Lords Sitting of 12 May 1971

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

LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY
Air Commodore Sir Arthur Vere Harvey, C.B.E., having been created Baron Harvey of Prestbury, of Prestbury, in the County Palatine of Chester, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Balfour of Inchrye and the Lord Thorneycroft.

NORTH SEA POLLUTION
2.42 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the scope of the exploratory talks on North Sea pollution which are to open with riparian States on June 11, in London; and in particular whether any of the following subjects will be excluded:—

(1) Dumping of waste;

(2) Run-off of sewage and industrial effluent whether down rivers or directly through sewers;

(3) Pollution entering from other seas;

(4) Marine accidents;

(5) Extraction of oil, gas and other minerals;

(6) Submarine pipelines;

(7) Sewage from vessels; and

(8) Pollution through the air/ water interface.]

THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD): My Lords, the meeting on June 11 will consider how far the fisheries and other resources of the North Sea are
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at risk from pollution and what steps the riparian States should take to prevent damage. The agenda is being arranged in consultation with the States that will be attending and has not yet been finalised. It is our present intention that no form of pollution likely to affect the North Sea should be excluded from discussion, but most attention will be given to problems that are not already being dealt with by IMCO and other international agencies.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, are the Government aware that that is a very satisfactory Answer? However, would they not agree that in such an international meeting one cannot hope to make progress except by means of an international régime of some sort? If so, what sort of régime do the Government envisage?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. The view of Her Majesty's Government is that comprehensive problems of this sort can best he tackled by having a wide agenda but confining it to particular régions. That is what we are seeking to do in this case.

FOULNESS AIRPORT SCHEME: EFFECT ON THAMES FLOW
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government to what extent, when making a decision about the siting of an airport at Foulness, they took into account the consequential effect that dredging at the mouth of the estuary and land reclamation there would have on the flow of water in the further reaches of the Thames; and to what extent the need for the proposed Thames barrage will be affected by this work at the estuary mouth.]
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, the Roskill Commission concluded that reclamation at Foulness could be undertaken without adverse effects on the régime of the Thames Estuary. The Government are satisfied that this project will have no effect on the Thames barrier.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for that Answer. Is it not a fact that the deepening of the channel at Foulness for a deep sea port, and the reclamation of land, confounds the entrance to the Thames considerably, and that the inflow will not rise as high as it does at present?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, of course if the idea of a major sea port was combined with that of a major airport the whole dredging operation would take on a different character. That possibility was taken into account by the Roskill Commission, and my original Answer covers that possibility.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that his Answer really indicates the superficial way in which this matter has been judged so far? Is he aware that the Answer that I really expected to this Question was that developments at the mouth of the estuary would have a beneficial effect on the flow of water up the Thames, and will he look at this a little more closely? Will he realise that apart from the ridiculous idea of having an airport, there would be considerable advantages if the seaport venture was developed?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I could not agree that the expenditure of all the time and over £1 million of cash in research into this project has resulted in a superficial study.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord has not answered my question. He said in his Answer that there would be no adverse effects. Of course there will be no adverse effects; there may well be some beneficial ones. The noble Lord was so concerned to defend this ridiculous airport idea that he overlooked the kind of Answer which he might have given.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, while welcoming the airport decision, I wonder whether my noble friend could tell us what study group has been set up in what Ministry to determine the exact location of the airport and to consider studies of the proposed deep water port and associated industrial development, and to whom should those interested address themselves?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, no, not at this stage and without notice; but if my noble friend would like to put down a Question on that point I will see that he has an answer.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, regarding the reply that my noble friend gave to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and his reply to Lord Nunburnholme's Question, the large sum he mentioned emphasised that the trials carried out by the Thames Estuary Development Company, which were accepted by the Roskill Commission, prove conclusively what the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, has said. It should be emphasised that the two very large models which proved all this support the conclusions which were announced.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, may I ask Her Majesty's Government whether we may have a debate on this subject, so that the benefits of Foulness, subsidiary to the airport, may be fully discussed?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, it is not for me to say what we can and cannot debate. I should have thought this was a subject which we had gone into fairly thoroughly.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that efforts will be made from many quarters to denigrate the decision which has been arrived at to establish an airport at Foulness, and will the Government stand firm by the decision?
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, would the noble Lord agree that if land reclamation would serve the purpose intended to be served by the mechanical barrages, the saving of expenditure in a mechanical barrage would thereby be a very considerable contribution towards defraying the expense of the port and airport development?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, we are getting on to another question. If the noble Lord wants to ask me questions about the Thames barrier, he will have to put down a Question.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, would the noble Lord suggest to the proper authority that this very disagreeable name be now changed?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, that is another question.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Earl the Leader of the House would consider, through the usual channels, the desirability of having a debate so that we can elicit more information than is apparently available to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, at the moment. I wonder whether he considers that there is a chance of finding any time between now and the Summer to have a debate, and whether he might not be better advised now to recommend the withdrawal of the useless Industrial Relations Bill so that we can talk about something which is important and contemporary.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, I find it extremely difficult to grasp the exact relevance of the noble Lord's question.
LORD BURNTWOOD: My Lords, when a Statement is next made on the subject of Foulness, could there he some comment on the idea postulated in today's Times newspaper about a steelworks at Foulness?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, that again is another matter; but if the noble Lord cares to put down a Question it will be answered.

SEX EDUCATION AND PORNOGRAPHY
2.50 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are satisfied that pornographic films are not being produced in the guise of sex education.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (LORD BELSTEAD): My Lords, the Government do not exercise any censorship over the production of films. Public showings are subject to the control of the licensing authorities; showings in schools and colleges are a matter for the competent authorities of those institutions.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, in view of the fact that certain scenes in the film Growing Up could be considered pornographic, is it not the duty of the Government, the Home Office, to exercise control, particularly in view of the fact that we are promised more of this kind of thing from the same gentleman?
LORD BELSTEAD: My Lords, any matter of control at the moment is subject to the fact that my right honourable friend the Attorney General, in another place on April 29, in answer to a House of Commons Parliamentary Question about this film, replied that he had asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to consider whether there is evidence that a criminal offence has been committed.
BARONESS BIRK: My Lords, would the Minister not agree that, first, it is not the question of the making of the film with which the Minister or Government should be concerned, but the question of who sees the film? As the Minister has said, this surely rests with the local education authority and with the schools. Would he further agree that prolonged discussion about this not very good film can have a detrimental effect on the good work that is at present being done in schools on sex education and other subjects? Does he not agree that the more this not very good film is blown up in this way, the more anxiety it causes parents and probably the less work will be done in the way of intimate development in the schools?
LORD BELSTEAD: Yes, my Lords. The noble Baroness, as Chairman of the Health Education Council, has put forward a point of view which will probably be agreed with on both sides of the House. It was for this reason that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State expressed concern over this film in another place on April 21 and hoped that local education authorities, heads of schools, governors and teachers would consider with the utmost caution the showing of this particular film.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, would the noble Lord ask the Government to address their mind to the wider question of defending our civilisation, based as it is upon inherited

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morality and family life; and would he not bear in mind that much so-called sex education is designed to undermine that by teaching children to behave like cats and dogs?
LORD BELSTEAD: My Lords, once again probably several noble Lords would agree with my noble friend Lord Lauderdale, but it is a fact that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is constantly being encouraged, for the most respectable reasons, to include in the curriculum a variety—
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, is the Minister aware—
LORD BELSTEAD: I am replying to a question—a variety of questions; and the truth of the matter is that the hands of my right honourable friend are tied.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, is the Minister aware that this picture was shown in Westminster Hall on Monday and it was crowded out with Lords and Members of Parliament? Is he further aware that, much to my annoyance, this is owing to Parliament's agreeing with the permissive society? It is a really horrible picture that ought not to be shown to children.
EARL FORTESCUE: My Lords, would the Minister agree that the beasts of the field get along very well without any sex education and that the only education we humans need is in self-control and chastity?
LORD KENNET: My Lords, what did the noble Lord mean when he said that his right honourable friend's hands were tied?
LORD BELSTEAD: By Section 23 of the 1944 Act, my Lords.
LORD KENNET: In pursuance of the last reply, would the noble Lord be so kind as to remind us of what it says?
LORD BELSTEAD: My Lords, it refers to who has control of the curriculum.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree, in view of the answer he has given that this is the responsibility of education authorities, that it would be a good idea if the Secretary of State for Education and Science were to circularise authorities
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to say that this particular subject ought not to come within the curriculum but that the responsibility ought to be left to parental control, because parents are responsible so far as their children are concerned? Would it not be well to direct the minds of education authorities along these lines?
LORD BELSTEAD: My Lords, that, of course, would require legislation. There is the right of withdrawal only in respect of religious education because it alone is compulsory; otherwise there is no right of withdrawal. It is for this reason that the Government appreciate the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Slater, and of many other people in this case. My right honourable friend is on record as saying that she is considering what further advice might need to be given outside legislation.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that this film ought first to be judged by expert medical and psychiatric authorities—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No!
LORD SEGAL: —before it is released to the local education authorities?
VISCOUNT BARRINGTON: My Lords, as one who did not see the film and is prepared to accept the noble Baroness's understatement that it was not a very good film, may I ask whether the noble Lord would agree that it might be very good business? And where there are what might be called "vested interests" behind this kind of film, I think one should be doubly careful that such films do not, if possible, get through under the guise of education.
LORD BELSTEAD: My Lords, I do not think that that point really arises on this Question. We are also getting into territory which was covered by my noble friend Lord Windlesham in the debate on the Motion of the noble Earl, Lord Longford, a fortnight ago.

ROYAL ASSENT
2.56 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HAILSHAM OF ST. MARYLEBONE): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Animals Act,

Courts Act,

Coinage Act,

Administration of Estates Act,

Betting, Gaming and Lotteries (Amendment) Act,

Powers of Attorney Act,

Rent (Scotland) Act,

National Savings Bank Act,

Unsolicited Goods and Services Act,

Interest on Damages (Scotland) Act,

Attachment of Earnings Act,

Plymouth Corporation Act,

Co-operative Bank Act,

National Westminster Bank (North Central Finance Lombard Banking) Act,

Australian, Mercantile, Land and Finance Company, Limited Act,

John Hollis Trust for Employees (Amendment) Act,

New Broken Hill Consolidated Limited Act,

NORTHERN IRELAND BILL OF RIGHTS [H.L.]
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to amend the powers of the Parliament and Government of Northern Ireland, to make other provisions for equating the civil rights of citizens of Northern Ireland with those of other citizens of the United Kingdom and to make provision for proportional representation in Parliamentary and local government elections in Northern Ireland. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(Lord Brockway)
On Question, Bill read 1 a, and to be printed.

PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE
2.59 p.m.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL): My Lords, I beg to move that the Fourth Report from the Select Committee be now considered.
Moved accordingly, and on Question, Motion agreed to.
The Committee's Report was as follows:
DIVISIONS
1. The Committee have considered at two successive meetings a number of suggestions for speeding up the procedure followed in Divisions with a view to cutting down the time taken (which is at present up to a quarter of an hour or more). They recommend that, as a first step, the House should adopt experimentally the practice of dividing those voting in each Lobby into two streams, A-K and L-Z, according to the first letter of the name of each Lord in the alphabetical list. This recommendation involves no change in Standing Orders.
2. Secondly, the Committee recommend a wider experiment on the following lines:—

(i) On a Division being called, the Bar will be cleared in the usual way. The doors at either end of the Division Lobbies will be locked, but all doors into the House will remain open.

(ii) Lords may enter the Division Lobbies as soon as a Division is called; and a Lord may vote whether or not he was in the House when the Question was put.

(iii) Within two minutes after the Division is called, Tellers will be appointed and their names communicated to the Clerk at the Table.

(iv) After the lapse of two minutes from the Division being called, the Question will be put a second time. Provided that the challenge is also repeated, the Division will then proceed, as soon as the Tellers and the Clerks are in their places in each Lobby. The door at the exit to each Lobby will then he unlocked to enable Peers to leave, if they wish after voting.

(v) On the expiry of six minutes from the calling of the Division, the Lord on the Woolsack or in the Chair will inform the House or the Committee of the Question which is the subject of the Division and the doors of the Chamber will be locked. From this moment only Lords who are already in the Chamber or the Division Lobbies will be able to vote. By this time, however, most of those who wish to vote will already have done so.

3. The Committee recommend that the proposals described in the previous paragraph be tried out as an experiment until the Whitsun Recess.
For this purpose, Standing Orders 48 and 50 will need to be suspended to the extent necessary to permit the experiment to be tried out.

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A Motion to this effect, setting out the proposed experimental modifications of the existing procedure and limited in time to the period up to Whitsun, should be moved in the House. At the end of the experiment, the procedure should be reviewed in the light of experience gained.
THE EARL OF LISTOWEL: My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be agreed to.
Moved, That the Report be agreed to. —(The Earl of Listowel.)
LORD BROCK: My Lords, I am not clear about the meaning of the amendment—
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I think I should have come in a little earlier. I wonder whether I might speak to the Motion of the Chairman of Committees because, if it were agreed to it would then he possible for me to move formally the Motion standing in my name which immediately follows that of the Chairman of Committees on the Order Paper.
As your Lordships will see, the Procedure Committee have recommended certain experimental alterations in our procedure in taking Divisions, and my subsequent Motion would implement the recommendations if by then they had been agreed by the House. I hope that most of your Lordships will by now have had an opportunity of reading the Fourth Report from the Procedure Committee. I know, too, that some of your Lordships had an opportunity yesterday of taking part in a dummy run of the new procedure, which was organised in the best traditions of an impresario by my noble friend the Chief Whip. I hope therefore that your Lordships will either be familiar directly, or through having read the Fourth Report, with the main features of the proposed experiment so I do not propose to go into great detail on them, but if there are any questions I shall be glad to try, to answer them, or indeed my noble friend the Chief Whip will be glad to do so.
Your Lordships will be aware that the Procedure Committee recommended that we should proceed with this experimental procedure in two stages. We have already embarked on the first stage, which was concerned with the actual process of voting in the Division Lobby. We now
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vote in two streams—A to K and L to Z —and for some reason the A to K stream, at least on our side of the House, seems to go much slower than the L to Z stream. I believe this innovation has produced some considerable measure of acceleration in our procedure. I believe that the time saved per Division is about three minutes on a large Division. I think your Lordships will agree that this is a sensible thing, although at present the time we save on the swings of Divisions we seem to lose on the roundabouts elsewhere. But that is by the way. I am grateful for your Lordships' co-operation, and particularly for the help that your Lordships have given the Clerks by giving your names clearly and distinctly as you pass the Clerk's desks, and I must congratulate noble Lords on the ability which you have shown on reading your names upside down.
Turing to the second stage, which is what really concerns us now, the main feature of the change is to enable a Division to get under way after the lapse of two minutes when the Question is put a second time. Provided the challenge is not repeated the Division will proceed as soon as the Tellers and Clerks are in their places in the Lobbies. In this way it is hoped that much of the voting will be completed by the time the doors of the Chamber are finally closed at the end of six minutes from the time when the Division was originally called.
I should also like to remind your Lordships that the Procedure Committee thought it right to recommend an extension from four to six minutes in the time allowed for us to arrive in the Chamber before the doors are finally locked. Having regard to the fact that voting will have started after two minutes I do not believe this extra time will acid anything significant to the total time taken by Divisions. I am quite certain in fact that we shall make a quite considerable net saving in time.
There is one other particular aspect which I should like to mention. It is an old tradition of your Lordships' House that a noble Lord could only vote if he had heard the Question put. Under the experimental scheme he will be relieved of any obligation to hear the Question put, since it is clearly not possible to allow voting to proceed after two

1071
minutes if this course is to be maintained. But some of your Lordships may think that there is something in this tradition and that we ought to offer every opportunity to Members of this House who wish to vote, of hearing the Question that they are being asked to decide. For this reason under the experimental scheme the Question will be repeated for the information of the House but not, of course, put when the doors are locked at the end of six minutes.
My Lords, perhaps I may add just two further points. The new arrangements, if they are agreed by your Lordships' House, would of course be put into effect immediately. If, therefore, there is a Division later to-day they would apply then, or if there are Divisions tomorrow (which seems possible) they would certainly apply then.
The other point is that noble Lords will have observed that the authority for the new proposals expires at Whit sun. That is when the present experimental period expires. We shall then need to consider carefully whether the experiment has succeeded and what arrangements we should make thereafter for the future. The Procedure Committee is, I understand, meeting before the Whit sun Recess and it will therefore be possible for the Committee to consider how the experiment has in fact worked out, and the Committee will no doubt report to your Lordships' House. But of course it will be for all of us here to decide, in the light of that Report, whether we feel that the experiment on which I hope that we are now embarking should continue and, if so, in what form. In this sort of thing we really need to feel our way to a certain extent and then react in the light of experience. That said, my Lords, I hope that, generally speaking, the scheme will commend itself to your Lordships' House.
3.8 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I for one support the proposals put forward in the Report of the Procedure Committee which the noble Lord the Leader of the House has explained to us. I have a small technical point in relation to the Motion which he is about to move and I should like to reserve it until he moves it. I think the experiment of dividing into two streams is so successful and has
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so speeded things up that one wonders why we have waited so long. Perhaps this is going to be the only useful product of the Industrial Relations Bill because of the need for higher productivity on divisions.
In regard to the new proposals, I think they represent something similar to that with which those of us who have been in another place are familiar, but with sensible adaptations to meet our particular circumstances. But, my Lords, I think we should regard this very firmly as an experiment. It is conceivable that the fact that noble Lords will go into the Division Lobbies early will deprive the House of some of the indicators that affect how people will vote. There are occasions in this House when we do not vote strictly on Party lines (I have in mind the Meteorites Bill), and people may be influenced when they are in the Chamber by the voices for or against the Question. This is not. however, to oppose what is proposed, because I think it is right. In my view it is important that the House should be informed, even though for a third time, so that noble Lords may hear what is being said.
If I understand the noble Earl correctly, the Lobby will be open as soon as the Question is put for the first time, and it will be possible for noble Lords to go into the Lobby; and some will do so as they have always done in another place. But I am inclined to hope that at least a number of noble Lords—and not merely the formal representatives of the Front Benches—will not dash straight into the Lobbies. There are advantages in collecting the voices properly a second time. Therefore, my feeling is that we should not all immediately rush into whatever our chosen Lobby is. This is a matter of practice and how we feel about this, and I think at the end of the period of experiment we shall need to see whether it has in any way affected our decision-making procedures. The noble Earl knows that I am in fact very strongly in favour of what is now proposed, but it does import a change and a departure from past practice; I think a desirable one. I am inclined to think that the period of the experiment is going to be too short, and I think that the House will need to be ready to continue the experiment after Whitsun. After all, we are not likely to have very big Divisions

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with 300 or 400 Peers voting between now and Whit sun. But one can never tell what the Government may find for us to vote upon. But my personal opinion is that, provided the experiment is not a ghastly failure in the first week or two, we ought not then to come to a final decision before the Summer Recess.
I would make only one further point. I believe a great deal will depend on the competence of the Tellers, who will have certain responsibilities in this matter and who will be in a position to tell those who have gone into the Division Lobby that the Division is off if on the second call no Division results. I think it would be desirable if some instructions could be made available, because although the Whips on both the Front Benches are no doubt highly professional in their approach, I have known them to get it wrong. There are occasions when other Peers may be Telling, and I think it may be useful to have some brief instructions. I hope your Lordships will consent to this experiment.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, a question? I understood him to say in the Government Lobby when a Division is being taken progress is very slow. Surely, there is a simple remedy. Could not it be arranged that fewer noble Lords on the Government Benches voted in the Lobby?
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, is it a fair inference from this Report that there will in fact he a Whit-sun Recess and will the noble Leader tell us when it will be and how long it will endure?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their reception of the Lord Chairman's Motion. I should like to say three things. First, I recognise—and I think I made it clear in my opening remarks—that this is an experimental system; we shall have to see how it works in a pragmatic (to use that awful adjective) way. Like the noble Lord, the Leader of the Opposition, I do not think we need decide now how long the experimental period should be. I would not wish myself to pre-empt any recommendation the Procedure Committee might make; they might well wish to
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recommend that we should have a further experimental period. I think we should see how that goes. I was very interested to learn from the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, that he does not anticipate any very large Divisions between now and Whitsun.
On one specific point, so far as instructions to Tellers are concerned, I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and it is my understanding that instructions of a simple sort for Tellers will be available very shortly at the Table. I fear, in answer to the noble Baroness, that I am not able to enlighten her at the present time on the precise length of our Whitsun holiday. Perhaps she might consult some of her noble friends about that. But having said that, I should like to thank the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition for his reception of my remarks, and also to say that I think the House is very much indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, for the very keen personal interest he has taken in helping us to work out these proposed new arrangements.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
DIVISIONS
3.16 p.m.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I understand from my noble friends that I was out of order in not seeking the permission of your Lordships' House to speak a second time just now. But having said that, I should like formally to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That until the House adjourns for the recess at Whitsun, the Standing Orders relating to Public Business be amended as follows: —
Standiqg Order No. 48
Paragraph (1), at end insert ("; and the doors at either end of the division lobbies shall be locked")
Leave out paragraph (2).
Paragraph (3), line 1, leave out ("four") and insert ("two")
Paragraph (4), line 1, leave out ("four") and insert ("two")
After paragraph (4) insert the following new paragraphs—
("(4A) After the lapse of two minutes from the time when the Bar is ordered to be cleared the Lord on the Woolsack or in the Chair shall again nut the question, and the

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doors at the exist from each division lobby shall be unlocked.
(4B) A Lord may vote in a division although he did not hear the question put.")
After paragraph (5) insert the following new paragraph—
("(5A) After the lapse of six minutes from the time when the Bar is ordered to be cleared, the doors of the Chamber shall be locked, and the Lord on the Woolsack or in the Chair shall inform the House or the Committee of the question which is the subject of the division.")
Standing Order No. 50
Line 11, leave out from ("whether") to ("he") in line 13.
Line 14, leave out ("on such queston"). —(Earl Jellicoe)
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, it was because I was aware that under Standing Order I could not reply to the noble Earl that I reserved my right to speak on this particular item again. I, too, am scinated by my noble friend Lady Wootton's question about the Whitsun Recess, but I will not press it further.
There is only one technical point that I should like to make. I am bound to say that I dislike a procedure in which you amend Standing Orders for an experimental period. I am not raising an objection, but I am quite sure that if you amend Standing Orders you should do it with the intention of amending them permanently; and if it is only for an experiment, you should suspend the Standing Orders and pass a Motion saying that while they are suspended the following procedure shall be deemed to apply. This is a small point but I think it is not unimportant, because it makes things terribly difficult if you have short-term amendments. I think perhaps I was lax in not pressing this more strongly at the Procedure Committee. I think there is some validity in this point from the standpoint of our conduct of these arrangements, and I think we ought to be very careful not to start amending Standing Orders until we have finally made up our minds about it.
LORD BROCK: My Lords, may I point out that the addition to paragraph (1) is by no means clear? As it stands, it is a verbal inexactitude. If it means that the doors at either end shall be closed, it should say either one end or the other end; or if it means both end it should say both, clearly and unequivocally.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, if I may with permission, reply to the two points put to me, I may say that I had a certain foreboding when I heard the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, say that he had a technical point. I wondered what was coming. I think it is a narrowly balanced argument, and I should like to consider with noble Lords opposite, if we are to have any more experiments—I hope that we shall not have too many—how best we deal with this so far as Standing Orders are concerned.
So far as the question put to me by the noble Lord, Lord Brock, is concerned, certainly it is intended by the wording "at either end of the division lobbies" to indicate both ends of the Division Lobby. If this is incorrect grammar, perhaps my noble friend Lord Conesford will be able to put this right. In any case, I think the Procedure Committee might look at the grammatical point here.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

DEFENCE PROCUREMENT AND CIVIL AEROSPACE
3.20 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON)THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON)
rose to move, That this House takes note of the White Paper Government Organisation for Defence Procurement and Civil Aerospace (Cmnd. 4641). The noble Lord said: My Lords, it seems such a very long time since I have been in your Lordships' House and found the House not discussing the Industrial Relations Bill that I think the five other noble Lords and I myself speaking this afternoon should apologise for the unwarrantable intrusion into the interminable proceeding on that Bill. I was reflecting last night and the night before that never can so many have listened to so few talking for so long, with so much patience. Therefore, I am all the more ashamed to warn your Lordships that I shall shortly be asking for leave to speak a second time on this Motion in order only that I may answer the questions which will have been put to me by noble Lords, and certainly not to make another speech, for anything of substance that I wish to say I shall say in the remarks I am going to address to your Lordships now.
It gives me a great deal of pleasure to draw your Lordships' attention to the White Paper on the future Government Organisation for Defence Procurement and Civil Aerospace, because I believe that it represents a breakthrough in an area which, to my personal knowledge, has caused a great deal of difficulty for many years past. It is, I think essential, if one is to appreciate the advantages of the organisation which we now intend to adopt, to understand the nature of the problem which we are setting out to solve. I should like, therefore, for a few minutes to analyzes the arrangements which have applied hitherto. I do not think that there can be any of your Lordships who have been concerned with Defence procurement who will aver that things in the past twenty-five years have been entirely satisfactory.
Broadly speaking, in recent years the Army arid the Navy Departments have been responsible for the procurement of their own weapons and equipment, either by developing them in their own research establishments and producing them in their own manufacturing facilities (such as the Royal Ordnance Factories and the Royal Dockyards) or by purchasing them direct from 'the contractors. But even for those two Services there has been an exception to the pattern I have just described in the case of aircraft, most guided weapons and some electronic equipment, which have been procured for the Services by a separate Department, latterly the Ministry of Aviation Supply. In the case of the Royal Air Force, since their main interest is in equipment in these categories—aircraft, guided weapons and electronics—nearly all their warlike stores have been procured for them by the separate agent Ministry. As with so many of our institutions, there are historical reasons why this pattern developed. Ever since the Ministry of Supply was set up on the eve of the Second World War, attempts have been made to find a system which satisfactorily reconciled, on the one hand, the natural wish of the Armed Forces to handle the procurement of their own equipment, and, on the other hand, the advantages to be gained by bringing together all Defence procurement activity.
When it was the Ministry of Supply, the balance lay towards having all procurement activity in one organisation;
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but even then this was not the complete picture, because, with the characteristic independence of mind which the Royal Navy usually shows, they opted out. Later, after the War, when the Ministry of Supply was superseded, the balance tilted somewhat towards the Services undertaking their own procurement, since at that stage the Army as well as the Navy became largely responsible for their own procurement. However, aircraft and electronic equipment became the procurement responsibility of the Ministry of Aviation and thus the Air Force continued for the most part to obtain their weaponry through an agent Ministry. This has remained the case as the Ministry of Aviation has given way to the Ministry of Technology and, more recently, to the Ministry of Aviation Supply.
The separation of responsibility between the user and the procurement authority, which is endemic in the agency system, has had a number of unfortunate effects which have, I think, at times been all too obvious. First and most obvious, there has often been an absence of the essential close liaison between the operators in the Services and the procurement people, without which neither can be fully aware of the requirements of the other. Furthermore, to the extent that such liaison has been achieved, this has only been at the cost of very heavy duplication in staff, both Service and civilian. Moreover, since the cost of the equipment concerned has formed part of the Defence Budget—and, in the case of production, has actually been charged to Ministry of Defence Votes—the Service Departments have been obliged, in order to discharge their accounting responsibilities, to monitor the financial activity of the agent Ministry very closely—again with much duplication of staff.
Over and above these difficulties, however, there has been a further disadvantage, in that the Ministry responsible for procurement of such equipment for the Services, being a separate Ministry, has tended, and I understand why, to regard its other function of promoting the health of the industries concerned not as an adjunct to procurement but as an end in itself. I think it would be generally admitted that this arrangement has sometimes militated against the Services getting value for money. It says a great deal for the high standard of the staff in

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the Service Departments and in the agent Ministry, and their dedication, that despite the defects of the system they have managed to keep the work moving on a reasonably straight course. But that is no argument for neglecting to introduce sound arrangements when they are available.
This, then, was the problem. It was a problem which the present Government fully recognised when they took office; and it was then tackled with the least possible delay. Your Lordships will recall that it was one of the problem areas identified in the White Paper on the Reorganisation of Central Government which we produced last October and in which we declared that our aim was to integrate all Defence research and development and procurement activities under the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Defence, as well as to devise new arrangements for handling the Government's responsibilities for civil aircraft and aerospace activities. As that White Paper made clear, we fully recognised the size and complexity of the operation which will be necessary to bring about such a reorganisation; and we accordingly set up a special project team, under Mr. Derek Rayner, to study the whole problem. Your Lordships will remember that the Ministry of Aviation Supply was set up as an interim measure.
The Rayner study was tackled with immense thoroughness and clarity of purpose and also, I think your Lordships would agree, with the utmost despatch. Mr. Rayner was thus able to let us have his complete findings and recommendations by the end of March this year. It is very greatly to the credit of Mr. Rayner and the members of his team that they not only, as I personally firmly believe, reached the right answers, but that they reached them so quickly. I would congratulate Mr. Rayner on the quality of the Report which he has produced, and which now appears as part of the White Paper which we are discussing this afternoon. It is, I think, a splendid augury for the new organisation which will arise from that Report that Mr. Rayner has agreed to serve as the first Chief Executive for it. Certainly, as Minister in charge of the Department I greatly welcome his appointment.
Your Lordships will have read the detailed proposals in the Report. I do not therefore wish to take up a lot of time in listing them, but would like, if I may, to draw attention to two or three features, and to why I think they offer a lasting solution to our problems. An essential preliminary to any consideration of the organisation within Whitehall was the question whether this procurement field offered an opportunity for a structure with a considerable degree of independence of Whitehall itself—what is sometimes termed the agency concept. There are two main reasons why this would not be appropriate in this case. First, any significant degree of independence would separate the staff responsible for procurement too much from the customers whose needs they exist to meet. Such an arms length relationship would be wholly wrong. Secondly, a very important point in the establishment of Government agencies is the extent to which it is possible to insulate their work from political involvement.
The defence equipment area has always been very sensitive to political considerations and the trend towards collaborative projects (that is to say, international collaborative projects), where inevitably we have to work closely on the political as well as the technical levels with our partners, re-in forces this point. Given therefore that the procurement responsibilities should be carried out within Government, the questions then arise, where within Government and in what particular organisational shape.
Noble Lords will have seen from the figures in Appendix B on page 55 of the White Paper, that the bulk of the work carried out by these staffs is for the Armed Forces Even for civil aerospace projects, much of the research and development work—which in their case is the major element carried on within Government—makes use of facilities shared in common with defence projects. We therefore decided that, apart from certain important elements, the staff concerned should all be concentrated within the Ministry of Defence.
Then, within the Ministry of Defence, there were two basic choices of organisation: the staffs could be split up between the Service Departments with special provision for those areas where more than

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one Service was interested, or they could be concentrated within a procurement organisation. Mr. Rayner has brought out very clearly in his Report that procurement is a specialised function and that the specialised skills which are required in its many aspects—management of projects, control of research, negotiation of contracts—can all best be developed if the staffs concerned are brought together in a strong organisation large enough to offer a full career and opportunities to train middle and top managers. On the other hand, such an organisation must not become too isolated or inbred if it is to retain the confidence of its customers.
The Procurement Executive which is to be formed in the way which I have described will be an integral part of the Ministry of Defence and its relations with the other staffs in the Ministry of Defence will be so devised as to permit the maximum direct contact between the customers in the shape of the Armed Services and those concerned with developing and producing their weapons and equipment. I believe that this solution will lead to maximum efficiency and at the same time to maximum economy in staff resources.
Your Lordships will appreciate, of course, that a great deal remains to be done to work out the details of this reorganisation, but perhaps I might give one or two examples of the ways in which this close relationship will be made effective at all levels. In the first place, the Minister of State for Defence Procurement will not be responsible solely for the procurement area; that is to say, research, development and production. He will also, under my general responsibility, oversee the staff within the Ministry of Defence for the formulation of the operational requirements upon which all the work of the Procurement Executive will be based. The primary importance of the link between these two is thus recognised at the highest level.
Second, as is discussed at some length in paragraphs 72–77 of the Report, the main systems controllers who will be responsible for naval, land and air weapons will have very close links with the Service Departments who will of course be responsible for stating the initial requirement and, in due course,
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receiving the equipment and operating and maintaining it in service. These links will, as it were, be manifested by each controller being a member of the appropriate Service Board; while the Controller of Guided Weapons and Electronics will be available to attend Service Boards as necessary.
Third, there will be several areas where one body of staff can provide a service to the whole of the Ministry of Defence, including the Procurement Executive. Examples of such areas are the staff concerned with accounts, contracts, statistics, public relations, land matters and works services. No hard and fast rule will be applied because each area needs careful judgment on its merits. In staff management matters the Procurement Executive will have a large degree of autonomy, because of both the sheer numbers involved and the importance of being able to offer and plan a career in procurerment in order to give them greater degrees of specialised knowledge and authority to which Mr. Rayner rightly attaches so much importance.
I have already mentioned that there are certain important elements which we have decided should not be the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence. These concern the policy for the aerospace industry, for civil aerospace research, development and projects and for space policy other than in the military field. Executive as well as policy responsibility for Concorde as a project will also be transferred to the Department of Trade and Industry but the Ministry of Defence through the Procurement Executive will continue to provide support for that project in certain areas. I have seen it suggested either that we have made no provision for policy in these fields or that the arrangement to place the policy work in these areas primarily within the Department of Trade and Industry is not sensible and has been forced upon the Government simply because of their determination to concentrate too much other work within the Ministry of Defence. Both these assertions are wrong.
It will be seen from the Rayner Report published in the White Paper that very careful consideration was given to the allocation of responsibilities in these fields. It was felt that as a general principle a sharper distinction should be drawn than has been in the past between

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the formulation of policy and the management of the approved programmes. This is a principle which has been applied not just in those civil areas, but across the whole of the procurement field. In a way this may not be obvious at first glance, for in many of the areas concerned the policy will be a responsibility of the Ministry of Defence, but the point to be stressed is that it will be a different part of that Ministry.
It will be for the policy staffs in the Ministry of Defence to lay down the qualitative and quantitative requirements for defence equipment, and it will be for the Procurement Executive to carry them out. Similarly, it will be for the Department of Trade and Industry to lay down a policy for civil aerospace research and development projects and for the Procurement Executive to carry them out. As for the policy responsibility for the aerospace industry, here again I believe there are very sound reasons for separating this from the managerial responsibilities of the Procurement Executive.
Policy responsibility for the aerospace industry needs to be considered in the wider context of national economic and industrial policies, and it is therefore right that this responsibility should lie with the Department of Trade and Industry. It may of course be that from time to time the interests of Defence and the interests of the policy for the aerospace industry will not coincide. In that case the issues on both sides can be clearly stated and the Aerospace Board, which is described in paragraph 2 of the White Paper, will provide the forum for the determination of policy.
This is, I am sure, a better way to identify the issues and arrive at decisions than having the various interests all bundled together in one staff which is always likely to result in distortions. Similar arguments and arrangements will apply in respect of Space with the slight modification that as other Ministries have a direct interest in Space, they, too, will need to be represented on the Aerospace Board.
Lastly, I should like to say something about the approach to management within the Procurement Executive itself. I have already stressed the complexity and cost of the projects which are to be handled. It is therefore most important,
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as is brought out very clearly and fully in Mr. Rayner's Report, that everything possible should be done, organisationally and in the way of providing staff, to ensure that the lines of command are clear, that responsibility can be precisely identified and that the staff have got the necessary expertise and experience. This again is some thing which cannot be changed overnight and I would not want to suggest by any means that nothing has been done in recent years. There have been many important innovations, both in the Ministry of Aviation Supply and its predecessors and within the Ministry of Defence; the notably successful one of which I had personal knowledge was Polaris Executive.
What we shall now have made, however, is a coherent and comprehensive approach. The systems controllers will have identifiable tasks and will themselves be accountable managers. Under them their organisations will increasingly be shaped into project orientated groups. The staffs will be encouraged to make a career in procurement and building up a greater degree of specialisation.
My Lords, I have sketched out very briefly some of the main aspects of this Report, and have outlined the decisions which the Government have already taken to put it into effect. I am quite sure that over the years this reorganisation will not only lead to further improvements in the high quality of the equipment produced for the Armed Forces and for civil aerospace, but will at the same time enable us to have a smaller and more streamlined organisation within Government to discharge those responsibilities. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the White Paper Government Organisation for Defence Procurement and Civil Aerospace
(Cmnd. 4641). — (Lord Carrington.)
3.40 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, we are all obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, for explaining so lucidly the pattern of the proposed new organisation for Defence Procurement and Civil Aerospace. I am sure we shall all want to study much more closely all the detail which he gave us when we read Hansard to-morrow. I should also like to take

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the opportunity to say again what I tried to say when we approved the Order: that we are fortunate—and I mean this —that in the formative period of the new organisation one person of considerable, if not decisive, influence will be the noble Lord himself.
My Lords, we are discussing decisions taken by Her Majesty's Government following an impressively able and thorough exercise in efficiency analysis—carried out, too, as the noble Lord says, with considerable speed. The clarity of the recommendations which followed that analysis is impeccable—until one comes to study them a little more closely! Although I am about to express doubts and criticisms, we must acknowledge at the outset that both the recommendations of the Rayner Report and the decisions of Her Majesty's Government that have followed have been well received by the industries principally concerned. Indeed, the proposals are closely in line with what the aerospace industry itself suggested, although it is fair to say that they were suggesting what they thought was acceptable rather than what they thought was the ideal solution. However, although I have an interest (which I declare) in that industry, I have my own personal doubts whether we have found the most satisfactory solution. Certainly there are pitfalls which we must carefully watch; and, moreover, we must be ready to acknowledge from the outset—and I think the noble Lord himself failed a little in this—the possible need for review.
My Lords, I have two preliminary points. One concerns the Terms of Reference. Mr. Rayner and his team were asked to make recommendations on how best to integrate all defence research and development, and procurement activities, under the Secretary of State for Defence. That seems to me very reminiscent of the sort of choice which the late Mr. Henry Ford is said to have offered his customers; namely, that they could have a car of any colour, provided it was black! Might it not have been better to have had a completely objective analysis, by this very competent and authoritative team, on the basis of Terms of Reference which would at least have given them the opportunity to say that it might well be better to go back to an improved mark of the Ministry of Aviation
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idea, or maybe even the Ministry of Supply? Or to have incorporated contemporary buying techniques in the set-up which existed? At any rate it would have satisfied some doubts had there been no prejudiced dismissal beforehand of this possibility. And it would have been useful, I suggest, to have had the arguments rehearsed publicly ill 'the same manner as the Government, to their credit, are enabling us to consider the arrangements they are now proposing.
My second preliminary point concerns the statement of intention by the Government: that they are proposing to rationalise the whole function of defence procurement (and I quote) "on a lasting basis". If they really feel that they have now secured an arrangement which will stand unchanged for the lifetime of more than this Government, then they are showing either an extreme sense of humour or an undignified degree of conceit. Since the war the process of what we used to call buying, but what is now dignified by the term "procurement", has undoubtedly been developed to a high degree of sophistication. Mass production, long runs of standardised articles, and consequent large-scale bulk buying, have undoubtedly led to new techniques which it seems have not been wholly applied to Governmental processes. I have no doubt that as the result of the investigation Mr. Rayner and his team have made, with the consequent changes which are proposed, and with the specialist skills to which the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, referred which will now be required from those concerned with procurement, a whole range of articles from socks and shirts to the smaller weapons and certain equipment will in future be bought as keenly and as shrewdly as is possible in this uncertain world.
I am bound to say, however, that I was unconvinced by what the noble Lord said about having secured a method now by which the user would be brought into closer touch with the contractor. If we are developing this new race of people with these new specialised skills, they are different people from the members of the Service boards, they are different people from the military users, and I cannot myself see that we have necessarily brought the user much nearer to the contractor. We will still have the

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specialised buying techniques in between the user and the maker.
My Lords, that is one doubt, but where we are entitled to be much more doubtful is in relation to aerospace. Here the Government are so predominant a customer that both procurement and policy-making is their concern. Here the problems are of a different scale and kind, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, was prepared to accept. The cost of research and development alone is so great as to involve very different considerations. No matter how keenly and how shrewdly the new organisation in the Ministry of Defence use their expertise in drawing up and monitoring contracts in the aerospace industry such economies as might follow from their specialised shrewdness could be lost—and more than lost—if the over-all policy does not make possible a well-balanced, well-equipped national aerospace industry. My Lords, I suggest that true economy, commonsense and national interest, all combine to support the proposition that skilled procurement, while essential, is far less important than a wise policy which ensures the existence of a national industry with a capability and of a size compatible with optimum efficiency.
My Lords, there are two aspects of these decisions which immediately cause one to doubt whether they are best designed to secure that optimum efficiency. One is the divorce of policy from execution; and the other is the apparent subordination of the civil side of the aerospace industry to the defence side. Can we first take this erudite question of policy and execution, or as the noble Lord himself said, policy and management? No doubt all of us at one time or another have argued that it is important to have clear and separate responsibility for policy making as against the execution of agreed policy. In particular, I recollect categorical statements being made in connection with local authorities, publicly-owned enterprises and co-operative organisations. But though it is essential to prevent the policy makers—especially when they are part-timers or lay persons—interfering with the executives, it is also true that the executives, with close day-to-day understanding of the details and implications of the latest
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developments, are in an immeasurably superior position if it comes to an argument about what policy is possible. The more highly technical the business is the more true this is, and here I see a significant disadvantage in which the Department of Trade and Industry responsible for policy will find themselves, certainly in the near future, if not immediately.
How are they to keep up-to-date? How are they to get the sense of feel and atmosphere of what is going on in those places where hardware is actually made, and where the first "gleam-in-the-eye" can be seen? Is it that industry will have to make a double approach all the time, maintaining a dual system of communication, one with the policy-makers and one with the executives? The White Paper talks of right of access for the D.T.I. policy makers to the research establishments that are now to be placed under the Ministry of Defence. At the outset, no doubt, since the personalities will remain the same, communications will be as smooth on April 1 as on March 31; but as people go and new faces and new voices come, will this right of access to the work of another Department not run the risk of friction? Access presumably will mean access to information and discussion. But supposing new lines of inquiry are suggested, or merely a different emphasis on work to be done? Have the policy makers the right to suggest a different work programme? After all, access without influence can be very frustrating.
According to paragraph 2(iii), responsibility for the aerospace industry will pass to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry; and the noble Lord has emphasised this. Apparently he confirms that this responsibility includes defence as well as civil aerospace. Can the noble Lord explain rather more clearly what is meant by "policy" in this connection? He says that the qualitative and quantitative requirements will be laid down by the Ministry of Defence; but, for example, supposing we take the particular case of the proposed new trainer. It is surely an important issue of policy as to whether this order is placed in this country or abroad. Using that case as an example which might arise, would the noble Lord explain to what extent the Secretary of State for

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Trade and Industry, as policy maker, comes into the decision? I am not saying that it is wrong or right. I am merely anxious to know how this thing works out.
The White Paper itself calls attention to the fact that evidence shows clearly the indivisibility of aerospace techniques between civil and military applications. It lists such examples as aerodynamic and aero-engine research, ground and airborne avionics development and deployment, as well as aerospace development teams and production units in industry. Is it reasonable to conclude from this that the D.T.I. will have overriding responsibility for ensuring that there is a proper balance as between civil and military activity in the industry? If we can ensure that the total workload for the industry is, in all the circumstances, reasonable, and that if temporarily there is a run-down on, say, the military design side, then it becomes all the more important for the policy-makers to plan ahead to ensure that there is every possibility of utilising design skills on the civil side. Similarily, it is feasible to envisage a situation in which the skill of engineers can be utilised on defence projects when the curve of production on the civil side shows a temporary fall. I ask two questions here. First, will the noble Lord tell us whether the Secretary for Trade and Industry has the necessary authority and knowledge to ensure that, in so far as these things are possible, there is an attempt to maintain a proper balance within the industry?
The noble Lord at one point in his speech spoke in terms which suggested that previous attempts to maintain the health of the industry had been treated almost as an end in itself. I wonder whether he meant that. If it was a queston of maintaining the health of the industry in order to ensure the economic efficiency of the nation, then we surely cannot quarrel with this factor being taken into consideration.
My second question relates to higher policies still. I have indicated the sort of policy I have in mind. Will the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry be working within a policy directive which provides for a civil programme? A good deal of all these new arrangements are completely worthless unless there is a civil aerospace industry in Britain. Is
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this higher policy, accepting always that there is a Cabinet, a matter for the Ministerial Aerospace Board?
Paragraph 2(v) lays it down that the Board will "oversee" collaboration between the D.T.I. and M.O.D. What sort of staff are they to have for this quite formidable responsibility? If they are to have staff, and if we are to have sufficient staff in the D.T.I. to ensure that they have the necessary technical know-how; and if we are to have these new people in the Ministry of Defence with the procurement expertise, is the noble Lord satisfied that we are to have what he indicated would be the case: a smaller organisation? The same sub-paragraph 2(v) speaks of the Board—that is to say, the Ministerial Aerospace Board—being the "authority" for instructions to the procurement executive on civil aerospace matters. Does this mean that they act as postmen, or do they make their own judgment as to what instructions they are to be given? If they are to use their own judgment, if they are to have the necessary advice. are we not inviting more frustration and delay and expense?
Supposing another civil project is given launching aid. To whom does the application go? Who makes the decision? The D.T.I. or the Board? And is the decision only taken on the advice of experts in the M.O.D.? Before I leave the Board, may I ask what is to become of that grand old veteran T.A.R.C.? Does it disappear? Or how does it fit in? At the moment, Government sponsorship relates to one project only; namely, Concorde. An immense project certainly, but only one. Is there to be, as a matter of Government policy, a readiness to continue launching aid on other appropriate projects.
The reference to Concorde brings me to another point. We have this new pattern of policy and procurement and yet the two biggest important projects of to-day do not fit into the pattern at all. Concorde management is to be treated quite separately. This surely is a little odd. I do not say it is wrong—far from it—butt it is a little odd. May we take it that it' there is another major sponsored project that it will be managed as an independent virtually self-contained administrative unit? Incidentally, I would offer my appreciation of the way this

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Concorde project has been managed. The setup appears to be sensible and those who have responsibility within it are obviously both devoted and competent. At a time, however, when every effort is being made to contain costs, I wonder whether it might not be possible to streamline some of the procedures. For example, with inspection and certification there appears to me to be an element of duplication which at this stage might well be eliminated without risk but with significant economies.
The other one-off project is the Rolls-Royce undertaking. I read in the White Paper that staff dealing with the future of Rolls-Royce are to be transferred to D.T.I. Is this not another case of separating policy responsibility from technical know-how? The National Gas Turbine Establishment goes to the M.O.D. and those who really know what will probably happen in the aero-engine world go into the M.O.D. with it. What, then, is the position of those who are responsible for Rolls-Royce who are going into another building with the D.T.I.—are any technical staff to be left with them, or transferred with them, when this new arrangement is implemented?
My Lords, I should like to ask questions about space activities but I must recognise the limitations of time. This is so intensely important that it deserves a separate discussion. It would be impossible for me to try to disentangle paragraph 120 in less than a separate speech. However, I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, whether he could give us hope that there is to be one authoritative Minister who will strive from now on to keep Britain in the space age. There is also the whole question of the Naval dockyards, to which no reference appears at all either in the noble Lord's speech or in the White Paper. Are they considered to have been so perfect that they are to be left as at present or, if not, to what extent are they to be brought into a different arrangement?
I fear that I have asked more than my fair share of questions. If I have sounded critical I have not sought to condemn outright. I hope, and indeed believe, that the noble Lord will accept that the information for which I have asked is relevant and that my objectives
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are much the same as his. It may well be that those who come to write the next Report on Defence Procurement and Aerospace will use with relish the quotation attributed to Gaius Petroneus. But in the meantime I can but offer best wishes for success to all those, from Ministers downwards, who will have the task of implementing these new arrangements.
4.3 p.m.
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, I hope that you will afford to me the generosity and kindness which in my short time in this House I have found that you give to newcomers. Twenty-one years ago the Commons were housed in this Chamber so that it was on this very spot 21 years ago that I made another maiden speech. I have done a little operational research and, although I have found that many emotions fade with age, nervousness is not one of them.
I apologise for speaking so soon after my introduction to your Lordships' House, but I feel that this debate is a very important one and one where I have had some experience: that is why I have sought to intervene. All my working career has been spent in the electronic industry where I did my apprenticeship, and I declare an interest to-day because I am still associated with that industry. The firms with which I have worked have been very deeply involved in Defence matters. So, wearing that hat, I have been at the receiving end. When I was a junior Minister at the Air Ministry—and under the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, at the Admiralty—I was at the transmitting end in that we were sending out orders. If there is a lesson to be learnt from both ends, it is that from the manufacturer's point of view you get much quicker and more rational decisions if there is no large "buffer state" between the customer, the Service Department and the manufacturer who is carrying out the order. Therefore, I welcome the fact that there is not to be a separate Ministry but that the procurement executive is to be set up within the Ministry of Defence. I think that will help the inter-face between the customer, the procurement executive and the manufacturer; and I hope that this will be worked on because these could quite easily become separate entities—industry, the procurement executive, the Ministry of Defence and the

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users. It must be a spectrum right through, with an interchange of ideas and, I hope, also of personnel.
I wanted to touch very briefly on three matters: first, on civil aviation; secondly, on the organisation of the international projects to which this country is now so deeply committed; and thirdly, on the philosophy of what I hope will be a new approach. On civil aviation there was a rumour that there would be a second report—I think that is an incorrect rumour—by Mr. Derek Rayner. If there is not to be a second report then some matters need clarification. As the noble Lord who has just spoken so clearly recognised, there may be times when the Ministry of Defence wishes to save money or time by buying overseas. This happened very obviously in his predecessor's time, when three promising British aircraft projects were cancelled, and United States aircraft bought involving an expenditure of £445 million in dollars on the Phantoms; £114 million in dollars on the Hercules, and £15 million in dollars on the F 111 and Chinouk cancellation charges.
I happen to think that that was not a right decisison, but here was a clash clearly between views of the Minister of Defence at the time, and the wellbeing of the United Kingdom aerospace industry; and no doubt the Treasury had a say on the expenditure of dollars. I hope that there will be no clash of interests as between military and civil aviation. The D.T.I. is responsible for the aerospace industry. Can we be sure that there will be co-ordination? Because clearly there will be no civil aviation industry if there is no military aviation industry. Unless we are buying some military aircraft in this country, we are not going to get any civil aircraft produced here economically or effectively.
I wonder whether the D.T.I. is not really getting rather large and a little overloaded. It seems to me that the link between the civil aviation authority (when it comes into being) and the D.T.I. was not very clearly explained: nor was there any indication in this report regarding the responsibility in civil aviation for forward thinking, for the initiating of operational requiremenis, the funding of research and development and for the necessary follow-up to procurement.
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I also notice that the Airworthiness Requirement Board, from its terms of reference, seems to exclude responsibility for the ground-to-air system, and increasingly your Lordships will know that it is the ground-to-air side which is so vital in the identification control and communication with civil aircraft. I was glad to hear the noble Lord who opened the debate say that there would not be a growth in staff. I hope that this will be very carefully watched, because there will be a tendency for the civil aviation portion of the D.T.I. to want to monitor the money which it is spending and also the projects which are being undertaken on its behalf. This is a natural development and it will have to be most carefully watched. My experience is that you get your way if you have money and mouths: money to spend in one's Ministry and mouths to speak in the Cabinet. I am delighted to think that under this new organisation we shall have the Minister for Trade and Industry, and my noble friend Lord Carrington, speaking for aerospace in the Cabinet. They will need two mouths to argue against the Treasury, who are not easily downed on any issues.
My Lords, I should now like to say a word about international projects and their organisation. I recognise, as I am sure everyone here does, that no Government can "disengage" from aerospace projects of the size of Concorde or of the multi-role combat aircraft. Government have to take a big interest and you have probably to team up with another nation in order to share R. and D. costs and also the market. When I review the international projects in aerospace I cannot help feeling that we have come off second best. On the Concorde France obtained the design leadership. On the Anglo-French V.G. France obtained the design leadership. On the Jaguar France got the design leadership. On the M.R.C.A. Germany got the design leadership. Here are four considerable projects, and you would think that perhaps our industry was small and less effective than the French or German industries. That is not the case; we are three times as big and I should think, nine times as experienced as the industries in those respective countries.
My Lords, there is a nice story about a pig and a hen who decided to enter a

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joint project for producing ham and eggs. The contract was signed, but it occurred to the pig after a little while that this was not very fair, as he would have to be slaughtered each time and the hen would just lay the eggs. So he approached the hen and said, "This is not a very fair arrangement"; to which the hen replied, with a chuckle, "In any joint venture one side always gets slaughtered." Reflecting on what is happening, I cannot help feeling that in these international projects we are building up the competitive know-how in aerospace and avionics in both Germany and also France, which cannot be entirely to the interest of this country. Although many able, bright and trained civil servants are going to the Procurement Executive I hope that my noble friend will remember that we have to try to match the exceptional French civil servants, with their polytechnic training and the exchanges they do with industry. We have to match them in competence and scientific training, if we are to get our way and stand our corner in these important projects.
Lastly, my Lords, I turn to the whole philosophy. The Government have said that disengagement from industry is their philosophy and their approach. I entirely support this. There are two sentences in the Rayner Report which I would commend to your Lordships. They appear in paragraph 27. The second sentence in that paragraph, which is on page 24, states:
"But it is vain to attempt to remedy suppliers' defects by carrying out tasks which properly belong to them such as quality assurance and detailed design supervision."
From the "receiving end" I wish to endorse that remark. There is one electronic company which a few years ago had no fewer than 140 resident Government inspectors; and although the total number of defence orders has been steadily reducing in recent years I could quote cases where the number of inspectors has in fact gone up against that reduction. I am afraid that here "empires" are being built, and I would ask my noble friend to look at this most carefully. Competent firms do their own inspection; competent firms do their own designs and modifications. They do not need to be supervised by an army of other people who take up the time of production and executive staff—and
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of course, add to the cost of the project to the Government.
The second sentence which I would commend to your Lordships is:
"The total price is what matters and low costs and high profits are a better national bargain than the reverse."
I hope that after ten years we shall have forgotten the Ferranti discussion and debate; the "Bloodhound" one, and also the Bristol Siddeley investigation. If we are going to get value for money, we must get quick decisions; we must get a feeling of partnership between the new Procurement Executive and the industry which is to try to carry out that work. I hope that we have passed through the phase where we monitored and controlled and tried to keep down profits, because unless British industry is profitable, we are not going to get the investment which is absolutely essential if we are to keep our industry both modern and also competitive. My Lords, I read that "disengagement" in one area is that there is to be less research and development done in Government establishments and rather more in industry. I hope that this comes about.
In this country we have a different approach to the United States of America, as I saw when I was a member of the Select Committee on Science and Technology and we paid a visit there. I thought the difference in approach there was startling. I talked to the Atomic Energy Commission, and they said that their slogan was that knowledge created with public money—that is, knowledge in Government research establishments—should be made public. This seems to me a wholly healthy philosophy. Of course, my Lords, the second "public" does not mean the public at large; it means that those with experience who could cash in on the knowledge and bring it to bear on their products and their exports should have the availability of that knowledge, and I hope that this philosophy may pervade our own defence research and development establishment in future. Finally, I just wish to congratulate Derek Rayner and his team on what I thought was an able, prompt and courageous report. I thank your Lordships very much for your courtesy and your kindness, and I hope that I may contribute a service to this House for many years.
4.16 p.m.
LORD KINGS NORTON: My Lords, I am delighted that the process that determines the order in which we speak in your Lordships' House allows me to be the first to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, on his admirable speech. The noble Lord adds great strength to the relatively small band of noble Lords with scientific and technical knowledge. He is a physicist and electrical engineer, and, as he demonstrated to-day, learned in matters aerospatial. All this, together with his political and ministerial history, means that his knowledge and experience are unusual in their breadth and I hope they will often be displayed in your Lordships' House.
There is not the slightest doubt that the White Paper is a most valuable document. While I cannot but be disturbed at certain aspects of it, I think it is a most persuasive one. I believe that at the present time carrying into effect the recommendations of the Rayner Report will mean a great improvement in our supply organisation. But I would describe this improvement as uneven, and the anxieties I have relate to how the organisation evolves in the longer term. I hesitate to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, but if I understood him correctly, he believes that this is in the nature of a final solution; I do not believe that it can be. Consequently, my Lords, in what I have to say I may appear to be a little critical of certain things in the Rayner Plan; and I should like the Government to understand that my remarks are intended to be nothing but constructive and that they relate mainly, though not exclusively, to administrative evolution. I hope that this evolution will be largely in the hands of the noble Lord. Lord Carrington.
As was indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, "procurement" is a long word. He said it means "buying"; I would put it a little broader than that. I think it means "getting". From the point of view of the Fighting Services getting what they want, the new organisation which will derive from the White Paper recommendations is absolutely splendid. Policy and procurement will be in the same department. One can imagine nothing more satisfactory, and one feels that the physical defences of
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this country will, for some time at least, be safer in consequence. There is not, however, the same intimacy between civil aerospace policy and the corresponding procurement. Policy and procurement will be in different Departments of State.
The noble Lord anticipated that some of us would say this, but as a connoisseur of management systems, I cannot resist the feeling that despite the proposals in the White Paper to overcome the disadvantage in which civil aviation will find itself, and which of course is recognised in the Rayner Report, even the high level Ministerial committee does not, in my view, restore the balance. I believe the balance in the short-term will be provided by people: by the two Secretaries of State of course, but also—and it is they I have particularly in mind—by the people in the industry and in the Government services who, under the less closely knit organisations of the past, have come to know one another and to understand how, and by what, the health of the industry is affected. We shall have the position in which an administrative imbalance is corrected by the skill and common sense of individuals. Front the point of view of management this is really the wrong way round. It is organisations which should be dispassionate in character, and which, by internal checks and controls, should minimise the bias of the individual. Here we have, perhaps inevitably in current circumstances, an organisation which I think has bias, and we shall be dependent upon unusually well-balanced and experienced individuals to make sure that that bias does not prove detrimental to the development of civil aviation. I have said that these individuals exist; but they are not young, they will soon disappear—I am not referring to the noble Lord; I am referring to the people who are already in the executive services—and there is no guarantee that their replacements will be from the same mould.
I am not really impressed by the solution of this difficulty, recognised by Mr. Rayner and his team, and outlined in paragraph 125. In other words, I should like to feel that, in the longer term, we depend upon a more symmetrical organisation than the one we are now going to have. The only alternative

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which I suppose could have been suggested was the revival of the Ministry of Supply, with the Defence interests and the civil interests standing in equal relation to it. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has made quite clear that, from the point of view of the Services, the defects discovered in the past in that arrangement are severe, and indeed, because that has been recognised by the Rayner Committee, they do not even mention it as a possible solution.
There is one aspect of the new organisation about which I should like to say a word, although it has already been mentioned both by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing. I feel it is a matter of such importance that it will bear another word or two. In the first place, whereas responsibility for Defence policy and procurement rests securely on the shoulders of the Secretary of State for Defence, responsibility for the aerospace industry is (in paragraph 5 (iii) on page 4) stated to be a responsibility of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I do not feel, my Lords, that this tremendous responsibility is spelled out in a sufficiently categorical way. In the summary of recommendations—and I quote—"policy responsibilities for the aerospace industry" are to pass to the Department of Trade and Industry. And in the very last paragraph of the main Report, by implication, the health of the industry—and I believe this is the first time in the document that the health of the industry is mentioned—is the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
This vital word "health" concerns me. It has been made clear already this afternoon that the responsibilities of the two Secretaries of State may at times lead them into incompatible positions, and the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has indicated here that the Ministerial Aerospace Board would resolve the incompatibilities. But I feel that it might not, and I should like to know whether it is correct to assume that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has the over-riding responsibility, ultimately perhaps the responsibility for sounding the alarm to the Cabinet, if he believes that the health of the industry is in danger.
We have in the past seen purchases of foreign equipment. Even when foreign
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equipment is clearly more advantageous militarily than what might be available at home, it might nevertheless be the incorrect national policy to make a foreign purchase, if it meant the running down or deprivation of our own industry. But am I right in assuming that it is the duty of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to ensure that, for the cause I have mentioned or for any other cause, the capacity of the industry to supply our civil and military needs in the foreseeable future is not endangered? I suggest, my Lords, that the Secretary of State for the Department of Trade and Industry should have this rather tremendous responsibility laid firmly on his shoulders, if indeed that is the intention. That he has it, as from May 1, can be deduced, but I regard the matter as of such importance that I think it should be the subject of a categorical statement.
Looking further ahead, I feel that the great strength of the Defence Department in controlling Defence policy and procurement will need some civil counterpart. I believe that one of the most impressive consequences of the proposals is that there will be created a most powerful permanent machine with a continuous Defence policy. There will need to be, I suggest, some powerful permanent organisation on the civil side, to do for civil aerospace development what the Service chiefs in communion will do for Service policy. We have in existence, as the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, has mentioned, the Transport Aircraft Requirements Committee, and, without denigrating the endeavours of a hardworking body which has been soldiering on for years, I suggest that we need a body of much greater power, whose recommendations will have the same weight as those on the Service side. It is a weight which would be felt most on the research and development organisations, and in the commissioning of civil prototypes. I should not like T.A.R.C., many of whose members are well-known to me, to feel that I am criticising them. My feeling is that not enough attention has been given to what they have done, and not enough action has been consequent upon their deliberations. I am asking, indeed, for a very powerful continuing policy body for civil aerospace, which is as vital to our future as military aerospace. It is difficult to avoid feeling that Governments have not, in recent years,

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sufficiently understood the vital importance of a strong civil section in our aviation industry. Where, indeed, are the civil prototypes to-day? The civil elements in our industry are already in peril, anal I believe the time for action is now.
I was impressed by the opening words of paragraph 16 of the White Paper; namely,
"Users are often dazzled by the range of possibilities of technology and realism is sometimes subordinated to desire."
I was grateful for the word "sometimes". My Lords, imagination and realism can walk hand-in-hand. Let us never forget that. To-day, realism is too often a synonym for the frustration of forward-looking enterprise. It is a word accountants use to deny imaginative engineers. If ever there was a "time for all good men" of imagination "to come to the aid of the party"—in this case the Conservative Party, my Lords—this is it. We cannot prosper on stagnant technology.
But, my Lords, the reason which influences me most in asking the Government to regard these new arrangements as effectively short-term arrangements, the reason why I am anxious that a flexible outlook be maintained over the whole aerospace policy field, the reason why some further rethinking not only of our administration, our organisations and our outlook will be necessary, is that the boundary between military defence and economic defence is disappearing. Our physical safety is, admittedly, dependent upon our military defences, but we shall not be able to pay for our military defences unless our economic defences are in good heart. Furthermore, it can be argued that our comfort and safety in the future are as much dependent, if not more dependent, upon our economic progress as upon our Army, our Navy and our Air Force.
The Government's responsibilities for our well-being clearly include both our economic defences and our military defences. While the present pattern of our national organisation makes it difficult and undesirable, if not impossible, at present to deal with these two sides of our defence in the same way, more and more taxpayers' money is involved in civil as well as in military enterprises. Moreover, the instruments of both tend to be the same, certainly in the field in
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which I have so long been interested—that of aviation or, as we would now say, aerospace. We can expect to find the same engine used in civil and military vehicles. We can expect to see a military vehicle developed from a civil one. We have indeed seen that happen in the last few years in the development of the Nimrod. We can expect to see experience in military aviation applied in the civil field. For example, while it is unlikely that we shall see a civil Harrier, what has been developed in the way of control of a vertical take-off machine on the Harrier will certainly be applicable to passenger-carrying vertical take-off aircraft.
The boundaries between the needs of military aviation and civil aviation are already blurred, and I find it difficult to believe that the system for policy development, control and procurement adumbrated in the White Paper can persist for very long. I feel that we must now fix our eyes on the middle distance. Governments must realise that for the future health and welfare of this nation, the development of civil aviation is as important as the development of military aviation, and that, in the end, there must be a symbiosis so achieved that what is one industry will be governed by what is one policy, not the reconciliation of two policies based on different outlooks.
4.32 p.m.
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, who followed the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, whose maiden speech I listened to with great respect, I should like to add my congratulations to those of the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, and express the hope that we shall tear the noble Lord again on many occasions, especially on these topics where his experience and wisdom can be brought to bear so effectively.
In rising to take note of the Defence White Paper I must first declare an interest. I am a director of the Joseph Lucas Group of Companies, one of the largest accessory manufacturers in the field of defence involving vehicles generally and of aerospace components in particular. Having declared that interest, may I express my admiration for the administrative and commercial realism and good sense embodied in the White

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Paper, the work of Mr. Rayner and his colleagues, and further congratulate the Government on their forthright acceptance of its principal recommendations, with the straight managerial line of command down to procurement, on the one side, and the assignment of civil aerospace commercial projects to the Ministry of Trade and Industry, where they belong, on the other. As I read the Paper, I found my pencil increasingly underlining and sidelining passages clearly aligned with the doctrines I have many times preached myself and commend, so far without very much success, to a succession of those having authority over these matters. I feel that if I were to read out all that I agree with, I should almost be committed to reciting the document as a whole, a thing at which the imagination boggles.
It must inevitably transpire that in the governance of human affairs, mistakes are made from time to time. On the occasions when mistakes are made, one learns from experience that they cannot be undone and that it is useless to job backwards. Sometimes a head must roll in ritual fashion but that is all that happens, if there is one mistake. It is otherwise when an almost endless sequence of decisions is regularly and wrongly taken, so that mistake follows mistake. The individuals involved in these are just as competent and honourable as any others one might postulate by way of replacement. It follows in such a case that there must be something badly wrong with the system, and the need to rectify it cannot be evaded. This need of rectification has at least been faced.
Two challenges face the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, following the Government's acceptance of Mr. Rayner's recommendations. One is the relatively minor challenge involved in implementing the recommendations which the Government have accepted and thereby making a new beginning with a new administrative machine. But a machine is still a machine; it is an impersonal thing which has to be driven. The second and much severer challenge to the noble Lord is to use the new beginning to undo the damage of the past and restore confidence between the parties to defence procurement and the launching of civil aircraft.
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One kind of damage cannot be undone, in the sense that money unwisely spent cannot be recovered. The other kind of damage, loss of confidence between the parties, can be, and I wish the noble Lord good fortune in restoring it. It is mainly to comment on this aspect of the matter that I turn accordingly.
I want to deal first with the history of many of these matters in order to defend the thesis that almost every major decision taken since, and inclusive of, the White Paper of 1957 has been wrong, the exceptions falling into a special class for a special reason which I will explain later. In the commercial sense, the decision to embark on the Concorde was almost certainly wrong. The money spent will never be recovered in its entirety at a commercial rate. However, having started it and got thus far, it would almost certainly be wrong to stop it now. Having spent so much that will be lost in any case if we wrote it off, it is the forward expenditure from now to completion that is the determinant of choice. We have to hold our course here, not because it is the right thing to do but for fear of French reaction to a default on our side.
Going back to the 1957 White Paper, one of its tragic consequences was that the variable geometry aircraft left the environment of Vickers, where Sir Barnes Wallis conceived it, and was tamely exported for development elsewhere. Years later we find ourselves playing a subordinate role in the development of the M.R.C.A., which we ought now to be selling to the world as a B.A.C. aircraft, had our know-how been allowed to accumulate here.
When the 1957 policy went into reverse, another series of mistakes was made. The 64,000 dollar question was not whether the TSR 2 was a good plane but whether such a plane was really wanted at all. If it was not, then it was wrong to start it, right to stop it and then doubly wrong to replace it with F 111s. But if it was wanted, then it was wrong to stop it when it was already flying and represented a revolutionary advance. The parallel concept that was being developed almost at the same time, the P 1154, was again the wrong project to have started. If you want a VTOL aircraft of revolutionary design, do not try to make it supersonic in the first generation. Having

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been stopped, the reduced subsonic version—I think it was called the P 1127—was redesigned by two brilliant and able men: Sir Sydney Camm of Hawker's and Dr. Stanley Hooker, originally of Rolls-Royce, then of Bristols, again of Rolls-Royce and now in retirement back at Rolls-Royce. And this has given us the Harrier, which bids fair to go from success to success and this brings me to my class of exceptions which I promised to recite to your Lordships.
The great planes in our aerospatial history have been those which industry knew how to make and proposed as viable projects to Government. There is a long and distinguished list of them: the Spitfire, the Hurricane, the Wellington, the Lancaster, the Mosquito, the Canberra, the Hunter, the Lightning and now the Harrier. Their development costs were in nearly all cases modest. The major mistakes have all been associated with a policy of refusing to authorise projects without operational specification. The result is to over-specify in committee what is ideally requisite and to end with something so near to the verge of the impossible that it has to be abandoned at the point where costs rise beyond what is supportable. This is what we have to get away from.
None of our commercial air-liner designs have sold well, with the honourable exception of the Viscount, again falling into the pattern of what industry knew it could make for a modest cost in development. Only 114 Comets were sold, against 266 Caravelles. Yet we were the pioneers. Of our other products in the civil and military industry, the Britannias, Tridents, Vanguards, BAC ‱11s and VC 10s, only one of them, the BAC 1‱11, sold more than 100. One reason for this is that we permanently indulge our national failing of trying to do too many things—not necessarily too much, but too many things—spreading too little butter over too much bread. It is pathetic to look at the list of planes set out in the Plowden Report of 1965 that have gone out of production or service, or both, only five years later. Twenty-five planes therein mentioned have gone out of production or service, or both, since then. Of these 18 sold less than 100 each. If you compare the
1106
British and United States aircraft industry in respect of production of planes per £1 of turnover in the industry, we have been engaged on programmes committing us to three times as many individual designs per £1 of turnover as the United States. We are permanently trying to develop too many individual designs. We are failing to effect a significant concentration.
A typical example of trying to do too many things is represented by the endless committee discussions on a maritime reconnaissance plane to replace the Shackleton. The number required could never have made it economical, on a cost effective analysis, to develop a new plane of advanced design from scratch. Well, my Lords, the mountain groaned and finally gave birth to a mouse, in the research and development sense. Retrofitted second-hand Comets were adapted to the purpose of replacing the Shackle-ton and are, I believe, proving entirely satisfactory. This is perhaps a rare example of getting the answer right.
How has this state of affairs come about? In my opinion it has arisen out of a syndrome of mutual suspicion and distrust among the parties concerned with decision: the Government, the Defence chiefs, their scientific and technical advisers, the Treasury, the industry and the airline operators. Everyone distrusts everyone else. Wrong decisions are taken in consequence, and this increases the mutual suspicion. Here I must say something, with great respect to noble Lords on the Government Front Bench. Everyone distrusts every Government, because Governments are transient epiphenomenon extruded by our Parliamentary democracy on a time-scale that is short compared to that of the time-scale involved in a major aerospace project. The Concorde started under the Government of Mr. Macmillan, continued under that of Sir Alec Douglas-Home, pursued its way under the first and second Governments of Mr. Wilson, and survives under that of Mr. Heath. When and if it goes into commercial service the electoral term of this Parliament will be at an end, and who knows who will be in charge of the project then? It has been held on an unswerving course, as I have said, only through fear of French action

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were we to become in breach of our contract with them.
Because everyone distrusts every government, everyone is in an unconscious conspiracy to get the Government into a corner where they must support what everyone wants but possibly nobody needs. So the Government distrusts everyone in turn, and with good reason. Its defence chiefs and scientific advisers are suspected of enthusiasm for new aircraft much as small boys are enthusiastic for railway trains and racing cars. Those of its advisers who deal with the industry are suspected of being over-involved emotionally with its welfare and prosperity. Industry is felt to be living off the taxpayer in what Mr. Davis, in another place, called "a lame duck's" paradise. Even the Treasury, with overall responsibility for Governmental solvency (the only body of men dedicated to the proposition that the Government should spend less and not more: without them we should all be ruined, because everybody else wants to see the Government spend more, not less, provided it is their pet projects) is suspected of getting the answer wrong, and saying "No" when it should be "Yes", and "Yes" when it should be "No".
The industry has unwisely, in my opinion, tried to keep itself going at a level beyond what the nation could afford by the expedient of over-selling itself to the Government, and created distrust in itself accordingly. The airline operators, being nationalised bodies, are concerned with meeting their financial targets. The Government are reluctant to take decisions out of their hands, for fear of acquiring detailed responsibility for running them if they interfere with the executive authority of those who are responsible for their prosperity. Thus do you get the sort of situation in which the Government would not provide launching air for the VC.10s. unless the airline operators would buy them; and the airline operators would not buy them except on a tight specification exclusively acceptable to themselves, but not necessarily anybody else. So that the potentiality of a great plane in the international market was spoilt thereby.
Too many cooks, my Lords, spoil the broth. Yet even so, so good a plane
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was it that there was always a queue for seats in a VC.10, while the Boeings and Douglasses were crossing the Atlantic with empty seats, a psychological factor which everyone underestimated. Somehow the over-all interests of Britain never succeeded in making themselves felt. Having spent a period in Japan on a mission for O.E.C.D., studying relations between government, universities and industry, I realise that in Japan they seem te secret of optimising the interests of their country as opposed to the interests of some administrative department. I am not crying "stinking fish" and saying that we do everything wrong in this country. We do great things. I am preaching the doctrine that too many cooks spoil the broth. The Trident was conceived on too small a scale. Rolls tried to sell engines to the European air-bus project on too large a scale, lost the sympathy of their associates, and took on the disastrous TriStar project with results that make us only too sad to contemplate.
How, my Lords, can the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, restore this deplorable state of affairs? First, the Government must do what no other Government have done, and face the fact that every country with an aerospace industry subsidises it by one means or another. The subsidies may be direct or concealed, or absorbed into defence procurement, but they are always there. If we are to have an aerospace industry at all the Government must be ready to compete with other Governments in order to have one. In the absence of any willingness on the Government side to compete with other governments, it is useless to preach competition with other industries on the industrial side. The kind of amiable hope expressed in the Plowden Report that there is no ground for supposing that, given suitable conditions, the aerospace industry cannot be as commercially competitive as any other industry, is just a non-starter.
Secondly, the Government must decide on what scale they will compete year in and year out, and stand no nonsense with respect to the industry being cut back to the scale which this implies. The Plowden Report recommended a cutback, but nothing happened. Something has got to happen. You only have to

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look at market research reports of what we will be selling in 1980, based on what we have got to sell, to realise that the industry is in a bad way. As I say, something has got to happen. The scale must be what there is a reasonable prospect of a successor Government confirming. You cannot run an industry dependent so highly on government procurement by subordinating its stability to the expansionist and contractionist policies of anything so transient as Governments.
LORD BESWICK: May I intervene at this point? I have been following with great interest what the noble Earl has said. I agree with most of his conclusions, though not with all his facts. Can he point out to me the paragraph in this White Paper that suggests that all the mistakes of the past are going to be avoided in the future?
THE EARL OF HALSBURY: I am trying to outline the challenges which the noble Lord must face in order to do that, and in order to harden him in facing those challenges. Thirdly, the level of year in, year out support must be stabilised by a willingness to place contracts for building bricks with many fewer major projects being embarked on over any given space of time, projects confined to what industry knows how to make—and this is the key to the whole thing—following maintenance over the years of a building brick policy. This again is in the Plowden Report, but it has not been vigorously implemented. The major projects when they mature will hen be economically successful.
Fourthly, we must reinforce success by concentrating on What we are good at. It is no good trying to do everything under the sun because somebody else has had a shot at it. This naturally raises one of the matters that we are best at, commonly called avionics. This is something in which the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing is concerned. One can regard it as a separate subject in its own right, or possibly classify it, with accessories, as the largest of them all. It is perhaps better to think of it in its own right.
Here Britain leads the world in advanced navigation and blind-aid landing systems. We have got to stand on our successes and go forward vigorously from where we now are. After all, radar
1110
effectively started in this country, just as jet engines did. It would therefore be entirely comformable to my philosophy to concentrate effort on these, since they are what we are good at. The same applies to the whole wide field of accessories. For many years the whole of the world's jet engines flew on British fuel systems. To specify this in more detail would take me further into the field where I have declared an interest than I would wish to go this afternoon.
My Lords, these are the challenges facing the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, at this point in time. The key to the whole complex set of them is a restoration of confidence between parties who must ultimately be regarded as buyers and sellers. I think he is fortunate in acquiring the services of Mr. Rayner, whose commercial background has been with a firm who were the pioneers in promoting trust between buyer and seller. If the noble Lord and his collaborators cannot accomplish what I have recommended, then I can think of no alternative team better able to do so. I am bereft of ideas, and we shall indeed be in a parlous way. I would therefore wish the Government, the noble Lord and his colleagues well in the very important task that lies ahead of them.
4.52 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, here we are again in your Lordships' House debating perhaps the most formidable and important document on the subject of defence and aerospace procurement ever submitted by any Government in this century. In the process we are concentrating not essentially on the subject to which our attention is directed in the White Paper before us, and in the characteristic speech of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, but on the subject of aerospace. There may be all the justification in the world for criticism of the White Paper in relation to the proposal it embodies on that particular aspect of the subject. I should have thought that when we were considering what I might describe as the solar plexus of our Defence organisation, administration and capability, noble Lords engaged in the debate might have given that aspect of the subject rather more attention. Moreover, we are debating this formidable document in wide open spaces. With the greatest respect, if we had been debating

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pornography the Benches would have been filled almost to overflowing. But this, after all, is just a matter of our Defence organisation. Indeed, some few moments before I ventured to rise and address your Lordships far fewer noble Lords were present.
When I procured the White Paper was not aware that a debate would emerge. I discovered it rather too late and therefore apologise for failing to intimate my intention to take part in this discussion. In the circumstances I will not seek to detain your Lordships at any length, more particularly because there is to be a subsequent debate on a subject perhaps less important than the one under review, but, nevertheless, of interest to the United Kingdom and, indeed, to the Continent of Europe.
This subject of Defence procurement, of research and development into the type of weapons required for the purposes of defending the United Kingdom, and perhaps the Commonwealth, against possible aggression, has baffled all senior Ministers representing Service Departments in my time, and every Minister of Defence since the first appointment was made in 1946. I wonder how many of your Lordships present or, indeed, in your Lordships' House, have been engaged in discussion at a Cabinet meeting, either as a Service Minister representing the Army or the Navy. I must transpose those terms; I must remind your Lordships that the Navy comes first—the Senior Service. It is the Navy, the Army or the Air Force. I wonder how many noble Lords have been engaged in discussion at a Cabinet meeting in such a capacity with the Chancellor of the Exchequer present when the question of additional weapons was under review and when obviously the co-related question of finance was under consideration and, indeed, could not possibly be ignored.
Have your Lordships considered, when engaged in such discussions, either in a Cabinet or in a Service Department, the vested interests which are operating? May I relate a personal experience. I made the acquaintance of this subject forty-one years ago as Parliamentary and Financial Secretary at the War Office. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff was Sir George Milne, who subsequently became Lord Milne. He occupied the
1112
office for a longer term than any other Chief of the Imperial General Staff. He made a request that a Committee should be formed to consider the cost of the repair and maintenance of mechanically propelled vehicles. This arose some years after the war. The tanks had come into review, so had armoured carriers and all kinds of vehicles of various descriptions which were located in various Army depots and Naval establishments. The Air Force at that time was not as prominent as it became later.
I was asked, as a junior Minister, to form a Committee. I replied that a Committee would be of no value, but inquiries might be instituted. My first task was to ask two of the representatives in the War Office, both lieutenant-colonels, one the Master General of the Ordnance, and the other the General responsible for the Royal Army Service Corps, to come and speak to me. They were both concerned with a great variety of vehicles and their repair and maintenance—also, obviously, their cost. They would speak to me but would hardly speak to each other. The very notion of intervention, of interference in their affairs, was resented. That has happened throughout the whole time when we have been considering the re-orientation of our Defence organization, particularly in the sphere of the research, development and procurement of the necessary weapons.
It has been suggested—the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, has suggested it, based on the White Paper that this might be a lasting solution. Indeed, that term, "a lasting solution", is used in the White Paper. With great respect, there are no lasting solutions in defence itself, in the manpower associated with defence, in the procurement of essential weapons for defence or in the policy associated with defence. They are all subject to international changes and the international atmosphere; to tension here and there—and nowadays almost everywhere. No. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, that this is not a final solution. Nevertheless, I accept it, for what it is worth, as a reasonable approach to a solution and a very necessary approach to a solution. Some criticism has occasionally been levelled (it has not been apparent in the course of this short debate) at the last Labour Government because of their

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defence operations, their omissions and commissions. But one thing can rightly be said: that, despite all the criticism levelled at Mr. Denis Healey, he made a valiant and gallant effort to produce a unified organisation. When I myself was Minister of Defence, many years ago, it was impossible. We had a Defence Council, the nominal Defence Council, of which the Minister of Defence was a member, and our own Defence Committee which met regularly and comprised representatives from all the Service Departments, even junior Ministers, to discuss all kinds of topics related to the three Services. There was co-operation, but no unification; no co-ordination of any sort or kind. Between 1951 and 1963 Conservative Governments had nine Ministers of Defence and had no opportunity of facing up to the problem. I venture to say to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, and to your Lordships, that if you have Ministers of Defend—or Secretaries of State for Defence, as they are now described—who are passengers, fly-by-nights, here to-day and gone tomorrow, transferred from one Department to another either because of incompetence or because of ambition and favour, you will find not only no lasting solution but not even a temporary solution. It is very important for a Minister to be concentrating on his task and he must have the appropriate personnel to assist him.
It is not my intention, as I have remarked, to make anything in the nature of a long speech—it is too important a topic—but in parenthesis I would say this. First, I would congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, on his excellent speech. He and I were colleagues in the other place and he always made excellent speeches—with nearly all of which I disagreed. It is possible to recognise a good speech even if one finds oneself in complete disagreement with it. The noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, will recall that many times in the other place (and possibly it may have happened in your Lordships' House before I ventured to come here) it was suggested that a Select Committee on Defence should be created. Would your Lordships who have listened to this debate not agree, and would those who have perused the White Paper not agree, that this is not the kind of subject that
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can be discussed methodically, meticulously and with the care it demands and deserves as a result of a debate of this character? It requires Committee treatment, careful treatment. We have heard excellent speeches, if I may say so with-cut any appearance of condescension, but speeches not related to what is, after all, the main element contained in this White Paper.
My Lords, what is to be done about it? I venture, with great respect, to offer to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, a word of advice. I congratulate him on being Secretary for Defence, but I offer him a measure of sympathy because of the task assigned to him. He will require to be even more ruthless and determined and forthright than he is sometimes alleged to be, because he will still have to contend with vested interests, despite the creation of various Controllers—some of then mentioned in the White Paper for no reason that I can understand. For example, there is to be one Controller who is a Policy Controller. I venture to say to the noble Lord that policy must be vested in the Minister, in consultation with the members of the Cabinet and with the Government as a whole. Policy cannot be left to a subordinate of the Minister himself. Policy must be concentrated, fully vested in the Minister; that is to say, the nature of defence: whether defence is required at all; whether we can afford defence; whether we ought to spend more on defence. All this is policy. It is not a matter even for the Chief Executive.
I welcome the appointment of Mr. Rayner. We were informed by the noble Lord only this afternoon about Mr. Rayner's appointment as Chief Executive. I was not aware of it—perhaps I had an earlier White Paper. I marked my Whine Paper, and I actually put clown, "Is the Chief Executive going to be a civil servant?" and I marked it in the negative. I wondered whether he was going to be one of the military gentlemen. I marked that in the negative, because I thought it advisable to have somebody with business experience, somebody who has been acquainted with industry on a large scale. But there was no reference, in the White Paper that I read, to Mr. Rayner's having been appointed Chief Executive. I am very glad that he has been appointed. Nevertheless, policy

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must not be vested in the Chief Executive or any of his subordinates; it must be vested primarily, fundamentally and fully in the Minister himself.
I welcome the White Paper. I was myself baffled as a Service Minister and as a Minister of Defence when we had a Ministry of Supply—and let it not be forgotten that in the last war we not only had a Ministry of Supply but had a Ministry of Aircraft Production, under Lord Beaverbrook for some time, until he transferred his affections elsewhere. Far too many Departments have been set up with innumerable civil servants cluttering up the decks. if this White Paper leads to unification, operating on perhaps a smaller scale but streamlined and with the direct objective of unification so far as that is practicable, then the White Paper, when implemented, is going to be worth while.
Finally, my Lords, I say this. I am sure the Minister will have the support of every Member of your Lordships' House who is concerned about the defence of our country, who recognises the almost desperate situation in which this country finds itself with the disparity in defence weapons as between the Soviet Union and a country like ours, and at a time when even the United States of America cannot claim superiority over the Soviet Union so far as modern weapons are concerned. This is the situation in which we find ourselves, and we must give every possible support if we believe in the need for defence. It is not so much a matter that one must have manpower, vehicles and all the rest: the essential research and development is of the highest importance, and it must be concentrated in fewer hands, with policies directed from above and with loyalty, devotion and hard work below.
5.11 p.m.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I very much share the regret expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, that there were not more of your Lordships present to listen to this debate. But it is vain to say that to those who are here. It is rather like the parson on Sunday morning who blames those who are in church for those who are not. But I think it true to say that if more of your Lordships had been here they would have
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found that this is not a dull subject, and they would certainly not have found the speeches this afternoon dull. In fact I do not think I have heard a better short debate in your Lordships' House for a very long time. Certainly I and my Department, and I know the Department of Trade and Industry, will look at this debate carefully in order to see what lessons there are to be learned from the speeches which your Lordships have made
Before I go on to answer some of the questions that were put to me I should like to join with other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Orr-Ewing on his maiden speech. I am particularly glad to do so because he is a very old friend of mine. He and I were at the Admiralty together for a great many years, and I know of the expertise that he has in these particular directions and subjects. It is true that sometimes when we discussed procurement and equipment at the Admiralty he and I disagreed about things. Looking back on it, I am ashamed to say that he was more often right than I was. It will be very useful to your Lordships that he should have joined the rather small band of those who were properly educated and who understand these matters, unlike those (such as myself) who were educated in a rather different way and whose only qualification to speak about these matters is that it happens to be their job at the present time. The noble Lord will be a great asset to the Benches on which I sit, but he will also be a great asset to the whole House; and I congratulate him most warmly on his speech.
He asked me about collaborative projects and instanced one or two cases where he thought we had not had quite such a good bargain as the others with whom we were collaborating. Without wishing to comment on that, all I would say is that of course one must watch these matters carefully and see that in any collaborative projects we get our fair shares, as I hope we have done in the past. But the noble Lord will remember that there has been, in a sense—and we are talking about aircraft collaborative projects—rather a distortion of sharing because of the fact that we are the only country which has had an aeroengine industry, and therefore all the collaborative projects have necessarily

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had more or less to be engined by Rolls-Royce. I think this has distorted to some extent the allocation of responsibility for the airframe and the avionics; but certainly I agree with him that we must watch this situation. I was horrified at what the noble Lord had to say about quality inspectors and how the orders were getting fewer and the quality inspectors were increasing. I think it is points like this that have to be watched. I am quite certain that Mr. Rayner, who is ideally suited to inquire into this kind of thing, will bear that in mind.
Generally speaking, I think it would be true to say that your Lordships have, on the whole, blessed this reorganisation. Certainly you have blessed the defence side of it, though there have been some misgivings about the civil aviation and aerospace side. These misgivings were expressed most forcefully by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, in his speech—and I thank him for what he said about me —but his main concern was that in the arrangements for aerospace there might be a divorce between policy and execution and a subordination of civil interests to defence interests. I think that that is what he said, putting it in a nutshell. Of course it is sometimes said—and sometimes it is true—that the only efficient business is a business which is run by one man. But the sort of business that we are talking about this afternoon is a very special, very complicated and very expensive business. I suppose we could have put civil aerospace under the Ministry of Defence. This was certainly an alternative but it would have made my job, which is already large enough, very much larger and would have produced the very subordination to defence which the noble Lord is worried about, and I think in a more acute form than he would assert it is under the proposed scheme.
Alternatively, it would have been possible at any rate to consider giving my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry the means of executing civil projects, but that would have meant that one would have had to duplicate expensive facilities. For example, it is quite out of the question to have two Royal Aircraft Establishments, one at Farnborough and one somewhere else. It would have been enormously expensive and impossible to
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do. I do not believe that one can carve up these establishments in that way. There is no sensible way of splitting them. I am not in any sense criticising the noble Lord in his feelings about this issue, because it is the one that has proved, on all the occasions on which we have discussed the organisation of procurement, to be the most difficult.
Taking all these difficulties into consideration I feel that we have settled for the right organisation in this case. It provides for formal consultation between the two Departments, at both Ministerial and official level. In addition, there will be the closest day-to-day contact at working level. This will be absolutely essential, and I agree with what the noble Lord has said: that it will be essential that t lose officials in the Ministry or in the Department of Trade and Industry should work closely with those in my Department who are concerned with procurement and aviation. Otherwise, I do not see how this can possibly happen.
As the noble Lord will have read in the Rayner Report, there must be a right of access by those officials in the Department of Trade and Industry to those in the Ministry of Defence. The execution of the projects will be entrusted to the new procurement organisation, but in the case of civil projects the decisions about whether or not there is going to be a new project will be made by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. He will decide whether to give launching aid (and I think that was the question that the noble Lord asked me) to a civil project, and it is I who will decide whether a new military aircraft is to be produced; and we shall consider together whether it should be produced by the British aerospace industry or abroad.
In his interesting speech the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, wanted to know which of the two of us, in the case of a dispute, was the senior. The answer is, neither of us. The Aerospace Board, on which we both sit, will be there to resolve the differences between us, if differences there be; but if they are not resolved then they will, obviously, have to go to the Cabinet and be resolved by the whole Cabinet. I do not myself see that that will present much difficulty, because I do not believe there will be many occasions when defence and civilian

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interests are directly opposed one to the other.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, may I just put one further point to the noble Lord? He has just answered one of my questions and has said that the Department of Trade and Industry will be responsible for deciding whether there is to be a civil project. Is he going on to reconcile that with the paragraph which says that it would be the Ministerial Aerospace Board which would be the authority for any instructions to the procurement organisation?
LORD CARRINGTON: Authority in the sense that they will, if necessary, have to supervise the project. In the context that the civil servants and officials and scientists will be Ministry of Defence people, they will be responsible to me as Secretary of State for Defence, but the project will belong to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. If any difficulties arise, there will have to be co-ordination at the top with the Aerospace Board. It is up to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to make the decision whether any particular civil project will go forward, and he will do so on the advice of his officials, and the advice of those experts who work in my Department.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, if, with all the information at his disposal, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry decides that some policy should be put into operation, does he send instructions directly to the procurement organisation in the Ministry of Defence, by-passing the Ministerial Aerospace Board?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, it is up to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to make a decision as to whether the project is to go ahead. It is not part of my business if it is a civil project. If, in the opinion of the Ministry of Defence Procurement executive, as a result of doing that, as a result of the manufacture or the research and development necessary, this would impinge on the Defence programme, obviously the Aerospace Board would have to discuss it and decide which was to have precedence and whether or not there is a difference of opinion sufficient to go to the Cabinet. I think all this will work out far more
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easily than the noble Lord supposes. This is at the moment in its infancy, but this is the intention.
The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, incidentally asked me about the Transport Aircraft Requirements Committee. So I think did the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury. That now passes to the Department of Trade and Industry, but, of course, the official representation will have to include people from the Ministry of Defence. But this is obviously an opportunity to review the working of this body. At the same time, I have absolutely no doubt, in common with the two noble Lords, that some body of this kind is necessary; whether it is exactly the same body I do not know, but it seems to me obvious that some body of this kind will have to continue.
The noble Lord, Lord Beswick, asked whether the Concorde project was to be the pattern for future projects in this field. No, indeed not. The only reason why the Concorde project is removed totally from the Procurement Executive is that it has got so far down the line, as the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury so graphically put to us, that it is in a class by itself, and it would be quite impossible now to divorce it and change it from what it now is. It was thought better in that case that it should go totally to the Department of Trade and Industry. Any future project of that kind would be managed by the Procurement Executive. The Concorde decision is not meant to be a precedent. I would like to look at the question of streamlining procedures. This is an interesting suggestion, and I think there may be good scope here for making things easier. The noble Lord also asked about Rolls-Royce. Rolls-Royce now belonging, as it does, to the Government, relationships with the management are now the business of the Department of Trade and Industry and not of the procurement executive. But of course the technical expertise about engines, the technical people who will liaise with Roils-Royce, will remain in the Procurement Executive.
The noble Lord also asked about the dockyards. They do not come into this procurement organisation at all, because they are not procurement. The dockyards, broadly speaking, merely provide a service to the Royal Navy, and will come under the Fleet support organisation and not

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under the organisation of the Controller of the Navy. I think probably the noble Lord asked me a number of other questions, but I would like, if I may, to read his speech, and if possible answer his questions on paper, because I have not got them all down accurately. I think I have answered the main ones.
I think I have answered generally the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Kings Norton, except to say one thing, which the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell also mentioned, and that is that they rather took me to task for suggesting we had found a final solution. I do not want to imply that this is a final solution down to every last detail; of course it is not. In fact, what we have accented is the skeleton which was provided by the Rayner Report, and now Mr. Rayner, and we have got to clothe it with flesh. But I do believe that by concentrating procurement in a single organisation, in the interests of efficiency, within the Ministry of Defence, we shall prove that this is the right solution for defence procurement, and I myself have no doubt that in the time in which this Government will be in office, or I will be Secretary of State for Defence, we shall make this procurement organisation work, and shall show to your Lordships that it works; and no Government in the future will wish to upset something that is successful.
I very much hope that this is so, and I intend to make it so, because I think there has been far too much movement and, not muddle but uncertainty, in the staffs of what was once the Ministry of Supply, the Ministry of Aviation, the Ministry of Technology, the Ministry of Aviation Supply and the rest. I think it is important that these very skilled and devoted civil servants and scientists, who are now in the Ministry of Defence, should realise that so far as they are concerned this is the right solution, and we are going to make it work, and they should have some certainty about where they stand in regard to their future careers.
I would not like to swear that this is the lasting solution for civil aviation. I think it is, because I think it is the sensible one. But here again we have got to prove that it works, and I feel sure that can be clone. I was, as I think all your Lordships were, absolutely cap
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tivated by the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, and I felt that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and I were agreeing with him about the disasters which we appear to have endured over the last 20 years rather more than it was wise that we should; no doubt some are his Government's fault and some mine. But of one thing I am quite sure, that we should study that speech with great care, because it had a great deal of wisdom in it. I only had one slight hesitation about it; it was when the noble Earl said that he felt we should not worry too much—I cannot remember the exact words—about having an operational requirement for an aircraft or a niece of sophisticated equipment, because if we did it would never get right, if would be too complicated, and we would never get the opportunity of getting it; it is much better to have something you find is good. If I have paraphrased him badly I must apologise. But it did fill me with alarm, because it seemed to be a licence for large numbers of people to build all sorts of things on the off-chance that they might be useful but no prospect that they would be needed by anybody in the Services. I hope he did not mean what I interpreted him as meaning. At any rate, I shall look at the rest of his speech with great care.
I do not think I can end better than by repeating what he himself said. He said that he hoped very much that the Government would use the new beginnings, which are now possible as a result of this new organisation, to remedy some of the organisational mistakes, of the past. This is indeed what we intend to do, and I am greatly heartened by the support your Lordships have shown in this short debate for the new organisation, and by the kind things you have said and the good wishes you have given to those of us who are trying to put it into effect.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

DRIVERS' HOURS (PASSENGER AND GOODS VEHICLES) (MODIFICATIONS) ORDER 1971
5.30 p.m.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON rose to move, That the Draft Drivers' Hours (Passenger and Goods Vehicles) (Modifications) Order 1971, laid before the House on April 8, be approved. The noble Lord said: This Order is made by my right honourable friend in exercise of his powers under Sections 96(12), 101 and 157 of the Transport Act 1968. For drivers of goods vehicles it extends certain exemptions already available under the Act and under the Drivers' Hours (Goods Vehicles) (Modifications) Order 1970 to drivers of goods vehicles used for additional types of work. The House may remember that the 1968 Act imposed a number of new restrictions on drivers' hours. These hours were already controlled under the Road Traffic Act 1930 as consolidated in 1960 Rules were laid down by Statute defining in minute detail what was, and what was not, permissible. It was widely predicted at that time that these rules would be unworkable; and the new legislation finally came into force with a mass of exemptions and modifications.
My Lords, in practice these rules did not work. This is an industry where wage costs account for some 70 per cent. of total costs, and inflation has hit it hard. Last year the effect on the biggest single operator, the National Bus Company, was to make it lose £4 million. This was partly due to widespread industrial action and falling traffic, but the restriction on drivers' hours was estimated to be a very important factor in this set up. Traffic must be carried as and when it arises, and if, from Monday to Friday, the public needs its buses chiefly in the morning and evening rush hours, then staff need to be available at those hours. If at weekends the public likes to make an excursion by coach, it may be the stage bus driver on Monday to Friday who will drive the coach. Different rules for buses and coaches are scarcely the best thing for the driver and company concerned. Tight new regulations could in fact have only one outcome, which they have duly had: a
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reduction in service. We have all heard questions put to myself and other noble Lords in debates on this point on the reduction of bus services, and lack of amenity for people in rural areas.
Perhaps I might give the House some figures. To allow for an increased shortage of drivers resulting from the new provisions, a sample of 51 undertakings made a planned reduction in their stage services of some 540,000 miles per week. By July of last year they were losing a further 460,000 miles per week unplanned, because no driver was available. They were also losing 420,000 miles a week on excursions, tours, school contracts and private party work. All told, this represented about 6 per cent. of their corresponding mileage in the previous year, far more than the marginal annual reduction attributable to the inroads of the private car. In one week last July, 47 per cent. of the scheduled mileage lost was in the peak travelling periods, and many companies estimated their loss of excursion traffic at more than 50 per cent. Departmental files bear eloquent testimony to what lost mileage means in terms of the bus that never came, loss of time at work, children late home from school and, as your Lordships have often mentioned, elderly folk bereft of their only means of transport. The drivers, too, have had new worries. A voluntary extra turn may run foul of the law. Drivers have also suffered because operators, from a sense of public duty, have concentrated on keeping stage services running at the expense of private party and excursion work, which has always appealed to the bus driver as a pleasant variation in his daily work.
My Lords, such stringent provisions could only be justified if the dictates of safety or industrial welfare warranted them. As for safety, let me say at once that there has been no significant variation in the figures for injury accidents involving public service vehicles between 1969 and 1970. Let me also say that research into drivers' behaviour, both here and abroad, has failed to demonstrate any correlation of length of driving time and accidents, or changes of behaviour liable to lead to accidents. As for industrial welfare, it is not the function of legislation, or this Order, to supplant normal collective bargaining about conditions of service.
I should make it absolutely plain that the Order before us in no way derogates from the right of workers in the bus industry to negotiate with their employers as they have previously done. What the Government propose is to relax and simplify provisions affecting drivers' hours in the interests of the travelling public and the industry itself. We believe that the chief instruments of control should be driving time and rest time, that hours of duty, as such, are in the main better left to industrial agreement. What we can do by way of new regulations is, of course, handicapped by the complicated provisions in the 1968 Act from which we have to work, but it is our firm intention to work toward a simplification of the basic provisions when an opportunity becomes available for primary legislation. We have also done what we can to simplify matters by preparing an explanatory leaflet for this Order, which it is intended to circulate very widely among operators and drivers. Copies of the draft leaflet are available in the Printed Paper Office.
I come now to the Order itself. In doing so, I would emphasise that nothing within it alters the daily limit of driving time. This remains at 10 hours per day, as prescribed in the 1968 Act. Part I of the Order is formal. Part II deals with drivers of passenger vehicles. Article 3 of Part II revokes the Drivers' Hours (Passenger Vehicle) (Modifications) Order 1970. Article 4, paragraph (1) defines the drivers to whom this part of the Order applies. These are drivers who spend all or the greater part of their relevant driving time driving passenger vehicles. No distinction is now made between drivers of stage buses and others. This is an important simplification.
Paragraph (2) of Article 4 prescribes the maximum period of driving (51 hours) permissible without a rest break of at least half an hour. It also provides that a driver may work a "straight through shift" of 82 hours provided that he has rest breaks during that time amounting to at least 45 minutes. A driver will now be able to undertake another spell of driving within his daily limit of 10 hours after completing a "straight through shift" and taking a rest break of at least 30 minutes which must follow it. This will help the Industry
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in covering peak hours and late journeys for which there may at present be no driver available.
Paragraph (3) of Article 4 extends the working day to 16 hours. The purpose of this is to allow flexibility for manning the early morning peaks and the late evening services. It is also of value in facilitating extended tours and long day excursions, which were unduly cramped under the previous rules. It must be clearly understood that the 10-hour limit on driving still applies and that the nightly rest requirement effectively rules out any danger of working 16 hours day in day out.
Paragraph (4) prescribes a daily rest between working days of at least 10 hours, which may be reduced to 8½hours on 3 days a week. The 8½hour rest period is no novelty; it was allowed to bus drivers by the March 1970 Order, but it had to be followed on each occasion by a 12-hour rest. This rigid alternation of 8½hour rest and 12-hour rest occasioned great difficulty for operators and was the cause of many a bus in the early morning peak hours being unmanned. In this Order we are substituting a more flexible provision which will remove one of the main causes of irregular running during the morning peaks and the nonappearance of evening buses.
Paragraph (5) removes the limit on duty hours for the week subject to the conditions which I have mentioned. Paragraph (6) provides that a driver must have at leas, one continous period of 24 hours off duty in every two successive weeks, but without the previous requirement for the 24 hour period to comprise a full day. Paragraph (7) provides certain exemptions for part-time drivers. The complexity of this paragraph is, I am afraid, due to the wording of the original Act. Essentially, however, it means that people whose driving time exceeds four hours a day on not more than two days a week are required to comply with requirements affecting drivers' hours only in respect of those days. Those who drive for less than 4 hours a day are exempt already. This concession should facilitate the use of part-time drivers from among other employees of the operator rather than having to recruit them from outside. Paragraph (8) is a consequential provision.
I come now to Part III of the Order. This provides for minor concessions for goods vehicle drivers engaged in cinematography, radio or television broadcasting, and quarrying work. A general exemption from all but the daily 10-hour driving limit was provided by the Drivers' Hours (Goods Vehicles) (Modifications) Order 1970 for persons driving light goods vehicles for certain specialised purposes not including the general carriage of goods; for example, doctors, nurses or fitters who use a small van or estate car for their work. Article 5(a) of Part III extends the 1970 Order to cover film operations and broadcasting staff.
The 1970 Order also extended to drivers engaged in building, construction and civil engineering work an exemption already provided by Section 96(9) of the Act whereby time spent driving off the public road in the course of agricultural and forestry operations is not counted as "driving" for the purposes of the Act. Article 5(b) of Part III now extends this exemption to drivers engaged in quarrying operations.
My Lords, I do not pretend that the effect of this Order is to reduce the law on drivers' hours to simplicity itself. What we are doing is to ease the shoe where it pinches—pinches the operators, the drivers themselves and the travelling public. If the Order passes into law, I understand that we may hope to see immediate and progressive benefits in an industry which ranks among the progressive and essential services of our economy. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Drivers Hours (Passenger and Goods Vehicles) (Modifications) Order 1971, laid before the House on 8th April, be approved.—(Lord Mowbray and Stourton.)
5.44 p.m.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I am certain you would like me to express to the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, our earnest congratulations for the excellent and explicit way in which he has introduced this Order. We have got to remember that the reason for the original Order was to try to give more safety, not only to vehicle drivers but to those who use the roads of our country, to prevent the drivers from becoming overworked and to provide an opportunity for the
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vehicles to be checked. Whatever else I come now to Part III of the Order. might have been done, there is no doubt in anyone's mind that as a result of this legislation vehicles to-day are in very much better condition.
As to the stress that may have been put on the drivers, on many occasions there was proof beyond any shadow of doubt that they were working excessive hours and becoming a menace on the road to other users. To remedy that, the Act and the Regulations were introduced. I am bound to tell the noble Lord I was duly impressed with the statistics he provided this afternoon. I am certain that your Lordships' House was also impressed by the statistics applied by the same Department when they were promoting the original Order. All they are doing to-day in the same Department is to produce certain other statistics to show how wrong they were in tile first place. That may well be so, but I do not know, as I am not competent to judge. I hope the Order will work and will not result in any increase in road accidents. I hope those who understand it will find themselves in agreement with it. All I can say is I am not competent to judge on it—I have not sufficient expertise and I was unable to analyse the statistics which were poured forth in ten minutes this afternoon. For that reason, I would certainly raise no objection to the Order.
5.47 p.m.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, I will not take much time of the House because there is a most important debate on the most wonderful and most nourishing fish in the world—the herring, which the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, extolled for years in the other place. I am delighted to see that he is extolling it again and trying to protect it from all kinds of things that might happen. I assure the noble Lord that I will not stand between him and his herring for more than a minute.
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mowbray and Stourton, for the explicit way in which he has introduced this Order. I simply want to reiterate that I hope there will not be a continuous appeal for an extension of hours. I am sure that on that side of the House there is much concern at the hours a man

1129
is working at the wheel in any industry and for the safety of pedestrians and others. We do not want exploitation of the driver, whether in the national transport industry or private enterprise, at the expense of the safety of the public. I request from this side of the House that there shall not be a continual appeal to extend these hours, after the struggle we had to get them within what I hoped would be reasonable limits. Therefore, I think the matter is not worthy of a big debate. Nevertheless, it is worth our pointing out that we should not continuously ask for an extension of these hours. I hope your Lordships will not feel that we have taken too much time from the important debate that is to come on.
5.48 p.m.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, having been one of the people who are extremely doubtful about this part of the Transport Act 1968, I can do nothing but welcome the small relaxation which this Order gives to public service vehicle drivers and the even smaller relaxation it gives to drivers of goods vehicles. I, too, agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, that it is essential that people should not be allowed to drive for excessive periods of time. The Order, by keeping the 10 hours driving maximum, does prevent this. I should have liked to see more relaxation given to drivers of other forms of goods vehicles. Certainly in the North of Scotland, where distances are very great, the present legislation creates enormous difficulties. I hope, from what the noble Lord, the Minister, said, that in the near future more general legislation will be introduced which will enable drivers in the more remote areas, at any rate, not to drive more than 10 hours a day but to have more flexibility as to how those 10 hours can be taken and how waiting time shall not count. This is the real difficulty in the North of Scotland, particularly when you are driving loads to market, or doing that sort of thing.
My Lords, I welcome this Order. It is a step in the right direction, but looking at the 1968 Act, I think there is still more that can be done. Incidentally, when the 1968 Bill was going through Parliament I thought there was absolutely' no scientific evidence at all that fatigue caused many accidents in the case of professional
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drivers. The opposite seems to be rather the case. Fatigue undoubtedly causes accidents involving what I might call non-professional drivers— noble Lords here, who are not used to driving for long periods of time and who suddenly set out for their holidays. That is a danger. I cannot see that we can do anything about that. I think it would be an unwarranted interference with the liberty of the subject if we said that ordinary people should not drive for more than ten hours in any one day. But in my opinion this is where fatigue really causes accidents, and not with the professional drivers, who on the whole are extremely good drivers and are very careful.
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD: My Lords, I hope that what I am going to say will not be outside the very wide limits usually extended to speakers in your Lordships' House. While agreeing with everything that has been said, I should like to stress that one of the causes of accidents, even with reduced hours, which of course have been introduced in the interests of both the travelling public and the drivers themselves, and of the ordinary users of the road, is the lack of parking spaces. Road safety would be greatly 'increased by the provision of far more parking spaces on some of the roads, other than the dual carriageways, which already have spaces provided at the ends. All too often one still sees drivers pulled up on comparatively narrow roads along which there runs a great deal of traffic. Admittedly the reduction of hours of driving will mean a reduction in the number of accidents, but I think that the provision of more parking spaces for these drivers would help a great deal, too.
5.52 p.m.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, the Government are absolutely right to bring in these very necessary modifications to the Orders. Like other noble Lords, I do not wish to be unpopular by prolonging this debate, but I was involved in the discussion on the 1968 Act in your Lordships' House when this subject was debated very fully. I remember that the Government at that time expected to get it through in two or three hours. In fact, we found it necessary to take three days over it. It was not part of a filibuster,

1131
either, because at that time I was very new to your Lordships' House— I was still wet behind the ears— and I did not know what the word "filibuster" meant.
Noble Lords on this side of the House warned the Government at that time about the difference that this legislation would make, and on March 15, 1970— one year after the time originally proposed— the Government then brought into force the amended regulations. Within a short time of the change in the law, it was obvious that the position was extremely grave, and therefore the industry started preparing a case for submission to the Minister to prove the need for relaxation. Not only has this law, which has been so ably referred to by my noble friend, been impossibly difficult to operate, but it has been equally difficult to understand. It was so complicated that even the enforcement officers did not fully understand all its implications.
The noble Lord, Lord Hoy, mentioned this question of safety. There was no evidence put forward by the previous Government that P.S.V. drivers were unsafe by reason of driving long hours. There has been an experiment recently, in twenty companies, and even with the new changes there have not been any less accidents. So that the argument of safety I am afraid does not hold water. As to the regulation on vehicles, I am afraid I cannot tell the House whether they are in any better condition or are worse, but so far as public service vehicles are concerned I should imagine that they continue to be maintained at night and to the same standard. As to the statistics which the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, said had been "cooked up", I had-pen to know that these are very recent figures presented by the industry, not by any particular Government Department.
Mention was made of the drivers themselves. They were against the hours laid down for the 1968 operators, and for many years shift work as been increasingly unpopular. Most drivers have tolerated this only because of high wages. I am sorry to have to disagree with the trade unions here, but I feel that in this instance they do not represent their members' interests but follow political
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principles of keeping the working hours down regardless of the consequences and without justifiable cause. I can back up this statement by saying that when I conducted an experiment in the summer of 1968, and thus met a considerable number of drivers, over 90 per cent. of them were against any form of reduction in working hours at all. We have talked about and all round this subject, but we have not mentioned the poor public in any great detail, and they are the people who have suffered most.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: Would the noble Lord allow me one sentence? I apologise. That is no test, I would say to the noble Lord. When, early in the nineteenth century, we had children down the pits at seven years of age there were some parents who wanted to keep them down there because they were making some money. So I do not take it as a test that if a man wants to work until he nearly drops that is good for his health or for society.
LORD TEVIOT: I enjoyed that interruption by the noble Lord, who gives some colour to this debate, as he always does. But if a man wants to work to earn money to have a reasonable standard of living, he should be entitled to do so, and it is quite a different matter from children of seven going down the mines. I, too, have done my homework, and paid attention in the history class some years ago.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: I did not mean that in any sense disparagingly.
LORD TEVIOT: I think I can quite happily wind up. Another question which was also brought up was that of the Common Market. The regulations in these countries have only just been started, and I should think they will probably have to think again. In Italy, they have not begun at all. Finally, we must remember that all this overtime is not compulsory unless agreed to by the unions, and that no driver will have to work unless he wishes to.
5.58 p.m.
LORD BALERNO: My Lords, I wish to congratulate the Government on making these more flexible regulations, particularly in so far as they make it easier to use buses for the conveyance for recreational purposes, more especially of

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young persons, from the congested parts of Scotland to the hills. This was a point that my noble friend Lord Selkirk was especially interested in, and he regrets that he has been unable to be here to-day to express to the Government his gratitude and that of the skiers in the congested areas. One point that I should like to make in connection with what my noble friend the Duke of Atholl said, is that unless you make it possible for the buses to take these young persons, then they go in their rickety-rackety cars, they spend the whole day out on the hills, and they return in their rickety-rackety cars. In those circumstances, the possibility of accidents is very much greater than if they go in buses driven by skilled drivers.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, I, too, welcome this Order. There are just two points I should like to make. First, the length of drivers' hours has not had any effect upon the roadworthiness, and therefore the safety, of the vehicle itself. It is other sections, happily, of the 1968 Act which have had the desired effect in that respect. Secondly, I wonder whether the Minister can say how these new hours compare with the hours permitted to Continental drivers? I have at the back of my mind a feeling that our hauliers are working against some unfair competition in that the influx of foreign trucks, which in any event are larger than ours, with their own drivers permitted to drive longer hours, means that the operation ex the Continent can be less expensive than our own operation. If the Minister is able to give any information on that, I should be obliged. I appreciate, however, that he may not have this information, in which case perhaps he would let me know in due course.
6.0 p.m.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, if I may I will answer the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, first. The Continental Orders are much less wide than ours and by next year they are going to be more restrictive still. The Continental E.E.C. Orders apply only to regular journeys of more than 50 kilometres, which is about 30 miles. Our information is that the vast majority of bus journeys, in fact about 80 per cent. of them— and we are discussing bus passenger transport— are made within this distance. The E.E.C. regulations apply
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only to long Continental journeys. They do not apply to the kind of journeys that most bus drivers make, which are usually in stages of up to 30 miles. The Orders are not concerned with total daily mileage but with the mileage involved in one journey. These regulations therefore do not apply.
We are proposing in our negotiations for entry into E.E.C. to ask for a five-year period in which to merge any problems of this sort; so this is a problem which will not arise in the near future and applies only to a small proportion of the journeys undertaken by the drivers we are discussing; and for these under 50 kilometre journeys our hours are better than those in the E.E.C. regulations.
In general, I should like to thank all noble Lords who have spoken for the welcome they have given this Order which noble Lords will understand is designed to make for greater flexibility and for a more pleasant life for the public, for the operators and the drivers. The noble Lord, Lord Hoy, talked about conditions of vehicles. I have every confidence that the operators will not find this too great a problem. Vehicle inspectors are extremely strict with public transport vehicles and it would be a very unwise operator who failed to carry out the proper maintenance required for the safety of his passengers.
On the point about tired drivers noble Lords have been kind enough to accept my assurance that this was not a problem. If I may, I will read a quotation from a publication of the Road Research Laboratory. It says:
"Vehicle driving has many aspects that will facilitate prolonged vigilance without deterioration of manipulative skill. Firstly, there is usually a continuously changing input of information into several sensory channels. These inputs of sight, sound vibration and accelerations have strong effects on the arousal mechanism of the body that preserve interest and vigilance. The immediate consequences of skill reduction and errors of judgment are easily understood so that motivation for self preservation is persistent. Finally, the manipulative skills of driving are generally speaking easy and pleasurable for most people. In the experienced professional driver the task is greatly overlearned and consequently skill is resistance to deterioration from the fatigue effects of prolonged stress."
I think that with those few words, the fears of noble Lords will be allayed on the safety aspect.

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The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, raised the question of "stinking fish" — which somehow crept into this debate. I will leave this subject to the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, to deal with. This is something that I do not think needs to be thought about here. We are in a framework within which the industry will be content. They have ample skill with regard to safety. I do not think there is any intention to ask for further concessions. We have met fairly largely the varying demands of the various bodies asking for this and that. We have not completely given everyone what they want because we have applied our own judgment; but I do not think that noble Lords need have any fear on that point. My noble friend the Duke of Atholl slightly widened the debate. When more legislative time is available we may consider primary legislation which might take care of his point among others. That would also apply to the noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, on his point about more parking places.
My noble friend Lord Teviot who, with his experience of being a bus driver and a union member we are pleased to have on this side of the House, ranged over a wide range of subjects. I thank him for his remarks and say how grateful we are to him. My noble friend Lord Balerno as usual had wise words for us on this question. In general, we are obviously agreed that if we can get more people into buses the roads will become less congested. I hope that these regulations will do that. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, also gave us the benefit of his advice, for which we are grateful. As I have said, these regulations represent the maxima possible. I suppose that if an operator were stupid enough to jeopardise his goodwill and lose his employees he might abuse these regulations; but the hours which are laid down we consider to be sensible. We have an undertaking from the employers in which they say that they have no intention of trying to use the revised regulations to impose unacceptable or unduly onerous duties on their employees and thus to jeopardise the good public record of their industry.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

FISHING VESSELS (ACQUISITION AND IMPROVEMENT) (GRANTS) (AMENDMENT) SCHEME 1971
6.8 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I beg to move that the Fishing Vessels (Acquisition Improvement) (Grants) (Amendment) Scheme 1971, which was laid before the House on April 20, be approved. There may be some of your Lordships who, on seeing this Order, may have a strange feeling that we are covering familiar territory again. If that is so, let me re-assure them that the Scheme which is currently before the House is very similar to the one discussed on February 2. On that occasion I explained in some detail what the Scheme would entail. I do not therefore propose to weary the House to-day by going over the same ground, other than to say two things quite briefly. First, the purpose of this Scheme, like that of its predecessor, is to give effect, so far as the fishing industry is concerned, to the changes which the Government announced last autumn in the whole system of investment incentives. Secondly, it achieves this objective by restoring the rates of grant for the acquisition or improvement of fishing vessels to the level at which they were in 1966. In the case of inshore vessels, those of less than 80 feet in length, the rate of grant will again be 30 per cent. and in the case of deep sea vessels it will be 25 per cent.
In view of the somewhat unusual background to the Scheme, and particularly those issues which were touched on at Question Time on March 2, I will say a word about why the Government decided to introduce a new Scheme and about the respects in which it differs from the one originally laid before Parliament. The House will recall that different views were taken of the original Scheme by the Special Orders Committee of your Lordships' House and by the Select Committee in another place. The Special Orders Committee made no comment on the vires of the original Scheme because they considered that it was not ultra vires. The Select Committee of another place took the view that the Scheme purported to have retrospective effect. As the noble Earl, the Lord Chairman of Committees, who spoke on this on March 2 said, there is no reason why the views taken of the

1137
Scheme by the two Houses may not be different. However, the issue before the Government was whether or not they should seek approval in another place for the original Scheme in the light of the comments made by the Select Committee. As my right honourable friend the Minister of Agriculture made clear in a speech on April 6, it was, in the event, decided to lay before both Houses a different Scheme, and that is the Scheme before your Lordships to-day.
The essential differences between the two Schemes lie in the fact that this Scheme allows applications which were made up to and including October 26 last to be approved for grant at the old rates, whereas its predecessor required an application to have been received by the White Fish Authority or the Herring Industry Board by that date. In this way we are endeavouring to meet one of the points made by the Select Committee, who were concerned to see that the bona fide application made before the policy change was announced should in any case get the benefit of the old rate of grant, even if it happened to have been received after the deadline originally laid down. In addition, the new Scheme specifies that the lower rates of grant shall not apply to any applications approved before the Scheme comes into operation. The Select Committee were also concerned lest an application received on October 27 and approved on that same day could be nullified. The revised Scheme makes it clear that the approval given to any such application will still stand. My Lords, I hope that with that explanation the House will be prepared to approve the Scheme.
Moved, That the Fishing Vessels (Acquisition and Improvement) (Grants) (Amendment) Scheme 1971, be approved.— (Earl Ferrers.)
6.13 p.m.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I will try to keep this debate as short as possible. I did my best on the last occasion, but noble Lords opposite, assisted by those on the Cross-Benches, staged a filibuster, and there was nothing I could do. There are one or two serious points on this particular Order that we do have to consider because this is the second time the Order has been put, with slight variation; and we in your Lordships' House
1138
are in a slightly humiliating position this afternoon because on the last occasion the Order was said to be ultra vires, and as a result a new Order had to be promoted.
I do not intend to go over all that was said before, but I am bound to say I take exception once more to the language chosen by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, who has talked about "restoring" the grants. I raised this point on the last occasion, and I hope that your Lordships will understand that this word "restoration" means, in fact, a 25 per cent. cut in the grants. I do not think this Order shows anything like the solicitude for the fishing industry that will be expressed during the next debate. There is still a question as to whether even this Order is ultra vires, because under the main Act, the Sea Fish Industry Act, if a Scheme (I think these are the correct words) is to be varied or revoked must be done by means of the introduction of a new Scheme. That is not in fact what happened. It was in a statement issued by the Minister of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food that this alteration was made.
Moreover, under the main Act there is provision for consultation with the parties concerned. Certainly consultation did not take place on this occasion. Indeed, when the Government reached a decision to cut expenditure by 10 per cent. overall, these fishing grants were caught up in the process. On the day the statement was made— "statement" is an exaggeration in this respect, since it was in fact an Answer to a Written Question on the Order Paper— all that happened, as I understand it, was that a telephone call was made from the Department to the White Fish Authority and also, I imagine, to the Herring Industry Board, saying "Your grant is going to be cut". One could hardly regard that as consultation; nor could one call it general advice. You cannot say, "I am going to cut your grant by 25 per cent. and that is a piece of general advice I am giving you". This procedure will not stand investigation at all. If any noble Lord wants to find out more about what happened, let him read the proceedings of the Statutory Instruments Committee in another place, and it will there be proved conclusively to anyone of independent mind that these consultations did not take place. In one place, the

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Minister himself admitted that consultations did not take place.
Your Lordships are entitled, in these circumstances, to an assurance from the Minister on this occasion that the Government have respected the Sea Fish Industry Act and that this Order does conform to the power the Act gives— because it would be very humiliating if, having passed an Order once and having had it thrown back to us, we had to go through a repeat performance without any steps being taken to protect your Lordships. I am saying to the Minister that a great deal of responsibility falls upon him. If this Order is not passed it can only do harm to the fishing industry. Harm has in fact been done— let this be clearly understood by your Lordships— and because of the conduct of the Ministry and the Government. 700 people are still awaiting the approval of their applications and not a single application has been entertained by the Government since last October. This is retrospective legislation with a vengeance, and obviously if we do not pass this Order, it will cause further delay. But before we give him approval we are entitled to ask the Minister for that assurance.
I should like to put forward one final point for the attention of the Minister: I could not understand his remark about there being different views in different places of a particular Order. This is not the way the Act works. The Act lays down that this can be done only by Affirmative Resolution. That is why the noble Earl has moved this Order, and it is only when that Affirmative Resolution has been approved by both Houses of Parliament that the Minister is empowered to take action. So this is important. I will not prolong the matter because of the debate that is to follow, but certainly before we part with the Order we ought to have from the Minister the specific assurance for which I have asked.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, I do not want to intervene on a question of fact which the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, has raised; but since he talked at one stage about the vires of the matter I must reassure him on that point. He,
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referred to the argument about the degree of consultation which had taken place on the direction, if it was a direction, under Section 4 of the Act and he also referred to a particular telephone call. I do not want to enter into that, because any explanation or argument could easily be given by my noble friend. That does not affect the vires of this Order which was made on April 7 and, as the noble Lord will see from the Preamble, it is made under Sections 44 and 45 of the Act, after consultation as required by those sections. So whatever may be true about the politics of the matter, the legal side, in so far as it is raised by the noble Lord, is, I think, fully taken care of.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I do not want to prolong this discussion. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for what he has said, but I think he would agree that in the main Act it is laid down that the Minister cannot take this action without consultation. I do not think there is any difference about that. Whether it is in the old Order or the new, I am suggesting that if the Order is to be held to be correct, the consultation has to take place before the Order is made. I am asking the Minister to say now, that even if they did not carry that out when the first Order was made, in fact that consultation had taken place before the second Order was made.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, at the dire risk of delaying myself and the extremely important debate which is to follow, I must ask the Minister one question. Why has he reduced these grants? What is the policy of Her Majesty's Government with regard to the inshore fishing industry? That is what we really want to know, because it looks a bit sinister and ominous to me. I do not see why the grants have been reduced. Nobody denies that they have been reduced and I just want to ask that simple question.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, I also am unhappy about this Order, although perhaps not quite so unhappy as the noble Lord, Lord Hoy. I would cap something that he said. It is not only the fishing industry that is concerned; the boat-building people are concerned as well.
LORD HOY: Certainly.
LORD FERRIER: I think that we should bracket them together. Take, for instance, a 60-foot craft such as is built on the East Coast of Scotland to-day at a cost of £50,000. This Order means that a fisherman contemplating investing in such a new boat will now have to find 20 per cent., or £10,000; the balance being made up of 50 per cent. loan facilities and this 30 per cent. grant. Under previous Orders he had to find only 10 per cent.— £5,000— with the 40 per cent. grant that then existed. Accepting the principle— which the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, does not— behind the action of the Government of making industries stand on their own feet, and that sort of thing, it is worth contemplating that in view of this increased tranche to the fisherman they might contemplate increasing the loan facilities from 50 per cent. to 60 per cent. Perhaps the noble Earl could give us his view on that. The doubling of a fisherman's tranche is a serious problem, especially for a young man starting in the fishing. It may militate against his deciding to launch out for himself; especially when— and most important of all— the future of inshore fishing is so clouded by the uncertainty arising out of the Common Market proposals to which the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, is about to draw your Lordships' attention.
EARL BATHURST: Before the noble Earl replies to the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, I wonder whether he would tell us what is the effect of this Order in comparison to the draft subsidies and loan terms available in the Common Market. Is it possible for him to tell us that, or must we have another loan Order to bring us to parity?
6.25 p.m.
EARL FERRERS: My Lords, I thank those noble Lords who have taken part in this discussion and I will try to answer the questions in reverse order. The answer to my noble friend Lord Bathurst is that this fishing vessels Scheme relates to the grant applicable to fishing vessels now, while we are still outside the Common Market. This Scheme is designed to enable people who wish to buy new boats to be able to have a grant for so doing. As I understand it, were we to enter the Common Market, the situation would not be within the ambit of this
1142
particular Scheme. I should prefer to leave the matter like that, because I think that my noble friend's concern is about whether fishing would prosper were we to go into the Common Market, rather than whether an operator would be entitled to get a grant for his boat.
I take the point raised by my noble friend Lord Ferrier, who said this was having an effect on the boatbuilding industry, and asked whether it would be possible for the Government to increase the loan to shipbuilders. At the same time I will answer Lord Boothby's question. I should be the first to accept that there is a reduction of grant and of course it will have an effect on a person who is entertaining the idea of spending some money on purchasing a new vessel. The noble Lord, Lord Boothby, asked whether a reduction of grant was necessary. The answer is, that up to 1966 there was a rate of grant of 30 per cent. for inshore vessels and 25 per cent. for deep sea vessels. The previous Government introduced a 10 per cent. investment grant over all industry, and therefore in 1966 there was an investment grant attributable to these boats which lifted the amount of grant from 30 per cent. to 40 per cent. and from 25 per cent. to 35 per cent. Now it has been decided, following the Chancellor's announcement on October 27, that all investment grants should be reduced. Therefore this part of the grant applicable to fishing vessels is removed.
I would say to the noble Lord. Lord Ferrier, that the fishing industry does reasonably well. It may well be that it should do better, and I can understand anyone involved in the fishing industry not liking a 10 per cent. reduction in the grant. In fact, a person who wishes to purchase a boat is enabled to get a 50 per cert. loan; on top of that he may get a 30 per cent. grant, which means that 80 per cent. of the purchase price of his boat can be found at the outset. Admittedly, it used to be 90 per cent., but I think the fact that 80 per cent. of the grant can be found at the outset does not indicate to anyone that the Government are not concerned about the prosperity of the fishing industry.
I come now to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hoy. He was worried that this Order also was ultra vires That is a serious thing to be worried about,

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and I hope I shall be able to explain to him that the Order is not ultra vires. Before I do so I must clear up one point. The noble Lord said he did not understand why different views were taken by your Lordshops' House and by another place over the original Order. Before an Order comes before your Lordships it goes before the Special Orders Committee. In another place it goes before the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments. It is up to each of these Committees whether they come to independent conclusions. The fact that one Committee came to one conclusion and the other came to another does not mean that there is inconsistency in the Order itself.
Nor, my Lords, does it mean that the two Houses of Parliament came to different conclusions; it was the Committees which did that. The Special Orders Committee passed the original Order, and so did your Lordships' House. It was the Select Committee in another place which said that there was an element of retrospective legislation. The Government decided to respect that view, as indeed they should, and they withdrew the Order which had been passed by this House. They introduced another Order, which they hoped would be accepted by the Special Orders Committee and the Select Committee in another place, and this proved to be the case. But the noble Lord said that this could be ultra vires because there has been no consultation. I should like to make it abundantly clear, because this is important, that that particular criticism really has two limbs to it. The first is, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said, whether this particular order is subject to consultation, which is the particular point we are discussing; and the second is whether there has been the necessary consultation about it.
Under Section 44(1) of the Sea Fish Industry Act, the Minister is bound to consult with the White Fish Authority over the introduction of a new order. I can assure the noble Lord that full consultation has taken place with the White Fish Authority over the construction of this Order, and there is no question of lack of consultation or its being ultra vires. The point on which I think the noble Lord really meant to put his finger
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was whether there had been any consultation with the White Fish Authority over the giving of a direction, which the Minister is obliged to do under Section 4(2) of the Act, which says:
"The Ministers may, after consultation with the Authority, give the Authority such directions of a general character as to the exercise and performance by the Authority of their functions".
I think what the noble Lord inferred was that there was inadequate consultation, because the Minister indicated to the White Fish Authority that, as from October 27, grants should be withheld until such time as a new order was laid before Parliament.
My Lords, this needs a certain degree of explanation, because my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made an announcement, as I explained earlier, which covered all forms of investment grants. That announcement was made in the afternoon of October 27. There could, of course, only be limited consultation with the White Fish Authority beforehand, because, as this statement was in the nature of a budgetary announcement, it would have been quite improper for detailed discussions to have been involved before the announcement was made, and the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, would be the first to recognise this. In fact what happened was that my right honourable friend the Minister advised the White Fish Authority in advance that a directive would be given to them later in the day to withhold the approval of grants. There was therefore that element of consultation—
LORD HOY: What element? If the noble Earl will allow me, this is exactly the point I was making. The noble Earl says that the Minister issued a directive. A directive is not consultation, and if he cares to look again at the words he is quoting he will see that the Minister does not have the power to issue a directive. The Minister only has the power to issue directions of a general character. These are the words he has himself read out.
EARL FERRERS: That is perfectly true, but on the other hand it is a question of what consultation is. Consultation in some cases can be a matter of two minutes, and in other cases a week may

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be inadequate for proper consultation. In this particular case, the White Fish Authority were told in advance that later in the clay they would be requested to hold up the approval of grants. They had every opportunity of objecting; they could have objected, but they did not object. And indeed I quite agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, before he gets up and says so, that it would have been a very difficult situation if they had. But if the noble Lord is saying that there should be full consultation before an announcement of a budgetary nature, as to whether or not a particular level of grant should be reduced. I would suggest that that would be an impossible situation. There was this form of consultation, admittedly limited, but it did take place.
My Lords, with that explanation, I hope that your Lordships will feel that this Order should be approved. It is an Order which has been delayed, for reasons about which we know, and I hope therefore that your Lordships will approve it.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

E.E.C. FISHERY REGULATIONS AND UNITED KINGDOM LIMITS
6.36 p.m.
LORD BOOTHBY LORD BOOTHBY rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware that the fishery regulations recently adopted by the six countries of the European Economic Community, and approved by the Council for Europe, would constitute a grave threat to the inshore fishing industry of the United Kingdom, if they were to be accepted by Her Majesty's Government: and whether instructions will be given to our negotiators in Brussels that the present fishery limits of the United Kingdom cannot be changed. The noble Lord said: My Lords, at long last I rise to ask the Unstarred Question standing in my name. This is for me a difficult speech, and it will not be a long one.
was a member of Churchill's original United Europe Committee, formed in 1946; I then became a founder member of the European Movement, which flowed from that, and I was a delegate to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe from 1949 to 1957. This, as I
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have frequently said to your Lordships' House, was, in my submission, the time to create a United States of Western Europe, under British leadership and on our own terms. We could have done it, we had about fifteen years to do it. They were all longing for it. But we turned it down; we turned everything down. Bevin turned down the Iron and Steel Community; Eden turned down the European Defence Community. Our last chance was when we refused to take part in the negotiations at Messina and Brussels which resulted in the Treaty of Rome; and if we had taken part in those negotiations we should not find ourselves in the situation in which we are to-day. In short my Lords, we missed the tide. I have said this often in your Lordships' House; and I say it to-day, I hope, for the last time. I do not for a moment delude myself that the Common Market, in its present form, is what we might once have had. It is not. To begin with, it has no political content. But we have missed the tide, and Shakespeare was quite right when he said:
"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."
If you miss it, you have "had it". And we have "had" that one, my Lords.
I want now to turn to the direct question which I am asking Her Majesty's Government. The story of the inshore fishing industry in this country since the war has been one of our few real success stories. We built up a great fleet of fishing vessels after the war, diesel-engined dual-purpose craft, averaging about 70 feet in length, and convertible from drift nets to seine nets. Both these can be converted overnight, the seine net for the white fish, the drift net for the herring. These are surface nets, they do not go down to the bottom, they have got a 77 millimetre mesh, and all the immature fish escape. We built up that fleet with the aid of grant-and-loan schemes amounting to approximately £60 million, which was very cheap at the price. Then, after an immense struggle, came the final triumph in 1964, when our present fishery limits were established, after intensive negotiations and final agreement with Europe. They are 3-, 6 and 12-mile limits. In certain specified areas— the Moray Firth is one of them— certain foreign trawlers with a tradition of long

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usage are allowed to fish between the 6 and 12-mile limits, and that has done no harm; but, apart from that, our coastal waters are completely protected. They are also protected by stringent conservation measures, which are strictly observed by our own fishermen.
The inshore fishing landings since 1964 have doubled in value right round the coasts, and more than doubled in value in Scotland. The herring fishing landings in Scotland alone have gone up in value from £2 to £4 million. There is a shortage of herring, and herring are in great demand not only in this country but also on the Continent of Europe. The United Kingdom is now a net exporter of fish to the Six, mainly of herring, turbot, haddock, plaice, sole and shell-fish caught inshore. What happened? After we made our last application to join the Common Market in November of last year, an E.E.C. fisheries policy was rushed through and approved by the Council for Europe, and became operative on February 1. The three great fishing nations were all affected by this— ourselves, Norway and Eire. Were we consulted about these regulations? Not for a moment. They were pushed through by the Six in their own interests, and the object was obvious. Their own inshore fisheries are fished out. There is nothing left, and they want to get into our inshore fishery grounds— the Minches, the Moray Firth, the Firths of Clyde and Forth, Morecambe Bay and Cardigan Bay, and the shell-fish industry of Devon and Cornwall. All these parts of our coasts would be badly hit, as well as the Isle of Man.
I must go through for a moment Article 2 of these fishery regulations, which says:
"Member States shall ensure in particular equality of access to and exploitation of fishing grounds situated in their territorial waters for all fishing vessels flying the flag of one of the Member States."
In other words any trawler, with destructive fishing gear, with beam nets, and what are called multiple tickler chains which go right down to the bottom of the sea, would have the right within five years to fish right up to our beaches. Then Article 4 says:
"Access to certain fishing zones situated within a limit of three nautical miles may"
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and I emphasise that word—
"be limited to certain types of fishing for a period not exceeding five years to the local population established beside these zones it that population depends primarily on inshore fishing."
That is to be decided by the Council of Brussels, on which we would have a minority vote. In Article 5, there is a reference to conservation measures, which may or may not be taken by the Council.
The object is quite clear— to get into our inshore fishing waters, which are now among the most prolific fishery grounds in the world. And what do we get in return? Absolutely nothing. Ostend and Dieppe, which were prosperous up to the war, are now fished out, and all the inshore fishing grounds on the Continent of Europe, except for the farming of oysters in Brittany, are completely fished out. So we get nothing back. It would be an absolute tragedy if our inshore fishing fleets were to be destroyed. I wish that the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, the Leader of the House, were here, because his father would have been supporting me to-day in what I have been saying. The drifters were indispensable to the Grand Fleet during the First World War and equally indispensable to the Royal Navy in the last World War.
I say to your Lordships that although the numbers involved may not sound so tremendous, the fishing industry, especially in Scotland, which would be the hardest hit, is a way of life, part of our prosperity, part of our existence. If the inshore fishing industry were to be destroyed, it would be the greatest disaster that has happened to Scotland, to the Highlands and Islands, since the clearances last century. We cannot stand it. Under these regulations it is certain there will be an invasion by large Continental trawlers, with heavy horse-power and small mesh nets— 50 mm. as against our own 70 mm. There was a pointer at Fleetwood this year. A fleet of Dutch trawlers, working heavy beam trawls and tickler chains, was sent over to work the sole fishery in Morecambe Bay, which used to be a great annual fishery for our inshore men— just outside the 12-mile limit. They scraped the bottom of the sea, and our own fishermen got nothing. One fisherman said that one drifter could have landed all the sole they got. And what happened to these sole? Were they

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imported into this country? Not at all— the whole catch was transported to Holland. That is what would happen if we accepted these regulations. All our conservation measures would go.
I think that Her Majesty's Government must be very tough on this issue. To us in this country it is more important than New Zealand butter or Caribbean sugar, because it affects the livelihood of these little fishing communities all round our coasts, which play so great a part in the national life. There are about 20,000 inshore fishermen, and to every one of them there are four people engaged in processing and packaging. Anybody who has been to Devon and Cornwall, and to the North of Scotland, knows the extent to which these fishing communities are part and parcel of our national life. Upon them depends a great part of our prosperity. We cannot depend entirely on the tourist industry, mainly because of the climate. The fishing communities have been doing so well for the last 2 or 3 years. I have lived among them for nearly 50 years, and for 34 years was Member in another place for East Aberdeenshire. They are part of our national life in Scotland, on the West coast, on the Isle of Man and in Southern Ireland.
I say that we must insist on two things. Fishery policy must be the subject of separate negotiations with the Six, if and after we join the Common Market. Mean-while, there can be no concessions of any kind. The present regulations are totally unacceptable, and our existing fishery limits must be maintained at all costs. They have been agreed with the Europeans and have been enormously successful, and I see no reason whatsoever for changing them. This is a fight for survival. We have the fish, because we have a longer coastline, and because we have preserved our stocks. They want them. At present they buy from us quite substantially, but they will not do so when they can help themselves, and in the end they will ruin our inshore fishing industry, as they have ruined their own, and with it, as I have said, a way of life in this country which we cannot sacrifice.
There was an article in the Financial Times
the other day which said:
"Lord Boothby is emotional on this subject."
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Well, I do not deny that. I am emotional on this subject, because it lies very close to my heart. But the end of the article was a give-away sentence, which read as follows:
"With the exception of the Netherlands, the members of the Six are net importers of fish and are likely to be good customers of the U.K."—
and here is the rub—
"if they do not come and catch it all themselves, that is."
That is precisely what would happen. As I have said, these regulations as they stand are totally unacceptable. With the accession of the United Kingdom, Norway and Ireland to the Common Market, if we get in, the fishing industry would be completely transformed. To begin with, instead of being an importing industry it would become an exporting industry. In my submission it would be intolerable— it has been and is intolerable— that fishery regulations of the Common Market should be drawn up and drafted without any consultation whatsoever with the three countries mainly concerned with fisheries, Norway, Ireland and ourselves. We have not been asked about any of these regulations: the Six, have done it entirely in their own interest.
I say to your Lordships— and I have no doubt about this in my mind— that the acceptance of these regulations in their present form would need lead to the destruction of the inshore fishing industries of all three countries— the United Kingdom, Eire and Norway. That in my opinion is too heavy a price to pay for entry into the Common Market. I would only add that I believe that if Her Majesty's Government stand absolutely firm on this issue they will find that the French, the Belgians and the Dutch will not press them too hard, because they have not so much at stake. They have no inshore fishing industries of their own of any great importance; and they have no right to ask us to sacrifice our own inshore fishing industry in order to enter the Common Market.
LORD SHINWELL: Before the noble Lord sits down, did I understand him to say that what he is asking is that, if and when we are in the Common Market, negotiations on this subject should take place? Would it not, after we are in, remain subject to the decision of the

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other members of the Community? Is there any guarantee that the interests of the inshore fishermen would be protected? Or does he mean that negotiations should take place immediately, before there is any question of entering into the Common Market?
LORD BOOTHBY: What I really meant to say was that we should say to the members of the Common Market here and now that these regulations are not negotiable; that we stand by our present fishery limits, and they are not negotiable. Then later on there might at some stage he some discussion within the Common Market about fishing regulations, in which Eire, ourselves and Norway would take part, but without committing ourselves in advance in any way. I say that these regulations are totally unacceptable in their present form.
6.54 p.m.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I am sure we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, for enabling us to discuss this subject this afternoon. Like the noble Lord, I was at Strasbourg a long time ago. Indeed, the first time I spoke at the Council of Europe was in 1950, when I suggested that the subject of fishing should be put on to the agenda. I remember the look of scorn I got from M. Spaak, who had no enthusiasm for it. But by persistence we had it put on the agenda. Ever since then (and even before then) I have been associated with this industry. In my own constituency, which I had the privilege of serving for over a quarter of a century, we had the second largest fishing industry in Scotland.
This proposal creates great difficulties, because the fishing grounds of this country have been preserved. We could have over-fished; this was available to us, and the temptation was great in the immediate post-war years. But this we resisted, and instead we built up our fishing fleets. It should be remembered that when we are discussing the fishing industry many people immediately think of the distant water fleet. There are three sections of the fishing industry, as I see it: the distant water fleet, the middle water fleet and inshore fishing. It is the inshore fishing that is going to be attacked by these proposals.
I understand, although I do not know, that there are contained within the E.E.C.
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regulations certain safeguards. I would expect that if there are, the Minister who is to reply to the debate will be able to spell them out, so that we can make a judgment with the facts before us and not reach any blind decision. As to the fear of our own fishermen, I think it is a natural fear. I was glad that my noble friend Lord Shinwell raised the point of when discussions could take place, because I want to put on record my own view, that to go in and then discuss will be too late.
During my time as Minister at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food many weeks of the year were devoted to doing one thing; that is, seeking to bring about international agreements to preserve the fishing grounds of every country. There are some common fishing grounds, and what we had to seek to do together was to prevent over-fishing and ruining the grounds for ever. Indeed, we have the classic example of salmon fishing. There was no more voluble section of the community than your Lordships' House when it was felt that the salmon rights were being threatened. We should be proud that Britain took the lead in getting so far as we did in preserving salmon fishing. Perhaps we can give that kind of lead internationally; but we must take steps to preserve our rights.
I cannot countenance the argument that this is an expendable industry. Indeed, I resent it when somebody says. "You only represent one per cent. of the gross national product." You can call it what you like. What it really represents is thousands of human beings, who, if they lose these fishing grounds, will be losing their livelihood. A social problem which might well prove insurmountable will then be created round the whole of our coast. I think of parts of my own country, Scotland— and I have travelled to every fishing port in that country a dozen times over during my work— of Wales and England where, if this industry is taken away, there is nothing to put in its place. So it is important before we make these decisions that we find out what to do.
I should have thought that, even from the point of view of the European Economic Community, what they might well say to Britain is: "We want you in, and for the time being we do not want to interfere in any way with your fishing

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grounds. You have preserved them. It may well be that after you have been with us for a time we shall have to discuss certain fishing matters and see whether we can bring about a united policy. I do not think we are going to convince the fishermen of our own country that it is going to be good for them to give up their grounds at this time. Tonight I think we all agree on this.
Secondly, there is an ever-growing part of the industry attached to us which we should not overlook: The shellfish industry. This has been growing by leaps and hounds, and production of shellfish is to-day standing at an all-time high record. It is always very tempting to somebody just on the other side of the Channel to come and share the proceeds. Even in to-day's paper there is reference to a French vessel that has just been arrested. I cannot say more about that, but quite obviously, if it has come here for a purpose it has been for the purpose that we are discussing in your Lordships' House this evening. This industry can prove of tremendous benefit; it is capable of tremendous development and the provision of good livelihood to people who have no other opportunity of earning one. For all these purposes we have to be extremely careful.
I do not go all the way with the noble Lord, Lord Boothby. It is true when he says that this subject is more important than either New Zealand lamb or Caribbean sugar. But it is equally important to them that their needs should be attended to, and we are indebted—
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, if I may interrupt the noble Lord for a moment, I said that it was more important to us in this country.
LORD HOY: Certainly. I agree with this. But it does not make the other two less important. They were very good friends to us, especially New Zealand. So it is important before we decide what we are going to do that we have some specific assurance about the industry which belongs to us. We have cultivated it, we have preserved it. Do not let us, by some simple error, get rid of it.
7.3 p.m.
VISCOUNT THURSO: My Lords, I count it a privilege to take part in a debate on this subject, and to follow in
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the footsteps of the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, whose footsteps I once followed round the harbours of East Aberdeen-shire, and where, in those harbours, from the Brochers and the Blue Mogganers I learned a great deal about the importance of the in-shore fishing industry. It is a curious fact that, except in wartime or times of grave national difficulty, we in this country have always undervalued our primary producers. We have always tried to push our miners, our farmers and our fishermen as far down the pay scale as we can and to pretend that they are expendable.
Perhaps this is because of the strange national characteristic that we are perfectly willing to pay for our luxuries, but we expect to get our necessities free. Harsh though this attitude is, and unfair though it has been towards our primary producers, it has made for very high productivity and it is this high productivity and efficiency which must not be under-valued and thrown away. Have no doubt, my Lords, that there is grave concern in the fishing industry about the Common Market fishing regulations; but at the same time have no doubt that this concern is not the whining of an inefficient industry begging for protection, but rather the clear-headed representations of a hard-working and efficient industry, justly seeking the conservation of their means of livelihood and the establishment of conditions in which any country's fishing industry will be assured of a future.
I myself do not believe that the countries of the Community are either idiots or rogues and vagabonds. Nor do I believe that Her Majesty's Government think that this is so; otherwise, I am sure they would not be showing so much enthusiasm for joining them. I believe that the countries of the Common Market can be negotiated with sensibly over mattes of conservation, and it is the conservation side of the fishing industry's requirements which must be kept to the fore by the Government during their negotiations in Brussels, both now and in the future.
As I understand it, individual nations within the Common Market will retain power to control and regulate the way in which fishing is carried out within their own fishery areas. This means that each nation will be able to regulate the size

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of boat, the type of gear and even the times of fishing which conservation of its own fish stocks might seem to require. Even the three-mile limit, as we have already been told, will not immediately disappear, although it is proposed to abolish it after a delay period of five years. This means that the vision which some people would have us see, of immediately upon entry to the Common Market foreign trawlers scraping our shoreline bare of all fish life is unrealistic. Nevertheless, there is still cause for concern for conservation, concern for the preservation of an industry of which we can justly be more publicly proud than we are— concern for safeguarding the quality of our national menu, the fish and chips of Old England!
This concern must be felt and shown by Her Majesty's Government both now and continuing into the future. If Britain, Norway and Eire enter the Community, this will certainly alter the political balance of the Community. It will certainly alter the attitude towards conservation of fish stocks, towards the three miles limit and towards selective methods of fishing. It is, therefore, up to the Government to realise the role which they must play in the negotiations now and in the future. In this connection, I am astonished that there has not been more effort before this stage has been reached to co-ordinate with Norway and to seek with Eire to achieve a sensible and agreed bargaining position.
The fishermen of Britain are great people. They have done, are doing and can go on doing into the future a great job for this country. The fishing industry is a great industry which is doing a better job for this country than we are often prepared to recognise. It need not fear competition on a fair and sensible basis from the countries of the Common Market; but it is our responsibility to make sure that the basis upon which we negotiate is fair and, above all, sensible. Our fishing industry must not be regarded as a pawn to be sacrificed in the chess game of Common Market negotiations, but as a king to be guarded.
The primary producers of this country have so often received rough treatment that, like the beaten child, they are apt to throw up an arm in defence at any loud noise. Too often, they are quite
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right, and too often they receive the swinging slap that they expected. In this case, however, I hope the Government will prove them wrong. Nevertheless, I would say to the fishing industry that it must expect some change if we do go into the Common Market. Although there has always been suspicion of change, change in fishing methods and regulations has not always been disastrous. I can remember when the line fishermen thought the seine netters were the bogey and were going to ruin the entire inshore fishing industry. Nobody nowadays would seriously suggest that we should go back to the fishing methods of the early part of the century. Indeed, the whole strength of our industry depends upon the bright young skippers who know how to use their fish loops and echo-sounders and how to harness electronics in the hunting of the wild fish.
However, so long as fishing consists of preying on a wild population, so long will sensible conservation be vital in ensuring a continuance of the industry. Short-term greed must be resisted at all costs. By this I mean the sort of stupidity and greed that killed the whaling industry. Our own fishermen have not always been guiltless in this respect, and indeed I believe that the inshore fishermen of Scotland fear some of the English trawlers every bit as much as they fear the Belgians or the Danes. If, therefore, the Government can show that our own industry is prepared to exercise sensible restraint in the interests of conservation of fish stocks this will do much to persuade sensible people in the Community to our way of thinking. What we must avoid above all else is giving the impression that the European Common Market policy on fisheries is a signal for a "free-for-all", when every nation will jostle to get in on the act of scraping the ocean bare of fish life in the shortest possible time. This means that the Common Market itself must demonstrate that any regulations it imposes are enforceable and will be firmly enforced. I understand there is concern at the moment that agreements over a close time for herring in the North Sea are not being strictly honoured. If this is true, then it must give cause for grave concern.
We must think also of our fish processing and fish handling industries ashore.

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Anybody who knows anything about fishing knows that, however efficient the catching side of the industry is, the industry as a whole will not be healthy unless the handling side is healthy also. Would it, for instance, be possible to ensure that within the Common Market regulations fish caught inside a country's territorial waters should be landed in the ports of that country? This would go a long way towards allaying the fear that foreign boats would be coming into our shores, scooping up our fish, and then carting them oft to foreign markets for handling and processing. It would also be a sensible organisation of labour in a fishing industry. Unnecessary steaming time without fishing is always wasteful, and surely it would be in the interests of the Common Market as a whole to organise the Common Market fishery policy upon an economical basis.
I realise that a suggestion of this kind, which might appeal to our inshore fishermen and our inshore fishing ports, might not appeal so much to our middle-distance and deep-sea trawler fleets, and the industries around the ports from which they sail. Nevertheless, what we are concerned with to-day is the inshore fishing industry. This is our quality fishing industry. What we are concerned with to-day is those fish stocks over which we can rightly claim to have a responsibility for the exercise of conservation control.
I therefore urge Her Majesty's Government to show a bold face in the negotiations for a sensible fishing policy, both now and in the future; to argue what is clearly right, that regulations are necessary in the interests of conservation, and that these must be enforceable and strictly enforced; to keep in close touch with other countries who are also candidates to join the Common Market, and whose interests in a healthy fishing industry are every bit as great as ours; to seek the support of these countries for such policies as may be of particular interest to us, while at the same time offering them support for sensible policies which may be of particular interest to them. In short, my Lords, I hope that Her Majesty's Government will give a lead, not only in the present negotiations but in the future if we do join the Market, so as to ensure that the Community itself enjoys a healthy fishing industry, of which our own fishing industry, and our own
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inshore fishing industry, should form a vital and a major part.
7.15 p.m.
LORD WISE: My Lords, after two late Sittings, and I understand the prospect of an even later one to-morrow, I do not wish to detain your Lordships very tong; but I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, for raising this question and should like to express my complete support for and whole-hearted agreement with all that he has said. I have knowledge of the inshore fishing industry only around the East Anglian coast, but I am certain that the views held by the people working within the industry in that area concur completely on this matter with those of the industry around most of the shores of Britain. Among the inshore fishermen from the Wash right round to Lowestoft I know there is considerable apprehension, and to my mind an understandable and completely justified apprehension, of the possible disastrous consequences to their livelihood if we enter the Common Market under the present fishery regulations of the Six countries.
Over the past decade, and I think certainly since the limit was extended to twelve miles and the better conservation regulations were brought in, the prospects of the industry have greatly improved; it has again become thriving and prosperous. As the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, said, it provides full-time employment for some 20,000 men, and for each working fisherman a further four workers are needed in the processing, grading, packing and distribution of their catches. A considerable number of people also are employed in other ancillary work connected with the industry. This is tremendously important to areas such as East Anglia with its low employment potential and low wage earning level.
We have the largest coastline of any individual European country and we land now, I believe, a greater quantity of fish than any other country does, some of it with a high export value; and our policy is now beginning to pay and show dividends. It is no wonder that the Continental countries, having denuded their own grounds, are looking eagerly towards ours. Who can blame them? But what would be the effects on our industry of the ensuing general "free-for-all" if we entered a large Community under the

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recently adopted regulations? Conditions would certainly be chaotic in our fishing ports and harbours. Facilities are inadequate even now for our own needs. How much more so would they become with the intrusion of the Continental boats, which would be perfectly entitled to all our port facilities! We should lose our export market, for the French and Belgians would simply come over and help themselves. But, above all, if the Continentals are allowed to fish right up to our coastline, with their powerful boats, heavy trawls and small-mesh nets, they would rapidly fish out all our fine and well-preserved breeding grounds, most or all of which lie within the 12-mile limit.
I believe it is estimated that within five years our vital and abundant breeding grounds, which have been so painstakingly built up, would be totally devastated. This would surely mean economic ruin for the inshore fishing industry and the communities which depend upon it, and also, eventually, scarce and expensive fish for the British housewife to buy. My Lords, this must not happen. This progressive and rapidly expanding industry, for which Government aid is still rightly forthcoming— perhaps, as we have understood this afternoon, in smaller quantities— must not be sacrificed to facilitate negotiations and agreement upon wider issues. I earnestly implore Her Majesty's Government to take heed of the remarks made by the the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, and to act upon them.
7.20 p.m.
THE EARL OF CROMARTIE: My Lords, those of us who are concerned with the grave threat which may face one of our principal industries if we enter the Common Market must be grateful to my noble friend Lord Boothby for initiating this debate. It is quite understandable that so many men and women in Scotland— and I think in England, too— are bitterly opposed to entry when in their view they can foresee the destruction of this great industry, together with others such as certain areas of farming, sacrificed for the benefit of others where the possible benefits may be more obvious.
I do not intend to delve into the gains (or otherwise) which could arise from
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entry into the Common Market. The viewpoint depends upon whether the speaker is pro or anti the Common Market, but I wish briefly to follow and support what the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, has said. One could be excused for thinking that the Cameron Report— and I refer to the Regulations for Inshore Fisheries published in 1970— was a propaganda pamphlet for entry into the Common Market. As an example, I will take a few of the propositions expounded in this Report.
I will take the recommendations concerning the Regulations and compare them with the views expressed by practical fishermen of my own county, which also equate with the views of the other fishing areas concerned. I consider these observations to be of particular importance as they have been made by practical and knowledgeable people engaged in the fishing industry and not by theorists who one (perhaps unkindly) feels had before them the fact that they should not say anything that might possibly cast any shadow on the advisability of Common Market entry for Scotland as well as England. We see in this Report the intent to remove the three-mile limit— if not straightaway, then in the near future, and the playing down of the shellfish industry, which is of particular importance to the Western Highlands and Islands, not to mention Orkney and Shetland, and increasingly significant to their economy, especially as supplies from Continental sources are rapidly drying up, or rather being dredged up.
Conservation has to a great extent been played down in this Report. It has been mentioned before, but there is no doubt that these conclusions were based on findings by some scientists and are not in accordance with the views of the fishermen, and my county council had no access to the alleged evidence of these scientists. There is also the suggestion that the only fish worth conserving is the immature plaice. That is certainly not agreed to by people who know about it, and it should be extended to include sprats, all shellfish and herring.
In paragraphs 64 to 66 it is said that the existing regulations governing methods of fishing cannot be justified on grounds of conservation, and that none of the methods employed in inshore waters at present, including purse seining

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and pair trawling are in themselves more injurious to stocks than any other. This, I think it will be agreed, is palpable nonsense. The present three-mile limit is achieving some conservation and accordingly the existing regulations with regard to the three-mile limit should be retained. If the existing laws were being observed it is agreed that none of the legal methods employed in inshore waters at present is more injurious to stocks than the others. There is the observation, too, that otter trawling is illegal within the three-mile limit, but that the statutory provisions are not being observed or enforced.
The Report also states that a general prohibition on seining and trawling have failed to achieve their initial purpose. Line fishing and ground netting are now of minor importance in the context of the industry. That is stated in paragraph 103. The view of practical fishermen as well as those who wish to keep our people in the land of their birth is that the prohibitions on seining and trawling have not been a complete failure. While agreeing that line fishing and ground netting are now of minor importance, nevertheless they are still important to the localities where they are practised, and due consideration should be given to such methods in the areas where they are still pursued.
Now we come to a series of what I can only describe as pernicious suggestions. The Report says that the continuance of the present prohibitions against the use of the otter trawl and seine net within inshore waters is no longer justified for the protection of the particular and local interests of ground net, creel, small line or hand line fishermen, even in selected areas. The continuation of prohibitions within inshore waters was, and is, completely justified in order to protect local interests. In short, this recommendation is an open invitation to foreign trawlers to despoil our breeding grounds.
The Report also mentions that commercial fishing should not be restricted in the interests of sea angling; but if the three-mile limit were retained there would be no conflict between the interests of sea angling and commercial fishing. In paragraphs 195 and 196 it is suggested that all existing restrictions on the operation of seiners and trawlers should be
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removed. This again is an open invitation to foreign trawlers to destroy our fishing beds as they have already destroyed their own.
The final paragraph to which I wish to refer is to the effect that the possibilities exist for the United Kingdom to join the European Economic Community, that the European Economic Community will adopt a common fisheries policy, that such a policy will provide for equality of access to waters within the national fishery limits. Noble Lords who have spoken have given us clearly to understand what that would mean. But here we have read the "give away" line— or the punch line if you prefer it— and all concerned are totally opposed to throwing open national fishery limits to all members of the European Economic Community. It is surely unbelievable that such a suggestion should be made without any word of some protective agreement.
If we can swallow that, we can swallow anything. It is a charter to destroy our still goad fishing grounds. There are still some 2,500 inshore fishing boats in Scotland, employing about 8,000 men; and, as we have been told, they are small family concerns whose work has a much wider effect on a great many more people. In 1969, the Scottish landings of 4·1 million cwt. were valued at £15·6 million, so that the inshore fishermen contributed some two-thirds of the total Scottish catch. Add to this the shellfish industry catch for the same period of 0·4 million cwt. valued at £3·6 million, together with herring £3·2 million, a total for the inshore and herring fishing fleets of £16·8 million— not to be laughed at when you think of the size of the population of Scotland. Could this have been accomplished without the 12-mile limit which virtually closes the Minch and Clyde Estuary to foreign trawlers, while the fishing grounds of the Moray Firth are also closed up to 12 miles. Is this great industry which holds so many of our people together to be sacrificed to "pie in the sky" which may or may not benefit some commercial interests in the South but will be of little advantage to Scotland and her people, unless the Government see that there are built-in and cast iron safeguards?
7.31 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, I am glad to support my noble

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friend Lord Boothby in asking this Question as regards these totally unacceptable, and I think impertinent, proposals: unacceptable in their substance and impertinent in the way they were put forward, without any consultations with ourselves or Norway even while our application was lying on the table. My noble friend Lord Boothby deployed with great skill the devastating effects on our own inshore fishermen and fisheries. But it was the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, who first mentioned the steps Great Britain has taken, and laudably taken, in the past in the way of preservation of salmon in the High Seas. It is likely, unless there is international action, that in 20 or 25 years the salmon may become an almost extinct fish in our seas. We in this country can be proud that we have been in the van of conservation of salmon, and for that successive Governments can take credit. Our Salmon and Migratory Trout (Prohibition of Fishing) Order 1971 and our Salmon and Trout (Sea Fishing) Licensing Order 1971 have both helped, and are helping, to preserve in the way of conservation.
I wish I could go as far as the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, in feeling content that these regulations as at present drafted— and they are so badly drafted that they are capable of several interpretations— would prevent, possibly within five years, the right of any foreigner to come and fish right up to our shores. Her Majesty's Government have admitted— I have no doubt the Minister to-night will repeat that admission— that the position is unsatisfactory. Mr. Buchanan-Smith in another place said:
"I have already said, as have Government colleagues of mine, that we find the Community's fisheries policy unsatisfactory. This is precisely why we are taking the matter up with the Community."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, 5/5/71, col. 1369.]
That really does not go far enough— taking it up with the E.E.C., being unsatisfied. I wonder whether the Government appreciate that the great body of the British electorate are still undecided as to whether or not to support our entry into the E.E.C., and that, when they see the threat to one of our traditional industries countered only by the argument, "We accept that everything is not quite as it should be", it is bound to have a very bad effect upon those who
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are anxious that we should join the Community.
What we want, my Lords, is a firm assurance now that our 12-mile limit will remain for our fishermen, and will be under the control of our own Government, and that our Conservation Orders will not be interfered with, now or at any time in the future, by the laws of the Community. Furthermore, I think we must ask the Government whether this can rank as a "must", like sugar, like dairy products, like financial questions, all of which Her Majesty's Government have said must be guaranteed to be satisfactorily settled as part of the terms of our admission to the Community. I heard Mr. Rippon say recently on the radio that there were comparatively few outstanding matters, but he added— and I quote his words:
"The number may be few but the importance of each matter is great".
I believe that to this country the importance of the fisheries is as great as the importance of the other interests and industries we are endeavouring to protect. May we please have an assurance to-night that the Government will rank fishings as important; that they will not leave the matter, as I think the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, was willing to do, to be negotiated after entry, but will regard it as something to be decided positively before entry?
VISCOUNT THURSO: My Lords, I did not say, "Leave it until after we get in", but "Negotiate both now and in the future". My point was that we should not merely negotiate now, and leave it at that, but should negotiate now and keep the importance of this subject in mind even if we do go in.
LORD BALFOUR OF INCHRYE: My Lords, splitting words with a Liberal is often a difficult thing; very often the words can be made to go several different ways. All I would say is something quite simple; let us get this matter settled fairly, and in our favour, before we go into the Common Market and as one of the conditions of acceptance of terms. I wonder if the Government realise the exasperation of a great body of public opinion at the long-protracted negotiations; and in putting forward the case for our fisheries, our fishings and our fishermen we remember that in these long

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negotiations too long and too often have we heard what I might call the drummer boy having to beat retreat. Now I see that the Commanding Officer is to go over to the front next week. My Lords, let it be either a clear victory for our essential interests, or let him sound the Last Post.
7.39 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, it was, of course, extraordinarily silly of the Community countries to adopt these regulations while there were four applicants waiting for entry and without consulting them. It was almost as though somebody had done it on purpose to support the anti-marketeers in this country and the other three applicants, in order to make adherence more difficult. But let us be charitable and say that it was a mistake which failed to be noticed by those with enough political nous to realise that it was an important matter. Having said that, I must add that I think some noble Lords have been somewhat apocalyptic in their assessment of the gravity of the situation. The fishing industry, many noble Lords have said, is a fine industry; and so it is. They are fine men; and so they are: they are useful to all of us, and have their families to keep. I hope that what I am about to say will not be taken as going against any of that. To keep a sense of proportion, my noble friend Lord Hoy implied that the inshore fishing industry was one per cent. of the gross national product. I am no expert in these matters, but I have seen it asserted that the entire British fishing industry is one-quarter of one per cent. of the G.N.P.
LORD HOY: My Lords, I was using the figure for the industry as a whole. All I was seeking to convey— and I was not asserting it was one per cent., or even a quarter of one per cent.— was that whether it is one, or a quarter of one, what it does represent is thousands of human beings.
LORD KENNET: Yes, my Lords; of course that is so. If we take it that the entire fishing industry is one-quarter of one per cent. of our G.N.P., it follows that the inshore fishing industry is a fraction of that. I do not know if the noble Marquess will be able to tell us what it is when compared with the distant-waters and middle-waters fishing.
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A matter that has been hardly touched on at all is the fact that not only is there a provision in the Common Market Regulation for national protection to continue, but that it is already used by France. The French inshore fisheries are now protected as well as they were before the Regulation came into effect. It is true that this is only supposed to last for five years, and is due to be phased out over that period. Once again, I do not know whether this is true or not— and probably nobody knows— but it is fairly commonly assumed that that five years is only a pious hope, and that it is likely to be renewed, and that the distance up to which the protection operates, three miles, might be extended after— or before— the end of the five-year concession period. What has been done for France can be done for others, and I want to come back to this point in a moment.
We have been considering all the time the dangers which face this country when foreign fishing boats come over to our inshore waters. I do not know, but I should think that probably we shall be a far greater danger to Norway and Denmark than the French or Germans will be to us. Our distant waters fleet will have the right to fish right into the shore of Norway, right into the shore of Greenland, and right into the shore of the Faroes, which at present it does not have. I think I am right in believing that it would dearly like to have this, because these are exceptionally rich fishing grounds, as is exemplified by the fact that the Norwegian fishing haul every year is greater than that of all the six countries in the Common Market put together.
Let us not think that it is only we who are likely to suffer from marauding foreigners; the Norwegians and the Greenlanders are likely to suffer from marauding Britons. I am assuming now that we join the Common Market without a revision of this Regulation, and I think we should have a revision. If we join without a revision we should also share in the Community Fund of £7 million a year which bolsters the fishing industry; it will no doubt be more when four more countries join. and that will be a benefit to Britain's fishermen. It will give us the right to land our catches in any Continental port, which I think is not so at

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the moment, and fish prices are higher on the Continent than they are here.
Above all, Article 5 of the Regulation provides, perfectly clearly, for a régime to prevent over-fishing in territorial waters, for the conservation of the fish. It specifies that this control can be exercised by means of species, that is to say that nobody is to catch such-and-such a type of fish; it can be exercised by means of area; that is to say nobody is to fish between such-and-such points on the map: it can be exercised by seasons; there can be a closed season, whatever is appropriate: and it can also be exercised by means of methods, that is to say the regulating body can say that the mesh must be 77 millimetres or more. It can take any such method as that and prescribe or proscribe it according to the agreed wisdom.
It seems that there are two political points here which ought to be pressed. First, this is one of the very rare occasions where we have a community of interest with France. They are suffering under this Regulation. They do not like it, and they have an exemption from a large part of it. We can see that we too shall suffer, and we should like to have an exemption— which may not be precisely the same as the French one. France and this country together want an exemption of some sort or another. What a marvellous opportunity to make common cause with France, for once, against the others in the negotiations, instead of making common cause with the others against the French.
Secondly, and the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso, mentioned this, I do not know, and none of us knows, what the Government have been doing about talking to Norway and Denmark about this. If it is troublesome for us, it is much more troublesome for them. They have far more at stake in this fishing business than we do, and I think we ought to stand together in whatever position we can devise in the remainder of the negotiations. I believe that not only in relation to fisheries, but in virtually every other marine matter, the whole concept of territorial waters, national protected zones, free zones, high seas and deep seas, and all the rest of these ancient legalistic distinctions, are rapidly becoming out of date, and that we have
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to have internationally run régimes for this or that aspect of marine activity. Fishery is very much a case in point.
Why should we not get a Fisheries Community? A European Fishing Community, if you like, in which the Ten (that is to say, the Six plus four applicants) would have a fully international régime which would lay down, and enforce, conservation measures not only in territorial waters but in the high seas too, because they are going to be fished out as well if we go on at this rate; a régime which will say what types of fish can be caught, by what means, at what times of the year in every part of European waters, and waters between European countries and up to Greenland. This is the obvious solution. Let us propose that now to the others. I do not presume to advise the Government how much weight to put behind it, but if we could get together with Norway, Denmark, to a lesser extent Eire, and above all France, to propose a logical system in the interests of all the countries concerned, I think we could turn our present embarrassment about this rather absurd matter—absurd politically on the other side; they were absurd in Brussels— into a positive advantage.
7.48 p.m.
LORD LOVAT: My Lords, the hour is late, and I have noticed that out of the first eight speakers six have been Scotsmen, but I will make no apology if I can engage your attention for a few minutes to speak on inshore fishing with particular reference to the crofter counties of the Highlands. We have an inshore fishing fleet of some 2,500 boats, which give employment to a further 24,000 shore workers providing gear, tackle, packing the fish, and so on. This is a considerable body of men whose livelihood depends on the harvest of the sea. They have no alternative occupation, and on the seaboard of the Atlantic shore, and in the Western Isles, as you full well know, there has been grave unemployment for a great number of years. The Harris tweed industry has fallen apart recently; the unemployment rate in the Isles runs as high as 18 to 20 per cent., and fishing is their trade.
As the noble Lord, Lord Boothby said, they are great seamen. They have played a tremendous part in two world wars in

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the Royal Naval Reserve. They are the old pride of the Highlands, and no Highlander could fail to support them at this time in their need. They are going to go under if the Cameron Report is adopted, and one cannot distinguish between the Cameron Report and the E.E.C. fisheries policy which reduces the twelve-mile limit. The Highland problem, like an Arabian Night's tale, goes on until dawn breaks, but surely the time has not come when instead of taking one step forward we have to go two back again. This is our problem in the north. Something is advocated which is good, then it is all taken away again by a paternal Government who does not really know our local problems.
As the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, has already said, getting the 12-mile limit was an enormous success, and an enormous achievement. I would like to read what I think is a very charming letter in the bad old days before the 12-mile limit was imposed. Nothing could be more direct or more simply written, with a Homeric quality of a bygone day, written by an old Scots Guardsman who lives in Ardnamurchan, Lord Ronnie Macdonald of Glen Uig. One of his near neighbours is the brother of the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, lain Macleod, who is also an inshore fisherman. The letter:
"In the twenties I well remember as a boy going to the fishing with my uncle Angus Macpherson, who had worked the family boat for 50 years before me. The inshore fishing from Arisaig to Moidart and Ardnamurchan was well known for its cod. Long lines with 600 hooks were used. The codling were very plentiful. In the late twenties the steam trawlers from the English ports began to appear. By the mid-thirties the cod was so scarce that all the small boats had given up. I tried myself in the fifties with 500 hooks— in 3 days, four codling. The trawlers had taken their toll."
I think that very charming, simple letter describes the problem of the inshore fishermen. Since 1964 the Minches and the Western Isles have built up a very splendid fish stock. In the small town of Mallaig, which is well-known to me for two reasons— it happens to be on the estate I know best, and I also helped to form the Mallaig Harbour Trust— £750,000 has already been spent to promote the fish industry. It is the biggest herring port in the United Kingdom, and we are going to
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do further extensions. There are Norwegian skippers who, after a drop of "the hard" are openly boasting that they are going to clear the Minches. It is a well-known fact that bottom trawling can disturb herring so much that the shoals leave the area. I am sure anyone who is acquainted with the fishing business will tell you that fishing story. And white fish only take two years longer.
Someone has said, I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Hoy, that one of the greatest successes since the inshore limit was imposed has been the prawn fishing— scampi to the Englishman and prawns to the Highlander. Prawns are caught in creels and this, of course, serves one very admirable purpose, in that the large prawn or scampi cannot pass through the mesh of the net or withy basket— so the little ones go away to get bigger, and the big ones are caught, and make a great deal of money when they are sold. Many of them go for export. An Inverness county councillor made a point at the last meeting of the council that there are 2,000 creels between the Isle of Eriskay through the long island to the Sound of Harris, including Benbecula, and if a big drifter comes in at night all these creels are simply swept away. There is no argument about this. The scampi fishing, which has been built up through the closure of the Minches, could be destroyed quickly. But it took a long time to establish. I do hope your Lordships will remember these things, because I have a nasty feeling that people will look the other way when it comes to the crunch.
The Cameron Report has recommended so many extraordinary things that it really has shaken the Highland fishermen. Mind you, it is a majority Report, in the sense that it was an East coast report dealing with people on the West coast. When I say "majority Report" the people on the West coast only want a minority of the sea, and I hope noble Lords will appreciate the importance of that little bit of three-mile water. It was said that bigger boats should be used. The definition of "inshore fisherman" is one who uses an 80 ft. boat or less. I would take issue with Lord Kennet— who has left the Chamber— when he said that one can go up into the Faroes or fish in Norway.

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Of course an inshore fisherman cannot fish in the Faroes; he is at considerable risk if he leaves the 12-miles limit. And the depopulation is so great in the Western Highlands that one could not find a crew either to man the boat or to afford the boat. These boats have still to be paid for. The most terrifying thing is that they have to be paid for on grant and loan, and, if there are to be only five years in which to recast entirely the fishing problems of the west, all these men are going to go bankrupt.
I have talked about the Highland problem. Perhaps Lord Cameron was thinking the brave old days when strong arms drove the birlinns of Clan Donald trawling through the Western seas. This is no longer possible. The townships are depopulated and the men are all going away. It is only the fishing that has saved the situation in the West. This is extraordinary muddle-headed thinking on the part of Lord Cameron. I am sure it was not Lord Cameron who did the thinking, he is simply giving his name to a Report. I have the highest admiration for Lord Cameron. Have any of his Committee gone out prawn fishing on a dark night? I am sure they have not. To talk about protection in certain areas is equally absurd. With wireless you know exactly where a fishery cruiser is, and it is "talked" up and down the Western Isles. It has been going on for 25 years. How can you sneak round a corner and catch a vessel encroaching on nursery areas or fishing inside a sea loch when everybody knows where the fishery trawler is before the poaching begins?
So there are tremendous holes through which you could drive a horse and cart. I do hope that, if a blind eye is turned on this very splendid breed of men I have been describing, in their struggle with a very hostile climate, with a very difficult shore and the worst of the weather, at least they will be given a chance of a 10-year rather than a five-year extension to be able to pay off their boats. Even this is a brutal decision, because they will be out of work once the inshore fishing ban is lifted, I am quite sure of that. I would also suggest (your Lorships may think this a very naïve suggestion, but I am not ashamed
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of making it) that further consideration be given at this point of time to the demands of the Avoch, Hopeman, Scalpay, Eriskay, Kyle, Mallaig, Skye and Wester Ross communities, or that all forms of fishing on the Sabbath day be prohibited on the West Coast. I do not think there is any harm in trying to preserve the Highland Sabbath.
If I may be allowed to put forward one last personal request, shared by the Inverness County Council Study and Development Group, of which I am the chairman, I would ask whether steps can be taken drastically to reduce the wholesale destruction of immature fish of all kinds in firths, estuaries and inshore waters. The bulk of these catches are being turned into meal and dog meat. In my opinion, this has been the most extraordinary, unforgivable crime, and when one talks to the Department of Agriculture, or to "Ag. and Fish", or to the Highlands and Islands Development Board, you get only a soft-pedalled answer couched in such terms as, "We are studying the situation. We of course know that the young herring go in cycles. They will come back again, and you must not be too worried if you have not seen any for four or five years." That, of course, is nonsense. The young herring have been killed out everywhere except around the Scottish coast; and it is inexcusable if we do not work our sea food properly. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, wished to put this message across when he initiated this debate. I hope that he will forgive me for being rather parochial in my remarks, but I am not in least ashamed of making them.
My Lords, I am sorry that I have taken up so much of your Lordships' valuable time, but I will end on a note which may sound slightly "offbeat". It has been said that every subject under the sun has at one time or another been discussed in this august Chamber. I wonder if Coel Mhor, the classic music of the Highland bagpipe, has ever been given a hearing. They say, wrongly, that it takes seven generations to make a piper, and that the seventh son of a seventh son sometimes has the second sight. This is not in fact correct, but it is true to say that in the last 200 years there have been very few great pibrochs or laments corn-posed. Such a one of the old vintage

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bears the charming title, Scarce of fishing. May I express the hope that the outcome of your Lordships' deliberations this afternoon will not necessitate urgent chanter practice.
8.2 p.m.
LORD STRANGE: My Lords, I should like to join the fishermen all round the coast in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, for initiating this very necessary debate. I have not got my long boots on, or my Guernsey, but I also am very keen on the fishing, and interested in it. I am speaking about the Isle of Man. Your Lordships know that the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are not part of the British Isles, but we are, and always have been, very great friends with the British Isles. In two wars we had the record of having more freely enlisted men per head of population than anywhere else in the British Empire; and our friendship goes on to-day. But what is going to happen to us is that if Her Majesty's Government go into the Common Market, we shall be certainly, I think, driven into it; and so will our friends and neighbours across the "ditch" from us, Southern Ireland. They will be driven in, too, and the result to both of us will be pure disaster.
My Lords, I want to speak briefly. I may stop for a few minutes to scratch my head; but you must not worry— I shall go on again. There have been so many excellent speeches that I have to work out what has been said and what has not been said, because I should hate to say anything which has been said already. My Lords, the Isle of Man has always been famous for its kippers, partly because of the way we cure them but also for the excellence of the herrings. If the Common Market "big stuff" got in among those herrings, as the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, mentioned, they would purse-net them all night and bale them out. All day they could have their big trawling shots, echo sound them where they are at the bottom and trawl them out all day and all night. I think there are still enough herrings in the North Sea and along the surrounding coasts of Norway to feed the whole population, but there are certainly not enough to feed their livestock and their pets also. Unless due care is taken, the herring can be, and they probably will be, exterminated.
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Our other fishery, my Lords, which is of great importance to the Island, is the scallop. The scallop fish is important. The scallops in the Isle of Man are called tanrogans in their largest and mature size, and in the smaller, half-size they are called "queenies". Until recently, there was no market for queenies, the growing scallops, but it has suddenly become a great dish and very popular in Paris and elsewhere. They are very good; I have eaten them myself. So now our local fishermen, with their dredges, are concentrating on catching both the tanrogans, the mature scallop, and also the queenies. Recently there has been an enlargement of our fishing craft, and a boat is quite able to lug along a dredge of two-ten bars— that is to say, 20 feet in two parts— scooping the bottom, dredging the bottom, into the chain net, and then on into the ordinary net, because the scallops swim as they chip-propel themselves up and get caught.
That will probably be all right so far as the Isle of Man is concerned, because our intelligent Government, the House of Keys, lay down a breeding session when fishing is stopped, and that gives the scallops a chance to get a move on. But suppose the Common Market fishermen come in. I will put it in this way. I have often read historians talking about the kitchen midden folk, who apparently lived on shellfish. They made large piles of the empty shells, and when the fishing was done they moved on. It was known where they had been from the piles of shells they left behind when they had fished out their available grounds. I do not think the Isle of Man will become kitchen midden folk if we go into the Common Market, because the Common Market fishermen take everything. Everything that comes up in the trawl, or everything that comes up in the drag, goes into the boat. They are exceedingly efficient people. Theirs is an exceedingly well-run business, and when they go ashore there is a market for everything. There is a market for starfish; there is a market for everything you can think of. I do not think there is a market for old boots, but for practically everything you can think of there is a market. We have not got the same markets. Most of the stuff we do not want just goes overboard. So we will be competing with highly efficient people.

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There is an important point which has not been made yet in this debate. The point is that if these fishermen should come in and clean us up, which they would do— I suppose in three years they would have the place dry, and we would not even be kitchen midden folk: they would have the shells, and do something with those— the price of fish would go down, because they would manufacture them very well (they freeze them at once, and they can them very well over there) and we should be buying the fish over here instead of catching them from our own shores. They would be cheap to the housewife— there is no doubt about that— during the three-year period while we were fished out. That would bring down the price of the deep-trawled fish. It would bring the price down, and it does not have to drop very much to make deep trawling unprofitable. Therefore, whichever way you look at it we come out on the wrong side the whole time.
My Lords, I am thinking now not only of the Isle of Man, which has "had it" if these people come in. I am thinking also of the Southern Ireland coast. The people in Southern Ireland literally live with the fishing, as the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, was saying about the Hebrides. It would be disaster if they have to let them in. I think, as has been said, that fishermen are wonderful people, and I do not think that wonderful people would ever take anything quite lying down. I know long before the war, when people used to go down from the country and take a cottage, that when they started to put out a lobster pot or two it was possible they were spoiling one man's livelihood. He probably did not go very far; he probably had a rowing boat and not very large territory, with perhaps only half a dozen pots. It did happen that they found that their hands were sore when they pulled up their pots in the morning. On examination they found that razor blades had been threaded down the line. I do not think that the inshore fishermen are going to take this kindly. I do not think that the Southern Irish are going to take this kindly. I think that these people will have to count their fishing fleets carefully and that, after each visit to Southern Ireland, they may find fewer and fewer ships coming back.
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I will conclude by saying one thing which I believe with great sincerity. I do not think that the Palace of Westminster has the right to give away the sovereignty of our coastline and to give away the rights of the Isle of Man and of Southern Ireland, without having a free vote of all Members, those on both sides of the passage and those on these Benches, on the Common Market.
8.10 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, for raising this matter and asking this Question. We all know of his great interest in this subject and of the tremendous work that he has put in for the fishermen, particularly in his own area, over the past 30 years—
LORD BOOTHBY: Fifty years!
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I beg the noble Lord's pardon. I should like also to express my thanks to him for being so patient about his Question, which I think he has now put off no fewer than twice, if not three times. But he must feel that, in the end, he has put it at a very apt moment in our negotiations with the Common Market countries. I should also like to thank all other noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate this evening. They have shown most expert knowledge. I learned a great deal myself, and I can assure them that I will read their speeches very carefully to-morrow and I will make certain that their remarks are passed on to my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Duchy.
I am grateful for this opportunity to make it clear to the House that the Government attach great importance to this problem. There is great concern felt by Her Majesty's Government about the E.E.C.'s common fisheries policy and about the effect which, in particular, its provisions dealing with fishery limits would have on the British inshore fishing fleet. The immediacy of our concern is demonstrated, I feel, by the fact that only eleven days after the present Government took office and as part of his speech opening this Government's negotiations with the Community, on June 30 last year, the then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster reserved our position on fisheries. This was long before the present public concern emerged on this matter, and indeed

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the same day as the Community themselves decided to revive their proposals to have a common fisheries policy. That there should be a fisheries policy is implicit in the Treaty of Rome: there had been proposals some years earlier, but until then, they had lain dormant. I am sure that noble Lords would not suggest that in these circumstances the Government has been slow in acting to protect our interests.
Throughout the summer and autumn of last year, we watched the Community's policy beginning to take shape; in the end, we handed over a formal note to the Community expressing the hope that in view of the great fisheries interests of the United Kingdom and indeed the other applicant countries, the Six would defer any final decisions on the shape of their fisheries policy until the negotiations for enlargement had been concluded. Unfortunately, as we know, from Great Britain's point of view, the Community decided to press ahead to formulate the policy.
The two basic documents— dealing with structure and marketing— were finalised on October 20 and published on October 27. They also agreed to complete the details of the policy to bring it into effect among themselves on February 1, 1971. This they have in large part achieved, and to date over twenty subordinate regulations have emerged to fill in the picture of the policy they have created. As early as December last year, my right honourable friend, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said in another place that he was satisfied we would have to raise this matter again in some detail with the Community. Since then and as an essential preliminary to this course, we have been studying the situation as it has emerged to enable Her Majesty's Government to take an overall view of how it might affect Britain's interests. Noble Lords to-day have given us many graphic illustrations of the type of situation which can be foreseen.
We must first see how the policy operates in a Community of Six; we must then sec how it might operate in a Community of Ten. We have, after all, pointed out to them that conditions would be very different in an enlarged Community— which would be overall a net exporter of certain types of fish, whereas
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the present Community is a large net importer of all types of fish. It is therefore, as I am sure the noble Lord will accept, in no one's best interests, least of all the fishermen, that this problem should receive an inadequate or cursory examination. I must, however, repeat to the noble Lord that we are in no way committed by the provisions of the Community's present fisheries policy. As I said just now, the policy falls into two parts— dealing with the structure of the industry and with the regulation of marketing. This latter is a most complex provision, governing the organisation of fishermen, the methods, conditions and prices on sale of fish and the rules concerning international trade in fish and fish products.
As noble Lords to-day have naturally devoted their attention to the other half of the policy, that dealing with structure, I would not wish to embark on a lengthy discussion of the marketing provisions here but I would say that some knowledge of them is necessary in order to obtain an overall view of how this policy will affect our fishing industry if we join the Community. I should therefore like to dwell on this for a few moments.
The Community's intention is that the sale of fish shall be conducted largely through the agency of organisations set up and maintained by the fishermen themselves. All the fish of the major species placed on the market would be graded according to quality and size, and, according to the species and its grade classification, the fish would then be subject to a minimum price. These minimum (or withdrawal) prices are to be determined annually by the Community on the basis of average prices obtained at representative markets throughout the Community during the three previous years. The Community do not at present envisage any regional variations in the minimum prices. All fish not sold at or above these prices would be withdrawn from the market by the producers' organisations and sold for fishmeal, or to some other outlet other than for human consumption, and the fishermen would receive compensation to the level of the withdrawal price, largely from central community funds, although a proportion of the money would have to be raised

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from the fishermen members of the producer organisation by way of levies.
LORD STRANGE: My Lords, may I interrupt? These are the fish which are left behind for our inshore fishermen to catch. They are not the foreign fish; they have gone.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, these are all the fish. I take the noble Lord's point; but this applies to all fish, ours and foreign. Not all the foreign fish have gone.
It would not be compulsory for fishermen to join producers' organisations— the Community hopes to have made membership sufficiently attractive that no-one will wish to choose otherwise. The details of this policy are still being finalised by the Community— it is in this sphere that most of the subordinate regulations (and as I have said before, they are many) have appeared so far; some still have to come, and the Six are now in the process of setting up the machinery to operate these provisions. The marketing policy also contains the rules governing international trade in fish, and as last year, British exports of herrings alone exceeded £4 million in value, I think the House would agree that it is right that we should be concerned also with these aspects of the policy. The basic idea of these provisions is similar to that applied already for trade in agricultural products— that imports must obey reference prices so that internal markets may not be disturbed by cheap imports. Exports may also receive subsidies from central Community funds in order that they might compete at the prevailing world prices.
However, I must now turn to the question of fishery limits, the problem which has vexed us all for so long, which recently has obtained so much public attention, and on which the noble Lord has concentrated to-day. The E.E.C. has agreed that vessels of all member countries should have equal rights of access to fish in the waters of all other member countries. This does not mean complete freedom to fish, as has so often been assumed. Member countries may, and indeed are expected to, retain their own domestic regulations as they see fit. It has already been pointed out by noble Lords that the French are operating a
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ban on beam trawling within their fishery limits, and the Germans have recently introduced a limitation on the horsepower of vessels which may fish for shellfish within their limits. In addition, countries make new regulations to cope with any increase in quantity or alteration in the pattern of fishing effort— exactly as they would have done before entry to the E.E.C. In the case of salmon, for example (mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Balerno), at the present time fishing for salmon is a private right in Scotland out to three miles; and beyond three miles fishing is prohibited for everybody, including British nationals. This situation will not be changed even were the United Kingdom to accept the E.E.C. fisheries policy as it stands.
However, in retaining domestic legislation countries may not discriminate purely and simply against vessels of other member countries. The Community does not intend this policy as a licence to fish out each others waters, which, if one looks at this rationally, would be a very absurd thing to do. Indeed, there is provision for the Community itself to make regulations to prevent overfishing— a point which the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, referred to under Article 5. It is clear that the Community itself sees the continuation of national but nondiscriminatory, regulations as being the primary means of preventing overfishing from taking place in the inshore waters of Community members.
The question of the Norwegian Government was raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso. As the House will know, the Norwegian Government put forward in Brussels on May 4 a compromise proposal to cover their special difficulties. Its essential point is that fishing within member States' fishery limits should be restricted to enterprises established in the coastal State. There has not been time for the Community to give a considered reaction. The Norwegians have given a copy of their proposal to Her Majesty's Government. Her Majesty's Government think that it is a constructive proposal and are already studying it with care.
However, having said all this, I do not wish to give the impression that we in the Government are unconcerned about the problem facing the British inshore fishermen. Total landings by British

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vessels of all sizes in 1970 were worth some £75 million, of which some £29 million or 39 per cent., was taken by the inshore fleet. In Scotland, as the noble Lord has pointed out, the importance of the inshore fleet is even more apparent: total Scottish landings last year were £27 million: and the inshore fleet's share was £19 million— some 70 per cent. The inshore fleet in 1970 directly employed 13,651 men in Great Britain, of whom some 7,731 were in Scotland.
LORD KENNET: May I seek clarification on that point from the noble Lord? Does this mean that the proportion of G.N.P. represented by the inshore fleet in Britain is 39 per cent. of one quarter of one per cent.? I think it is.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: I am not sure that I can answer the noble Lord off hand. May I let him know?
LORD HOY: We know that this means a great many human beings.
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: That is what I was going on to say: we must never forget that this is a human problem. Noble Lords should note that I have been referring to direct employment: the figures would be much greater if indirect employment and ancillary operations were taken into account as well. It is therefore a great human problem.
The Government do not underestimate the importance of this sector of the industry; it is doing a wonderful job, and thriving into the bargain. A large proportion of its catch is taken from within our fishery limits, which were extended to 12 miles as a result of action by the last Conservative Administration and finalised in the 1964 European Fisheries Convention. Noble Lords will realise that we should be extremely unwilling therefore to give up these hard fought-for gains. However, it has been pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, and it is well worth repeating, that several individual European countries enjoy historic rights to fish up to six miles from our coastline along considerable stretches of our coast. Of the present member countries of the Community, France, Belgium and Germany all have considerable rights in this belt between 6 and 12 miles from our shores. It is important
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to be clear that there have been foreign vessels fishing peacefully and legally within our 12-mile limit for many years.
As I have said, the Government have been for some considerable time well aware of the problems which would arise for our inshore fishermen, and indeed for all connected with the industry— and the noble Lord rightly pointed out that there are many jobs dependent on the continued prosperity of the fleet— if the Community's present policy of common access were o apply to Britain. We have therefore been studying the whole of this policy as it would affect our industry. Officials, both from Whitehall and from Scotland, have had several rounds of useful consultations in Brussels, and have also made contact in several other European capitals. The Government have been digesting and considering carefully the information which has been so obtained. We are now moving to the stage of deciding what points we shall need to take up with the Six.
LORD LOVAT: If I may interrupt the noble Marquis in his statement, may I ask if he will give us some idea of the most important point I made in my speech— the destruction of immature fish, which have been taken away in Klondikers to be ground into meal and oil, from fish nurseries in this country because there are none on the other side?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: I am very glad the noble Lord has mentioned this point. This is in fact one of the topics that we shall be taking up with the Six. It is for this reason, as well as the point I made at the beginning of my reply, that I am pleased we have had an opportunity of discussing this subject to-day. We do not wish to hide the facts of the position from noble Lords or from the fishing industry— quite the reverse. We are always willing to receive representations on this important subject. Noble Lords will be aware that my right honourable friend the Chancellor has received deputations from the inshore fishermen and my noble friend Lady Tweedsmuir of Belhevie received a delegation of Members of the other House who wanted to discuss this matter. Since then officials have been in frequent contact with the fishermen's associations, and the Under-Secretary of State at the

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Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food met Scottish inshore fishermen only last Friday.
My Lords, we are very anxious that this debate is well understood and that noble Lords are well informed. We have had official translations made of all the regulations, and they have been circulated to the fishermen's associations and other bodies, such as the White Fish Authority and the Herring Industry Board. It may be of interest to noble Lords to know that copies have been placed in the Library for the convenience of Members of your Lordships House. I repeat that I share the concern which is widely felt about the Community's fishing policy. The Government are aware of the problem, both as an economic and also as a human problem. We are convinced that it is a matter which will have to be raised in detail with the Six.
I mentioned earlier that we were conducting a detailed examination. Since this is still continuing, it is not possible to say precisely what we shall raise with the Six, or in what form. Noble Lords will, I think, agree that in such negotiations it would be unwise on the part of any Government to declare its hand in advance. To do so would be contrary to our practice. Indeed it might prove harmful to the fishing industry, and that is the last thing we should desire. We welcome the most helpful suggestions that have been made in this debate. They will be taken seriously into account by the Government and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Boothby, for raising this matter.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, whatever we do, shall we do it with Norway?
LORD BOOTHBY: And shall we do something?
LORD KENNET: My Lords, would it be possible to have an answer to my question? I am not pressing the Government to say what line they are going to take. It is simply a factual question; whatever the line is, will it be coordinated with Norway, or will it be taken quite alone, without any preliminary contact with Norway?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I remained seated only because I was not certain whether the procedure on
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an Unstarred Question enabled me to speak again. But I think I may assure the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, that we shall be in contact with the Norwegians.