to put themselves into such a position that they could accept in their midst perhaps a couple of harmless "loonies". Violent mentally ill people, no; but harmless people could fit in and could make a great contribution to the group coherence that emerges. It is not only that they would be being helped; they could in a very real way be helping the group they join.
I have touched on the international aspects of this matter. I think these are very real. It is an economical way of life—ten round a table. It is economical, too, not just for the people in the group but for the country as a whole. If ten people share one car a great deal less pollution is caused and resources are used more economically than if those ten each had their own motor bike.
I should like to pursue other implications—for instance, in the field of unemployment extrapolated to automation and leisure. I think these things can also be considered under the same umbrella. In this country I think that this tendency is in its infancy. It seems to have got quite a lot further in the United States; it has certainly taken very solid root in Germany. Experiments such as these are not always successful: groups form, groups dissolve. There are internal reasons for any failures in this field, and these are matters for the people concerned to work out. I think external reasons for failure are much less important. If one feels that these people are doing something worth while, it is not so much a question of helping them in any way. I cannot think of any specific way in which I would ask the Government to help these people. Such ways may emerge. What is more necessary is to be aware that people are doing this; to be aware of the validity of what they are doing, and to be ready in case of need to say, "O.K., we will help you in such and such a way".
The main need at the moment for people who are living in groups (in a sense, developing a new life style which is suitable for their' present circumstances), is independence from undue in
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terference. If they are proving themselves to be worth while in the community at large, or at least neutral in the community at large, they can be left alone. They also need an atmosphere of approval. It is more a matter of giving encouragement by withholding discouragement; giving encouragement when it is needed, rather than giving a push when none in fact is needed. I feel sure that later specific needs may emerge. Specific uses for people who are starting to live in this way may well emerge in fields such as those I have mentioned, mental health, and so on. At the moment it is a tendency which I feel should be borne in mind, in case at some future time a real need emerges to integrate what these people are doing with what other people in society are doing in the various fields in which they are concerned.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, could the noble Lord be more explicit? For instance, how old are these people? Are they in good physical health? Do they have children? What other descriptions do they answer to?
LORD BURGH: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord. I do not know what the statistical breakdown of people who are living in groups would be. I know that the range covers practically the whole of the population. Some are old, but, true, many are young. Some are going into this way of living towards the end of a useful career; some are going into it from a position of a university "dropout. Some have children, and some do not". I suppose the tendency would be for such groups to be composed of those who, for some reason, have not been able to find themselves a satisfactory place in society as it stands now. Those who are unable to cope, for whatever reason, physical or mental, are particularly good candidates for some kind of communal life style.
4.24 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I want to confine the few remarks that I propose to make on this Motion to two subjects. One is the problems that are raised by the vagrants and the wanderers, or the "wayfarers", as they were called; and secondly I want to touch on one or two matters concerning the welfare and care of the elderly. May I just go back

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in history for a short time? Because one of the attributes of the nineteenth century Poor Law—probably the only attribute one can look at with any degree of pleasure or satisfaction—was that it did cover, in some kind of way, everybody in want. For example, there were 600 unions of parishes in England and Wales; each union had a workhouse, and the majority had casual wards which were there for the benefit of tramps, wayfarers, vagrants and other people who wished to go into them.
These casual wards were extremely uncomfortable, harshly run, and most unattractive, because their purpose was solely deterrent. But all I want to say to-day is that there was somewhere that people could go to—always supposing they cared to go there. They got rather simple, uncomfortable accommodation, but they were given a bed, a bath, and I think a meal; and they could stay for two nights before they were discharged. Before they went they had to perform some menial task, such as breaking stones for road-making, for several hours. There was a total lack of discrimination about the people who were catered for, whether they were tramps and vagrants or virtuous wayfarers who were seeking a job. The casual wards were not at all satisfactory and not at all comfortable. Indeed, as we know, many wayfarers would not go into them but preferred to go to the Embankment in London, or to stay in the parks.
In London itself there were, finally, a dozen of these casual wards which had been transferred in 1909 to the Metropolitan Asylums Board, who made them rather more humane and rather more comfortable. When the 1939 war came the population of the casual wards, the number of vagrants, fell enormously because people were engaged in other occupations. By the time 1949 came and the National Health Service Act and the National Assistance Act came into force the casual wards were, quite rightly, closed down.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, they were reopened.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, that may be so, but they were at one time shut down and finished with. I believe that at the present time, for London it
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self, there is one large reception centre containing a great many beds—I think round about 1,000—which is somewhere down in the Camberwell part of the world. The number of beds may be correct, but it seems to me that if there is to be somewhere for people to go, it is not enough to have just one large place down in the South-East: what is needed is to have several places to which people can easily go, scattered about the town generally. There are too few of these places available in the country at the present time. I am not quite sure of the total number run by the local authorities, but the Department of Health and Social Security run three.
We read in the papers the other day of the tragedy which befell a Nigerian in a Yorkshire manufacturing town, where I believe there is no reception centre run by the local authority. The nearest reception centre is in a neighbouring town, about 10 or 12 miles away. That may be not very far, but it is quite a long way if you have to wander there when you are sick, hungry, tired and cold. Men like that are forced to take refuge in the crypts of churches. I think there are 50 put up each night on boards in one of the crypts in the town, and there is a dormitory in the Salvation Army hostel which contains one hundred beds; but so full is it, and the beds are so close together, that they are practically touching.
At other hostels where someone could stay for a month, these people were unpopular. They were liable to expulsion if they wetted their beds, if they were verminous or if they were drunk. Quite a number of these people were alcoholics, and it is rather difficult to say whether that was because of their condition or whether their condition was a result of their alcoholism. There were also a large number of drug addicts. But a certain number were people who just could not make it and who had fallen by the wayside. At the present time, they are catered for quite well by a number of organisations, and the noble Lord, Lord Soper, looks after one such place not far from this House.
The National Health Service has now made arrangements for some of its hospitals to take in people suffering from drug addiction, and some provision is being made for the treatment of alcoholism. There are various societies in

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existence. One, with which I am connected, is called the Cyrenian Society, which has carried out projects similar to those of Shelter, with the aid of the local authorities in a dozen towns. Such societies are run by volunteers and do very good work. I think there may be something to be said for the communities about which the noble Lord, Lord Burgh, was talking. In due course, they might play a part in this work. Perhaps I should know the answer, but I should like to ask the Minister what is the number of reception centres run by local authorities in the country. Secondly, is it possible to increase or redeploy the beds available from Government or local authority sources, so that they would be available to people who needed them? I am assuming that people would be prepared to go into them—because of course one cannot compel them to go in. But one can make beds available and if they were reasonably good and reasonably well administered, I think that many people would in time take advantage of the offer.
Secondly, I should like to raise the question of the elderly. I do not want to go into the matter of pensions which has been raised many times earlier in the debate, although I entirely agree with all the complaints and suggestions that have been made. I should like to deal with two points concerning the elderly. The first is the matter of residential homes for those who require permanent care and attention of a custodial, rather than of a medical, character. The local authorities have never really fully implemented what they were supposed to do under Section 28 of the National Assistance Act. Quite a lot of work has been done, and on more than one occasion I have been told that so many more homes have been opened. My answer has been that, although I have been very glad to hear that more have been opened, there are nowhere near enough and that a great many more will have to be opened.
The absence of these homes creates an enormous and very expensive strain on the hospital service. It also compels a certain number of elderly folk, who need to be in residential homes, to stay in their own homes too long, with subsequent deterioration of their condition. A week or ten days ago we were told
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that improvements are in sight, and that, I think, is welcomed by everybody. If we could see the vanishing of the old workhouses, and their replacement by more reasonable accommodation, everybody would be very pleased. I can see some advantage in Health being in the charge of a Secretary of State, with a seat in the Cabinet and having a Chancellor of the Exchequer to work with, because for some time there has been a Minister of Health. That would show up some of the problems.
The other kind of housing to which I should like to see far more encouragement given is what I think is called sheltered housing. By that, I mean groups of one-room flats in towns, or perhaps bungalows in the country, with a warden to look after people when required, rather on the lines of the almshouses which did such very good work in the past. There was a time when I think the Ministry of Health, as it then was, did not quite approve of the principle of almshouses. I never quite knew why, but it did not. But I am pleased to see that that principle is now coming back into favour, because we could do a great deal by taking care of elderly folk in sheltered housing. The housing which is built for old people in some towns is often quite unsuitable. I was reading the other day about large estates of houses for old people, built in a rather hilly town in Yorkshire. Because it was hilly, it was obviously rather difficult to build houses on the level all the time and, at one of the big estates for the care of the elderly, people had to climb 13 steps every time they went up to their house. That meant that a large number of them were confined as prisoners in their houses. So one must be very careful to avoid that sort of mistake in the future.
There has been a great deal of talk about the value of the domiciliary services and no one can deny that they are of enormous value. The number of home helps could probably be increased, but it must be realised that it is not only money which makes a home help. A person has to be suitable to be a home help. There are some people who are quite unsuitable and do not want to do the job and, frequently, one cannot find enough volunteers who are suitable. As regards the other excellent services, the

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Meals-on-Wheels service is of great value. There one has been most appreciative of the work of the Women's Royal Volunteer Reserve, working under the inspired leadership of the late Lady Reading, and of the very good work done by the Red Cross Society. But there, again, they seem to me to be grossly inadequate. It is all very well to be given a hot meal on two or three days of the week, but if you really want a service like that, I think a meal should be delivered on five or six days of the week. I should like to see one delivered on seven days, though that may be going a bit too far.
I have one last word on the domiciliary services, where the sheltered housing schemes could bring about an improvement. What kind of life is it for a lonely housebound person to be by herself, or himself, in one or two rooms, where the only person who comes is the home help who stays for one hour in the morning, and where, for the rest of the time, they are lonely and by themselves with not a great deal of money and with no one to talk to? Would they not be better in a sheltered housing scheme, where they would have friends next door or around the corner? Those are the two points which I wanted to raise. I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lady Seear for having put down this Motion, which has enabled me to raise those two points.
4.39 p.m.
BARONESS BROOKE OF YSTRAD-FELLTE: My Lords, the problem of poverty is one that we cannot study too tirelessly or debate too often or seek too positively to remedy. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, has done us a great service this afternoon in bringing this subject before us in this form. To try to eradicate poverty is one of the great aims of politics. A Parliament is ineffective as a Parliament if it does not contribute something concrete towards the reduction of poverty. Reduction is all we can hope for, because poverty is relative, and therefore, in spite of the pious hopes that we have heard this afternoon, I maintain that it will never be wholly eliminated.
Poverty may be the outcome of varying, different factors. It is evident in those families or individuals who try to live on low incomes. It may be caused by the loss of the family earner by death,
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desertion or divorce, by illness, accident or unemployment. It may be caused by personal financial pressures brought about by rising prices of rent, rates, food and clothing, high taxation and an inability to earn one's living adequately because these personal difficulties have come too late in life to enable the victim to train to earn. Those whom we think of in this country to-day as the low-income groups would, many of them, be relatively well off if judged by the standards of a hundred years ago. They would be affluent by the standards of many parts of Asia and Africa to-day. But that is no excuse for us: this is our problem in Britain, and we must face it. And let us never forget, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, has already reminded us, that when we talk in general terms of low income groups we are really talking about people—grown-ups and children; black, brown and white; people with too little money to get enough to eat or to pay for an adequate roof over their heads, or to keep warm in weather like this. Over and over again, when we come alive to the problems that stare them in the face, we should gird ourselves on to some effort on their behalf, realising that. "But for the grace of God, there go I".
It is tempting to think that the low earnings could be easily put right by higher pay, but the report on General Problems of Low Pay which the Prices and Incomes Board published the other day and from which we have had several quotations this afternoon (I listened anxiously to hear whether the one I had chosen would be used, and I am glad to say it was not) shows how difficult and intractable these problems are. Their main conclusion had to be—and I quote:
"that there is no single remedy for low pay since there is no single cause. In any one industry a variety of factors can be at work: the industry may be declining or may be faced with severe competition and falling profits: managements may be slack: the jobs themselves may be ill-suited to modern needs: workers may lack the skills necessary to do better-paid jobs, or they may simply prefer convenient and undemanding work: trade union organisation may be inadequate, and wage systems out of date. Many other things may need attention."
One welcomes the family income supplement as a most important step in the right direction. Our duty must be to publicise

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it wherever we can, so that as time goes on we shall find that it is claimed and received by practically all that really need it.
Another measure which is going to be of widespread value to the people to whom this Motion refers is the Housing Finance Bill, which will be coming before your Lordships later on this Session. Whatever else that Bill does, it is going to help the least well off by reducing their rents and by making relief available to badly off people who are tenants in privately-owned accommodation as well as those in council houses. Many of the poorest families live in privately-rented unfurnished homes, and up till now there has been no help available at all for them. When I was chairman of a borough council's housing committee I brought in a rent rebate scheme on our housing estates in order that our poorest tenants could be helped by our adjusting their rents to their means. Those tenants who could afford an economic rent were asked to pay it. The housing manager and I took immense trouble to explain the scheme to all concerned at meetings on each of our nine estates. I am glad to say that the scheme went through with no rent strikes, and the poorer tenants were given considerable help towards meeting their rebated rents. I rejoice to think of this relief now becoming available to those poorer people who are the tenants of privately-owned accommodation. The family income supplement scheme is not designed to deal with the effect of rents in causing poverty; the Housing Finance Bill is to take care of that. A wave of relief at the benefits promised in this Bill should be experienced by those badly in need of just this sort of help, and once the Bill becomes law it will again be our duty to give it all the publicity we can.
I should like to he confident that the Government are going to be equally realistic about extra heating allowances. We all know what a drain the cost of heating can be; and the picture of elderly people retiring to their beds at mid-day and remaining in them until the following morning because they cannot afford any heating during the afternoon and evening is tragic in its suggestion of hopeless despair. I know that heating is accounted for in the scale
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rates and also in the long-term additions which are available to retirement pensioners and others who have been on supplementary benefit for a long time; and I know that there are extra allowances for those in need of additional help with their heating. But I am left wondering if the extra heating relief available is anything like sufficient to help those who are eligible for it. I am also wondering whether those who might be entitled to these extra allowances are getting them, or whether they are even aware of their availability. I have heard it estimated that 19,000 people die every year because of the effects of the cold. What a terrible thought! For some years I was chairman of a tuberculosis care committee, and, being aware of this problem of cold, my committee would buy and distribute warm blankets during any particularly cold spell in order to offset the need for additional expenditure on heating. It was often reported to us that those who received them would wrap these blankets around themselves as they sat before their meagre fires in the day time. We helped where we could with the payment for extra gas and electricity, but we could never do enough.
The fact about the economic condition of the country that has been hitting these people hardest is the rise in prices. The main cause of rising prices is high wage increases which go right beyond any increase in productivity and efficiency. Those who try to enforce high wage claims may think they are extracting extra money from the employers. What they are really doing is driving down the standard of living of people not as well off as themselves. The militant type of trade union leader tries to conceal this and to distract attention from it. But history will accuse these last few years of cruelty: cruelty by trade unions to the badly off, by forcing price increases; cruelty by the management, who have weakly given in to claims which they know to be unjustified. These are the sufferers—these whom we call in this Motion the low-income groups. Their sufferings would be vastly relieved if only prices could be stopped from going on rising against them. And that could be done, and done quickly, if only those who wield power in unions would give reality to the concept of the brotherhood of man and think how they are hurting those of their fellow men who

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have the smallest incomes and who therefore can least bear to be hurt.
4.49 p.m.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for bringing forward this Motion; and, unlike her, I like the wording, which goes right to the heart of the matter. I congratulate her on her most interesting speech; and I hope that the Government will take up all her practical suggestions. I must say, very humbly. that mine is a more general approach. But before I come to that I must congratulate my noble friend Lady Phillips on her speech, which was the usual trenchant, compassionate and well-informed speech that I am used to hearing from her. Where I slightly diverge from the arguments of the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, is in regard to her strictures about universality. After all, the choice we have to make is between means testing and universality.
As regards the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, I agree with him that the Government have given much relief in the various ways that have been outlined this afternoon, and I congratulate them on what they have done. But, after all, although I do not wish to be partisan, the Government are sitting on the very nice nest egg of the balance of payments—and something had to be hatched out. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, that no Government, Conservative or Labour, has done enough, but I am critical of the means-testing methods which the Government have employed.
My Lords, we are familiar with the spectacle of politicians in dictatorship countries, on pain of death, admitting their political mistakes. But it needed the figure of nearly one million unemployed to turn the Chamber of the House of Commons into a confessional, with one Minister after another, including Mr. Roy Jenkins, confessing the errors of their judgments' and analyses of the economic situation in this country to-day—a situation which is baffling economists, businessmen and Ministers. I must say that it was a great relief to many of us when Ministers stopped making optimistic noises about shakeouts, redundancies, over-manning and so
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on—which sounded to us rather like whistling in the dark—and began to eat their words and to talk again about public expenditure.
Although I am critical of this Government's approach to poverty, I do not wish to minimise what they have done. All political Parties have a desire to alleviate poverty and to introduce and strengthen social qualities which will bring this about. I do not wish to contrast what has been done by the Conservative Party with what the Labour Party have done in recent years but simply to examine the philosophical approach to poverty of this Government because this does bear on the effectiveness of their measures in the field of pensions, housing, health and education.
First, let us consider the numbers involved. I do not believe that anyone in this debate so far has come forward with the numbers of those who are in poverty. The selective principle, so beloved of the Conservatives, starts by narrowing down the numbers. I have taken the figures from a Paper given by Nicholas Bosanquet, of the London School of Economics, who has been doing research on this subject. He maintains that there are 2 million people whose income is below the supplementary benefit scale. 4 million who are on this scale, and 4 million just above this scale. Thus, at least 10 million people in this country—one-fifth of the population—are in poverty. Who are these people? We have heard about them from various speakers this afternoon. They are the old-age pensioners, the disabled, the unskilled workers and families. I was pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, talked about training for the unskilled workers. None of these groups benefits as much as others from the selective attitude to social policies in the fields of social security. health, education and housing. This means-test approach is inefficient as well as humiliating to the individuals involved.
The crucial problem for modern, affluent societies everywhere—and, whatever we may say, we are one of them—is to raise the living standards of their lower-paid workers in proportion to the rise in national wealth. So poorer people have to be assisted in various ways—for example, in housing, because money spent on education is wasted without decent

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minimum standards in housing. As for slums and homelessness, they are a constant reproach to any civilised society. Competition seems to be the keynote of Conservative dogma and the logic of this is that someone has to lose out. The noble Baroness, Lady Brooke, said that we should always have poverty. I must say that I do not entirely agree with her there. Where many of us part company with the Conservative doctrine is that we do not believe that one can have cut-price social services; for the purpose of social services to-day is not just to relieve poverty but to provide opportunities in higher education. in better-planned housing and in the overall raising of the quality of life. In fact, I read recently that the trade unions, instead of merely asking for pay increases, would do better to relate them to the better social services which they may get from the Government.
To harp on reducing public expenditure and reducing taxes is to reduce the argument to the lowest common denominator. The trade mark of this Government is the extension of the means test. Underlying the arguments for this is the insinuation that Labour's social policies are wasteful and give help largely where help is not needed. The Conservatives state that economising on these releases funds for the needy. This is completely untrue. Selectivity benefits the better-off more than the poor, if we do not reform taxation. Let us take one small example which pinpoints this fact. I welcome Sir Keith Joseph's change of mind about cost-related prescription charges and other health charges. But what is really amazing is that a compassionate man like Sir Keith Joseph could not have instantly realised that the poorer sections of the community, who suffer more bad health than the better off, would have had to bear the greater charges for prescriptions, the greater burder of these increased health charges.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt, but the noble Baroness has been criticising my right honourable friend. I must remind her that the exemption limits were raised at the same time, so that those who could not afford the prescription charges could have them paid.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, I was not criticising Sir Keith Joseph. I, have the greatest respect for him. I simply asked how he could have brought forward these increases when he should have known that this burden would fall on the lower income groups. That is all. But he changed his mind, and I congratulate him.
Perhaps the medal for self-deceiving policies must go to the Government's family income supplement. The Government's anti-poverty programme followed a November Budget which, as we know, increased health charges for drugs, for dental treatment and for school dinners, and reduced school milk. Multiple exemptions were made for the needy—except that they would have to apply for them. There was such a strong reluctance to taking up the family income supplement that the Government have had to spend £600,000 on advertising to tempt people to apply. Is not this a kind of madness? I cannot think that, as some people have suggested, the Government rely for their economies on a low take-up.
During the last Election campaign there was a good deal of propaganda about the burden on the economy of subsidised council housing. The impression left in the mind of the public was that the taxpayer—who was always mentioned with bated breath—was subsidising people in council houses who could afford to pay higher rents. What is the truth about this, my Lords? I have obtained the figures from the Rating and Valuation Association. In 1969–70 subsidies to local authority housing amounted to £124 million. Tax concessions for house purchasers on mortgage interest cost the Exchequer £300 million this year. What is the difference between a subsidy and a tax concession? Surely a subsidy by any other name is just as sweet.
There has been some petty saving, giving with one hand and taking away with the other, particularly in respect of education. If one has to criticise it, the pension plan is orientated towards private pensions and away from Government contributory pensions. This is in contrast to most of the Common Market countries, where the reverse is the case. There is not enough emphasis on the training of unskilled workers, as was pointed out by

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the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and we find that only 2 per cent. of the children of manual workers go to universities. Family allowances are given in such a way as to help the better-off more than the poor families.
My Lords, I repeat that modern societies everywhere have so far failed to raise the living standards of their low-paid workers in proportion to the rise in their national wealth. Means-testing ends up by relieving the better off. The present Government, if they mean to have a new style of government, should set out to reform taxes, not to reduce them, with resulting inferior social services. They should embark on a tremendous campaign to educate public opinion about taxation and public expenditure generally. The means-test approach has served to reinforce my belief in the value of the overall giving of help. When help is given in this way it produces the best take-up, as we saw when the Government gave their pensions to the over-eighties. Why has the family income supplement had such a poor take-up? Finally, my Lords, I believe that the explosion of population and the scientific and technological explosions make it inevitable that we shall all be borne along on a tide for more social equality. But this can be brought about only by really good social policies, which will cost money.
5.4 p.m.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I should like, first, to join with other noble Lords in expressing my appreciation to the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, for having promoted this debate. It has been a most interesting and instructive afternoon. The noble Baroness made more than one suggestion which seemed to be a novelty and well worth consideration. One thing she proposed was that the wages councils should be encouraged to exercise their functions over a rather wider field than they have been accustomed to do in the past. I am sure that that would be a good thing, but I hope it is practical; the forces at work are very complicated. The differential had its day and I fear that that may prove to be the case with this proposal. The noble Baroness proposed that industrial re-training for men temporarily out of employment might be given in
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empty factories vacated during short-time working. That seems to me a proposal well worth considering and I hope that the Government will give it the consideration that it deserves.
There was one observation from the noble Baroness with which I found myself in complete disagreement. She said that we could get rid of poverty if we wanted to. I wish I could believe that to be true. My Lords, you cannot spend ten years of your life on the National Assistance Board and come away with the conviction that poverty may be got rid of if you want that to happen. The causes of poverty are so diverse and different. Almost every case presents a different aspect. That was the lesson that I learned when I was at the National Assistance Board, and I have never forgotten it. With the sentiment which the noble Baroness's words connote we would all agree, but the practical instrumentality is much more difficult.
I enjoyed. as I always do, the speech of the noble Baroness. Lady Phillips. I am sorry that she had an unpleasant experience in one of the offices of the Ministry of Social Security. When I was at the Board the staff prided themselves on being the friends and confidants of the population they served. I am bound to say that that was brought out in my postbag. In the ten years that I was there I do not think I had more than half a dozen letters complaining of the treatment received by applicants either in their homes or in the offices of the Board.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, would the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, permit me to interrupt him? I should not like him to get the wrong impression. I said that I watched them getting their pensions in a post office—not in a Social Security Department office. I do not want any blame attached to the wrong Department.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I do not want to be critical of the Post Office, but I have not the same interest in maintaining my ground in respect of the Post Office as in respect of the National Assistance Board.
In the few moments that I shall detain your Lordships I should like to make one or two observations about the old

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casual wards to which the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, referred in such unflattering terms, The casual wards came in for a good deal of abuse, much of which was deserved, but not all of it. At the end, after the local authorities took over responsibility for the service from the guardians in 1929 a very high standard was maintained in a great many authorities and we ought not to overlook that. During the war, the casual wards all over the country were closed. When the war came to an end there was in fact no casual accommodation available at all. Accordingly, an obligation was placed on the National Assistance Board to provide casual accommodation, and to enable the Board to do that it was given powers to require local authorities to provide such accommodation.
It was obvious that the National Assistance Board was unable itself to undertake the provision of casual accommodation all over the country. Accordingly, the National Assistance Board exercised its powers and called on the local authorities to set up some form of casual reception and accommodation. That was done. In some parts of the country it was well done, and the accommodation that was provided did not fall short of the standards established before the war. I regret to say that in other parts of the country the provision made was quite deplorable. It was obvious to me that I should have to close all these places and substitute something better, if I could. We set to work to do that, and in a relatively short time we closed almost all the casual wards all over the country.
Then there was the problem of what we were to institute in their place. We wanted a place with a different standard to the old casual ward. Some white tiles helped in these cases, and clean towels and a hot bath—they always used to get a bath but not always a hot one. They had a good meal and then next day they were free to go if they wanted to. The process of building up the new system of casual wards was a very slow one. It was difficult to find suitable buildings and we were not allowed to build for ourselves as we should have liked to have done. Much of the accommodation was not where we should have liked it to
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have been. It was too far away from the main centres of population.
All these difficulties confronted us, but I am glad to say that we did some good in this matter and I see in the latest report that they now have ten reception centres in operation and a certain number which are still operated by local authorities. I do not know how far that number of reception centres is regarded as adequate. It may well be that they are so placed that they serve the main centres of population where they are required but I think it is a question whether the Supplementary Benefits Commission ought not to bring a greater number of establishments into being. I do not know. I am quite willing to accept the fact that ten is an adequate number, but I think it is worth inquiring into. The complexion which we tried to give to these reception centres was quite different from the treatment given in the old casual wards. They took little interest in a man. He was a body who was given a bath and a meal and who went out next day and that was all. We tried to convert these reception centres into rehabilitation centres as well, so that if a man is willing to try if he is recommended for work and takes it, we do in the end succeed in our aim—that is, to send a fair number of them out into the world to earn a living as they ought to do.
May I turn for a moment to a different type of accommodation which exists alongside the reception centres—what used to be called the common lodging house, which is still in use in many parts of the country? The common lodging house is, I believe, the last relic of Disraeli's Public Health Act of 1870, which gave local authorities some responsibility for common lodging houses and gave medical officers of health power to inspect them, to decide how many men should sleep in each room and matters of this sort. I used to visit these common lodging houses. The squalor and poverty which prevailed there was almost unbelievable. Glasgow, I think, was the city with the greatest number of these places. Liverpool is not without them; and there are others in other parts of the country. These are very big establishments and hundreds of men sleep there.

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They make a small payment, but they are pretty well free to do what they like. I think it would be a good thing if the Minister made some inquiries about these common lodging houses. I do not know whether anything can be done to improve their standard. The difficulty is that we are dealing with very large numbers of men. But if something could be done to clean up these places, to make them a little more attractive than they are at present, this would be well worth while. Men come very readily into the common lodging houses. Although they have to pay, they come without the least difficulty or any attempt to attract them.
One of the peculiarities of this job of providing accommodation for casuals is the fact that the higher the standard of accommodation, the more difficult it is to get them to use it. When we began to open these reception centres which came up to a reasonable standard, one of my difficulties was to get enough men to use them. It was not that the men would not go into them; it was that they preferred the old ones. There is in this section of the population a certain number of men who are really hopeless, who will never attempt to improve themselves, who will never attempt to take advantage of anything that is done to help them to better their lives; but if we can get them into the reception centres, and these centres can undertake their main purpose of rehabilitating them, the Board will think that it has done as well perhaps as it can hope to do.
I do not think there is anything further I want to say about these places. The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, referred to the reception centre at Camberwell, which is a very big one, capable of accommodating as many as 500 or 600 men. People often go down to Camberwell to see what a reception centre looks like. I wish they would not. Camberwell is not what the Assistance Board requires. It was what they had to have because they could not get anything better, and it certainly does not represent the kind of standard of comfort or administration that the Board would accept. When people go to see a reception centre, they should go to see one of the new reception centres in the North of
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England. because they reflect some credit on the Board, and not go to Camberwell and then come away and complain about it.
5.18 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Aberdare has kindly agreed to wait for a moment before speaking further, to allow me a word or two of explanation and comment. I should have liked to put my name down for this debate but did not think the speakers would be so economical of time as they have been, and I feared I should not be able to wait in courtesy to hear the Minister's reply. The noble Baroness, Lady Seear, in a speech which interested and challenged every one of us, made a particular reference to ministers of religion and after that I feel that one word of explanation is due from me.
Far be it from me to try to avoid the challenge she put before the leaders of the Churches and before the country generally to face the very real problems existing in many clergy homes. She stated that a number of ministers were claiming the family income supplement. I believe that to be true; I am sure she would not have said so were it not. But it is a fact that the Department of Health and Social Security has ruled that the provision of a house, rent and rates free and all costs met, is not to be counted as part of income, but is to be treated like a tied cottage, perhaps with a lot of justification from one angle. But it is a fact that because of that ruling most clergy incomes are being reckoned as being £300 a year less than in practice they are worth. That is the statistical explanation of how it is that clergymen are in this position in certain cases, if they have large enough families. I think those brief words ought to be said in order to keep the picture in focus.
The other remark I should like to make is how much we on these Benches appreciate this debate and the call that has come from all sides of the House to continue to address ourselves to the problems of poverty. There is one sense, of course, in which poverty will always be with us, if you press the point that poverty is relative; it is the fact that unless you can somehow arrange that every branch of the community moves up in prosperity at

733
exactly the same rate, there will always be a time lag between the increase of prosperity on the part of any section and on the part of those who are the slowest to react to the new possibilities, probably through their inability to do so. There is that kind of poverty. There is another sort of poverty that exists at different times and in different nations and communities, when there is such a large area of the community suffering from very poor living conditions. Poverty of that kind should be tackled; and it is the object of all economic planning by all Governments to reduce that area of poverty and to raise the standard of living of the whole community so that there is less of that sort of it. Then there is the third category, which arises from particular circumstances, some of which can be seen at once and can be notified: there are the handicapped, the retired, the single parent families and so on.
It seems to me that the right line of approach is the one that we are all trying to follow; namely, to increase our sensitivity so that we locate and identify more and more of these types of special need and plan our social services to meet them. There will always be some, I think, that it will be difficult to cover in a direct way. Every clergyman, for instance, especially if he lives in one place for a long time, gathers around him a set of clients, as it were, men and women whom one knows to be incapable of fitting into the demands of society, and one has to deal with each one with as much understanding, tolerance and T.L.C. as it is possible to bring to bear upon them.
There is one last point that I should like to make, and it is this. This is a field where it would be such a splendid thing if we could have something approaching bipartisan policy. I know that we shall not have it. We are so arranged in our country that all subjects are threshed out by a kind of polarisation of the two principal contending Parties at any one time. Most people do not realise it, but there is much more bipartisanship than is commonly known and seen to be the case. In this House, for instance, we have_ frequent comments from both sides about favourable elements in the policies of the other side, but I very much doubt whether the country as a whole realises this. When the
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noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, was saying, "Why do not more people take up the family incomes supplement?", the point occurred to me that perhaps one reason is because so many hard things have been said about it by the section of the House which she represents. There are these difficulties in any kind of partisan discussion of these matters, but I am certain that we all have the same ultimate objects in view, however much we may differ as to the way in which to achieve them.
5.23 p.m.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, I did not intend to speak this afternoon, but I happened to have some figures with me. I am the chairman of a New Town development corporation, and therefore on this subject it is incumbent upon me to make a politically neutral or bipartisan speech. We felt it our duty to discover what the effect of the Government's proposed Housing Finance Bill would be upon our rents and upon the people who inhabit the houses. We drew up an enormous chart of incomes and benefits. including National Insurance, graduated pensions and income tax deductions, and plussing family allowances, family income supplements and school meal allowances. So when my noble friend Lady Phillips quoted that article, I suspected that it was by a Mr. Eric Jacobs of the Sunday Times. Is that so?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: Yes.
LORD RAGLAN: We worked out the same sum as Mr. Eric Jacobs, and we found that he was wrong. So we rang him up and told him so, and he agreed that he was wrong because he had forgotten to include the school meal allowances. Comparing a married man with two children earning £19 a week and a married man with two children earning £22 a week the differential is that the £22 a week man ends up 77p to the good. Then we had to work out what the incidence of the new rent rebate scheme was going to be, and we found a set of very curious figures. A married man with four children, earning £16 a week gross and paying £3 a week rent, would end up with £24·65 (I am afraid these figures are rather hard to digest straight off the cuff); and a married man with four children, with £26 a week gross income

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and paying £3 a week rent, would end up with £25·74, a differential of £1·09. Perhaps I can explain that a little further. The £16 a week man with four children gets £1·09 a week less than the man with £26 a week. At a rent of £5 a week, this works out at much the same kind of differential.
I think I heard the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, say that the differential, at any rate in theory, had had its day. This certainly seems to be the case under these proposals. If people are prepared to face a means test and take the benefits, there is no doubt, at any rate, in my mind, that the low paid will be nearly as well off as the higher paid, and, likewise, that the unskilled will be nearly as well off as the skilled. In other words, after the Housing Finance Act has been passed and is working, the Government will have further closed the gap which the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said earlier that the T.U.C. said they did not want to be closed.
I am wondering where we go from here. The Government, in theory, and by these calculations, are by way of making it pointless in financial terms to obtain a skill. Get a £16 a week job and beget four children and you are almost as well off as the £26 a week man with four children. I am not attempting this afternoon to supply any answers to these questions or to indulge in philosophising, but I think there is something here that must be looked at carefully. Is it right that we should subsidise the procreation of children to the extent that we do? Is it right that we should nearly eliminate the £16 to £26 a week differential? Do we believe in incentives; and if so, what sort of incentive? As the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, said, this debate covers a vast subject, and it is a complicated one. I hope that the Government, your Lordships and a lot of other people will give a great deal of thought to this part of it, too.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I just refute the accusation of the right reverend Prelate that people did not take up the family income supplement because of the hard things that some of us have been saying. I am really shocked that the right reverend Prelate could say such a thing—because we
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would urge them to take it up and not do the opposite.
5.30 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I think that the noble Baroness was a little out of order in making that statement at this moment, but if she feels so strongly about it no doubt she wants to get it off her chest.
I should like to answer several points that were raised, but the debate has been so wide-ranging that I should be keeping your Lordships rather too long if I went into all of them. I found them most interesting. May I ask leave of the House to speak for a second time? I should like to run briefly through some of the points which have been made. I listened with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Burgh, and what he had to tell us about those who live in groups, pooling their resources. I can only say that it would seem from his description that some of these people find happiness from living in such groups, and this is something that people would wish to encourage. Also, certain of them, if they did not find themselves a way of life within these groups might well have to go into other community provision where clearly they would be less happy than if they were living in groups. To that extent I am sure we would all wish to encourage the groups that he mentioned.
The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, referred to the homeless and destitute; and my noble friend Lord Ilford gave him some information about reception centres. I was asked for one or two figures. There are 18 reception centres provided by the Supplementary Benefits Commission, although four of them are run by local authorities who act as agents for the Commission. In all, they provide beds for just over 2,000 people, and on average about 1,500 men and women are accommodated overnight in them. But although there are a great number who use the reception centres—and the numbers have increased over recent years—there are still those who are destitute and homeless and who do not go to reception centres. I would mention, as did the noble Lord, how much we value the shelters and hostels run by the Salvation Army and the other organisations which were mentioned. I know that the Commission is anxious to cooperate fully with these projects and,

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where appropriate, to use its powers under the Social Security Act 1966 to provide financial assistance to them.
The noble Lord, Lord Amulree, went on to talk about the problems of the elderly. I certainly listened with great sympathy to his plea for further development of sheltered housing. We share his view about the value of sheltered housing and residential homes, and certainly go along with him in thinking that further development is desirable. As the noble Lord will recall, in making the Statement about additional resources the other day my right honourable friend announced that £30 million additional loan sanction was being made available for local authorities, to be spent on the provision of more and better residential homes and particularly for the elderly and mentally ill. He also announced in the same Statement that a five-year programme is being undertaken to remove finally all those public assistance institutions and workhouses that are such a blot on our services at the moment. I would follow him, too, in paying tribute to the home-helps, Meals-on-Wheels and other domiciliary services which are so important in keeping old people in their own homes.
I was very grateful to my noble friend Lady Brooke of Ystradfellte for her welcome for the family income supplement and the new housing finance provisions. I also listened with great sympathy to her plea for the provision of heating for old people. She was quite correct in all that she said about the fuel element in the scale rate of the long-term addition, and she is also clearly well informed about the three levels of special addition for heating. This is some provision for those who need it, and the problem is. as in so many cases, to make sure that those who really need it apply for it and get it. We have no figures available, as the statistics are prepared annually from a special inquiry made each November, so that the figures for special heating provisions will not be available until next spring. But one general point which she made, and which I think needs making, is that so often one hears figures quoted of deaths from hypothermia which are out of all proportion to the truth. It is a fact that the last figure we have is that some 155 deaths occurred in 1969 in which hypothermia was known to be
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a contributory factor or underlying cause. The fact is of course that there is always a rise in mortality in winter, due mainly to an increase in respiratory disease; and it is quite wrong to take the increases in deaths in winter and attribute them all, or even the vast majority of them, to lack of heating.
My Lords, I always listen with rapt attention to the speeches of the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, and I always long to leap to my feet every five minutes and argue with her. But I would make just two points here. She pilloried us as "the Government of means testing". Yet, as I have pointed out to her before, there is only one new means test that we have introduced which is different from those which were operated under the Labour Government; that is the family income supplement. All these other benefits were means tested under the previous Government, so that I do not think we can be made out to be such villains. All we are saying is that, at this moment when our resources are severely strained, if we are going to use them wisely we must make money and services available to those who need them most. The noble Baroness spoke of the numbers in poverty and, I think, took the supplementary benefits scale as a kind of mark, being the lowest point to which one could fall. Of course, one can go on arguing about this until the cows come home, but the difficulty about it is that every time you raise the supplementary benefits level you automatically increase the number in poverty, if you accept that this is the point at which you fix the poverty line. So it is not really an easy task to give figures for those in poverty. All I would say on the subject of the family income supplement—which is the one benefit, as I say, that we have introduced which is an extra benefit that depends on a means test—is that at least it is helping over 85,000 families who got no help before, at a cost of £6 million in a full year. This, at least, must surely be beneficial.
My Lords, I listened with tremendous interest, as I always do, to my noble friend Lord Ilford. I can assure him that local social security offices—I cannot speak for post offices, but I am sure they will have seen what the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, said—do have the same high standard of personal serf vice to those who call at them as they

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had under my noble friend's wise guidance when he was Chairman of the National Assistance Board, and the example which he set in those days is certainly followed to-day. I must plead guilty to having visited Camberwell and not one of the more modern centres in the North; but all I can say is that although Camberwell is operating in an old building and in very cramped and difficult circumstances it is doing an extremely valuable job and is handing on the tradition, which he also set, of trying to help people to settle into steady accommodation and steady work if they show any signs of being able to do so.
I should like to thank the two speakers who contributed without giving me warning. I think it was right that in a debate of this sort we should hear the voice of the Church, so ably put by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. It is vital that the Church should be involved in these problems because, as I tried to say at the beginning of my speech, so many of the problems are individual ones, and great assistance can be given by individual help which the Church is in a good position to supply. I listened also with great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Raglan. I tried to follow his figures as best I could, but I am not sure whether I have them correctly. I appreciate the problem of the differentials. We all see this. If you are going to help the very poor, those people at the bottom of the scale. you automatically bring in problems of differentials and automatically decrease the incentive for the very poor to earn more. It was for this reason that the family income supplement was kept at the 50 per cent. level of rise rather than anything greater.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, I think I ought to emphasise again that there is a great deal of difference between £16 and £26. between the unskilled and skilled man. All these benefits completely close the gap.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I understood that when the noble Lord spoke originally.
I have so far failed to deal with the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, in introducing this debate. She made some valuable suggestions, including one relating to the Swedish example in the retraining of men. I will certainly see that this is considered. I expect she had noticed that on July 20, 1971, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment announced four new measures for improving and extending industrial re-training facilities. I will not go through them all, but the second is one that might interest the noble Baroness: employers in every region are being approached with a view to utilising their spare training capacity for training unemployed workers, largely at Government expense. The training provided is mainly at semi-skilled level and the initial response from employers has been encouraging. I will certainly see that her suggestion further to that is considered.
5.43 p.m.
BARONESS SEEAR: My Lords, it only remains for me to thank your Lordships for the many interesting contributions that have been made to this debate. I should like to correct one stupid error that I made in the figures that I gave in my opening speech. I read from the wrong column with regard to the figures of the disablement. But it does not in the least alter the gist of what I was saying. I gave the total number of people on the disabled register who are out of work as 620.000, instead of 86,616—which itself is a very considerable rise. The main point I was making was that the rise in the number of unemployed disabled persons has been disproportionately great; and this of course still stands. It was ridiculous to say that there were 620.000 disabled persons out of work, and I should like to correct that for the Record. My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
5.45 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Sandford.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD AIREDALE in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Provision for joint surveys, reports and structure plans]:
LORD MILNER of LEEDS LORD MILNER of LEEDS moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 7, leave out Clause 1 and insert the following new clause:
"1. Local planning authorities shall have and shall be deemed always to have had powers to institute joint surveys and jointly to prepare and submit to the Secretary of State joint structure plans for combined areas and the Secretary of State may approve such plans."
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 1 standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Kennet and myself. This is a probing Amendment which I move in order that there shall be an opportunity for discussion. As noble Lords are aware, the purpose of Clause 1 is to provide for joint structure plans. We on this side of the Committee support this proposal, but question why it should be necessary to add in excess of 100 lines to the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 to permit local planning authorities to do what some of them are already doing, although I understand that no joint structure plans have yet been approved by the Secretary of State. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, will tell us whether any such plans have been submitted to the Secretary of State. On Second Reading, in reply to my noble friend Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, said that he would consider whether the objective of this clause could be achieved in a simpler way. I therefore ask the noble Lord to let us hear from him on this. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: I am grateful to the noble Lord for making clear his purpose in moving this Amendment, and for giving me an opportunity to confirm
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that we have considered the suggestion that came from his noble friend; namely, that there might be a simpler way of dealing with the necessity to provide for joint surveys, joint reports and joint structure plans. I am advised that unless the phrase "combined areas" which the noble Lord's Amendment uses is given a meaning, and the existing statutory provisions are suitably adapted to apply in combined areas, the interpretation of them in relation to joint surveys and joint structure plans will be uncertain in a number of respects.
The format of Clause 1 is a drafting matter. If it had, in the view of our advisers, been possible to achieve its aims in the very simple and general form proposed by the Amendment, that is something we should have done. We should certainly wish that the clause were not as complex as it is. However, the terms of the 1971 Act are such that they clearly impose a duty on each local planning authority in respect of its own area and the Department is advised that textual amendments are required in order to give authorities power to join formally together—they do not, of course, need it to join informally—in instituting a joint survey and preparing a structure plan for a combined area. The form of the 1971 Act provisions, with their frequent references to the area for which a survey is to be carried out, or a structure plan is to be made, necessitates detailed amendments of the 1971 Act to ensure that the legal position is clear. As the common object of the noble Lords and the Government is to put the legal position beyond doubt, the approach in the clause is the appropriate one.
The second point is that there are in the Amendment provisions of a retrospective character. The phrase, "shall be deemed always to have had" is the one I have in mind. In this instance, the case for retrospective legislation is not strong it does not seem necessary. So far as it known, none of the local planning authorities who are working towards a joint structure plan has yet taken any formal action of the kind required by the Statutes. I want to stress this since, as is well known, there is much preparatory work needed on plans before formal stages are reached. As the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, said on Second Reading, collaborative working

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between authorities has always been encouraged as a sensible feature of the new planning system. That is the second point.
There are a number of other factors of a technical kind which have led us to the slightly complex clause which we feel is necessary. The provisions of the clause as drafted, which take the form of amendments to the consolidating 1971 Act, cannot come into operation until April 1, 1972, which is the date on which that Act itself comes into operation. This Amendment provides that authorities shall have power to institute joint surveys and prepare joint structure plans immediately—that is to say, on the date that this Bill which we are discussing is passed—and shall be deemed always to have had such power. But the latter provision seems to us to be too sweeping in its terms, since provision for structure plans was first made only in Part I of the 1968 Act, and there seems to us to be no merit in enabling authorities to act before the 1971 Act comes into operation, since the period between the date of passing this Bill and April 1, 1972, will be of only short duration. Neither Clause 1 of the Bill as drafted nor the Amendment, if it were agreed to, can of course be effective until the Bill becomes law.
Thirdly, the Amendment omits the requirement which we have in Clause 1 as drafted at the moment for the Secretary of State's consent to be obtained. This consent is in our view essential. Part II of the 1971 Act, covering the duties and powers in respect of the new development plan systems, will be introduced progressively by means of commencement orders—that is in Part II of the Act—and each order will bring it into operation in areas which make sense in planning terms. It is necessary, I submit, for the Secretary of State to have power to ensure that the combined areas, the areas combining together for the making of joint structure plans, also make sense in planning terms and over the country as a whole. Consent for the preparation of a joint structure plan for any reasonable combination of areas is of course unlikely to be withheld. I think the Committee will agree that power to guide such combinations must be there. I hope that that explanation, which has been rather long and rather involved, dealing with a
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clause which I think must be rather complex to secure its aims, will satisfy the Committee and noble Lords opposite that it would not be possible to deal with this matter in the simple and attractive way which noble Lords have sought to secure. I hope that with that explanation the noble Lord, Lord Milner, will feel able to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD MILNER OF LEEDS: I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, for his reply, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3 [Amendment of provisions relating to approval of structure plans and local plans etc. by Secretary of State]:
5.53 p.m.
LORD MILNER OF LEEDS LORD MILNER OF LEEDS moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 5, line 6, leave out paragraph (b) and insert—
("(b) afford to any persons whose objections so made are not withdrawn an opportunity of appearing before, and being heard by, a person appointed by him for the purpose and
(c) if a local enquiry or other hearing is held, also afford the like opportunity to the local planning authority and such other person as he thinks tit.")
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 2 standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Kennet and myself. This Amendment deletes paragraph (b) of subsection (3) and inserts paragraphs (b) and (c) of subsection (3) of Section 9 of the 1971 Act. Unless this Amendment is carried there will no longer be a right for every objector to be heard; the Secretary of State will decide which objections are relevant to the issue and which objections will be heard. On Second Reading my noble friend Lord Greenwood of Rossendale said that the County Councils Association, the Association of Municipal Corporations and the Urban District Councils Association were critical of this clause, although recognising the need to speed up procedure. We on this side of your Lordships' Committee sympathise with the aim to accelerate the bringing into being of structure plans to lessen

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the period of uncertainty and of property blight. However, it is doubtful that the proposed procedure will achieve greater speed, and any such shortening of the time involved must not be at the expense of the rights of the individual. I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: I am grateful to the noble Lord for moving this Amendment, and glad of the further opportunity it provides me for setting out how at the moment we see the new public examination of broad strategic issues of a structure plan being a different exercise from the now familiar public local inquiry into objections to a local plan, and how procedures are called for the former which will of necessity have to be different from those that have been developed for the latter.
It is a new type of plan which is at issue, one setting out the broad strategic proposals for an area. It is on these, and on the key issues arising on them, that we need to concentrate both the Secretary of State's consideration and the public examination. The structure plan is to be followed up by local plans, containing the detailed working through of the proposals. These local plans, on an Ordnance Survey base, dealing with the detail of individual properties and interests, are the sort of plan which we are used to and which people are used to making detailed objections to, and all that must continue. For these plans there will still be the normal public local inquiry—and this I want to stress very much—at which every objector has the right, and will continue to have the right, to be heard. The Government are seeking to avoid what the Amendment would preserve; namely, an identical form of inquiry on both tiers of plans. This would, I submit to the Committee, surely involve an unacceptable overlap, an unnecessary overlap. At the same time, the Government are seeking to evolve for the new form of plan a more relevant means of examination in public.
There are now for the first time statutory provisions about publicity and public participation. Among other things, local planning authorities have to consider representations made to them about the matters they propose to include in their structure plans before submitting them to the Secretary of State. The
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report they make on the outcome of public participation will help the Secretary of State to identify the key issues for examination in public. Clause 3 does not—nor does it seek to—restrict in any way the right to object to a structure plan. And the Secretary of State remains firmly under a duty to consider any objections to the structure plan, irrespective of whether or not they are heard. Also, the objections and the grounds for them will clearly be very material in the Secretary of State's consideration of which arc the key issues to be examined in public and of those who would take part in the examination.
Finally, due weight needs to be given to the need for procedures to take into account—and this was stressed by several noble Lords on Second Reading—the serious disadvantages there are in processes which are too time-consuming and can cause serious and unnecessary blight. These are factors of the kind to which it is easy to pay too little attention at the outset but which later we come to regret were not thought about sufficiently at an earlier stage. The bodies so far consulted have, in sending to the Department their initial comments, shown that they recognise the problems which the Government are facing and that the initiative we are taking is generally welcomed. However, like us they want the opportunity to consider further the detailed procedures for this new form of public examination. It is clearly important to combine the efficient and timely consideration of structural issues with the ability of organisations and of individuals to register their views and have them considered in a constructive way. For their part, the Government want to have the opportunity to consider the detailed suggestions made by the bodies that we have consulted (now that the majority of these are in) and of course the points made in your Lordships' House at an earlier stage and at this Committee stage. That is why it would he valuable if on this and other Amendments to Clause 3 your Lordships could draw my attention to any points which cause you misgivings or seem to be of particular importance.
The point we are now at in consultations over this key issue is that we have received from almost all the bodies we have consulted their comments on the

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first consultation paper, and we can now consider these as a whole. By the next stage of the Bill in the House I hope to be in a position to give a broad outline for a possible procedure for the examinations in public, or at least to set out the main suggestions for dealing with the sort of points that have caused misgivings. This would enable us to take into account not only the points that noble Lords have made so far but any that they might make at the next stages, before we issue the second detailed consultation document. When that is ready I shall be glad to send it to any noble Lords who wish to see it, and of course to welcome further comments upon it. May I take this opportunity of asking the noble Lord, Lord Milner, to Pass on to his noble friend Lord Greenwood my regrets at not having sent him the previous consultation document as expeditiously as I had intended to.
I hope that explanation of the care we are taking to strike a balance between thoroughness and due regard to individual rights on the one hand and getting through these public examinations with reasonable dispatch and confining the examination to broad issues on the other hand, will satisfy the noble Lord and the Committee that we are setting about this matter in the right way. I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his Amendment because I regret that I cannot advise the Committee to accept it.
LORD MILNER OF LEEDS: I should like an opportunity to consider what the noble Lord has said, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.3 p.m.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 5, line 12, at end insert ("provided that, before making such regulations, he shall consult with persons and organisations likely to be affected, including representatives of the building industry").
The noble Lord said: This Amendment also concerns the examination in public relating to structural plans, and I am moving it in order to try to get a little more information from the Government over and above what my noble friend has given in reply to the last Amend
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ment. This Amendment would ensure that before making the regulations referred to in subsection (4) of Section 9 of the 1971 Act the Secretary of State should consult with persons and organisations likely to be affected, including representatives of the building industry. My first question is whether the Government now intend to make regulations at all, because there has been some indication that the Government have had second thoughts and are proposing that there should be a code of practice relating to this public examination of structural plans without there being any enforceable regulations at all. I would have said that in a matter of this kind, which is somewhat delicate, it was desirable to have statutory regulations so that everybody may know exactly where he stands.
My second question is, how much consultation will take place? My noble friend spoke of the consultations that have already taken place. Indeed, in his Second Reading speech he said, and I quote:
"The relevant professional bodies have contributions to make; so have the local authority associations; so have the Council on Tribunals, with whom we have already had some discussion, and so have the bodies representing amenity societies, from whom we have invited comment. We have also sent a consultation document to all those bodies."—[OFFICAL REPORT; 18/11/71, col. 763.]
So far as I am aware, the consultative document has not been sent to the representatives of the building industry, particularly the house building industry, yet one of the most crucial questions arising out of these structural plans will be whether sufficient land is set aside for house building under the plan. It is common knowledge that over a number of years past the house building industry has been extremely anxious lest building land is released too slowly and consequently the cost of that land and the ultimate cost of the houses erected on it will be pushed up. I feel sure my noble friend will agree that this is one of the crucial questions that will fall to be decided under most of the structural plans, or at least many of them, and I hope he will be able to assure me that the house building industry will be given an opportunity to comment upon the regulations, if he proposes to make them, or on the code of procedure if he does not. I beg to move.
LORD SLATER: I take it from the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, that this is more or less a probing Amendment as to the probable position, so far as the Minister himself is concerned, in regard to a public examination. When the noble Lord, Lord Brooke. was Minister of Housing and Local Government he laid down certain regulations and passed certain legislation through Parliament which the local planning authorities had to implement and operate. Do I gather from this clause, therefore, that if the Minister feels so disposed he can say that he is not prepared to have a public inquiry or examination of all the aspects of the situation and the proposals that might be presented to him, or the opposition, because of the fact that the local authorities who have come together and are operating jointly must have their own examination before the Act comes into being?
LORD SANDFORD: I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor for giving me the opportunity to set out in still more detail the exact way in which we are consulting at this stage, and the form of the code of practice and the regulations. In answer to the matter raised by the noble Lord, Lord Slater, I may say that it will be easier to deal with his point when we get back to the broad question of the way in which these examinations are to be carried out, which I think we shall be discussing when we reach Amendment No. 4: but perhaps we can see when I have dealt with my noble friend's Amendment.
As I explained during the Second Reading debate, the Government's intention, now and all along, has been to shape the new procedure in consultation with those representing the interests mainly concerned. The original consultation paper was sent out on a comparatively restricted basis as it was felt that at that stage the regular participants in inquiries, namely, the local authorities, certain professional bodies and the representatives of the amenity societies, were the right ones to involve. As I also indicated in the debate, the intention was that further discussion should take place about the details of the new procedure, and ultimately the results of all the consultations, discussions and debates will
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be embodied, in the first instance, in a simple code of practice. The Government's present intention—I do not think we have been deflected from this—is that this code of practice should be a non-statutory document so as to secure the broadest possible acceptance of a common form of procedure together with an opportunity to adjust that procedure, which will be a new procedure, in the light of our early experience. But, as my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor has mentioned, it may well be necessary to codify this more firmly in regulations, and provision for doing that is made, as the Committee will see, in Clause 3(4).
I can assure my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor that the further consultation document which it is proposed should form the basis of the new round of discussions on the detailed shape of the procedure will be sent to all those bodies who are normally consulted by the Department on important proposals affecting the administration of planning law, and the National Federation of Building Trades Employers will certainly be included. They were, for instance, consulted on the structure and local plans regulations. I will see that copies of the document are sent to any other organisation which can claim a legitimate interest in the subject-matter of the further consultation paper. I hope that that explanation and that assurance will satisfy the purpose that my noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor had in mind in putting down his Amendment.
LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR: I am very grateful to my noble friend for what he has said. I am sure it has made the position a great deal clearer to all of us. My anxiety arose partly because the amenity associations had been mentioned and the house builders had not. There may be on some structure plans a clash between those two interests, and we all wish that clash to be resolved in the fairest way to everybody concerned. What my noble friend said at the end of his reply has encouraged me to believe that from now on every organisation likely to be concerned will be treated equally and consulted equally. That is the assurance I wish to receive, and in the light of it I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.13 p.m.
LORD MILVERTON LORD MILVERTON moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 5, line 15, at end insert ("provided he is satisfied either that any objection to the said plan on which the said authority or person wishes to be heard is not relevant to his decision on the said plan, or that the matter raised by the objection is substantially contained in some other objection selected for hearing; and the Secretary of State shall publish in writing his grounds for considering any such objection not to be so relevant.")
The noble Lord said: In rising to propose the Amendment which stands in my name, I feel that I ought to begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, for the assurance which he has already given, which up to a point has perhaps met the point which I am trying to make in this Amendment; but as it does not quite reassure me, I am hoping that after I have tried to make the case for the Amendment he will see his way to broadening the assurance he has already given.
Clause 3 introduces a new form for public inquiries into structure plans. I offer the suggestion that some speedier and simpler procedure than the traditional public inquiry is essential if the structure plans are to be brought into being reasonably quickly and a lengthy period of "blight" avoided. For instance, the Association of Municipal Corporations agrees in substance with the proposals in Clause 3, but at the same time we feel that the powers given by the clause to the Secretary of State to refuse (under subsection (1)(5) of Clause 3) a right to be heard in the course of examination of the structure plan are too sweeping as drafted, and that some safeguards are needed to enable those who feel that their objections ought reasonably to be heard to be assured that they are given a fair opportunity of a hearing. This, of course, should include an individual person, a local authority and a local planning authority.
Instead of the traditional kind of public inquiry into detailed objections which have been lodged, it is proposed that the Secretary of State will be empowered to state what issues he wishes to see publicly examined; there will no longer be a right for every objector to be heard; and the Secretary of State will decide which objections are relevant to the issues he will decide, and which are therefore
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to be heard. The Secretary of State has, explained the need to accelerate the bringing into force of structure plans; to lessen the period of uncertainty and of property blight due to delay in adopting the plans; and also that the new form of public examination of the main issues in the structure plan identified by the Secretary of State will relate to key issues rather than to such objections as happen to be made, and will form a more comprehensive basis for the Secretary of State's subsequent decision. He has also emphasised that the traditional public inquiry procedure will continue to apply to objections to local plans, which on an ordance map base will show the effect of proposals on individual properties.
One can fully share the Secretary of State's view that the uncertainty period while structure plans are being prepared should be minimised, the blighting effect caused by uncertainty should also be reduced, and structure plans brought into being as quickly as possible. But surely all this must not be done at the expense of a democratic process. There are several objections to the proposals as they stand. There should, for instance, be some machinery to ensure that the general public and objectors are satisfied that the Secretary of State's definition of issues for public examination is not too narrow, that objectors are not frightened off by any procedural regulations made under the powers the clause provides; and that, fundamentally, if an objector at the structure plan stage is to be refused a hearing, the only ground for refusal should be if the Secretary of State demonstrates that the objection is irrelevant to the structure plan. The limits which Clause 3 places on the right of objection require to be examined with great care, surely, to ensure that the need to expedite the making of structure plans does not deprive the citizen of an effective right of objection to safeguard a valid interest.
I have endeavoured to be brief in this explanation of the purpose of this Amendment. One can support in principle, as I do, the introduction by Clause 3 of a new procedure for examining the structure plans of local planning authorities, in place of the traditional public inquiry, while at the same time feeling that the suggested procedure needs

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amendment. I make one final point. The structure plan will be followed, of course, by the local plan. It may be said that the local plan is the point for specific objections to be heard, whereas the structure plan is too broad a document on which to make specific objections. One fears, however, that if the structure plan is approved, an objector may then be committed and be unable to raise a specific objection at the later stage when the local plan is the subject or a public inquiry. That is the case for the Amendment, and I hope that my noble friend Lord Sandford will be able to reassure me and enable me to withdraw my Amendment.
6.20 p.m.
LORD SLATER: I am very interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, had to say regarding this Amendment. I am all for more freedom being granted to local authorities, and I expect that this Government are of the same mind. Listening to the speech that has been delivered on this Amendment, and as one who has had past experience in local government, I am beginning to wonder whether the Government are seeking to introduce and adopt on this occasion, by the Bill they are bringing forward, a method of taking away from local authorities and the ordinary citizen the rights to follow' the present lines of approach in their forms of objection at a public inquiry set up by the Minister. If these have to go by the board, then God help the people of this country who have interests in certain structure operations, whether by way of altering them or by new structure formations. Legislation of this nature is bound to upset the people of this country, if that is going to be the position.
I sincerely hope that what I fear is not going to be the position, and that the Minister is not, in the first place, to be the final arbiter, then passing the matter down to the local authorities and saying, "This is it. For these things you have to accept what I believe must be done in regard to the structure". If that is to be the position, then I can visualise a lot of trouble occurring. When the new Local Government Bill comes to be considered more will be said in respect of this particular position, if the situation is as
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I have gathered it to be from the speech of the noble Lord.
6.23 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: I am eager to give all the assurances I can on this particular issue, and I have saved up some for my noble friend's Amendment. Before I get on to it, I should like to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Slater, that in this Bill we are not detracting in any respect at all from the rights of individual objectors at public local inquiries. They all remain as intact as they are at the moment. What we are doing is to introduce procedures for a new form of public examination of a new form of planning, namely, a structure plan, and we are seeking to strike a fresh balance between the rights of objectors to that, and the need to get on and discuss not detailed proprietary objections but broad strategic issues. I should like to give the noble Lord the reassurance that nothing we are doing here affects the rights of private individuals in respect of the existing and familiar public local inquiries, which will continue and will form a complementary part of the structure plans.
I welcome my noble friend's Amendment, because it enables me to give reassurances of a rather different kind. The procedures for the examination in public of structure plans will be evolved in close consultation with the local authority associations and the other main bodies representing the professional interests concerned. In the second round we shall be bringing in a wider circle. Almost all of those consulted in the first round have now replied, and their general support is welcomed by the Government. Now we have to consider the many suggestions which are of a constructive kind, and the misgivings which are bound to be expressed at this stage in working through to new proposals. Among the bodies with whom we have been consulting in drawing up the procedures is the Council on Tribunals. My honourable friend the Minister for Local Government and Development has already met representatives of the Council, and there is at the moment a constructive exchange of letters proceeding between my honourable friend and them. One assurance which my honourable friend has now given to the noble Baroness, Lady Burton of Coventry, who is Chairman of

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the Council, is that these examinations will fall within the purview of the Council. This has all along been our intention, and to put that point beyond doubt I shall be tabling an Amendment at the Report stage in this House, and the effect of this will be that the Council would be seen to be concerned with the procedure relating to the new examinations in public. The role here of what I hope I may call colloquially the "statutory watchdog" in these matters will go quite a long way towards meeting the kind of misgivings which have been expressed by noble Lords and by the bodies that we have been consulting.
I confirm that the sort of considerations mentioned in my noble friend's Amendment would be among the criteria that the Secretary of State would have in mind in selecting issues, and those who would appear at the examination. The criteria will be among the many matters which need to be considered further in the course of our consultations. As I have said, the intention is to work towards a code of practice. I think it would be inappropriate to write such provisos into the Bill—certainly at this stage.
Finally, the suggestion that the Secretary of State should indicate the general basis on which he would be selecting issues and choosing participants at the examination is certainly one thing which we are currently considering very carefully. But I submit to the Committee that it would be going much too far to require the Secretary of State, by Statute, to publish the grounds for not hearing any one objector or for considering irrelevant any one objection not selected for hearing. The Secretary of State must, and will, consider all objections, whether they are heard at the examination or not, but the new machinery we need for setting up this new form of examination of strategic issues must be one that enables strategic and broad issues to be sifted out from the detailed proprietary and local ones, without in any way denying the importance of the latter.
I hope that these assurances—and particularly the one in which I sought to set out the relationship of the Council on Tribunals to all this—will satisfy the Committee, and enable my noble friend to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD MILVERTON: I think the noble Lord for his reassurances, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amwndment.
Clause 5 [Continuation in force of provisions relating to control of office development]:
On Question, Whether Clause 5 shall stand part of the Bill?
6.30 p.m.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: Clause 5 deals with the retention of the control of office development permits in premises of over 10,000 square feet in the South-East of England, and the sole remaining reason for its retention is to try to force the movement of office work out of London, and in particular out of the congested central part. These provisions were originally made in the Control of Office and Industrial Development Act 1965, and consolidated in the Town and Country Planning Act 1971. I have been asked by the Chamber of Commerce movement here in London to ask for the deletion of this clause, which I understand is a further temporary five-year extension of an originally temporary measure.
My reasons for wishing to delete this clause are first, that the object of this particular piece of bureaucracy does not appear to have worked. I quote that expert my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford who said, in the Second Reading debate:
"In 1951, 22 per cent. of all employment"
in the South-East
"was in offices; in 1961 the figure was 26 per cent. By 1981 we estimate that over one-third of all the employment in the South-East will he in offices."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18/11/71; col. 798.]
In fact, the steady growth of office employment continues despite office development permits. There are other ways of encouraging office development in areas outside the South-East. Secondly, the main result of O.D.P.s has been delays and, far more important, a phenomenal increase in London office rents. I am sure that my noble friend the

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Minister is well aware of the 1970 Report on this point, by the Committee on Invisible Exports. I will not delay your Lordships by repeating that Report, except for its conclusions:
"We think the Committee should continue to press for the removal of O.D.P.s."
I believe I should be right in saying that it is now generally accepted that O.D.P.s have been one of the main causes of this enormous increase in rents.
I would respectfully suggest that those noble Lords interested in this point should re-read the very able Second Reading speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin (Col. 784). As the Minister himself admitted, Lord Silkin is one of the greatest experts on planning problems and is the author of our planning legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, rightly drew attention to the effect of these high rents on the smaller office, and in particular to the effect on the professions, especially of course the legal profession. Unfortunately, O.D.P.s on offices of 10,000 square feet and over do not mean cheaper rents for the smaller office, as rents are usually in direct proportion to the floor space that the office occupies. The result has been that the smaller firms have, in the main, been forced either out of business or to occupy shabby older buildings.
Thirdly, a great many firms—and here I should disclose a personal interest as my head office borders on the City—have to he in the centre of the Metropolitan area. Commercial firms must be near to the banks for the handling of documents; the central banks have to be close to the Bank of England; insurance must be in the proximity of Lloyd's; stockbrokers must be near to the Stock Exchange; produce merchants must be near to the Produce Exchange, and so forth. I believe that to-day there are very few firms situated in the centre of London except through necessity. The difficulties of obtaining staff, with the problems of commuting to London, et cetera, plus all the other difficulties associated with a congested and busy city, are sufficient incentive for those who do not need to be in the Metropolitan area to move to the peace of the country. With the possibility of the United Kingdom joining the E.E.C., foreign companies wishing to set up European head offices, with the resultant
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employment, may be forced to choose Brussels, Paris or somewhere else for their headquarters, instead of the City of London.
Regrettably, all that this legislation has achieved is that rents and costs have been forced up, and in a number of cases visible and invisible exports have been made more expensive and less competitive. I admit that this Government have taken a very liberal view in the issuing of O.D.P.s, and in the City of London have granted permits for 31 million square feet during the first nine months of this year, against 2 million square feet for the whole of 1970. This is not an argument for retention, but only an admission of the increased necessity for space in the City where, on average, the amount of office space vacant at any one time is only 0·4 per cent. of the total available space. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister must have read the leader in the Business Section of The Times on November 17, following the very strong plea for the abandonment of O.D.P.s by the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Edward Howard, at the annual Guildhall Banquet. The Lord Mayor was at that time dealing with meeting the challenge which the Common Market would pose to the City.
I maintain that, although there are provisions in Clause 5 for earlier termination by Order in Council than the proposed date of 1977, sufficient powers exist under the present planning authorities to make this legislation unnecessary. I personally feel that we have too many regulations in this field, and if it were found possible to do away with O.D.P.s in the City of London—as we have done in most of the rest of the country—this would be a step in the right direction. Her Majesty's Government have already intimated that they are not in favour of continuing this legislation indefinitely. I therefore suggest that now is the time to bring to an end this inflationary factor which, unlike so many, is within the control of the Government. Finally, of course I appreciate that the Government, until they have worked out and implemented an overall policy, still have a problem in the South-East. But my noble friend the Minister must in turn accept that the City of London—an area most adversely affected by these orders, and an area where Government intervention is

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least necessary—must be given an assurancd that O.D.P.s for the centre of London will be discontinued.
6.38 p.m.
VISCOUNT AMORY: I should like to support the very powerful case made by my noble friend Lord Macpherson of Drumochter. In the few remarks that I am going to make, I shall be speaking only about the City area—what is called the "square mile"—and the immediate surroundings. I have no interest to declare here, but I have been advised by many reputable and knowledgeable people in the City that the continuation of this office development permit procedure, as is proposed in Clause 5, would in present circumstances be detrimental to many of the financial and commercial operations that arc carried on in the square mile. I have also been told that the O.D.P. procedure, superimposed on the requirements of the planning authorities, results in serious delays, and that this is part of the cause of the really fantastic rise in rents, which was referred to my by my noble friend, that has taken place in the City over recent years. I have been informed that rents of new and modernised accommodation in the banking and insurance areas have increased five-fold or six-fold over the past ten years, and that over the past three years they have more than doubled. Rents are higher in this area than in any other Continental centre. with the possible exception of one or two very limited areas in Paris and Zurich, and higher in general than they are in the City of New York.
I imagine that the original objects of office development permits were, first, to discourage new office building in view of other priorities which were very strong at that time; and, secondly, that it would be beneficial for transportation reasons that the number of people who travel daily to the City should be curtailed if possible. It may have been thought, as a deliberate action, that if rents were to rise it might be helpful to the achievement of that last item of policy: but whether it was a deliberate object or not, the fact is that rents have risen dramatically and, one would think, dangerously. Some firms have moved or are moving—and also departments of a statistical nature, such as my noble friend has referred to, like the share register office—
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away from the City, and that is a desirable thing to happen. But present evidence seems to indicate that in sectors like finance, insurance and shipping the main seat of operations must be in the square mile, or very close thereto.
Now it is true, as my noble friend has said, and as I understand, that recently the O.D.P. procedure has been loosening up, and most applications for modernisation, if they do not involve additional floor space, are in fact approved. But the effects, I am told, are none the less frustrating and damaging. Targets have been incorrectly assessed. That is very understandable, because the demand has been much stronger than almost anybody had forecast. There are also psychological deterrents, due to the delays and the frustrations resulting from them. I think the system has introduced an element of inflexibility and arbitrariness which seems contrary to the wishes and the policies of the present Government. There is no need for me to stress the value to the national economy of the really remarkable level of income from invisibles that has been earned in the City, or to remind my noble friends that, as regards invisible exports, office accommodation is really in some ways the equivalent of factory tools and equipment. Nor, I am sure, is there any need to emphasise the enormous and exciting opportunities that will come to the City if we play our cards right and if they play their cards right when we enter Europe. London, one hopes—and I believe that one can hope with confidence—is really going to become the financial centre of Europe to a far greater extent than ever before in our history, and if we are to exploit that opportunity then the City must have accommodation second to none in quality.
I feel that the answer lies not in forcing operations of the kind I have mentioned away from the City by very high rents, but in gradually expanding the limits of the square mile, perhaps Eastwards and Northwards, as opportunity offers. I would therefore urge my noble friend and the Government to look again to see whether, in the present circumstances, and still more in the circumstances of the immediate future, the O.D.P. procedure has not, for this area at any rate, outlived its utility and whether it should

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not now be dropped, leaving the essential control in the hands of the planning authorities. I therefore hope that my noble friend will agree to have another look at this clause. I realise that under the clause this procedure can be terminated by order at an earlier date than the five years proposed for the extension, but, like my noble friend who has just spoken, I believe that the prudent decision would be to terminate this procedure now.
6.45 p.m.
LORD KENNET: In spite of the two very persuasive speeches we have just heard, we on this side of the Committee hope that the Government will not allow the office development controls to be swept away at the moment. It is true that the rents are fantastically high, and are going up all the time; but it seems to me that one can argue that this does not make a case for sweeping away the controls but that it might be the kernel of a case for introducing rent control for offices, something which should not be very much harder for the Minister to devise than has been done over all these years for housing. If it really is a grave problem, as I dare say it is, then let us keep the office development control and examine the possibility of rent controls to solve the problem.
The noble Viscount, Lord Amory, was very frank about expanding the square mile. He painted a picture of the City spreading outwards, North and West.
VISCOUNT AMORY: It is only a small point, and it is purely my own idea; but I should have thought Eastwards and Northwards.
LORD KENNET: I stand corrected: North and East. But even if you go East you come into areas where people live, and this is precisely what worries some of us. An unchecked expansion of office development in the centre of London, or indeed any other town, leads to a situation in which there is nobody living there; and we for our part hold to the old concept of a city as a place—including the centre—where people live and find employment, and not only as a place of employment.
The other point on this is the rush-hour problem. The more offices you have and the fewer residents you have,
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the more people there are who have to come into the City in the morning and get back in the evening. For myself, when I tried to administer the office development permits, as I did for a few very hectic months—and, my goodness!, the pressure was hard—it so happens that at the beginning of that period I Was at Fenchurch Street Station one day in the rush-hour, and it seemed to me humanly impossible to consider dismantling the controls, having seen the awful conditions in which so many thousands and tens of thousands of our fellow citizens come to work, even as things are.
To turn for a moment to the argument of proximity, the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson, said that certain enterprises must be close to other enterprises, and that those other enterprises are established by long tradition in the City of London. I wonder whether this is not rather living in the past. Is it necessary in this day and age for a man to go downstairs from his office, out into the street, along and upstairs into the other fellow's office, have a cup of tea and come back again? Is it really necessary in the age of the Telex, if you want something written down: or of the telephone, if you do not want it written down? Or, if you have to see the other fellow face to face, is it necessary to walk to see him when we can have closed television links between one part of the country and another?
Lastly, I would beg the Minister to remember that we are dealing not only with London, but with the entire South-East Region. I believe that this control, belaboured as it is by its opponents, is a useful tool of regional planning, and should be maintained for that purpose. The planning authorities' ordinary development controls were found insufficient to handle this vast pressure, and it seems to me that if we revert to that level of control we shall once again find that it is insufficient. Maintaining the controls does not mean turning all the applications down, as both noble Lords who have spoken already have pointed out.
LORD TERRINGTON: I should like to speak very briefly in support of this Amendment, and I must declare my

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interest as a member of a City partnership. I do not know that I can add very much more to what other noble Lords have had to say in support of the Amendment. I entirely agree with all that has been said. I would underline the importance of the City as a financial centre in connection with the European Economic Community; and I find it interesting to learn that, as I believe, there are already a number of European companies which are in the process of negotiating for City premises. This, I think, may tend further to aggravate the situation. I also find it interesting that a number of American banks, ninny of which I know about personally, have found it absolutely necessary to be within this very small area. Finally, may I mention that I spent a good part of the year working in the Wall Street area of New York, and when my friends there learned of the sort of rents that we have to pay to try to do our job in the City they could hardly believe their ears.
THE EARL or LIMERICK: May I add one more voice in support of the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Macpherson? I have an interest in this subject, as a merchant banker with an international business and a Member of the Council of the London Chamber of Commerce. I have been made aware of the strongly held views of the Committee on Invisible Exports, and of the Corporation of the City of London as the planning authority. The first point I wish to make is that these procedures impose a delay on business planning, and I will confine my remarks (because this is the area I know best) to the City of London, where I am informed that a typical period for getting consent under an O.D.P., even in a "cut-and dried" case, varies between four months and, sometimes, more than a year. This leads to frustration and delay. These rents are very high indeed, and it has been pointed out that whereas during the early part of the 'sixties they were rising by between 8 and 9 per cent. per annum, from 1968 to 1970 the rent levels in the central area doubled, and they now stand in all the main sectors at approximately four times the level of 1965.
If we compare. as is done in Table 2 of the Report of the Committee on Invis
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ible Exports, 11 regional centres outside Central London we find that rent levels in three have approximately doubled during the same five-year period; in eight others the rent increased by, approximately, only 50 per cent. It is significant, as we approach Europe, to make comparison with comparable central areas of the Continent. The only place where rent levels approach those of London is Paris, and the figure here is approximately 80 per cent. of the London levels. In Zurich, a typical central rent is only 25 per cent. of Central London levels; in Frankfurt, 20 per cent.; in Brussels, 15 per cent., and in Amsterdam, 10 per cent. These are enormous differentials. It should not be assumed, as has been pointed out, that abolition, at least for the City area, of O.D.P.s would mean an immediate free-for-all, for other planning controls exist and would no doubt be applied. The issue of permits has certainly been eased where replacement of floor space is concerned and also if there is a main tenant; but I would concentrate on the delay, the extra hurdle that has to he cleared by anyone who wishes to make provision for his business—a burden that is particularly heavy on small businesses.
6.54 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: Practically all noble Lords who spoke, with the exception of Lord Kennet, have spoken exclusively of the City. But, of course, the noble Lord's Amendment, if it were accepted, would have the effect of sweeping away all these powers, or allowing them to lapse, on August 5 next year over the whole of that part of the country, the South-East, to which they at present apply. Nevertheless, I think that the Committee will be grateful, as I am, to the noble Lord for moving this Amendment for it has given us an opportunity to discuss the current operation of office development permits, to understand the need to keep the power behind them for the time being, as Lord Kennet explained, and to discuss some of the factors involved in moving towards their abolition in an orderly way in due course when other things are ready. I appreciate that this has been my noble friend's purpose in moving his Amendment and that he understands, as I am sure do all other noble Lords, that to accept the Amendment and to allow all this apparatus to

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lapse on August 5, 1972—which would be the effect—is out of the question.
The decision to retain the powers of control was based primarily on the need for the Government to have the means of influencing the location of office employment in the South East in accordance with the recommendations of the Strategic Plan for the Region which has been endorsed by the Government recently as a framework for regional development. Until the implementation of that Plan has been carried further, it will still be necessary, through the use of office control, to exercise restraint in London if progress is to be maintained in moving office activities outside the capital, and to discourage office development in those parts of the region which have not been earmarked for additional growth in the Strategic Plan, some of which are already under considerable pressure. In operating these restrictions, we shall continue to have regard to the interests of firms who require new office premises to carry out their businesses more efficiently. It is recognised that certain commercial activities are firmly tied to the City, for the reasons that my noble friend Lord Macpherson has set out, but readier approvals of office projects in central London during the past year have done much to encourage the easing of the current shortage of accommodation.
My noble friend Lord Macpherson agrees that the Government are being very liberal indeed in the granting of office development permits in the City. We are granting them now in the City at more than twice the rate of a year ago, as I think my noble friend said. Permits for 31 million square feet were granted during the first nine months of this year against 2 million square feet for the whole of 1970. This represents a very high rate of new construction. The "pipeline"—that is, new premises completed and vacant, premises under construction and premises for which planning permission has been given—has now risen to nearly 51 million square feet compared with just over 4 million square feet a year ago. This growth is in accordance with the policy announced by my honourable friend last year when he raised the exemption limit nearly threefold from 3,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet. He said then that in consider
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ing applications he would ensure that enough new office space was being provided for the essential needs of commerce. It is in this spirit that the control has now been working for some time.
In response to my noble friend Lord Amory, I would confirm that the Government are determined that the City shall be able to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by entry into the European Economic Community and certainly should not be hampered in so doing. For these reasons, we shall continue to keep the control, so long as we retain it, under review so as to ensure that space is being provided for essential small users; that advantage is taken of opportunities for comprehensive redevelopment; and that the time taken to settle applications is as short as possible. If any noble Lord has knowledge of particular cases that are taking too long I shall be glad to hear of them. But these are all matters of administration within the powers we now have. Nevertheless, it remains our aim to achieve the office employment objectives of the Strategic Plan for the South-East, without relying on the office control powers a moment longer than is necessary.
Several noble Lords pointed to the office development permit system as being an inflationary factor. It could be, and it may have been in the past. But I would put this to the Committee: in so far as Her Majesty's Government's broad location of offices policy—of which office development permits in the South-East is but a part—is successful in persuading enterprises that need not be there to go to areas away from the centre of London, its effect is far more likely to restrain the increase of rents in the centre than to contribute to the increase. I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving the Committee an opportunity to discuss these important matters, and for giving me the opportunity to set out the Government's approach. I hope that the reassurances I have given will satisfy the Committee that we are tackling this business of office employment location in the right way, but that we need Clause 5 in the Bill to continue.
LORD MACPHERSON OF DRUMOCHTER: As the Minister has stressed, this is an important issue and I

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think we were right to discuss it in some depth. I wish to thank those noble Lords who have supported me, and also to thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennett, for his contribution. But in view of the Minister's reply that he will see there is no delay in the granting of these permits, and as obviously he appreciates the special problems that the City has to face in future, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD CHAMPION): There is no Amendment before the Committee to withdraw. The only Question before the Committee is, That Clause 5 stand part of the Bill; and that is the Question that I have to put.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 [Control of demolition in conservation areas in England and Wales]:
7.2 p.m.
LORD MILNER OF LEEDS LORD MILNER OF LEEDS moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 8, line 36, after ("demolition") insert ("or to control alterations which would materially affect the external appearance").
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 5. This Amendment adds to the powers of the local planning authorities and enables them to control alterations to buildings in a conservation area. As the Committee will be aware, the Bill gives local planning authorities power to control the demolition of buildings in a conservation area but does not enable them to control alterations and extensions. Alterations which materially affect the external appearance of a building can often do much damage—for example, major alterations to window sizes, the introduction of new windows or the replacement of thatch roofs, although they may be developments within the provisions of the 1971 Act and are permitted under the Town and Country Development Order. We are not asking for the same control as for listed buildings, but only for control over works which would materially affect the external appearance.
LORD SANDFORD: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Milner of Leeds,
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for this Amendment and for the general support implied in it for what we are seeking to do in the clause. I think that I can assure the Committee that this Amendment is not necessary. First of all, alterations which materially affect the external appearance of buildings constitute development for the purposes of the planning Acts, and require planning permission. Where they are permited development under Schedule 1 of the General Development Order—I think this is the loophole which the noble Lord is seeking to close—that is to say, planning permission is granted by the Order and need not be obtained from the local planning authority, then the authority may always recover control by making a direction under Article 4 of that Order. My right honourable friend the Secretary of Slate is, in general, favourably disposed towards approving Article 4 directions relating to development of this kind in conservation areas—which are what we are talking about—provided the need can be demonstrated for it and local general support for controls of this kind can he shown. We would prefer to control development of this sort in this way, as it is consistent with our general approach over conservation areas as a whole. I hope that the noble Lord will be satisfied with that explanation.
LORD KENNET: Will the noble Lord answer one question? If there is an Article 4 declaration, would not that give the local authority power to prevent the demolition of an unlisted building in a conservation area? If that is the case, why is the clause in the Bill at all?
LORD SANDFORD: I am subject to advice on that point, but I do not think that an Article 4 direction can be used to control demolition. It can be used to bring under control a number of items which are permitted in general, which need to be controlled if the delicate character of the conservation area is to be secured and enhanced; and it can be done in this particular case as well.
LORD MILNER OF LEEDS: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, for his detailed reply. We shall return to this point on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 7 and 8 agreed to.
7.6 p.m.
LORD MILNER or LEEDS LORD MILNER or LEEDS moved Amendment No. 6:
After Clause 8, insert the following new clause—
Recovery of costs of works for preservation of unoccupied listed building in cases of urgency, and rights of appeal.
"The following new subsections shall be inserted at the end of section 101 of the Act of 1971 (which provides for works for the preservation of unoccupied listed buildings in cases of urgency)—
(2) Where the period of notice under subsection (1) above has expired a local authority may recover from the person who is the owner of the building any expenses reasonably incurred by them in that behalf.
(3) An owner of a building on whom a notice under subsection (1) above has been served may, at any time within the period specified in the notice, appeal against the notice and may also appeal against the cost of any emergency work done by a local authority in accordance with the provisions of subsection (2) above.
(4) Any appeal under this section shall be made to a magistrates' court acting for the petty sessions area in which the building in question is situated.
(5) Where an appeal is brought under this section, any notice to which it relates shall be of no effect pending the final determination or withdrawal of the appeal.
(6) On an appeal under this section the magistrates' court may correct any informality, defect or error in any notice if satisfied that the informality, defect or error is not material.
(7) On the determination of an appeal under this section the magistrates' court shall give directions for giving effect to their determination, including, where appropriate, directions for quashing any notice or for varying the terms of any notice in favour of the appellant."
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 6 and, with permission, I will speak also with reference to Amendments Nos. 7 and 8. They have this in common, that they all arise out of recommendations made by the Preservation Policy Group a couple of years ago. This was a Group of which my noble friend Lord Kennet was Chairman. I do not need to remind the Committee that it was a distinguished body, containing the best possible advice on all aspects of the problem of what to do with our heritage of historic buildings and towns.
The last Government accepted the recommendations in their Report and committed money for one of them, rising to £1½ million a year from the
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Exchequer, to be matched by an equal amount from the local authorities by 1973–74. On January 1 of this year the present Government, in a Circular, cancelled this money commitment and we were back at square one. I will return to this point in a moment in connection with the third proposed new clause before the Committee. The Circular stated that the Government did not go back on its predecessor's acceptance of the Report's various minor recommendations—they accepted them, as the Labour Government had done, and we waited to see when they would be put into effect. This Bill has come before us and contains a preservation provision in Clause 7. It is a good provision and we have nothing against it so far as it goes. But we are surprised that the Bill does not contain any of the recommendations in the Kennet Report. I can see why it does not contain the major recommendation with which the Government disagreed, but it does not contain even the minor ones with which the Government agreed. I am asking the Committee to move them in.
The first new clause, Amendment No. 6, is designed to close one of the last loopholes in the powers of local authorities to take emergency action to repair listed buildings when they are falling to pieces. Under the present law, if a local authority sees that a listed building is falling down, it can order the owner to repair it at his own expense. If the owner does so, well and good. If he does not, the local authority can repair it under the present law but cannot charge the owner for the work if he has refused to do the work himself. This is wrong. The local authority should have power to do the work when the owner refuses to do it, and to charge the owner. I should emphasise that here we are talking only of emergency repairs—things like a tarpaulin over a roof or the replacement of tiles or a smashed window. We are not talking about restoration or maintenance or anything of that nature involving a heavy bill. It would appear to noble Lords on this side of the Committee that there is no reason why we should not take this opportunity to close this small gap, in accordance with the recommendations of the Kennet Report. It is obvious that, far from being a drain on public funds, this provision would act

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in the other direction. It would bring in a little money to local authorities as a result of the exercise of powers which they already have.
My second proposed new clause seems a little abstruse, but it is not really so. When the State, or a local authority, is acquiring a listed building for preservation purposes—whether by simple purchase or by compulsory purchase under the existing law, or indeed because it has been compelled to acquire it by an owner who claims that its preservation has deprived him from beneficial use of the land—in all these circumstances the question of valuation arises. Now usually a listed building, if it is of any grandeur or importance, has valuable fittings inside—staircases, panelling, that sort of thing—which can be torn out and sold. This is called "break-up". But the preservation law as it now stands is normally used to prevent that. The question then arises: should the price of the building and its. fittings reflect the value which could be obtained for the sale of the fittings, if they were permitted to be sold. which of course they are not? The Kennet Committee thought it should not and recommended that break-up value should not be paid when the State or a local authority acquire a listed building for preservation purposes in cases where break-up itself was forbidden. I think that this is only common sense. Once again, far from increasing public expenditure, this provision will decrease it; or, alternatively, it will allow more fine buildings to be acquired for the same amount of money.
I turn now to my third new clause, Amendment No. 8, which is the most important and no doubt also the most contentious. The Kennet Committee came to the conclusion that we should not make any real inroad into the problem of saving our historic towns until a new type of general conservation scheme was set up. The idea of such a scheme was that each local authority which wished to conserve part or the whole of a fine old town or village should draw up a general scheme for the purpose, rolling together all the existing grants it could obtain, under the preservation law itself, under housing law, under highways law, under planning law and under housing improvement law—absolutely everything one can
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think of. But at the end of the day there would still be a deficit and the Committee proposed that the Secretary of State should be empowered to meet 50 per cent. of that deficit in the case of schemes which he had himself approved.
The Kennet Committee also said that pilot schemes should be carried out in advance of the necessary legislation in Bath, Chester, Chichester and York. The Labour Government then committed £3 million a year for the general schemes which would follow after these four projects. As I have told the Committee, the present Government cancelled the £3 million and the general schemes, but have continued with the four projects. We are very glad to learn that these are getting off the ground and we wish them well.
My new clause now carries the recommendation of the Preservation Policy Group into effect; hut, of course, it does not say anything about the amount of money. This is for Government decision. The clause simply empowers the local authorities to draw up these general conservation schemes and it empowers the Secretary of State to pay 50 per cent. of the deficit of any scheme which he has approved. The number and type of schemes he would approve, and thus the amount of money the Exchequer would spend, would remain, if this clause were carried into the Bill, fully under the control of the Government.
Nevertheless, the new clause would give the Secretary of State power to spend. It is unusual for such a provision to be moved into a Government Bill at Committee stage in your Lordships' House and I must pause for a moment. I think that members of the Committee know and applaud the efforts being made by the present Government—as indeed they have been made by former Governments—to ensure that more Bills come forward into your Lordships' House at the beginning of a Session and fewer at the end, in order to redress the balance of work between the two Houses which has hitherto been very much distorted by the fact that most Bills contain some financial provision or other and therefore have had to begin in another place. The Government want to change that, and rightly. In order to do so, they have

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to change the rules of privilege in another place so that that House will not consider it a breach of privilege if a Bill containing financial provisions comes to it from your Lordships' House.
Obviously the Government intend this course mainly for the purpose of Government Bills: but I think that what is "sauce for the goose" must be "sauce for the gander". it would be wrong to distinguish between Government Bills and other Bills coming from this House with a financial content. It is surely the right of your Lordships' House to send such a Bill as this to another place—a right of your Lordships' House as such, and not of the Government operating in your Lordships' House. In any case, this is a Government Bill and I think that it would be hard to maintain that the Government should resist Amendments of a financial nature. We know that Mr. Enoch Powell is blocking the proposed change in the privilege rules in another place, and I of course only introduce this new clause in the belief and the hope that the matter will have been regulated before the Bill leaves your Lordships' House. If it has not, then no doubt it will be necessary to remove the new clause in order not to bump up against the old rules.
To return to the contents, this is the first Bill containing any measures of preservation which has come from the present Government. Many people throughout the country have been watching with the greatest interest to see what the Government do about preservation. What they do is right, but it is pitifully small. There are things in the Kennet Report which they have already accepted. Why have they not put them in? Will they now accept them at the proposal of noble Lords on this side of the Committee? I beg to move.
LORD SANDFORD: I am grateful to the noble Lord for his explanation of this Amendment and I am glad to respond to his suggestion that we speak to Amendments Nos. 6, 7 and 8 together for the reason that they all stem from the Report of the Preservation Policy Group, which was chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Kennet. It is well known. I think, that as a Government we have accepted in principle the proposals incorporated
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in Amendments Nos. 6 and 7. I do not really agree that it is correct to say that we have cancelled the proposals incorporated in No. 8, but rather that we have deferred judgment on them for a number of reasons, which I will go into in a moment, but mainly because we think they require to be substantiated by the projects which the noble Lord's group set in motion. That being so, I will not be drawn into a detailed discussion of Amendments Nos. 6 and 7. My main reason for advising the Committee not to accept them is that when we came to consider them carefully in the light of this legislation we came to the conclusion, regretfully—as we did on a number of clauses which could have gone into the Field Monuments Bill which passed its Committee stage only the other day—that with the pressure of legislation upon us, these particular proposals were not sufficiently urgent or free of complexity and controversy to be included in our programme at the moment
I do not want to add or subtract anything from what we said in generally endorsing them in terms of Circular 1/71. I would now turn to Amendment No. 8 and deal with that at greater length, as did the noble Lord, Lord Milner of Leeds. The attitude of Her Majesty's Government to this was given in Circular 1/71 issued on January 1 of this year. After referring to the pilot conservation projects in Bath, Chester, Chichester and York which had been established and which we are carrying forward it says:
"The Government consider that a decision on this recommendation would be premature until the pilot projects have been carried further."
LORD KENNET: I do not think my noble friend said that the Government had cancelled the idea of general conservation schemes. What he said was that they had cancelled the money which the Labour Government had committed to them but not the schemes as such.
LORD SANDFORD: One of the reasons for not proceeding immediately with the scheme was that we thought it would be premature until the pilot projects were taken further. Another reason was that the decision will need to take account of the Government's decision to give local authorities greater financial responsibility. As noble Lords will know, we are about to embark on a round of

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discussions with local authorities leading up to a Local Government Finance Bill. But I would readily acknowledge that the Preservation Policy Group Report and all its recommendations, all the rest of which we have accepted, performed a valuable service in identifying what is possibly a gap in the arrangements for financing conservation. But the extent to which this gap in practice needs filling, the precise way in which it could be filled, are matters which in our view really do need further consideration, and the pilot projects afford us an opportunity of giving them that consideration.
As we said last January, the Government believe that any new measures must take account of the general policy of giving local authorities greater financial freedom and responsibility. In the first place, the Amendment envisages the creation of a new specific grant for local authorities. All our thinking now is in favour of giving local authorities more freedom to determine their own priorities in accordance with the local needs and circumstances, and there is therefore bound to be a big question mark against the creation of a new specific grant for local authorities. Secondly, the formula provided in the Amendment is bound to involve considerable complications (they may be worth accepting) in defining what should be included in, and what should be excluded from, the calculations resulting in the loss of which the Government should share a half, and a detailed checking by central Government over local government calculations of what is eligible and admissible for grant. On the basis of our experience, since thinking on it, I believe that we need something simpler and more flexible, if we need something brand new at all.
Thirdly, the Amendment restricts the definition of a conservation scheme to something promoted by a local authority. Yet it is possible that worthwhile schemes could be promoted by local civil trusts, other amenity bodies, or by private organisations. Finally, until we have proceeded further with the pilot projects we cannot precisely say what the new grant would need to cover and how far existing grants such as the planning grant would meet the need. For instance, we are just about to get detailed proposals
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for the Akiwark area of the City of York from Lord Esher's firm of consultants. The Department of the Environment have joined with the City Council of York in meeting the cost of this report. These proposals will give us some hard facts for a specific area; then we can identify where any shortfall will come, how much will be involved and how much money can be given under existing statutory powers. Such information is needed to frame the character and working of any new form of grant. As the noble Lord knows, legislation would be needed for his proposal.
However, from our preliminary consideration of the information available to us so far from these studies, it seems probable that something wider and much more flexible will be required than a grant tied specifically to losses incurred over a set period by local authorities. I believe that there are attractions in developing further the basis on which the Historic Buildings Council already operates: in having wider powers that as well as being used for the conservation of individual buildings and groups of buildings, might also cover the improvement, and the enhancement of selected parts of outstanding conservation areas, and be of benefit not just to local authorities, as is proposed in the noble Lord's Amendment, but also to private owners, as M.B.C. grants are at present, and indeed to other bodies such as local amenity societies engaged in promoting practical schemes of conservation. In our view, it is too early to be precise about this. As I have already said, we need more information. But in my view it would be clearly wrong at this stage to accept the restrictive proposal which is incorporated in Amendment No. 8, where all the indications are that we need wider and more flexible powers.
I hope that these remarks—and I apologise for their length—will satisfy the Committee and noble Lords opposite that, so far from being out of sympathy with their intentions as embodied in the Preservation Policy Group Report, we are carrying them forward, though in our own time and in our own way, but, I would assure noble Lords, with quite as much zeal and enthusiasm. For the reasons I have given, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his Amendment. I regret that I cannot, for

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those reasons, advise the Committee to accept this Amendment.
LORD MILNER OF LEEDS: I am grateful to the noble Lord, and beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Remaining clause and Schedules agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment.

CIVIL AVIATION (ROUTE CHARGES FOR NAVIGATION SERVICES) REGULATIONS 1971
7.27 p.m.
LORD TREFGARNE LORD TREFGARNE rose to move, That an humble address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Civil Aviation (Route Charges for Navigation Services) Regulations 1971 (S.I. 1971/1715) laid before the House under Standing Order No. 63 on the 29th October last, be annulled. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I propose, with your Lordships' permission to speak also to the second Motion standing in my name, dealing with the annulment of the Civil Aviation (Navigation Services Charges) (Amendment) Regulations 1971. Before doing so, I must declare an interest, because I am employed by a company operating aircraft who are in fact directly affected by the matters concerned with the Statutory Instruments. My opening remarks will be addressed to Statutory Instrument No. 1715, the Civil Aviation (Route Charges for Navigation Services) Regulations 1971, and I have three principal criticisms of this measure.
First, we see from the notes at the top of the Instrument that it was made on October 25, laid before Parliament on October 29 and came into operation on November 1—a gap of two days between the time the Statutory Instrument was laid before the House and its coming into force. It is, I submit, inappropriate that the procedure for bringing this sort of measure into force should be abused—and it really is abused—to this extent.
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During recent months a Select Committee on Procedure, sitting in another place considered the question of delegated legislation and produced a fairly lengthy Report, in which they had some observations to make on this procedure. The Report, which was laid before the other place in July of this year, makes it very clear that the view of the Committee was that the Prayer period for this sort of legislation ought to be allowed to expire before Orders come into force. In the case of this legislation, the Prayer period is 40 days, and I submit that it would not have been totally impossible for this Order to have been laid 40 days before November 1, or, if necessary, for the operation of the Order to be delayed until 40 days after it had been laid. For those of your Lordships who are interested. I would draw your attention to page XXIV of the Report, paragraph 48, and also to page 334 (Appendix 16) where the views of the Committee are clearly set out. I suggest that we should have had a more healthy period before these Orders came into force.
I should like now to consider briefly some specific points arising from the Order. The first is in relation to No. 1715, concerning the level of charges in respect of small aircraft. I am not going into details as to how these charges are calculated, because there is a complicated formula. But there are two exemptions (they are given in Article 8 of the Order) which are, I submit, anomalous; and although it is perhaps too late to reconsider them now I commend them to any future body that has to renew or perpetuate this legislation. In particular, I find that aircraft flying under Visual Flight Rules are exempt from the charge. Although, on the face of it, this is reasonable, I submit that it will create a situation in which aircraft pilots are tempted to continue their flight in visual flight conditions when the weather conditions do not really permit this, and thus jeopardise both their aircraft and their passengers, and possibly also people on the ground, simply to avoid having to pay the charges.
The other exemption, which is conspicuous by its absence, is the one for test flights. Aircraft carrying out test flights for the purposes of testing navigation equipment are exempt, but for some
reason any other piece of equipment on the aircraft is not exempt. This is an anomaly which I find it difficult to understand.
A NOBLE LORD: Hear, hear!
LORD TREFGARNE: Coming now to the second of these Orders, No. 1730, the principal criticism I would make is similar to the one I have made in respect of the previous one; namely, that the Order came into force only two days after it was laid before your Lordships' House. Your Lordships will be aware that the procedure for these Statutory Instruments is that they are laid before the House and continue in force provided that no Resolution to the contrary is passed in either House. I submit that it is an abuse of this system if they come into force so quickly that it is quite impossible, within the time available, for a Resolution to be moved, either in this House or in another place, to annul an Order. Having said that, my Lords, I would add that I do of course appreciate that there are some kinds of legislation, such as that for a variation in petrol tax, which must necessarily come into force immediately. However, I submit that an Order for the imposition of these charges is not one of them. I beg to move.
7.35 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, if I were to thank my noble friend for praying against these two Statutory Instruments I think I should probably be extending the courtesy of your Lordships' House a little too far. Nevertheless, he is entirely right to pray against them, if only for the fact that he wished to air some points and to ask Her Majesty's Government to give some explanations. I was grateful to him for his courtesy in letting me know in advance the particular points that concerned him.
I think his main complaint was that these two Statutory Instruments—No. 1715 on Eurocontrol charges, which was made on October 25, and No. 1730, which deals with Shamwick charges and was made on October 26—were laid before Parliament on the 29th and came into operation only two days later. My noble friend felt very strongly that this was a wrong thing to do. I should be
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the first to say that it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government that these Instruments, where possible, should be laid within adequate and suitable time. My noble friend quite rightly pointed out that the Commons procedure in another place brought forth some recommendations, and when my noble friend Lord Jellicoe commented upon these on November 9 he said—and I would repeat his words (col. 238):
…every effort will be made to ensure that Departments do, whenever posible, observe the suggested 21-day interval…but the Government arc unable to accept that a formal explanation should be provided in every case where it is not possible to observe the interval."
I shall endeavour to explain why it was not possible on this occasion to adhere to this interval. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and his Department would have wished to lay these Regulations before Parliament some time earlier than was in fact done, but unfortunately this did not prove possible.
Perhaps I may address my remarks first to the Eurocontrol charges system, which is No. 1715. This had been evolved by the other six members of the Eurocontrol Organisation and ourselves over a period of two years. The essence of the system is that in relation to each flight in the airspace of member and participating States, one composite charge is payable by the aircraft operator to the Eurocontrol Organisation. I suggest that what matters to the aircraft operator is the composite charge as billed to him by the Eurocontrol Organisation for each flight. He need not be concerned about the make-up of the composite charge, or about how the partial charges arc evolved, unless he wishes to check the accuracy of Eurocontrol's arithmetic. But, as your Lordships will imagine, a great deal of work and a great deal of co-operative negotiation has had to be done by Member States and the Eurocontrol Organisation itself before these charges could be agreed and implemented. I am sure that my noble friend will appreciate how much work is involved in all this. Throughout there were many consultations and discussions, including those with the International Air Transport Association and with members of the European Civil Aviation Conference. Each State had to take the necessary steps under its national laws to introduce the charging system and

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of course there are variations in how this needs to be done as between one State and another.
By the late summer of this year nearly all the necessary steps had been completed or were on the brink of completion. So far as we were concerned, the Regulations under the Eurocontrol system could be made to operate from November 1, once the Government were able to form the opinion that the charging system fell into one of two categories. First, it would have to be approved under an international agreement to which the United Kingdom was a party; secondly, in the opinion of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry it would have to be likely to be approved before or within one month after the date when regulations were to come into force under any international agreement to which the United Kingdom was likely to be a party.
My Lords, I am going into some detail over this as it is important that my noble friend should see why the problem occurred. The international agreements concerned, to which we are a party, were the Eurocontrol Convention of 1960, and the Multilateral Agreement relating to the Collection of Route Charges which was signed in September 1970 by all seven member States of Eurocontrol, but which needed ratification by all seven before it entered into force.
Contrary to earlier hopes it became clear in September that action by all seven Governments in relation to the Multilateral Agreement might not be completed before November 1, although this remained the agreed date for introducing the charges system. National requirements for ratification vary of course and, while action was in train everywhere, some delays had arisen. We therefore had to form the opinion whether the necessary steps by all member States to bring the Multilateral Agreement into force were likely to be taken by November 30—that is before or within one month after November 1, the period of "grace permitted.
It was not in fact until after a meeting of representatives of the Governments concerned in Brussels on October 21 that we were satisfied that we could properly take the view that the Multilateral Agreement was likely to be in force, if not by November 1 at least by November
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30. Then and only then could our Regulations be made, as they were with all possible speed on October 25 and laid before Parliament on October 29. I have sought to explain why, in the event, our Regulations were not laid as early as we had planned or, indeed, as Parliamentary procedures would have chosen.
The £7 charge imposed under S.I. 1730 for navigation services made available by the National Air Traffic Services in the Shanwick Oceanic Control Area is a purely United Kingdom charge and separate from the Eurocontrol charges system. But we had adopted the same introductory date of November 1 and considered it simpler for those who are to pay both types of charge to maintain a common introductory date. So the making and laying of the Shanwick charge Regulations was delayed until it was clear that the Eurocontrol ones could properly be made.
Despite earlier hopes and endeavours, these two sets of Regulations were not laid as early as the Government would have wished and in keeping with the proposals of the Commons Select Committee on Procedure. But I assure noble Lords that this does not alter our resolve to endeavour to lay any other Statutory Instruments on this subject in good time in the future, although obviously one can never guarantee success on every occasion.
Now I turn to my noble friend's remarks on the subject of general aviation and private flying. Taking the Eurocontrol charges system first, by unanimous agreement of the member States the charging formula applicable to most commercial flights has been scaled down in its application to small aircraft which, in general, means private aircraft. In the first place, aircraft of less than 2 metric tons maximum take off weight are totally exempt from charge. Secondly, flights made entirely in accordance with Visual Flight Rules are exempt. My noble friend queried this point. Thirdly, circular flights—that is, flights taking off from and returning to the same aerodrome without an intermediate stop—and training flights are exempted.
The effect of these exemptions is to relieve a very great deal of private and club flying from any charge under the

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Eurocontrol system in the United Kingdom and in the other countries applying the system. When we come to flights by aircraft weighing between 2 and 5·7 metric tons, many of them will be exempted by virtue of the general exemptions for V.F.R. flights, for circular and training flights. However, a private or business executive aircraft weighing between 2 and 5·7 metric tons may well incur a charge if its journey involves a flight through controlled airspace with the specialised equipment and expertise which that involves. In such a case the charges are calculated from a special formula which has the effect of almost halving the charge which would otherwise be payable.
We see no reason why general aviation should be completely absolved from making a contribution, however small, towards the cost of en route navigation services. The complete exemption for aircraft under 2 tons was adopted because the costs of collection would be disproportionate to the resulting receipts. The upper limit of 5·7 metric tons for the reduced rate of charge is the dividing line adopted by ICAO between general aviation aircraft and commercial aircraft and it is inevitable that the odd aircraft slightly above that limit may bear the full rate of charge.
The Eurocontrol charges system will of course be reviewed in the light of experience and we shall gladly examine with our partners in the system any serious anomalies which come to light. My noble friend suggested that the V.F.R. exemption might induce some aircraft operators to operate under Visual Flight Rules simply in order to avoid a charge when they should more sensibly operate under Instrument Flight Rules. I speak subject to my noble friend's experience in these matters, but I would question whether a responsible aircraft operator would act so unwisely; but naturally the situation will be watched and remedial action taken if necessary. However, I would have thought that weather conditions in this country and on the Continent are such that any operator who attempted to follow such a policy would find that it could not be reconciled with the need to maintain regularity and an efficient service.
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In the case of the Shanwick charges, the Secretary of State has power to dispense with charges in appropriate cases, and the industry has already been told by a Department of Trade and Industry memorandum, and an aeronautical information circular, that all flights by aircraft of less than 5·7 metric tons will be relieved of the Shanwick charge. Most of the 120,000 or so flights in the Shan-wick Oceanic Control Area are relatively long-haul North Atlantic flights which are rarely undertaken by aircraft below this weight. But we thought it right to relieve them of the charge if only because the administrative effort of raising and collecting the charge would be disproportionate to the possible revenue.
Two years ago, in April, 1969, during a debate on aerodrome navigation services charges—also promoted by my noble friend Lord Trefgarne—the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, speaking for the previous Government, gave warning of the likely introduction in 1971 of en route charges. To-day I will sound two notes of warning. First, as regards the en route charges under the Eurocontrol system, we shall strive for agreement with our fellow members of the organisation to secure a significant increase in the rate of recovery of costs from November, 1973, as a further step towards full recovery from the industry of the costs of the National Air Traffic Services which will be necessary to limit the length of time during which the Civil Aviation Authority will need grants from public funds.
Secondly, we are considering ways of reducing even further the deficit of about £1 million still being incurred on the National Air Traffic Services' provision of aerodrome navigation services in this country. The Department of Trade and Industry will embark on consultations with our aircraft operators, and the aerodrome authorities concerned, as soon as we have proposals ready for discussion. I cannot say to-day what the form and extent will be of any increases next year in aerodrome navigation charges because much will depend on the outcome of consultations with the industry. But I think it right to sound a note of warning this evening and to give my noble friend Lord Trefgarne the opportunity to warn us, if he so wishes, of his desire to pray against them, too, when the time comes.
7.50 p.m.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down I wonder whether he could possibly answer a point which I omitted to make in my opening remarks, but which I think I discussed with him earlier. It concerns the position on November 1 of this year, when the new charges came into force, in relation to the existing navigation service charges that have been raised for some time at airports operated by the Department of Trade and Industry. Is it the case that we now pay both the United Kingdom domestic charges and the Eurocontrol charges, or has the Eurocontrol charge superseded the domestic charge?
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I would make it perfectly plain that the Eurocontrol charges are totally new and apply to services which previously were provided free of charge. Therefore this charge will be additional to any others that were applied, and will be applied in the future.
LORD TREFGARNE: My Lords, I am greatly obliged to the noble Earl for

Section 16

Section 17

Section 18

Persons found guilty

Heaviest fine

Longest sentence of imprisonment

Persons found guilty

Heaviest fine

Longest sentence of imprisonment

Persons found guilty

Heaviest fine

Longest sentence of imprisonment

1968*

13

£10

7 years

20

—

6 years

14

£25

5 years

1969

20

£50

10 years

26

£35

4 years

26

£75

4 years

1970

32

£4†

7 years

34

£100

10 years

12

—

5 years

* From August 1, 1968, the date on which the Act came into force.
†Only one person was fined in 1970 under this section; the fine was imposed on a juvenile at a magistrates' court.
his patient and detailed reply to my Motion, which I shall study with great interest when I receive my Hansard shortly. In the light of that reply, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

FIREARMS OFFENCES: CONVICTIONS AND SENTENCES
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many persons since the 1968 Firearms Act came into force have been convicted of offences under the Sections 16, 17 and 18 of that Act; and what have been the longest sentences of imprisonment or heaviest fines imposed for offences under each of these sections.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD WINDLESHAM): The following is the information for England and Wales:
House adjourned at eight minutes before eight o'clock.