Lords Sitting of 4 July 1972

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

BATH: PRESERVATION OF HISTORIC BUILDINGS
LORD RAGLAN: 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 central Government funds have been and will be made available for the preservation of Bath.
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT (LORD SANDFORD): My Lords, contrary to the impression which might be created by letters in the Press, grants totalling over £250,000 have already been offered through the Historic Buildings Council for the repair of Bath's outstanding historic buildings. The Government paid half of the cost of the Buchanan Report on conservation and are considering the possibility of helping with the cost of further studies by Professor Sir Colin Buchanan. The Government paid 75 per cent. of the cost of the feasibility study on the Bath Tunnel. If the Tunnel scheme (which is aimed at relieving the historic centre of extraneous traffic) is approved, the Government contribution to that will be of the order of £6 million.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord has been able to make that clear. Can he also make clear with what machinery, or how, the Historic Buildings Council are going to work in with the Bath Council to achieve the sort of effect they desire? And will the opinions of the local preservation society be taken into account and respected?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, your Lordships will recall that a clause was
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added to the Town and Country Planning (Amendment) Bill in another place which would extend the scope of Historic Buildings Council grants to cover any expenditure on the conservation of outstanding areas such as Bath, either by the owners of buildings or by the local authority or by amenities societies. If your Lordships agree to this clause when the Bill comes back to us, I hope the Bath City Council and the owners and the amenities societies there will take the opportunity to work out, in consultation with the Historic Buildings Council, a long-term programme for the conservation of the whole of Bath's heritage, which the Government could then assist through the new grant.
LORD RAGLAN: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that reply. Are the Government aware that more money will have to be made available for the preservation of Bath and other historic towns besides Bath? Is he also aware that the matter is very much one not only of spending money but of generating the adoption of an attitude of mind among the inhabitants which is congenial to the preservation of their surroundings?
LORD SANDFORD: Yes, my Lords, I agree that more money may be required. We are increasing the Historic Buildings Council budget by 50 per cent. under this new grant. We may have to increase it further. I would certainly agree that there is room for greater and deeper understanding at all levels of the problems of conservation.

ISRAEL AND THE LEBANON
2.38 p.m.
LORD SHINWELL: 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 for what purpose our representative voted in favour of the recent resolution of the Security Council in condemnation of Israel on the Lebanon issue.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE): My Lords, we voted for the Security Council resolution because,

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however provocative various incidents may have been upon the Israel/Lebanon Border, recent Israeli actions appeared to have gone beyond the right of self-defence.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness whether it is not remarkable that on hardly a single occasion when similar matters have emerged before the Security Council has our representative, or for that matter the Foreign Secretary, ever uttered a word in condemnation of the terrorists' actions—and there have been disgraceful actions recently—while at the same time they have displayed a remarkable anxiety, indeed have been falling over themselves, to condemn Israel? And is it not rather remarkable—and this is very difficult for me to understand—that the noble Baroness, for whom we all have the highest regard, can associate herself with this disgraceful attitude?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I think we have to make a distinction between Governments and guerrilla activities, or what the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, referred to as terrorist activities. The Security Council resolution about which he asked was in fact addressed to Governments. Of course we have always deplored any terrorist activities and asked the Lebanese Government to do their best to control them.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness, why adopt this one-sided attitude, this attitude of bias and prejudice towards Israel, in spite of the terrorists' aggression that has been prevalent for quite a long time? Why act in this disgraceful fashion? May I ask the noble Baroness whether she would say a word in condemnation of the terrorists who have been operating from the Lebanon?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, the Security Council resolution to which this particular Question refers expressly deplored all acts of violence, from wherever they came, and this expression Her Majesty's Government of course supported. In this particular instance the guerrillas, I understand, on June 20 made a bazooka attack on a civilian bus when two civilians were
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killed, and the reason the resolution condemned the Israelis in this instance was that they bombed Hasbaiya and abducted visiting Syrian military personnel and also Lebanese.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that this is a state of war; that the Arabs, including the guerrillas, have declared war against Israel? In a state of war, is it exceptional to find that civilians are sometimes killed? Does she not recollect the last war and the First War and many other wars, when civilians were either accidentally or deliberately killed?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I quite agree with the noble Lord that we must all regret the bombing or the killing of civilians. But in this particular case the Security Council resolution was addressed to Governments.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness whether the instructions to our representative to support a condemnation of Israel did not simultaneously include instructions to support a resolution, and indeed actively seek to achieve a resolution, of a similar condemnatory character of the Lebanon, who, according to reports, started the troubles?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, the resolution condemned, while profoundly deploring all acts of violence, the repeated attacks of Israeli forces on Lebanese territory in violation of the Charter, et cetera, and expressed the strong desire that appropriate steps would lead, as an immediate consequence, to the release in the shortest possible time of all those abducted. I shall not read the resolution in full. I should like to return to what I said earlier: there is a distinction between guerrilla activities, which the Lebanon have been asked to try to control, and the acts of Government.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, could the noble Baroness describe a little further the difference between terrorists and guerrillas? According to our Press both are credited equally with violent actions which should be condemned.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I would think they were both the same.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, I should like to ask why the Government, who are without a single record of success in the field of foreign affairs during the whole of their two years of rule, are now driving some of their most ardent supporters into depths of despair? Are they aware that a leader in the Daily Telegraph of June 28 denounced the Government's action as short-sighted and dishonest and the proceedings of the United Nations as a shabby farce? Why do the Government persist in lending their support to these discreditable proceedings?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, from reading the terms of the resolution I think the Government were quite right, because they are in fact supporting the ideas behind Resolution 242, which, as the noble Lord will recall, seeks to try to produce peace in the Middle East. On the first part of his question, I must say that I entirely disagree with the noble Lord.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, in view of the happy outcome of direct talks between Pakistan and India and in spite of all the efforts of the United Nations to achieve a settlement over the issue of Kashmir, why are the Government now doing their utmost to make the calling of a summit conference on the Middle East more remote than ever?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I cannot accept that. We have always done our best to support the mission of Ambassador Jarring, and we shall continue to do so.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, would the Government consider that these guerrilla and terrorist activities are necessarily carried on from someone's territory, and that if they are not restrained, either at the request of the United Nations or otherwise, there is always a danger of increased incidents of this sort by way of Israeli retaliation? Will the Government bear in mind that if the situation is not brought under better control the precarious peace in the Middle East may really be endangered?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I entirely agree with what the noble Lord has said, and it is for that reason that we, together
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with 12 others, supported the Security Council resolution. No one voted against and there were only two abstentions.
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, would the noble Baroness not agree that the power of the Security Council to control these disgraceful activities amounts to zero, and that for that reason any retaliatory action which may be taken by the Israeli Government in self-defence is perhaps excusable?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, no one questions the right, under the Charter of the United Nations, to act in self-defence, but we said, as I sought to explain to the House earlier, that the abduction of certain Syrian and Lebanese personnel to Israeli territory and also the bombing of the village of Hasbaiya was really beyond the act of self-defence.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, many of us have some sympathy with the attempts of the Government to tread an even path through this thorny minefield, and without wishing to say whether we believe that this path is successfully trodden I should like to ask the noble Baroness whether she is aware that many people will feel that one of the main things is to keep the Middle Eastern war out of this country—a subject we shall come to in a later Question.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: Yes, my Lords, and I would thank the noble Lord for his remarks.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, I should like to ask the noble Baroness whether, in the circumstances, she would ask her right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary to make a further declaration in another place at the earliest available date in condemnation of guerrilla action in the Middle East.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs has constantly condemned terrorist activities, and not least what took place at Lod airport.
THE EARL OF ONSLOW: My Lords, would the noble Baroness confirm that 30 innocent civilians were killed and 80 wounded in the Israeli retaliatory raid

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and that therefore it is perfectly reasonable to condemn this over-reaction on the part of the Israelis?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I understand that 15 persons were killed and 18 wounded on June 21.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, will the Government accept the view in to-day's leader in The Times that past interventions by outside Powers to pacify the sub-continent of India have always proved fruitless? When will they begin to apply this lesson to the Middle East?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I think the position still stands in relation to the Security Council Resolution 242, which I am sure is familiar to the noble Lord and which has been constantly supported by my right honourable friend.

H.M.S. "EAGLE"
2.49 p.m.
LORD ORR-EWING: 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 H.M.S. "Eagle" has been retained in a condition nearly approaching the "unmaintained reserve" mentioned by the Secretary of State for Defence in the House of Lords debate on March 9, 1972, and why all equipment is being ripped out and all panelling stripped and burnt.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE (LORD CARRINGTON): My Lords, the disposal of H.M.S. "Eagle" is proceeding on the lines I outlined to the House on March 9. Stores and equipment are being removed before she is towed to Devonport, where further removal of equipment will take place. However, a decision on when she should be disposed of for scrap will not be taken until later, probably not before the end of 1973.
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that I have received reports that the majority of equipment is being ripped out of this ship, and that that goes far beyond the assurances which
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he gave to this House: that only equipment which was needed to keep H.M.S. "Ark Royal" in operational condition would be taken away from H.M.S. "Eagle"? In view of the growing strength of the U.S.S.R. maritime forces, is it not unwise to destroy any naval asset which this country and which NATO have?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, we argued the whole question of the disposal of H.M.S. "Eagle" at great length in March, when we had a separate debate on it. I made out what I considered to be the unanswerable case for the very sad but necessary disposal of H.M.S. "Eagle". With great respect to my noble friend, I do not think that it would be profitable to go into that aspect of it again. I would only remind him that a ship in "unmaintained reserve" takes a very long time to get back into commission. For example, a ship which has been in "unmaintained reserve" from one to 18 months takes anything between 9 to 12 months to be brought back into commission. Therefore the value of such a ship is very limited.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, can the noble Lord say what is the cost of maintaining the "Eagle" in its present form, a ship that is never likely to be recommissioned?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, we are not maintaining "Eagle". That was the whole point. The point is that she is being de-stored, and some of the equipment which is being removed from H.M.S. "Eagle" is being used and will be used as spares for H.M.S. "Ark Royal".
LORD HARVEY OF PRESTBURY: My Lords, before my noble friend says anything, may I say that it is highly unlikely that H.M.S. "Eagle" will ever be put into commission again. If that is the case, can he tell the House what progress is being made with the replacement vessel, the through-deck cruiser? Because we urgently need something to replace the "Eagle" and we should like to know the foreseeable date.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I must say that I think it is rather unlikely that H.M.S. "Eagle" will ever be commissioned again. The through-deck cruisers are going according to plan, as

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was outlined in my Defence White Paper earlier this year.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, will the noble Lord issue a glossary in his next White Paper when he is introducing terms like "de-store", which are unfamiliar to most noble Lords?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am very surprised if the noble Lord does not understand what "de-storing" means.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, it is simply because I do understand but some of my noble friends do not that I am raising the matter.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, it is the object of a Leader of a Party to inform his own side.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, it is the object also for members of the Government Front Bench to speak intelligibly to everybody in your Lordships' House.
LORD MOTTISTONE: My Lords, would my noble friend assure the House, its view of what he said, that every possible effort is being made to develop the Harrier for seaborne operations? The through-deck cruiser is important, but surely it is especially important to have the Harrier. Can my noble friend assure us that there has been no delay in order to try to perfect this aircraft?—because perfection is so often the enemy of the excellent.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I quite understand my noble friend's point. I would tell him that we are pressing on as urgently as we can with the studies which are necessary before we decide whether or not the Harrier will be suitable in the maritime role.
LORD ORR-EWING: My Lords, can my noble friend give the House a final assurance that no equipment is going to be removed from H.M.S. "Eagle" which is not required for H.M.S. "Ark Royal"? I understand that the screws are about to be removed, and they are not required immediately for H.M.S. "Ark Royal". If this is going on, and there is wilful destruction of all the panelling in all the wardrooms, how does this line up with his assurance that nothing would be
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taken out of H.M.S. "Eagle" which was not required for H.M.S. "Ark Royal"?
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I do not think that I could give my noble friend an assurance that nothing has been removed from H.M.S. "Eagle" that could not be used elsewhere, and I do not think that I ever gave that assurance. I certainly said that most of the equipment which would be removed would be needed for H.M.S. "Ark Royal", but I do not think that I could give him the assurance that nothing else would be used for another purpose. I confess I do not think that the panelling in the wardroom has much relevance as to whether or not H.M.S. "Eagle" will ever be recommissioned again. I am told that the panelling from the Captain's and the Admiral's quarters has been removed to preserve it. I do not know about the panelling in the wardroom.

PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANISATION: PROPOSED LONDON OFFICE
2.55 p.m.
LORD BARNBY: 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 can confirm that authorisation has been given to the opening in London of an office for the Palestinian guerrilla movement; if so does not this unnecessarily augment the possibility of disturbances in England by a movement to which in the recent past the most violent and reprehensible actions have been attributed.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS): My Lords, authorisation was not needed under our law and none was granted. It has been made clear that the office would attract no kind of diplomatic or official recognition. Any application for a visa connected with the work proposed would be considered in the light of circumstances at the time. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary would not hesitate to use his powers to refuse admission to, or deport, any alien who there was reason to believe might engage in acts of violence, or encourage or incite such acts.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, is it to be understood from the Answer of the noble Viscount that Defence of the Realm regulations contain no power for the Government to exclude from recognised presence in this country bodies to whom reprehensible acts of violence of the worst kind have been attributed? Further, is it to be understood that at present bodies representing any of these either guerrilla or terrorist movements in any part of the world can freely come into this country, with the risk of inciting violence such as we have had in the past?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, bearing in mind the danger of being pedantic, I must explain to my noble friend first of all that I do not think that there are any such things as "Defence of the Realm regulations"; we have other powers. My right honourable friend has other powers under the Aliens Order, and these relate to people, not to organisations. Organisations cannot come in as such; they come in in the form of people, and it is over people that we have jurisdiction.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, may I ask whether the Government are really saying that terrorist organisations can seek asylum in this country without the Government's taking any action? May I further ask whether the Government would permit the militant wing of the I.R.A. to set up offices, or premises, or shops in this country and stand idly by?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I do not think that I am directly concerned in this Question with the I.R.A., but I will say what we can do about other terrorists and other organisations. My right honourable friend has very wide powers to prevent the arrival and admission into this country of people and also powers of deportation. One of the powers he has, which is spelt out in the Immigration Appeals rules and is inherent in his jurisdiction, is to refuse entry, or to deport in the interests of relations between the United Kingdom and any other country. That is a very wide power, and it is not the only one. It operates on people, and if there is any danger of the sort of thing that the noble Lord has mentioned happening, or any danger
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to our international relations, we have powers to act.
LORD BYERS: My Lords, may I just follow that up and ask the noble Viscount this question? What will happen in the event of British nationals manning the premises on behalf of these people?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, in that event there are powers in the police and in the criminal law, if there is any question of conspiracy or other criminal acts taking place, under which people could be arrested. But this must be hypothetical until any such thing has happened.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, are we to understand from the noble Viscount's Answer, and in the light of what the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, said yesterday about the British Government having signed a convention on hijacking, that if the organisations who have been involved wish to come here there is no way in which we in this country can fulfil the requirements of that convention?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: No, my Lords, of course not. I keep trying to emphasise to the House—and I think that my noble friend Lord Ferrers said this yesterday—that it is not the organisations, but the people who are concerned in this matter. This is the situation: what is the differential between some of these organisations? I do not know, and I very much doubt whether other noble Lords do. It is much more important, and I would suggest right, to concern ourselves with the individuals concerned, over whom we have plenty of power. If there is any danger of the ICAO convention, if it comes about, being endangered by their presence in this country, we have full powers to act.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, certainly these organisations have claimed, and it has been proved, that they were part and parcel of hijacking and other terrorist operations. Would the noble Viscount look at this matter again, because I think it would be intolerable, and I do not think would be accepted by the country, that these organisations should be operating in London and in this country?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I have been looking at it all morning. Moreover, the noble Lord referred to "organisations", but the Question relates to only one organisation. The personnel who may or may not be involved in the running of any office, if and when one is set up, will be examined most carefully. It is their individual connection with this matter that we can control. I am sorry the noble Lord shakes his head, but I have no powers, and neither has my right honourable friend, to deal with organisations.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I asked the noble. Viscount only to look.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, may I ask the Government whether they will not allow the Tupamaros organisation, and the organisation which in Germany has recently killed one of our civil servants, to come here and set up an office in London?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, we are empowered neither to allow any organisation to come and set up anything here, nor to disallow them.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, is it not true that this is the organisation which was taking credit about two years ago for hijacking a. British aircraft and actually destroying it in Jordan; and are they not the same people who killed the Jordanian Ambassador? What assurance can the Government give us that this office will not be used for continuing activities of this sort, if not against British aircraft and people in England, then against other friendly countries' aircraft and personnel overseas?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, to the best of my knowledge and information, the answer to both of the questions is: No, it was not this organisation. However, this is why I emphasise the importance of referring to people rather than to organisations. But if there is any danger of this sort of thing happening we have full powers to deal with it, and I assure the noble Lord that we shall keep a very firm eye on the situation.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am sure that your Lordships will have to accept what the noble Viscount has said with regard to his powers. Obviously
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he knows what he is talking about in that respect. But I hope he will pay attention to the obvious and deep concern which the House is feeling in regard to this matter, not merely in regard to this particular organisation but also in regard to others. Will he consider with his right honourable friend whether there are some further powers, which, while not introducing illiberal measures which would be alien here, would enable us to feel more confident?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, if I may say so, the noble Lord is most constructive. If I can get it established that at the present moment we cannot deal with organisations but only with people, that will be a very great step forward. Whether we should be able to deal with these in peace time is another matter, and I shall certainly consider with my right honourable friend whether we should take powers, but legislation would be required for this. Meanwhile, I hope that the House will take my word for it that we have an eye on the situation; that we are capable of using our powers, and if we have to do so we will.
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, will the noble Viscount agree, therefore, that the apprehensions which have been expressed in various parts of the House have not been unreasonable?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I hope a certain amount was done yesterday by my noble friend Lord Ferrers to dispel some of the misapprehensions. The matter was also dealt with extensively in another place. Perhaps I may have assisted to-day; perhaps I may also, in the answers to further supplementary questions, have explained the situation so that we now see exactly where the powers are and where they are not; and perhaps I have given the House an assurance that in looking at the matter further we shall be able to consider whether anything further needs to be done.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, with the indulgence of the House, may I thank my noble friend for his correction of my slip about the difference between regulations and powers. Powers undoubtedly exist, but the regulations have ceased to exist. Since my noble friend emphasised the

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individual rather than the organisation, can he say at this moment whether the visit of Yassir Arafat, about which great apprehension has been expressed in the Press, is likely to be impeded?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I cannot of course say whether or not Mr. Yassir Arafat will apply for a visa to come to this country. So far he has not done so, and I think it would be highly insensitive of me at this stage to attempt to prejudge the decision which my right honourable friend might make upon any such application. With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Barnby, I really do not think I ought to go any further into this subject.
LORD BURNTWOOD: My Lords, thanks to the noble Viscount's exposition about his powers, we understand what the position is. But may I ask whether his attention has been drawn to the news item issued by the International Air Transport Association about the extension of the punitive action to be taken by terrorist organisations all over the world, including airports from which El Al operates, which of course includes Heathrow?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I do not think I have had that specifically in mind. But I am grateful to the noble Lord, and if this becomes relevant to the consideration of any of the personnel concerned I shall certainly see that it is borne in mind.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: My Lords, does the Minister fully appreciate the public relations aspect if an office is started here in England, perhaps with a number of advertisements in the papers and a large notice put up outside and, furthermore, with a feeling that there may be those in England whom we would not wish to deport but who might be fellow-travellers? That could give an immensely wrong impression abroad; and the fact that the Minister has powers might not be well understood by the general public.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I appreciate that this is a very difficult situation. What I think is wrong is to attempt to forestall in
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answers in this House, what might happen in the case of any particular alien who did something, or anybody in this country who might make himself subject to some sort of criminal charge. But I indicated one of the areas over which my right honourable friend has powers as to deportation. If somebody was so carrying on as to stir up violent antagonism among the inhabitants of this country, which could possibly lead to a breach of the peace and other things in this country, my right honourable friend's powers also go as far as being able to consider deporting such a person.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, does the noble Viscount imply that, if Her Majesty's Government refused entry to a poor demented girl for throwing a bottle of ink at a Cabinet Minister and damaging his suit, they are bound to refuse entry to known foreigners who openly advocate hijacking and assassination.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I really think that the question of the noble Lord, Lord Segal, illustrates profoundly the danger of generalising in particular cases. I can see nothing whatever in common between Miss Kwiatowski and some hypothetical person who might come in to man the P.L.O. office.
LORD ARWYN: My Lords, may we have a clear definition of the words "guerrilla" and "terrorist", because in my vocabulary a guerrilla is someone to be respected and a terrorist is not? There has been a confusion with terrorists during the whole of these questions and answers.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I think it was not I who used the terms "guerrilla" or "terrorist". I must refer the noble Lord to the Oxford English Dictionary, because I do not consider myself to be a semantic philosophist of the sort required.

SELNEC (MANCHESTER CENTRAL AREA RAILWAY, ETC.) BILL
Read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.

AFFILIATION PROCEEDINGS (AMENDMENT) (NO. 2) BILL
3.9 p.m.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. It has been said, de minimis non coral lex. This is not the case to-day, when we are considering a little Bill introduced in another place by my honourable friend Dame Joan Vickers. I am very proud to be associated with her in this matter, which is one of the many in which she has furthered the interests of women and children. Though this is a little Bill—because, of course, it will affect only a very small number of people—nevertheless, to those people it will be very welcome and a very great relief. There was in earlier times a strong element of the criminal law in the affiliation law. This put the mother of an illegitimate child, as compared with the mother of a legitimate child and the State, at a disadvantage in obtaining a maintenance order. I shall very briefly explain the provisions of this Bill.
Clause 1 will remove the necessity for the mother to appear in person, except of course in contested cases when her evidence is necessary. In many cases paternity itself is not contested; what is contested is the amount of payment. Under this Bill it will not be necessary for the mother to go to court if her claim can be proved to the satisfaction of the court by other means—for instance, by the admission by the father of paternity. Illness or unavoidable absence—for example, abroad—would at the moment invalidate an application. Clause 2 extends the time limit for making the application from one to three years, and thus brings it into line with the period allowed when the State or local authorities apply for the recovery of maintenance for a child from a putative father. As I am sure your Lordships realise, there may be many reasons why a mother may not apply far maintenance in the first 12 months. She may hope for marriage; she may be ill; she may have hopes—subsequently dashed—of being able to support herself and her child, or she may find that unanticipated difficulties have grown to such an extent that she cannot cope. If the State can apply within
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three years, why not the mother? This will put her on the same basis.
Clause 3(1) takes the application for the revival or cancellation of an affiliation order out of open court and back into the domestic court where it originated. This will bring to the mother of an illegitimate child the same protection against distressing publicity as that afforded to the mother of a legitimate child. Clause 3(2) enables a court, at its discretion, to treat variations of an affiliation order as domestic proceedings. These provisions bring the procedure in affiliation proceedings in relation to an illegitimate child into line with matrimonial proceedings in magistrates' courts. In practice, the courts almost always treat variations as domestic proceedings.
My Lords, I hope that this very brief explanation of the three clauses, which are designed to mitigate the anxiety of mothers in difficult circumstances, will dispose your Lordships to give this Bill the same unanimous approval as it had in another place. There are no doubt Amendments which one would have liked to see put forward; and some were indeed advanced by both Dame Joan Vickers and Mr. Abse; but they were advised that the chances of getting this Bill through this Session made it inadvisable to put forward any further Amendments, and that they should be content with these steps forward. In any case, as your Lordships probably know, the whole of the matrimonial procedure is being revised by the Law Commission at the present moment. I trust, therefore, that your Lordships on both sides will give this very little Bill your full approval. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a—(Baroness Emmet of Amberley.)
3.14 p.m.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, on Friday last we had a small Bill introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton—the Trading Representations (Disabled Persons) Amendment Bill. On that occasion your Lordships were able to say that it was a small, humane Bill which helped a small section of the community. To-day, I am very happy that the noble Baroness, Lady Emmet of Amberley, has equally brought

1293
in a small but very humane measure, one to which we on this side of the House are delighted to give our support. I should like to thank the noble Baroness for her work in this field in many ways. We all know of her splendid work with the Law Society and her work for women generally. I am also very pleased to see that my noble friend (if I may so describe her) Lady Elles is also to speak. We share membership of a very august body, the Women's National Commission, which should shake your Lordships because of their power and their eloquence.
This small Bill will indeed deal with a section of the community who, I would say, are often young, very vulnerable and inexperienced in dealing with legal matters. Those of us who sit in the domestic courts know that, on the whole, this is rather a sad business. The break-up of a marriage is always a sad business, whether it ends in separation or in divorce. Dealing with affiliation orders is also often a very sad business, though I may tell your Lordships that sometimes there is a lighter note. I can recall a case quite recently in which we had what is known laughingly as the putative father on the one side and the young lady on the other side, and when the clerk said to the girl, "Madam, you allege that this man is the father of the child born to you at such-and-such a time?", there was a monetary silence and the girl then said, "I have never seen this gentleman before in my life". The clerk said, "But, madam, what are you saying?". She said, "Actually, I did not come here in a case; I only came with a friend". It seemed to me, my Lords, that it was rather on the level of the gentleman who had his appendix removed when he merely went to visit somebody in hospital.
My Lords, this small Bill is important. I think it is very wise of the noble Baroness to have used this time to get it through Parliament. I am delighted to give it my wholehearted support.
3.17 p.m.
BARONESS ELLES: My Lords, as a member of the Committee which, under the chairmanship of Anthony Cripps, produced the Report about legal discrimination against women, I naturally
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welcome this particular Bill. We were aware that this branch of the law in fact discriminates against women as compared with men; and, looking at the working of the Affiliation Proceedings Act 1957, we were naturally aware that there were certain inconsistencies with other procedures which inflicted unnecessary hardship and difficulties on women who were in a position to claim against the putative father and which consequently also damaged the chances of the child. My noble friend Lady Emmet of Amberley has outlined the provisions of this amending Bill, so I need not go into the details. But the Bill may have one or two social effects which are desirable.
First, there will be an increase in the number of affiliation orders which are made each year. At the moment the total represents only something like 10 per cent. of the number of illegitimate births; and for those who like numerals instead of percentages I may say that it is about 7,000 out of 65,000 illegitimate births since 1970. On the other hand, there is of course an advantage in having a three-year extension period for the welfare worker; and here I pay tribute to the tremendous work done by the local authorities' social welfare workers who attempt to bring about conciliation between the putative father and the unmarried mother in the hope of at least establishing some form of stable relationship, if not eventual marriage. At the same time, she has room to manœuvre without putting at risk the chances of the child's being able to claim at a later stage some form of maintenance against his or her father.
The Report that will eventually be produced by the Law Commission's Working Party on Domestic Procedure will no doubt produce many more radical proposals, but I wanted this afternoon just to explain the grounds on which we made these particular recommendations. I think the introduction of this Bill now, not waiting for this Report but at least eliminating immediate hardship and difficulty, is timely and that is why I warmly commend it to your Lordships' House.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, I have no personal interest to declare, but I am wondering whether we can have a little further explanation of Clause 1,

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and particularly the proposed new subsection (1) which says that the court shall not adjudge the defendant to be the putative father unless the mother's evidence
"is corroborated in some material particular by other evidence …"
I am wondering if we could have a little further explanation of that.
3.19 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, it is nice to be able to move into slightly calmer waters than my last utterances and to be able to echo very warmly the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, and my noble friend Lady Elles in welcoming this Bill, and to pledge the support of the Government to it. My noble friend Lady Emmet of Amberley has explained its purpose—to deal with a small but (as I know well, having been for ten years President of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Child) important section of the community which deserves this kind of amelioration of the law when it can get it. I was glad that my noble friend Lady Elles mentioned the Cripps Report. Bit by bit this is being implemented. I answered a Question for Written Answer the other day showing how we are getting on, and I referred to the provisions of this Bill as being part of the implementation. We are glad to be able to be working through the detailed, somewhat diverse, divisions of that Report as we get the opportunity.
The noble Lord, Lord Leatheriand, asked about Clause 1. I know that it is not my business to explain the noble Baroness's Bill, but I think the part with which the noble Lord was concerned is merely a restatement of the existing law where the mother comes to give evidence. The point about Clause 1, as I understand it, is that at the moment she has to give evidence, whether her evidence is necessary or not. If the putative father, to use the noble Baroness's phrase, admits that it is his child and signs the birth certificate, it is perfectly plain that the dispute is not about percentage but about the amount of the order; yet, as the Act stands, the wretched mother still has to come to give evidence. Where there is a situation like that, Clause 1 dispenses with the need for the mother to come to give evidence. If there is a contested case the law will still in practice be that
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the mother has to come and show reason why she says the man is the father of her child; and, as now, one would have some corroboration. The corroboration may well be a blood test or something of that sort, which is now getting a very sophisticated matter. It is only a restatement of that part of the law that we are preserving.
I cannot see why, where her evidence is not required, the proceedings should not be able to go ahead without the evidence of the mother; and that is what the Cripps Report said. Under Clause 2, I cannot see why, if the Supplementary Benefits Commission, or the local authority, can apply for an affiliation order within three years of the time they have paid out money for the benefit of the child—any time—the mother should be confined to doing so within a year of the child's birth. The Cripps recommendation also was along this line. Finally, I cannot see why affiliation order proceedings have to be heard in open court when very similar matrimonial proceedings are held in a domestic court in closed circumstances, I think to the benefit of everyone. It may not look a very large or important Bill but I think it is, and that it can have social consequences, as the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, suggested. I welcome it and I hope that the House will be unanimous in giving it a warm Second Reading.
3.23 p.m.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, I am grateful for the way in which the Bill has been received on both sides of the House, and especially I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, and for the help I have received from my noble friend Lady Elles. As I saw a slight appearance of mystification over the noble Baroness's face when I ventured to start in Latin, perhaps I should say that de minimis non curat lex means "The law pays no attention to little matters". This is a little matter to which it has paid attention, and I am grateful.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I would only say to the noble Baroness, Lady Emmet of Amberley, that, as a good Catholic, for me Latin was a compulsory subject.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

JUDGES' REMUNERATION ORDER 1972
3.24 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE)THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD HAILSHAM OF SAINT MARYLEBONE) rose to move, That the Draft Judges' Remuneration Order 1972, laid before the House on June 23, be approved. The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, I rise to move the first of the two Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper, and in doing so I suggest that it might be for the convenience of the House if we discussed the two Motions together, since they are closely interrelated. The first Motion relates to the so-called Higher Judiciary and the second to the metropolitan magistrates. Other judges, for instance, the circuit Judges within my domain, may have their salaries increased and backdated without any Order or Resolution from Parliament. So, for that matter, can sheriffs-substitute in Scotland and county court judges in Northern Ireland. As regards the English lower judiciary other than the metropolitan magistrates, they have in practice for many years been closely related to the Civil Service pay and have in practice followed it. But the salaries we are now discussing cannot be backdated. They can be increased only from the date of the Order. That is why this apparent discrimination against them is taking place. Therefore it follows that the procedure in relation to the Higher Judiciary and the metropolitan magistrates with which I am now concerned is something of an anomaly, and it could even be something of an anachronism.
The need for the Orders—if I may explain for those of your Lordships who are curious for legal authentication—arises under the Judges' Remuneration Act 1965 and the Judicial Offices Salaries and Pensions Act 1957 respectively. I need not remind the House that this is another part of the Boyle Report on top salaries. We have already accepted, in February, their recommendations in relation to Parliamentary salaries and in relation to Ministerial salaries in, I think, April; and last Friday we implemented the Report so far as it affected Parliamentary pensions. Also, the Government have accepted the great range of salaries within the purview of this Report, such as those of chairmen and members of nationalised
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industry boards, senior civil servants and senior officers of the Armed Forces, which can be done without Order. They can be increased by administrative action and backdated. Only the salaries of High Court Judges and the magistrates cannot.
I am very anxious not to trespass on the time of the House, which devoted some time on Friday to discussing general issues in relation to Parliamentary pensions prior to the economic debate tomorrow, and I hope, therefore, that we may get through this Motion without my having to do so. The Boyle Report, as your Lordships will remember, relates to a datum line of July, 1969, when the last reviews of salaries of the Civil Service and chairmen of nationalised industries were made, although that review was implemented, as your Lordships will remember, in stages and was followed by the remuneration of the Judiciary. In my opinion, so far as regards the Judiciary with which alone I am concerned, there is an overwhelming case. The Report points out that since July, 1969, and before January, 1972, which is the terminal date, salaries have risen elsewhere by 29 per cent. and prices by 20 per cent. The average annual increase proposed by Boyle is only 6·8 per cent., with a range from 3·9 for the highest to 8·4 for the lowest. This is to compensate a price increase of 7·7 per cent. annually and salary increases in other quarters annually of 11·1 per cent.
I ought to say that magistrates, who are the subject of the second Order, have rather larger increases than the others in the first Order. I am glad of this because they have fallen below the relatively to other judges and legal earnings generally, with consequent difficulties of recruitment. The pattern of the Review Body's report is, however, to give higher percentage increases to those receiving lower pay generally. I hope relativity will be closely examined; that will be the next stage and it is purely fortuitous that I get this additional bonus in this particular Report. For the reasons that I have stated I do not propose to go into the whole merits of the Report or I should be trespassing on other debates. I think your Lordships will agree that upon the assumption which, for this purpose, I think I am entitled to make, that Boyle was right and that we were right to implement it, the judges cannot be left out

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simply because they require Parliamentary sanction. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Judges' Remuneration Order 1972, laid before the House on June 23 be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
3.30 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, top salaries are always one of the most contentious subjects—subjects, furthermore, which tend to arouse feelings which are not confined just to noble Lords on this side of the Chamber but, as one realises, having listened to the debate on pensions last Friday, are shared by noble Lords throughout the House. As someone who has had some responsibility in this area, I think that it is wholly wrong not to pay our public servants something which approximates—and it only just approximates—to what they could earn elsewhere in an economic system (and we shall be discussing this subject to-morrow) which is not as just as it might be.
I think I am right in saying that judges have had only three, or at the most four, increases since 1825. These vitally important figures, who provide us with a high calibre of justice of which we are proud, under the proposals now before your Lordships are still paid a good deal less than the deputy chairman of a large company—in fact a good deal less than the chairman of a small company. We need to consider these figures, as Boyle did, in arriving at the appropriate level. It is a difficulty that when we discuss these high salaries, and the fact that the chairman of a company with a capital of over £250 million is paid £43,000 a year, we always discuss remuneration in gross terms and not in net terms. When I was responsible for putting out proposals for increases in the remuneration of senior civil servants we considered what the real increase was. Previous Governments had been slow to make these increases and there was strong feeling about it throughout the Civil Service unions, and not just at the top level.
The noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack may not have the figures of the net increases, and it may be helpful to consider those figures so that we can judge how large the increase is. It is striking that the Boyle Committee appear to have taken the lowest possible
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increase in terms of the comparability, except in regard to judges, who were largely overlooked in the past. At the same time—and I do not want to go far into the subject we are to debate tomorrow—it is unfortunate that the Government, while having a review body on top salaries, have not a general and explicit incomes policy throughout the community. I do not want to make much of this point, but it must be very striking to those who are struggling to retain their position in the wage explosion when they see such large increases given in the public sector. These are increases which follow a considerable reduction in income tax to the top salary earners.
It would be fatal to this country, whatever our politics, and particularly bearing in mind that there are those who hold that service to the State is perhaps the greatest service that can be rendered, if we do not pay, if not up to the levels of earnings that can be obtained elsewhere at least somewhere near them. None the less, the differentials in these payments will still fall far short of the differentials which are to be found between top officials and workers in the Soviet Union. Although I do not doubt that some noble Lords may feel that this is not the time to pay these increases and that the figures are excessive, we live in an imperfect world, and I believe that these increases are necessary.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

JUDICIAL OFFICES (SALARIES) ORDER 1972
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this second Motion deals with the salaries of metropolitan magistrates to which I have already spoken. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Judicial Offices (Salaries) Order 1972, laid before the House on June 23, be approved.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PEERS' TRAVELLING EXPENSES
3.35 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE)THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE) rose to move, That this House approved that in future the condition of regular attendance as a qualification for

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reimbursement of the travelling expenses incurred by Peers for the purposes of their Parliamentary duties should be dispensed with. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion which stands in my name on the Order Paper. I should like to preface my brief remarks by filling in the background to the Motion which I am proposing to your Lordships to-day. When in 1946 it was agreed that Members of your Lordships' House should be reimbursed the cost of their travelling expenses, the House agreed that the condition of such reimbursement should be regular attendance. A "regular attender" was defined by the Whips Committee, who administer the present scheme, as being a Peer who attends more than one-third of the Sittings of the House in any one month.
Subsequently, in 1947, this rule, which we have come to know as the "assiduity rule"—a rather charming phrase—was relaxed so far as Peers living in Scotland were concerned. These favoured few have to attend only one-third of those Sittings when Scottish Business is being taken in order to qualify for reimbursement of travelling expenses. I think your Lordships have always felt that this was reasonable for those living some long way from Westminster. Nevertheless, I personally have thought for some time that the application of the rule of regular attendance has been somewhat undesirable and has also been unfair in its application. For instance, it seems to me wrong that a Peer living North of the Scottish Border and attending possibly less frequently than a Peer living just South of the Scottish Border should be able to claim his travelling expenses, whereas his fellow Peer is unable to do so.
Secondly, this is a House which rightly prides itself on the wide range of experience and expertise contained in its membership. This means that certain Peers who are experts in a particular subject and live many miles away from Westminster may wish only to attend the House to speak in a particular debate, and yet have to bear the expense of coming here. This may inhibit them from attending, and this is a loss to the House as a whole. Finally, although I wish to tread very diffidently here, I hold it to be undesirable that the effectiveness of a Party trying to get out its full vote, say, on a Three-Line Whip, should be
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hindered because its less regular attenders, or some of them, may not be able to afford to come, or to do so only with difficulty, and support their Party in the Division Lobby.
In view of the substantial improvements that have been made in the remuneration and facilities available to Members of another place, which none of us grudge, I have thought it right that I should propose this small concession to your Lordships' House. I have "cleared" this through the usual channels and it has the blessing of the appropriate authorities if your Lordships decide that it is right. I hope that this concession will go some way to help Peers who live a considerable distance away from Westminster. I should like to assure noble Lords who live a considerable distance North of the Border that I am not motivated in this context by any "fell Sassenach" designs.
In proposing this concession to your Lordships' House, I am aware that it could possibly be open to some abuse. When Lord Addison moved the Resolution in 1946 which made provision for travelling expenses to be paid, he said:
"Nobody wishes that it should be used to provide free trips to London for people who are not doing their duty as Members of your Lordships' House."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21/5/46; col. 334.]
I am quite sure that this sentiment will continue to be observed by all Members of your Lordships' House. But, with this in mind, I suggest that the Whips Committee should have discretion to disallow such claims for travelling expenses that they may think have been improperly incurred. I am quite certain that this is not something which will come up, but it is a safety net which we should insert if we are going to relax the so-called "assiduity rule". I beg to move.
Moved, That this House approved that in future the condition of regular attendance as a qualification for reimbursement of the travelling expenses incurred by Peers for the purposes of their Parliamentary duties should be dispensed with.—(Earl Jellicoe.)
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, we welcome this concession. I should like to express personal appreciation to the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, because it has been very much on his initiative, after various valiant attempts by other noble Lords on behalf of those who did not

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benefit under the House of Commons pension scheme, that this Motion has come before your Lordships' House. His statement was valuable. I always thought that the Conservative Party never required a Three-Line Whip, and that this sensitive reference to the need for Three-Line Whips was out of consideration for Opposition Parties. I do not know whether the Liberals have Three-Line Whips. It would be absurd if an important and crucial vote were to be determined by whether one noble Lord was rich enough to come up to London or whether he thought that under the old dispensation he was likely to fulfil the quota of one-third attendance.
This is a worthwhile concession. I am sure that noble Lords will wish to take note of the fact that in the same way in which we speak upon our honour here, there will be a certain discretion and that noble Lords will actually come and work when they claim the expenses. I am bound to say that this is an act of justice towards England. Speaking as an Irishman, I have always felt that the English were hardly treated in the matter of travel, as we know they are in other respects such as representation. But I will not go into the constitutional misfortunes of the Act of Union. But in this matter some redress has been made towards the Sassenachs and the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, should not be ashamed of his part in it.
LORD WADE: My Lords, I will not enter into the interesting subject of Three-Line Whips, but I should like to add my support and that of my Liberal colleagues to this proposal. It is a just and fair one. One of the most important points is that distinguished Members of your Lordships' House who are able to contribute to the debates on some particular matter on which they are experts should not in any way be deterred from doing so. I feel that this is a proper step to take.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, as a Member of this House who lives a long way from London and yet not one who would have incurred any more travelling expenses over the last few years if there had not been an assiduity rule to satisfy, may I say that I regard this as a great step forward? It is important that
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Scottish Peers and English Peers should be treated on the same basis. I have never been able to see why there should be a distinction drawn in the case of two Peers, both using the same main line—say, from Berwick-on-Tweed or Carlisle. The one living North of the Border can recover his travelling expenses under much simpler conditions than his colleague who lives 20 miles to the South but who travels up to London on the same train.
Furthermore, I hope that it will make your Lordships' House more representative. When I first had the honour to come here eight years ago, one of the things which struck me was that so large a proportion of the Members were from London or the Home Counties. I expected this, but I did not appreciate that it would be such a large proportion and that the distant parts of the country would be represented so very thinly on these Benches. Having made inquiries, I find that some Peers who live at a distance from London do find it difficult to attend for the reason given and I sincerely hope in the interests of the House as well as individuals, that others who can make a valuable contribution to the business of this House will now be able to attend more frequently.
LORD SHINWELL: My Lords, can I have an assurance from the noble Earl the Leader of the House that this proposition is a natural act of justice and that there is no anticipation of the gathering of the clans in readiness for a huge vote against some Members of your Lordships' House when we come to the very vexed and thorny issue of whether Britain should enter the Common Market?
LORD LOVAT: My Lords, as a Peer from one of the most remote parts, I should like to thank the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, for this concession. There are only two Peers who live further North than I do—the noble Earl, Lord Cromartie, and the noble Viscount, Lord Thurso. Without it, I can assure your Lordships that we could not possibly attend the House, because a return ticket from Inverness costs £33.
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, I am grateful for the reception that this modest Motion has had. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Shinwell, that the justice, if it is justice, is purely natural.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

QUEEN ANNE'S MANSIONS SITE: DEVELOPMENT PLANS
3.48 p.m.
LORD REIGATE LORD REIGATE rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will use their powers to halt building on the site formerly occupied by Queen Anne's Mansions in Petty France. The noble Lord said: My Lords, the matter to which I refer is a rather long and complicated one. I must therefore apologise in advance if I detain your Lordships for a little longer than is my wont. Queen Anne's Mansions in Petty France has been a familiar sight to many of your Lordships for, I am sure, far too long. It has been described by Sir Nicholas Pevsner as "that irredeemable horror". When it was put up in the 1870s it caused Queen Victoria very great annoyance because it obtruded on the view from Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty's annoyance was entirely justified. It was the first building in London, alas! not the last, to be 150 feet high. The fact that one of its wings was only 100 feet high was largely due to the intervention of Queen Victoria. This building gave rise to the London Building Act of 1890 which limited the height of buildings in London to 80 feet. Some of us wish that that Act were still in force.
Having reluctantly reconciled ourselves to its presence, we all presumed that sooner or later Queen Anne's Mansions would fall down or be pulled down and be replaced by a less bulky occupant of the site, one more in scale with its surroundings and one which would not dominate the landscape; for this is a site and a scene as important as any in the whole of London. I say that with care, because it is on the perimeter of St. James's Park, which in my view is the most beautiful park in London and probably one of the most beautiful in the world. It has therefore come as a shock to the public in general that Queen Anne's Mansions is to be replaced by a building which is hardly less bulky. I must ask your Lordships to bear with me while I give a few figures. These figures have been extremely difficult to obtain. The floor area of the new building will be 421,000 square feet; the old Queen Anne's Mansions was 488,000 square feet. The plot ratio of the new building is to
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be 5·47 to 1 whereas that of the dear old horror was 6 to 1. There is not much reduction. The old Queen Anne's Mansions at its highest point was 154 feet; the new building is to be 186 feet. So gone are all our dreams of a new building in scale with its surroundings.
Let me make the position as regards ownership clear in so far as I understand it. This site is owned by the Government. The building is being erected by the Land Securities Investment Trust for a client who is also the Government. What is to be deplored is that the public and the Press have been kept in the dark about the plans until this late hour. A newspaper called the Architects Journal, which I think deserves a great deal of credit for what it has done, has been denied a sight of the plans over the last few months by both the architects and the Westminster City Council. The Architects Journal is a tenant of a house in Queen Anne's Gate, which is of course vitally affected by this building. In fact, it is only thanks to the persistence of that journal and of my honourable friend Mr. Robin Cooke, Member of Parliament, that a model and a few drawings were shown in another place in the Upper Waiting Hall for five days during the week before last, but only to Members of Parliament and to those whom they chose to introduce.
I went to see the model, and I can truthfully say that I was appalled by what I saw. The Press has been universally hostile, even vituperative, and rightly so. The model was accompanied by sketches by the architect, Sir Basil Spence, designed to show the impact of this building on its neighbours. I would describe those sketches as flattering and optimistic: I am sure they were not deliberately deceptive. The ones that I saw, by a strange coincidence, all appeared to be done at a time when the trees in St. James's Park were in full leaf, a set of circumstances that occurs only for a limited period of the year. I also worked out that in one or two cases the artist must have been lying on the ground to get the particular perspective. In short, my Lords, the sketches represent a worm's eye view. The plans are now shown also in the Royal Gallery. I can only say that the plans are better than the model. Mr. Osbert Lancaster

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described the appearance of the building as being
"a combination of an old-fashioned Hollywood set for the Fall of Babylon with a cluster of French provincial water towers."
I think that Mr. Lancaster in that statement is unfair—unfair to Hollywood, because a Hollywood set is lathe and plaster and ephemeral; whereas this unlovely lump of a building will loom over London for a long time, and will, if I may say so, if it is allowed to happen, outlive all your Lordships.
There has also been circulated an architect's "blurb" which describes this monster as having
"a more traditional silhouette with a distinctly Victorian flavour".
It also says that it is designed to create harmony with surrounding important buildings, such as Buckingham Palace, the Foreign Office, the Horse Guards and Wellington Barracks. I think that is a statement of monumental effrontery. To suggest that this mass of monumental masonry could harmonise with its surroundings is unbelievable: harmonise with Queen Anne's Gate, the most beautiful eighteenth century street left in our capital, over which it will hang like a great cliff; harmonise with Buckingham Palace, in whose view it will protrude or obtrude as did its predecessor; to say nothing of Gilbert Scott's Foreign Office, William Kent's Horse Guards, and Nash's Carlton House Terrace, from every window of which it will be visible! I hope that we shall hear no more about harmony. I am not concerned with the actual elevation of the building. This is always a difficult matter of taste. I just think it is hideous. But what I am criticising is the sheer bulk of such a building on this site.
How on earth does it happen that we are being presented with a fait accompli? How does it happen that such a project should reach this stage veiled in secrecy? The beauty of the Capital is the concern of us all. Therefore I want to ask my noble friend certain questions. When, and by whom, was the decision taken to replace the old Queen Anne's Mansions by a building of comparable bulk? Was that decision made public or reported to Parliament? The building having been commissioned and the plans drawn, who decided, and when, that there
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should be no public inquiry? How can it happen that plans for a project commissioned by and submitted to the Ministry of Works, approved by the Ministry of Works and considered by the Royal Fine Art Commission, can reach near fulfilment without either the public or the Press having any inkling of the plans, when you think of the publicity that has fortunately surrounded such matters as the Whitehall Plan and Piccadilly? I do not think I exaggerate when I say that the clandestine atmosphere which surrounds this project is very disquieting.
I should like to quote here from The Times under the heading, "Architect denies that he misled Parliament". Sir Basil Spence
"denied that he had tried to keep the design of the new building secret. 'There has been no attempt at secrecy at all', he said. 'Lord Samuel, my client, just does not seek personal publicity and he asked me not to exhibit the design at the Royal Academy'".
To the justified sense of shame to this project is apparently to be added the quality of modesty! Was it modesty or was it just a hope that, faced with a fait accompli, all resistance would crumble? It is only thanks to the vigilance of the Press, and particularly the Architects Journal and Mr. Cooke, that that has not happened.
A friend of mine who is opposed to the scheme, when I told him that I was raising the matter here, said: "Thank God for Parliament!". My Lords, we still have our uses. If I may quote in connection with to-day's debate from a letter which Mr. Osbert Lancaster wrote to a noble mutual friend urging his support for me to-day, Mr. Lancaster ended his letter by saying:
"I feel it is only right and proper that a monster conceived in shame and secrecy should be publicly aborted."
I have asked my noble friend with regard to the role of the former Ministry of Works—a Ministry of Works which, although it is now part of the Department of the Environment, is the guardian of the Royal Parks. That the plans were passed by the Westminster City Council Planning Committee causes less surprise to anyone who walks down Victoria Street. I understand it is alleged that the Westminster Society was consulted, and a number of local residents. I know nothing of the Westminster Society, how

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many members it has, or what right it has to speak for the citizens and ratepayers of Westminster, of whom I have been one for 17 years. I have never heard of the society. As to the local residents, I do not think they can have included the National Trust in Queen Anne's Gate or the Architects Journal. I wonder who they were. But above all, how does it come about that this project was approved, as is alleged, by the Royal Fine Art Commission? Here I must ask your Lordships to bear with me if I quote at length from a recent letter sent by the secretary of the Royal Fine Art Commission to the Architects Journal, with a few interpolated comments of my own.
The letter begins:
"Following your letter to members asking for their views on this project, the matter was discussed at the meeting of the commission on 14 June. In view of the lapse of time since decisions were taken on this building there have been extensive changes in membership of the commission: no less than nine of the present members were not involvd.
"The commission therefore thought it more suitable that an official statement should be made.
"The project for the rebuilding was first brought before the commission in 1959 and the proposals showed a building 240 ft. high. The commission had '… grave doubts about the justification for a high building in such a position' and asked for further thought to be given to it. It did not reappear until 1964."
The letter goes on to give a list of the then membership of the Commission, which included Sir Basil Spence, until 1970. It continues:
"At the time of this submission"—
that is in 1964—
"it was reiterated by the Ministry that the site belonged to the Government and the development was to be for the use of a Government department. The proposal was for a building less in hulk than that already existing and it was certainly not what is generally considered as a 'high building'."—
My Lords, I should have liked to hear Queen Victoria's comments on that remark.—
"The commission therefore was asked to pronounce only upon the architectural form proposed. It was however made clear in discussion of the development that certain commissioners deplored the repetition on this 'delicate' site of a building of a bulk comparable to the existing one."
In parenthesis, I would say that it is extremely unfortunate that, for their own reasons, the Royal Fine Art Commission
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apparently chose to give only unanimous opinions. If that minority opinion had been expressed, I might never have had to put the Question that I have put to-day.
The letter goes on—and this is a sentence which I find a little difficult to follow:
"Though idiosyncratic, the form proposed for the building did not cause the commission to feel that there was any ground for declaring that it was unsuitable in quality. When even more advanced proposals came before the commission in 1968 no reason was found to disapprove their architectural quality."
Now the tone changes:
"In the light of to-day's opinion the result will inevitably be considered an over-use of the site and will be criticised on this ground. This criticism will flow over and bear also against the architecture itself, as happened in the somewhat comparable Hyde Park Barracks case."
Sir Basil Spence was of course the architect of the Hyde Park Barracks.
"It should be remembered that in 1964 when the commission took its first step towards accepting the architectural form proposed:

1. Government departments still had power to develop their sites regardless of local planning regulations and

2. There was no machinery of public participation.

"It can be supposed that if the total proposal were to have come up to-day it would not have succeeded, at any rate without a great public show-down. It can also he said that the commission is not in sympathy with the secrecy which has been kept and is still being kept about the nature of this important development."
If I can draw some conclusions from the rather circumspect prose of that letter, I take it, first, that in 1964 the Commission was told that no matter what it said the Government would go ahead; secondly, that the opinion on the Commission was divided, but the fact was not made public, which I think was a mistake; and, thirdly, that it would not have a hope of approval to-day. That, my Lords, is the reason for the secrecy and the modesty concerning these eight-year-old plans for Government offices, contravening, I should have thought, the continuing policy of most Governments concerning decentralisation and also, I believe, the Department of Environment's own new standards for office buildings. What we are building is in fact an antiquated slum for civil servants. It also contains parking for 192 cars. I may be innocent, but I thought it was now the policy to reduce the amount of parking

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in central London. Think of the extra congestion at Storey's Gate at the rush hour as a result of this scheme! My Question asks Her Majesty's Government to use their power to halt building; that is to say, to issue a discontinuance order, which would stop the work on the building, and, secondly, to make a revocation order—that is, to withdraw planning permission.
My Lords, in another place the Secretary of State in effect said that if the decision was altered owners and developers of this property would be entitled to substantial sums by way of compensation. I do not know whether my noble friend can tell us what the cost of the proposed building is and what this alteration decision would cost. My guess was £2 million but I see that the Observer says "upwards of £ million". But the Government own the property and would hardly wish to draw substantial sums by way of compensation from themselves. As to the developer, Sir Harold Samuel is a public-spirited man and would, I am sure, be willing to co-operate in any negotiations. It is not too late. It is said that the foundations are there. I have gazed down into the site from a fourth floor opposite, and I can assure your Lordships that that is an exaggeration. Anyhow, there will have to be foundations there for any building on the site. At the moment there is only a hole in the ground. We are used to holes in the ground, like the old Westminster Hospital site in Broad Sanctuary, which has been a hole in the ground for 33 years. So why not leave this hole in the ground for a little longer?
I do not suggest to Her Majesty's Government that there should be no building at all on this site. I realise that it is probably too late for that, and too expensive; but I do ask—and I believe that in this I have the sympathy of the House—that, even at this late hour, the plans be modified and revised so as to reduce the bulk of the building by, let us say, a third. That would make an enormous difference to the scene around. It will not improve it, but it will not be nearly as harmful. Such action would be welcomed in all quarters in both Houses, by the public and by the Press. When my noble friend comes to reply I hope that his answer is, "Yes". I am afraid that I expect a "No", but I hope that it will
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at least be a qualified "No". I must remind him also that, thanks to the enterprise of my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery, we may have an opportunity again of reconsidering this matter if his answer is, "No". But I hope that when he comes to reply he will not deploy two arguments. First of all, I hope he will not say, "It's no use crying over spilt milk It is well worth crying over spilt milk if at least to ensure that milk is not spilt in the future. And I hope that he will not pursue another line and say that, after all, it is water over the dam. My Lords, it is not; it is a hole in the ground; and we can do something about it.
4.11 p.m.
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am sure we are very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, for putting down this Unstarred Question. I should like to congratulate him most warmly on his speech and for the very well reasoned and convincing case that he has put up. I may say that it is a case I thoroughly agree with and I support everything he has said. I, with him, hope very much that the Government will intervene. I think that the old Queen Anne's Mansions is probably unique among Victorian buildings, in that we have never grown to love it, even after this passing of time, when much of the architecture of that period has become rather fashionable. Queen Anne's Mansions has remained reviled and hideous to the last.
It would be a tragedy and a travesty of good planning if, having pulled down one of the most hideous buildings in London, we were to replace it with something even more hideous, and indeed, what is worse, with something that is even more obstrusive. This, as the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, has said, is one of the capital's most important sites. The new building will rise high above Petty France. It will overshadow Queen's Anne's Gate—surely without question the most beautiful 18th century street in London. Its great bulk will loom over one of the loveliest parks in Europe. It will dwarf the elegant and sensitively designed Guards' Chapel in Birdcage Walk, and it will conflict, particularly in the winter, with Buckingham Palace at one end of John Nash's lake and with Horse Guards and Admiralty House at the other.

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What I suggest we must ask ourselves is: How did this come to happen? As the noble Lord has said, the whole scheme seems to have been planned in secrecy. Even now, although work on the foundations has started the plans have never been made public, in spite of repeated requests to the developers by interested parties, including those who are situated near to the site. Not for the first time, we owe a great debt to the Press, particularly to the Architects Journal and also to the daily Press. I sometimes wonder what we should do without the Press. It is usually only the Press who bring these things to light. We also owe a debt to the honourable Member of the other place for Bristol, West. It is due to great pressure from him that a model was shown in the other place. I hope that the Government will arrange for this model to be made available to your Lordships in the Royal Gallery. At present, there are two elevations on display in the Royal Gallery, but I do not think these give any adequate idea of what is proposed. I would suggest to the Government that this exhibition should be made available before the Private Member's Bill of the noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, is considered by the House.
The noble Lord, Lord Reigate, is quite right, of course, in saying that this sad story started way back in 1959 when the original plan of the tower block was rejected by the Royal Fine Art Commission. It appears, though, that planning permission was finally given by the Westminster Planning Committee, and that the Royal Fine Art Commission were again consulted, although the design was not published. The R.F.A.C. apparently agreed to the revised plan, but they say now, as the noble Lord has said, that the plan can be criticised; they describe it as an over-use of the site. And now they say that if it were to come up to-day it would not succeed. I only wish they had said that at the time. The question that must be asked is: Why did the Royal Fine Art Commission not make objections at the time, and, if they did, why were these not made public? There seems to have been a failure of communication here. What is important is
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that we must ensure that the same thing does not happen again.
I should like to suggest to the Government some steps they could well take to prevent further encroachment, and particularly encroachments like this which have come about as a result of a fait accompli. In my view, it should first he compulsory for full information about designs, with adequate and accurate models—not just tricked-up drawings and so-called artists' impressions, usually taken in the summer when the trees are in full leaf—to be made public when planning permission is sought. The decision on these developments of course should not be left to the developers. More power, also, should be given to the Royal Fine Art Commission, particularly to require them to publicise any doubts they may have about a project. The Government should also in future always call in applications for key sites and order a public inquiry if there are any doubts, so that the right decision can be taken, and be seen to be taken, in the open. These matters are too important to be left to the Westminster Planning Committee, the Department and interested parties such as the developers.
Lastly, the Government in general must stop this piecemeal development in the centre of London. I should like, following the Opposition in the other place, to urge the Government to appoint a Planning Inquiry Commission into the development of the area as a whole. In the meantime, I hope that they will take steps to halt these building operations in Petty France, and that they will order the public inquiry that should have taken place originally. In this way it should be possible to amend the plans. I hope they are not going to say that this cannot be done; that all this happened before they came into power, and that anyway it is going to cost too much. I hope that they are going to give an answer to the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, and say exactly how much it is going to cost. After all, interventions at a high level can often be very effective. I remember that the late Lord Attlee, when he was Prime Minister, intervened to save the Nash Terraces in Regent's Park when the Crown Commissioners were proposing to demolish them and surround Regent's Park by great big tower blocks

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as a kind of architects' and property developers' paradise. We owe, and future generations owe, a lasting debt of gratitude to Lord Attlee for what he did. And the present Secretary of State for the Environment has won national applause for his intervention over Centre Point—some of the best news we have heard during a long, cold summer; and I say, "More power to his elbow!", because the community has become shocked and outraged by some of these developments. Future generations will not thank us if the amenities of our capital are gradually eroded through official laissez-faire and commercial greed.
4.20 p.m.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, only in the last few days have I realised what was threatened to be erected on the site of Queen Anne's Mansions, and I think it important to realise how it is that so serious a blot upon the London skyline should have reached this stage without the public and most of those concerned with the preservation of amenities being aware of what was intended. Under town and country planning legislation, outline permission is the first thing that is obtained. The importance of outline planning permission is that if afterwards it is withdrawn, compensation has to be paid because of the withdrawal of that permission, but except in the case of conservation areas there is no obligation at all on the person applying for planning permission to give really full details and particulars of what is intended. Certain figures, of course, have to be given, but unless there is opposition and a public inquiry is asked for, there is no way of ensuring that what in fact is going to appear is made clear to those concerned. After the outline planning permission has been given, negotiations take place between the planning authority and the applicant for what are sometimes called "details" but are, in fact, extremely important.
No one would have objected—no one did object—to the idea of Queen Anne's Mansions being demolished and replaced by a smaller and suitable office block. No one was alerted to make further inquiries on the information that had to be given to the Westminster City Council when an application of that kind was made. Therefore I think we should consider, and I hope the Government will
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consider, whether our procedure at present is entirely satisfactory, when it is possible for the applicant for planning permission to obtain outline planning permission without sufficient particulars being provided and being available for inspection by the public to enable anyone to have a clear idea of what in fact is intended.
One would have supposed that even though Queen Anne's Mansions is not a conservation area in the technical sense of the term, it would have been protected from anything of this kind by Article 11 of the General Development Order 1963. That provides
"Before granting permission for development in any of the following eases"—
and I omit two or three words—
"the local planning authority shall consult with the following authorities or persons, namely,"—
and then paragraph (e):
"Where the development is of land which is within half a mile from any other Royal Palace or Park and might affect the amenities of that Palace or Park, with the Minister of Public Building and Works and shall, in determining the application, take into account any representations received from such authority, person or body."
It was clearly thought necessary, as soon as a General Development Order was introduced (which was fairly soon after the passing of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947) that the Royal Parks in London should be protected against unsightly and excessively large and excessively high buildings, and it was the Minister of Public Building and Works who was given the responsibility for ensuring that that should not happen. But in this case, where the Government are at the same time the owners of the site and the prospective occupants of the building when it has been erected, obviously there is not the impartial or independent authority which was contemplated when the General Development Order was made. The old Latin tag is clearly applicable Quis custodiet ipsos custodes. This is the latest, and a very serious, example of the unsatisfactory way in which the surroundings of the Royal Parks are being treated at the present time.
I think after this lapse of time that there is no harm in my saying that when I was Minister of Works I very much

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objected to the proposed erection of the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane. Unfortunately, my Lords, despite all that I could do, my views did not prevail. In the climate of public opinion at the present time perhaps a different decision might be taken—I certainly hope so. This is an important matter. The doctrine which prevailed at that time was that high rise buildings round the Royal Parks should be allowed at intervals. The Royal Fine Art Commission have expressed the view that the Royal Parks in London should not be surrounded by great cliffs of high rise buildings, and even after this period of time I remember that they gave us an example of what we must avoid, which was the Central Park in New York. I took the view that if we allowed a high building like the Hilton tower on one site it would prove impossible to refuse to the owner of an adjoining site the same permission to develop an immensely profitable high rise building there. I think that is clearly right. But it was intended that high rise buildings should be allowed only at intervals around the Royal Parks.
I hope that in the future these high rise buildings, these towers, these terrific buildings close to our Royal Parks, will not be allowed. We cannot undo those that have been built, but we can at any rate do something to try to preserve in our Royal Parks that green and gracious rural scenery of which we have so little in London. My Lords, it is not too late for the Government to stop the building of this monstrous new building on the Queen Anne's Mansions site. The only thing that my noble friend Lord Reigate said with which I disagreed was his remark that while it would improve matters if the building were only two-thirds of the height, that would not in itself improve the architecture. Not only will this building be far too large for its site but it will be extremely ugly and top heavy, and the worst parts of it will be the parts at the top.
LORD REIGATE: My Lords, I should hate to disagree with my noble friend about anything, but perhaps he misunderstood what I said on this aspect. I am all for slicing off the top one-third, including the tower.
LORD MOLSON: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that com-
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ment, which means that I am in entire agreement with everything he said. This building will be graceless, top heavy and lacking in any kind of symmetry. If it is allowed to go ahead, Sir Basil Spence will go down in history remembered as being the man who perpetrated the defacement not only of one of the Royal Parks, as in the case of the Barracks, but of two. We have to-day a Department of the Environment, and the last two Governments have shown themselves very sensitive to the new and greatly increased concern which is felt about the environment in which we live. I do not despair that the Secretary of State for the Environment will intervene, even at this late stage. It is not technically impossible but only a matter of paying any compensation which may prove to be necessary. It would be ironical if the Secretary of State and his Department erected for the Government anything so harmful to the environment of London.
4.32 p.m.
THE EARL OF CORK AND ORRERY: My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lord Reigate, and to add my hearty approval to what has been expressed by other noble Lords. I confess to a suspicion, which I think my noble friend shares, that he may receive a negative reply. I suspect, I hope wrongly, that the Minister will say that nothing can be done; that all the necessary processes have been applied; that the required approvals have been sought and given and that, in short, it is now too late. However, I urge your Lordships to note precisely what my noble friend is asking. He is asking whether the Government will move. Perhaps—I emphasise the word "perhaps"—it is too late for that; but it is not too late for Parliament to move. Some of your Lordships may be aware that there is now before this House a Bill designed exactly for that purpose. I have a copy of the Bill with me. It is the Queen Anne's Mansions Bill which I had the honour to introduce last Friday. If Parliament accepts this Bill, it will become the final authority for the approval or disapproval of the Queen Anne's Mansions project. I hope to be allowed to initiate a Second Reading debate on the Bill in the near future, and for this reason I shall this evening be brevity itself and leave the detailed arguments and criticisms to others. I

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intend to confine myself to a tightly drawn outline of the position as I understand it.
We are discussing something more than a building. We are discussing a proposal to change the appearance of an area extending roughly from Whitehall to Buckingham Palace and from, say, Green Park and St. James's Park to the Victoria Tower. In this small area of parks and palaces, of Parliament and Government and Crown, are to be found both the visible and invisible centres of the Kingdom. Here, if anywhere, in surroundings of beauty, dignity and historic calm, beats the heart of England, of Britain itself. Indeed, to me and possibly to others it is, and I say this in no Chauvinistic spirit, the centre of the civilised world. It is certainly the lodestone to visitors from all over the world who come, in the words of Kipling
"… for to admire and for to see."
That being so, this part of London deserves to be, and should be, uniquely protected from any sort of development of the unhappier kind.
We have our watchdogs in the shape of the local authority—in this case the Westminster City Council—the Royal Fine Art Commission and so on. These and others have given their approval to the project, as have the Government. But are our watchdogs good enough? Do they bark and bite? As my noble friend Lord Reigate suggested, we have only to look along Victoria Street, across Hyde Park or out of our own Library windows to see the answer. Like the great Martian machines in H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, the monsters are closing in. As for the watchdogs, when they die the famous epitaph of Sir Christopher Wren will do very well for them:
"Si monumentum requiris circumspice."
But I do not want to see that epitaph graven on a lump of concrete beside the Guards Memorial. Round the heart of London we should draw a line and say loud and clear: "Within this line you shall not come." That is my personal philosophy in this matter, and I think my noble friend Lord Reigate will agree that it chimes quite well with the spirit of his Question. I hope that when my noble friend Lord Sandford comes to reply he will find it possible to give an
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indication that the Government's chimes are similarly tuned. But whatever his reply, I assure him with some confidence that when the House adjourns to-night the debate will not be over. This is a beginning, not an end.
4.38 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I wish briefly to support the Question tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, in whose speech there was nothing with which I could disagree, and the same is true of most of the comments made in this debate. I wish to add my support to this Question and make my view clear that building on the Queen Anne's Mansions site should be stopped. I have a certain interest to declare in taking part in this debate. For eight or nine years I lived in Queen Anne's Gate and I therefore know the attractive residential part of the world that this is. I lived there just before the war and I enjoyed having the park on one side and the shops in Victoria Street on the other. Transport is handy and, above all, the area is quiet. It therefore seems a pity that this building, requisitioned by the Government during the war and turned into offices, should be developed in the way proposed.
In October, 1968, I asked in this House what would become of the building that comprised Queen Anne's Mansions because a rumour had got around that the building was to be demolished and a new one, designed by Sir Basil Spence, erected in its place. The noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, who replied to my Question said there were two points to bear in mind: first, that the building was not particularly beautiful, and, secondly, that it was not suitable for Government offices or, indeed, for office premises generally. This was being rather disingenuous and naïve because the building had not been built for offices, it had been built as a number of apartments. It had been requisitioned by the Government who were surprised that it did not turn out to be a very good building for offices. I can assure noble Lords that they were not at all bad apartments in the days when they were used as private apartments. I knew people who lived in one or two of them. Therefore, it seemed curious that there was afoot a project to pull down the building—which nobody would object to at all—and to replace it by offices.

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Because I got a not very encouraging reply from the noble Lord, Lord Winterbottom, I wrote a long letter to The Times which appeared on November 15 of the same year, in which I put forward the same arguments as I am putting forward now. As an indication of what the public then felt there was not a single reply to that letter, or if there was then The Times did not publish it. I then gave up trying until, on March 16 last year, I put down another Question, asking whether it would not be possible to replace the proposed office building on the Queen Anne's Mansions site with something more suitable, perhaps residential. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, replied to my Question saying that it could not really be done because an office development permit had been given in 1968 and the owners had obtained planning permission. I thought I had understood from various speakers that the Government were the owners, but according to the reply of the noble Lord it seemed that somebody else was the owner. Perhaps he will be able to enlighten when he comes to reply.
My Lords, I understand perfectly well why it is necessary for a certain number of civil servants to work fairly near the centre of government in Whitehall. But think of the enormous increase there has been in Civil Service occupied buildings since the war! The Board of Trade (as they were called) are housed in Victoria Street; there is that enormous building which houses the Department of the Environment in Marsham Street; and now we have this project to build this enormous building on the Queen Anne's Mansions site, again for Government servants. That does not seem to me to support the policy of successive Governments since the war to try and remove office workers from London. If you are going to make the centre of London a residential desert, entirely full of offices (whether Government or private, I do not mind) you will then drive people to the suburbs and add to the problems of the commuters, whether by train or car, thereby so far as I can see getting yourself into worse trouble in the future than you are in at present.
I quoted my Question in 1968 because it showed that the matter was being dis-
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cussed quite freely at that time. When one has seen the plan and the model of the new building, one wonders why no idea of the plan or sketch of the building had appeared before the other day. As has already been said, if you put this monstrous building there once again a Royal Park is going to be spoilt. You are also going to spoil St. James's Park, Green Park, The Mall and that very attractive complex of buildings, just as, in the same way, the same architect has spoiled Hyde Park by the monstrous tower he has erected at the Knightsbridge Barracks which has a symbolism that seems highly peculiar and curious to have in a Royal Park.
Therefore, I very much support the noble Lord who has put this Question and I trust that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, will be able to say some kind word in reply to give those of us who feel as we do some sort of encouragement.
4.45 p.m.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, may I intervene for a very few moments to support the plea made by my noble friend Lord Reigate, in such a powerful and overwhelmingly convincing speech, and the same pleas which have been made universally from every side of the House? For my own part I am not an expert in town planning, or anything else, but I probably have a unique position in this matter because I am pretty sure that I am the only Member of your Lordships' House who ever had a paper chase inside Queen Anne's Mansions. That was 65 years ago, and I cannot remember whether I was the hare or one of the hounds—I rather think I was the hare. The building made a splendid course, especially if one took advantage of the lifts to put the hounds off the scent. And that is, I am afraid, the only good thing I have to say about Queen Anne's Mansions. Ever since then I have regarded it with increasing distaste every time I have passed it, and I cannot tell your Lordships of the immense sense of relief I felt one day when suddenly, after a prolonged absence from London, I looked and it was not there. To realise that something even worse is going to take its place is a most appalling shock.
My Lords, in my view—and I imagine that a great many of your Lordships will agree with me—St. James's Park, though

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small, is the most perfect park in the world.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Hear, hear!
LORD COLERAINE: It is a kind of "pearl mosque" among parks, and I wholeheartedly support what my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery, said about its being in a special sense the heart of England, because it does have these very real historical associations, especially for those of us who spend our time in this Palace here. I can see that there are great difficulties in reversing the decision on the Queen Anne's Mansions site. I still hope that this Government will be prepared to face the difficulties, and I hope that my noble friend who is to reply will be able to assure us that the matter will be reconsidered. If he cannot do so I, for one, shall give all the support I can to my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery in the Bill which he has in his pocket.
4.48 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I should like to add one or two remarks to this very interesting debate. First of all, I would point out to the Minister and to the Government that every single speaker from every part of this House has condemned this scheme. Informed opinion is against it. Since the details were disclosed—in so far as the details have been disclosed—I have not met anybody, in either House of Parliament, who is not against it. Informed opinion among architects, among cultured people throughout the country, and even among the general public who do not pretend to have informed opinions but who can recognise a beautiful building when they sec one and have heard enough about this scheme to know that this building is not going to be a beautiful one is against it. I hope that the Government will take note of this and will realise that a Government can go too far in opposition to the opinion of their constituents—and not only of their constituents.
I should like to underwrite what has been said about this area and especially St. James's Park, by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, and others of your Lordships. This is in a sense the heart of the Commonwealth. It is also the Mecca of all
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those people who come to see England and to see the beauties of England: certainly one of the most beautiful countries of the world, with some of the finest architecture in the world. On a fine summer day (there has not been one this year so far) if you walk through St. James's Park you hear more foreign languages spoken than anywhere else in the world. These are people who are enjoying Buckingham Palace—perhaps not one of the greatest buildings; Carlton House Terrace—very fine; Kent's Admiralty; the India Office; Queen Anne's Gate. These people are very sensitive to the sort of thing that has been going on recently in London. Foreign friends of mine, from great cities like Vienna, walking through London with me, looking round at Victoria Street, at the high buildings which have been erected very close to Buckingham Palace—which is not only the residence of the Queen but, in a sense, the residence of the Head of the British Commonwealth of Nations—ask "How can you allow in the great capital city this monstrous architecture overlooking the palace of your Queen, overlooking the gardens to which people from all over England come for the Garden Parties during the summer? How can you, who owe so much to the culture of the world, allow these things to happen?" That was put to me by a friend from Vienna. Within the last few weeks a distinguished judge from Germany, looking out over the scene, made almost exactly the same remarks to me. Surely we ought to feel a sense of shame at allowing anything of this kind to happen.
It is the size of this scheme, the overwhelming size, which appals me. I would not say that Sir Basil Spence's building is so much worse, if it is worse at all architecturally, than Queen Anne's Mansions, which was certainly about as hideous a monstrosity as one could imagine. But it is the bulk of the monstrosity—a dinosaur introduced—and we must get rid of it. We cannot allow the Government to say that they will allow this thing to be put up. It obviously is not too late, as has been emphasised time after time from Benches in all parts of your Lordships' House this afternoon. That is my last appeal. In the amenities movement the present Secretary of State has won golden

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opinions. I hope that he will not blot his copybook over the Queen Anne's Mansions site.
4.52 p.m.
LORD BIRKETT: My Lords, if, as I understand, there may be a debate upon the noble Earl's Bill when it comes before your Lordships, perhaps I, too, should be brief. In the circumstances, I should like to offer merely one reflection and one prediction to your Lordships on this matter. The reflection is on the strange contrasting nomenclature between the Ministry of Works and the Department of the Environment. I noticed the noble Lord, Lord Molson, referred to his position at the Ministry of Works. The Ministry of Works is a phrase with its sleeves rolled up, with grime upon its hands. You could forgive a Ministry of Works for not noticing the nature of this building; it is somehow in keeping with it. But "Department of the Environment"—there is a fancy phrase! You would expect a Department sensitive to every blade of grass. Is it not significant and ironic that it is the Department of the Environment which should be faced with this monstrosity? I should like to echo the noble Earl's word, "monstrosity". When I first saw the drawing, with the same suddenness that it fell upon the rest of the country, within recent weeks only, I passed it by, because I did not think it was an architectural drawing. I thought it was a cartoon. We all have our favourite simile and metaphor for this terrible building, but it struck me as being like nothing so much as a cartoon for one of those science fiction films in which a mad gorilla can be seen looming over a city and crunching it to death. For a moment that is what I thought it was as I went past, until suddenly I stopped when I realised, with a sense of shock, that it was a real projection of a real building in one of the most cherished parts of our capital.
It is for that reason that I come briefly to my second point, which is the prediction, and it is quite simply this. If this building goes up as planned now—if the Government allow it to go up, whatever the cost—then I predict that the Department of the Environment will become an empty phrase, and we can look forward to a future without a past,
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because the past will have become too expensive to protect.
4.54 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, perhaps I may intervene on one point which seems to me to offer some hope. Let me say, first of all, that I hope the Government will do what Lord Reigate asks. What I am about to say is said in the sense of being an added reason for doing it, and possibly even adumbrating a way in which it might be done. I do not know about this, because I am not the expert and no longer have expert advice available. It all hangs on the distinction between outline planning permission and detailed planning permission, a distinction which was described by Lord Molson with a clarity which can only be achieved in these matters by those who have, I would say, direct experience of operating the planning system. The noble Lord described it more than adequately for what I am about to say, so I will not repeat it. I think all your Lordships know that to get planning permission you have normally to get two separate planning permissions: first, outline permission, which, says, "O.K." to the use and the general idea; and, secondly, detailed planning permission, which says, "O.K." to the architecture.
This was a private developer—Sir Harold Samuel has been mentioned—operating on a Government site for a Government purpose. But he had to have planning permission, just like anyone else, and planning permission was applied for to the Westminster City Council as the planning authority. We should not forget that the Greater London Council also has a say, a sort of long-stop veto over the Westminster City Council on this matter. The Government come in because in a scheme of such importance and in such a sensitive place it is normal for the planning authority to consult the Government on the planning issue, apart from the fact that this was a semi-Government development in any case. As has been stated in the Press, although the data has been given wrongly, I think it was in 1969 that the Government looked at this proposal, saw that it had the endorsement of the Westminster City Council, of the Greater London Council, and of the Royal Fine Art

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Commission, so far as it had gone, and refrained from calling it in. This is what the Government do: they do not give permission themselves; they say "O.K., you give permission" to the planning authority. That is what the Government did on the outline proposal: that it should be a block for civil servants and that it should be designed by Sir Basil Spence, and the sort of general grouping and massing of the idea. I think that was the outline planning approval which was given in April, 1969, by the Westminster City Council.
At any rate, all the ministerial discussions which preceded that, as I remember, were not about details of the architecture at all but about a different question, a very important question, and 1 should like to ask the Government what happened to it. It was: should this site be handled and planned as one with a rebuilding, which was at that time proposed, of the Wellington Barracks next door? In the end the Government in 1969 decided no, it should not, because the Wellington Barracks proposal was not far enough forward to justify holding up the other one to wait for it. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he could tell us what it is now proposed to do about Wellington Barracks, which stands right beside the sire we are discussing and which at one time it was proposed to develop with it. Of course, this is an even more delicate matter, because the site faces right on the park itself.
I come to the point of what I had to say, which is, what about the detailed planning permission? I remember in October, 1969—I was then Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the forerunner of the Department of the Environment—asking for news of this site and how things were going, and being told that the next thong was detailed planning application. The question then arose, should we ask to see the detailed planning proposals in order to decide whether the Government might not call that in, as opposed to the outline planning permission. Of course, a call-in raises the possibility of a public inquiry.
After some discussion, I asked that the Government be informed of the detailed proposals when they were available. They were not then available. This was in October, 1969. There was some
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forecast of when they might become available but—and this is the point—I never heard any more of it. My question to the noble Lord is this. That was only eight months before the General Election. I assume that the detailed planning permission was subsequently given by the Westminster City Council, that the new Government had the opportunity of calling it in and that they did not take that opportunity. If the new Government were not given the opportunity of calling it in, the question must arise in our minds: was detailed planning permission legally given by the Westminster City Council? On the other hand, if no further detailed planning permission was given, is the building being legally constructed at all? It seems to me that these questions can come to the surface only when we consider the history that I have just outlined. Who gave detailed planning permission? Did the Government know it had been given? Has it ever been given at all, and in any case is the building in full, undoubted receipt of the planning permission necessary for its erection? If it is not, the House will see at once that it would be much easier for the Government to do what the noble Lord, Lord Reigate, asks than if it were.
BARONESS WHITE: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down I should like to ask him if he could inform me whether at any point in these earlier deliberations consideration was given to having part of this proposed building for residential use and not having all of it for offices. After all, it is in one of the most attractive sites in the capital.
LORD KENNET: To my memory, the answer is "No". So far as I can remember it was always a solid office block for civil servants.
BARONESS WHITE: It seems most regrettable.
LORD AMULREE: I think I can confirm that. I put a question about it—whether it would not be possible to turn it into residential accommodation, possibly for Members of Parliament, including Members of this House. I was told that it was quite impossible.
5.3 p.m.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, the whole House and, indeed, the public will be grateful to my noble friend Lord

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Reigate for asking this Question. The issue is certainly and rightly one of considerable public concern, not to say dismay. Queen Anne's Mansions was a familiar horror to me, because that was where one went as a naval officer during the War to get one's next appointment. I propose to answer my noble friend's Question in three parts. First of all, I propose to set out the facts and the events, and I must ask noble Lords to bear in mind that most of the material events occurred during the period in which noble Lords opposite were in Government, and I have not, therefore, for reasons and conventions that are well understood, had unrestricted access to all the relevant files in my Department. Secondly, I should like to say something about the system under which all this has occurred and the changes that have occurred in the system since these events. Finally, I shall indicate what could be done.
The site is the property—I say this in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, and in correction to my noble friend Lord Reigate—and has been since about 1959 of Land Securities Investment Trust Limited. Her Majesty's Government had been the occupiers ever since the old building was requisitioned during the War for use, in the first case by the Admiralty, and they are now the prospective tenants of the new building. Perhaps it would be convenient if I referred to the Land Securities Investment Trust Limited as the developers in the rest of my remarks. In July, 1968, the Minister of Public Buildings and Works—the Minister at that time was Mr. Mellish—entered into a contract with the developers for the lease of a new building solely as a Government office. The developers applied for and obtained an office development permit on that basis. In London at the moment it is necessary to have an office development permit if one wants to develop an office before applying for planning permission. They got theirs in August, 1968. This office development permit was for 525,000 square feet gross as compared with 420,000 gross area of the building now being constructed.
We now come to the planning application to Westminster City Council. The developers applied in August, 1968, for
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permission to redevelop the Queen Anne's Mansions site by the erection of a block of offices for Government use. Between August, 1968, and March, 1969, Westminster City Council consulted the Greater London Council, the Royal Fine Art Commission, the Westminster Society, 42 neighbouring owners and residents, the Ministry of Public Building and Works in their capacity as guardian of the Royal Parks—they have a dual rôle in this business—and the then Ministry of Housing and Local Government. The Royal Fine Art Commission, the Greater London Council and the Westminster Society raised no objection. I shall have more to say in a moment about the Royal Fine Art Commission in that respect. Two residents objected.
The Ministry of Public Building and Works, which had to be consulted about planning applications within half a mile of the Royal Parks under the terms of the General Development Order about which my noble friend Lord Molson reminded us, had misgivings about the bulk of the building and its possible effect on St. James's Park, but they decided in March, 1969, not to press the objections. They did so in the terms of the following letter, which I shall read in full. The Minister concerned here is still Mr. Mellish, but not now acting as a sponsor of Government offices but in another capacity—this is a point I should perhaps ask the noble Lord, Lord, Birkett, to note—his capacity as guardian of the Royal Parks. This letter is addressed to the Clerk of the Westminster City Council. It is dated March 21, 1969, and says:
"I do apologise for the delay in letting von have our comments on the application for planning permission to redevelop this site, which came over to us last September in the form of copies of the application documents without any covering letter or reference. I explained the reasons for delay to you on the telephone some time ago, and I am grateful to you for your forbearance.
"May I first of all correct the statement in the letter dated 8th August last to your City Architect and Planning Officer from Messrs. Fitzroy, Robinson and Partners,"—
these are the architects to whom Sir Basil Spence is consultant—
"that this Ministry gave approval in principle to the 1964 scheme. This is not the case: our reply to the 1964 application is contained in a letter dated 13th October, 1964, to the London County Council (copy enclosed), in which we reserved our position until we were informed of proposals the Council

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eventually found acceptable. There was no response on this, as the scheme was put into abeyance as a result of the restrictions which were placed on office development.
"We did, in fact, dislike the 1964 scheme on the grounds that the proposed building would present a solid, massive front to St. James's Park and to the Palace and, as indicated in our letter of 13th October, 1964, because we felt that the fullest advantage had not been taken of the unique opportunity which the redevelopment offered for improving the vista of the building on this site from St. James's Park and for replacing the present building with one publicly acceptable as worthy of its situation in relation to St. James's Park.
"Our present views are much the same; and feeling nowadays is no more sympathetic than it was in 1964 to dominating buildings on the fringe of Royal Parks. However, after full consideration of all the circumstances at the highest level"—
the level at which the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, recommended that these things should be decided—
"we do not propose to take our misgivings to the point of pressing an objection to what is now proposed. I should be grateful if we might please be informed of your Council's final views on this application, and those of the G.L.C."
That is from the Ministry of Public Building and Works, March 21, 1969.
Now for the Government's view of these applications in the shape of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. Again, as the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, suggested should in fact happen in these cases, the Westminster City Council gave the Ministry of Housing and Local Government an opportunity to call in the planning application for the Minister's decision, but in March, 1969, the Minister decided not to do so, and he left the decision to the Westminster City Council. The noble Lord, Lord Greenwood of Rossendale, was at that time the Minister of Housing and Local Government, Mr. Kenneth Robinson was the Minister of State responsible for planning, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, was one of the Parliamentary Secretaries. The plans as they then stood were made available to the Department before it was decided not to intervene. Of course, I have no way of knowing what Ministers at the time thought of the plans that were laid before them: whether they thought they were outline or detailed; whether they thought they were harmful or not. But the planning application on which permission was
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granted by Westminster on April 24 was accompanied by detailed plans. The permission itself referred to these plans, but included a condition requiring approval of detailed plans, sections and elevations to be obtained before work on the site commenced, including details of the treatment of the party wall with Queen Anne's Gate, and full particulars of the facing materials. These further details were submitted to Westminster for approval on February 14, 1972—that is, this year.
So much for the facts and events as I am aware of them. My impression, in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, is that this application, and these events, have not been directly related to the events about the barracks. Now a word about the planning system and the "watchdogs", as my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery calls them. May I remind noble Lords of the changes in the planning system since this permission was given. Since April 1, 1969, it has been a requirement, as the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, recommended it should be, for complete copies of applications and supporting plans to be made available for the public on the planning register—up to that date only brief particulars had been required. But in this case, although not at the time required by Statute to make these full details available to the public in the register, Westminster City Council did so. I make this point with due emphasis, as some of the reports on this topic have been erroneous in this important respect.
May I turn now to changes in the procedures for advertising and notifying planning applications. Following the introduction of the Civic Amenities Act 1967, as amended by the Town and Country Planning Act 1968, applications for development that would affect a conservation area must be advertised, must have a notice published on the site, and must be notified to amenity societies concerned. At the period in question, however, there was no conservation area designated here, and no statutory requirement under this Act therefore arose. Westminster City Council did however notify the Westminster Society, as I have already said.
A conservation area for Birdcage Walk was designated in May, 1970, and, although the Queen Anne's Mansions site is not in it, it is near enough for the provisions of the Civic Amenities Act, as

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amended, to bear if the planning application were to be made to-day. Needless to say, it requires an alert public opinion, articulated by effective amenity societies, for these provisions to avail anything at all. In addition to these and other statutory provisions, there is scope for further advice to local planning authorities, and a further circular on this is currently under discussion in my Department.
My Lords, I turn next to development by Government Departments. The latest policy for this is set out in Circular 80 of last year. I would at the outset make the point that this is not strictly relevant, since this was development for a Government Department by a private developer, not by a Government Department directly: there has been a certain amount of confusion in the minds of the Royal Fine Art Commission in this respect. The main changes made in this circular dealing with development by Government Departments are as follows. Government proposals are now given the same publicity as similar private developments; public inquiries are held, where appropriate, even if there is no objection by the local planning authority; consultation takes place about proposals to demolish or alter the character of Government buildings of special architectural or historic interest; planning clearance is valid normally for only five years; strict limitation is applied to the types of development Departments can undertake without such consultation.
What was in the past the Ministry of Works, and then the Ministry of Public Building and Works, is now part of an integrated Department of the Environment, and this is the point to which the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, very rightly and properly alluded. This is a Department which bears heavy responsibility for both the preservation and the enhancement of the character of the environment in which we live, not for littering the environment with cheap, nasty, characterless buildings. All the members of my Department, whether they are building post offices, highways, or Government offices directly, or whether they are in a position, as they were in this case, and as they are in this case, to influence development as prospective tenants, share this overall responsibility borne by the whole Department.
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I turn now, and finally in this section, to the Royal Fine Art Commission. In 1968, the Royal Fine Art Commission were asked for their views on the proposal, and they expressed no objections at that time. However, in a recent letter to the Architects Journal, having changed their mind and their membership since 1968, the present members attempted to dissociate themselves from the line taken by the Royal Fine Art Commission in 1968. As my noble friend Lord Reigate has, rightly and properly, quoted that letter in full, I will not do so again.
I turn now to what can be done. Can the work be stopped at once? The "stop notice" procedure applies only in connection with enforcement notices; that is, where the development in question contravenes planning control. That is not the case here. No noble Lord has sought to indicate that he thinks it is. There is no way, with the present law as it stands, of stopping construction immediately. I will say no more about the possibility of altering the law, or about the Bill that has been introduced by my noble friend Lord Cork and Orrery, as the Bill stands referred to the Examiners. However, the Secretary of State has power to make an order—or to direct the local planning authority, Westminster, to make one—under the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, revoking or modifying the permission. He would first have to consult the planning authority, and if an objection were made by them, or by the developer, he would have to hold an inquiry. These statutory processes would take, at best, several months, and meanwhile building work could continue, since the order would not take effect until confirmed by the Secretary of State following the inquiry.
I should like to say a word about revocation. The statutory criterion for revocation or modification action is that the planning authority and the Secretary of State, or the Secretary of State alone if he is taking the action, must be satisfied that the action is "expedient." The expediency must relate to planning considerations; and the undoubted change in public attitudes about the environment; and the change in environmental policies since 1969, would, I am advised, come within that term.
I now come to compensation. If this planning permission were to be revoked

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or modified, the developer would become entitled to compensation not from the Secretary of State but from the local planning authority—Westminster City Council. The amount of compensation that would be payable if the existing permission was revoked or modified is, at this stage, guesswork. Abortive expenditure alone would be considerable, especially if the substructure already built needed to be modified. The value of the contract alone is £11 million. The remaining compensation would be the difference between the value of the land with the present permission and the value of the land with the permission as revoked or modified. The net cost under this head could be quite small, if permission was ultimately given for a building of comparable capacity to the one now being built, since compensation paid in respect of revocation or modification can be recovered in part by the planning authority when subsequent development of the site takes place. But there are too many uncertainties to give a more precise estimate than that.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Reigate for having asked this Question. I am conscious that I shall not this evening have directly answered my noble friend's point, but I have attempted to set out as thoroughly as possible the facts and the factors that are now before myself and my right honourable friends. We also now have the further great benefit of your Lordships' views. I can go no further than that at the present time, but I would repeat my thanks to my noble friend and to the ten noble Lords who have taken part in this debate.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, the noble Lord's account of the history of the matter is like Hamlet without the Prince. I asked him: What happened to the detailed planning application? It is quite clear from his speech that the outline planning permission given in 1969 was subject to detailed permission later. It was clear that that detail was not limited to any specific detail, or set of details, as is shown by the noble Lord's use of the word "included" when he talked about including some details; that is, not excluding others. It is quite clear that the detailed planning permission was not sought before June, 1970, and the noble Lord himself has told us that it was
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sought on February 14, 1972. Was it granted by the Westminster City Council? If it was, did the Westminster City Council give the Government a chance to call it in? If they did, why did the Government not call it in?
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, the House knows the difficulties which one Minister has in dealing with matters which took place in the time of another Minister. I assure the House that I have given as full and thorough an account of these events as I could in the circumstances.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I am inquiring about events that took place in February, 1972, when the present Government were in office. I heard the noble Lord say that detailed planning permission was sought from the Westminster City Council on February 14, 1972. My questions are: Was that permission granted? If so, did Westminster City Council give the Government the opportunity to call it in? If so, why did the Government not call it in and have a public inquiry? If the permission has not yet been granted, the Government can still call it in, hold a public inquiry and, if they think fit after the public inquiry, knock one-third off the volume of the building.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, I am afraid that that is not quite the case. As I said, I am not in a position to know what the noble Lord and his friends thought of the planning application that was before them, its nature or its merit. What I said was that the planning permission given by Westminster was subject to certain conditions about the submission of further detailed plans. These last detailed plans, as it were completing the whole process, were received in February of this year.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, may I press the noble Lord once again? He has not said whether approval was given by the planning authority to those plans. That is the whole point. Was it or was it not given? If not, then the building does not have full planning permission and should not be being built. If it was, then the Government were either deprived of the opportunity of calling it in or failed to take it.
LORD SANDFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord knows very well that planning approval can be given subject to certain conditions being fulfilled. These were the conditions, and they were fulfilled in February, 1972.