WATER BILL

HL Deb 11 June 1973 vol 343 cc386-521

3.28 p.m.

THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (LORD SANDFORD)

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Young, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Sandford.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House in Committee accordingly.

[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES

May I point out to the Committee that owing to a printer's error, Amendments Nos. 5 and 7 on the revised Marshalled List are not numbered?

Clause I [National Policy for water]:

On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?

BARONESS WHITE

Before we proceed to the consideration of the Bill in Committee, may I have some comment from the Government as to why they have not moved a Motion that certain Schedules shall be taken with their related clauses? This is normally done for the convenience of the House, and the Government have not moved any such Motion on this occasion. We are in some danger, therefore, that we may have two debates when one might do. If we do not have two debates, it may be very awkward for certain noble Lords who have Amendments to Schedules. Having seen the Order paper they will suppose that such Amendments may come on Thursday rather than to-day and will therefore possibly not be in their places. It seems odd in a Bill of this kind, where frequent references are made, particularly in the earlier clauses, to the related Schedules, that the Government have not moved any such Motion.

LORD SANDFORD

I agree with the noble Baroness that it is often for the convenience of the Committee (and it was done in the case of the Social Security Bill) for the Schedules to be considered in connection with the clauses to which they refer and in a different sequence from the one in which they are printed in the Bill. I mentioned to the noble Baroness over a week ago that we were considering that method in this particular case. But when it came to the point, and in the light of the Amendments then put down, it did not seem that there was any particular gain in following that procedure in this particular case. The noble Baroness's noble friend Lord Gams-worthy, for instance, was kind enough to send me a letter which I passed on to my noble friend Lady Young, to the effect that he was proposing to move his Amendment No. 1 and would be content if—and in fact was going to suggest that —we considered with it 24 other Amendments, many of which are in the Schedules. I think that would certainly be a practical way of proceeding, unless the noble Lord has changed his mind since then.

On the other hand, I agree that over the weekend a very considerable number of further Amendments have gone down —nearly 70—and this may well alter the situation. It may be that this is one of the reasons why the noble Baroness is making this suggestion. I would suggest to the Committee that if, on looking through the Bill in the light of all the Amendments before us, it would be more convenient on the next day of the Committee stage to consider the Schedules with the clauses to which they particularly refer, then the next Marshalled List could be printed in that form. But I should think that we are now in the position, with the Orders under which we operate, the fact that the Marshalled List has been printed in this order and that this is what the Committee were expecting, that it would be better to proceed as it is, but of course making full use of the flexibility that we always have to discuss subsequent Amendments whenever they arise on earlier ones. I hope that the noble Baroness will agree that this will meet the requirements, at any rate for to-day.

BARONESS WHITE

I do not think we can do any other to-day, because it would be very unfair to noble Lords who are not in the House if the order of business were changed without notice. But I would reiterate that I do not think that this is a sensible way of doing things. Of course, my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy is here present in his place, and it is true that he has a very large number of Amendments which stand or fall together; but there are other Amendments to the early Schedules which, to my mind, would be far better discussed with the relevant clauses. I appreciate that there has been a little difficulty, possibly owing to the change of Minister; and before going any further I would say how very warmly we welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who will be taking a very active part and I think is technically in charge of the Bill for the Government. We are delighted that this should be her first full Ministerial task in the House. I will not press the point, having made it. It seems to me that the arrangements made by the Government are not for the convenience of the House, but we shall have to leave it there.

VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN

As I am one of those affected by the point raised by the noble Baroness, I would associate myself with everything she has said—including, of course, the welcome to the new Minister.

LORD SANDFORD

Fortunately we have the flexibility of being able to discuss any topic relating to an Amendment later in the Marshalled List, and, of course, we have the opportunity of discussing such a matter on the question whether the clause shall stand part, which is an additional flexibility. I know my noble friend Lady Young and I will be very happy to discuss with the noble Baroness what we should do for the next stage.

BARONESS WHITE

I wish to have a word, if I may, on this clause—I thought it was better to get the other point out of the way first—although at this stage we have not put any Amendments to this clause on the Marshalled List. I have two points I wish to raise and they are concerned with subsections (5), (6) and (7). Subsection (5) says: It shall be the duy of the Welsh National Water Development Authority … to consider and advise the appropriate Minister or Ministers … concerning that part of the national policy for water which falls to be executed by the Authority …". In other words, there is a very definite limitation there as to the matters which the Welsh Authority are permitted to consider. They may also consider other matters, even though they may not have responsibility for them, if such matters are … referred to the Authority by the appropriate Minister or Ministers. I would submit that the subsection is very tightly drawn. I was in Cardiff, the capital of Wales, last week, discussing these matters with some of my friends there who are much more expert in the matter of water organisation than I am. They were pointing out that conferences are being held all over the country, looking forward for the next decade or two to the possible pattern of transfer of water over the most fantastic areas. For instance, there was a conference at Hereford last week concerning the possible future arrangements for the River Wye, and the experts are now discussing—it is not a matter of immediate action, but in the quite foreseeable future—how at various times of the year water from the River Wye, for instance, may be used to supplement the waters of the River Dee, and at other times to supplement the waters of the River Thames. The River Dee, comes within the Welsh Authority's responsibility, and therefore anything that happened between the Wye and Dee could be discussed; but it seems to me that any liaison, as it were, between the Wye and the Thames, according to the very tight way in which this subsection is drafted, could not be studied from their point of view by the Welsh National Water Development Authority without having a specific reference from the Minister.

I do not want to make too heavy weather of this matter at this point, but 1 think it may be very important for the Welsh Authority—which is particularly singled out; it is on a somewhat different footing from the other authorities—to be able to consider and advise on matters which do not necessarily fall to be executed by them. I would ask the Minister, therefore, if between now and a later stage of the Bill he or his noble friend would look carefully at this matter to make certain that we are not putting an unnecessary restriction on the activities of the Welsh National Water Development Authority by the wording of this particular subsection. I do not want to press the point further than that at this moment. I have anxieties on this subject and should like them to be allayed, if not to-day, later on.

Coming to subsections (6) and (7), I think this matter is of interest for the whole system, for England and Wales. It seems to me a little puzzling. Subsection (6) says: It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to collate and publish information from which assessments can be made of the actual and prospective demand for water, and of actual and prospective water resources …. And then in the next subsection it says: The Secretary of State may also (in so far as he considers it appropriate to do so) collaborate with others in collating and publishing the like information relating to the demand for water, and to water resources, whether in England and Wales or elsewhere. One can see the point of difference between a positive duty and the power to do so if desired, but we are entitled to have a little more explanation from the Minister as to exactly how he thinks this is going to fit in with the organisations to be set up, the National Water Council, the central planning unit, the research unit and the data collecting unit. They are presumably all going to do this.

Is the Secretary of State simply going to publish the results of their researches, and does that count as collaboration, which is not provided for in subsection (6) but only in subsection (7). or does he regard them as all part of all one body at the Ministry? Where do they collie in? Does he collaborate with them, or are they part of the D.O.E., which is what we always suspected. I think we are entitled to have more information why this peculiar form of words is used about the way in which the Secretary of State is to collate and publish, separately from, I should have supposed, under subsection (6), the National Water Council or the other bodies set up or to be set up under this Bill. Therefore, before we pass this clause I think that we should have a little enlightenment on the matter.

LORD SANDFORD

I am glad to be able to provide that, perhaps briefly at this stage, and more extensively later if need be. In this particular subparagraph (5) we are dealing with the special duties of the Welsh National Water Development Authority and about what it has a duty to do in respect of the discharge of its own particular functions. We also have to bear in mind that those duties form part of the national policy for water referred to in Clause 1(1), which covers the whole of England and Wales and in which the Secretary of State for Wales, as well as the Secretary of State for the Environment, will participate with the assistance of the Central Planning Water Council, the National Water Council, the Water Research Association and other national bodies referred to later in the Bill in Clause 4, and which we shall certainly be discussing. In these circumstances, what might be open to the criticism that it is too tightly drawn to stand on its own is not, I think, drawn unnecessarily tightly if it is seen in this context. The right moment to discuss the relationships and the interdependence and the independence of the national water bodies is perhaps when we get to Clause 4. This is the way in which I would give the noble Baroness the assurance she wants for the time being. I hope that she will be satisfied with it.

BARONESS WHITE

I expect I shall have to be satisfied with it for the time being. The noble Lord will appreciate from what I have said that at some later stage I shall need some further assurances on both these matters.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 [Establishment of water authorities]:

3.43 p.m.

LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 1: Page 2, line 39, leave out ("For") and insert ("Subject to the provisions of Schedule (London Water Authority) to this Act. for").

The noble Lord said: Clause 2 deals with the establishment of water authorities, and I beg to move Amendment No. 1 standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Champion and myself. This Amendment is one of a series designed to secure an alternative to the proposals set out in the Bill for dealing with the exercise of functions relating to water and sewerage in an area which is quite different from the rest of the country, and where it is possible to give local government responsibilities which it is admirably equipped to shoulder and leave it with functions which it has discharged with outstanding efficiency. As the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, indicated just now, the number of other Amendments concerned is fairly large; they are Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, 16, 17, 18, 33, 38, 48, 75, 76, 77, 80, 87, 90, 95, 98, 99, 110, 117, 118 and 119. With your Lordships' permission I will speak to them all now, in order not only to save the Committee's time but, perhaps more importantly, so that we can have a tidier and more satisfactory debate on the issues involved. The two substantial Amendments are Nos. 38 and 80.

This Bill deprives the Greater London Council of control of a service which is recognised throughout the world for its efficiency. I believe it is correct to say that no criticism has at any time been made by the Department of the Environment of the manner in which that service has been conducted. I believe that to be the case because none can be made of a record which is to the credit not only of the Greater London Council but of Londoners generally. The facts of the situation are rather impressive. The Greater London Council provide the main drainage for some 7½ million people living in an area of about 630 square miles, an area larger than Greater London itself. Over 1,350 staff are employed in operating that service, which is indeed a comprehensive one, dealing, as it does, with sewers, sewage treatment, sludge disposal, land drainage—the lot.

The G.L.C. and its forerunner, the L.C.C., have built up a quite remarkable service with well-equipped laboratories manned by highly expert staff. It is greatly to their credit that there has been such a marked improvement in the quality of the water in the Thames and some of its tributaries. One understands their pride in the evidence of this, which is exemplified, if any of your Lordships go to County Hall, by the exhibition tank of live fishes which have been taken from the Thames. I believe that at various times something like 60 different species have been taken from the Thames since this tremendous improvement has been effected.

The Council are actively pursuing proposals to protect London from tidal flooding. They know the problems of the river and the dykes. They have vast experience of them, and considerable expertise in dealing with them. The immediate, direct effect of this Bill as now drafted will be to deprive a democratically elected authority and to transfer to the Thames Water Authority, London's main drainage service, which includes all the main sewers, sewage treatment works, pumping stations, sludge disposal fleet, together with the functions of regulating trade effluent discharges, and, additionally, pollution control. On pollution control, the terms of the Bill seem to be a little obscure, and it would be helpful if the Minister could introduce some clarity. One wonders what the Government are doing, why they are doing this to London, and what good reason they have. They have told us on many occasions that they want to make local government more worthwhile and give it a greater sense of power and responsibility. They were the stated purposes for the reorganisation of Greater London in 1964, yet here we find the loss of functions I have mentioned which, together with the intended loss of Health Service functions, will mean a reduction of nearly 15 per cent. in the G.L.C. staff, and, the G.L.C. estimate, reducing by almost a half the Council's direct services to London.

One would have anticipated that the very success with which the G.L.C. have handled London's main drainage service had established the Council's capacity, and indeed suitability, to discharge the functions of a regional water authority; and if th Government wish to prove their faith in local government one would have expected them—as I hope it is still possible to anticipate they may do—to demonstrate that faith by recognising the strength of these Amendments and the case they represent. These Amendments are drafted to ensure democratic control of services vital to the interests of the people they are intended to serve, the people of London. If the aim of the Bill is to secure rationalisation and control which will secure the best overall solution where there may be any conflict in regard to water undertakings and sewerage authorities, as I understand is the aim of Circular 92/71, then I believe that these Amendments fully satisfy that requirement. Here I would say that arguments that may apply in the rest of the country seem to me to have little relevance in the London conurbation.

Let us consider the London position a little further. First, the Greater London Council were set up in 1964 as the authority responsible for the strategic planning of the environment of London. The fundamental part of that environment is London's river, and London's river is the tidal estuary of the Thames, physically distinct from the inland river, with commercial, recreation, pollution and flood prevention problems different from those of the inland Thames. The boundary is generally understood to lie somewhere about Teddington; indeed, the very name Teddington is said to derive from "tide ending town". The river has a port and is a commercial highway, a situation currently recognised by the division of responsibilities between the Port of London Authority and the Thames Conservancy. The scope for recreation and amenity development below Teddington weir is dominated by the rise and fall of the tides. It must also be integrated with the overall planning of London as a capital city and tourist centre. The action of the tides in a tidal estuary leads to the retention of pollution within the estuary, with special problems of sampling and analysis. Flood protection in a tidal estuary is primarily the problem of defence from tidal flows and can require solutions quite outside the range of experience of most river authorities. The Thames Barrier itself is a case in point.

The supply of water in London is overwhelmingly under a single organisation, and the growth of demand for water which is anticipated throughout the rest of the country as a whole is, it is estimated, unlikely to be reflected here in London because there is expectation of lack of growth, and even decline. I venture to submit that the G.L.C. are a natural choice to fill the role of a regional water authority because the Council have a primary responsibility as a strategic planning authority. They manage the best metropolitan main drainage service in the world and have demonstrated their ability in regard to a very large estuary-wide flood prevention scheme. The G.L.C. staff and the G.L.C. itself are firmly of the opinion that the Council ought to form the basis of a London Regional Water Authority for that part of the proposed Thames Water Authority area as falls below Teddington weir—that is the point as I have indicated where the inland Thames and the tidal estuary meet. The region would consist of the London-excluded area, with the addition of the catchments of the Lee, Roding, Ingrebourne, Darenth and Cray, and if this were done the remainder of the Thames Water Authority would still be as large, I believe, as the area now managed by the Thames Conservancy, com parable in size and area to other regional authorities proposed in the Bill.

The Amendments propose that the Greater London Council shall be the water authority for those parts of the proposed Thames Water Authority's area to the East of the Thames Conservancy area and in exercising their functions as a water authority the Council would be known as the London Water Authority. A London Water Committee would be established by the Greater London Council to whom all matters relating to the discharge of the functions conferred on the London Water Authority by virtue of the Bill would stand referred. The Committee would consist of members appointed by the Greater London Council, the London Borough Councils, the Common Council of the City of London and other local authorities wthin the relevant area, the Secretary of State and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The new subsection (6) of Clause 14 would retain the present sewerage area of the G.L.C. as an entity within the new London Water Authority although it extends slightly into the Thames Conservancy area.

Amendments similar to those to which I have spoken were defeated by the narrowest of majorities—a majority of only one—when the Bill was at Committee stage in the other place. I venture to suggest that they do not represent a Party point of view. Indeed, I may say that before the G.L.C. elections I received a letter from Sir Desmond Plummer in which he made it perfectly clear that both Parties at County Hall were, as I think he put it, adamant in their opposition to this Bill, and if the result of the elections had been other than it was I should have taken exactly the same position as I take this afternoon. I believe that local democratic control of vital services which affect the people of London so directly is preferable to control by those who will be responsible to a Secretary of State.

I apologise if I have taken some considerable time in speaking to those Amendments, but they constitute quite a number and I hope that I have been able to put before the Committee, despite the time I have been on my feet, what must inevitably be a brief case in support of London's claim, and I think they are fully justified in looking to your Lordships to ask the Government to have a second look at this matter. I think it would be very much in line with what it seems to me is occasionally a function and at times, also, a duty of your Lordships' House. I beg to move.

4 p.m.

LORD STOW HILL

My noble friend Lord Garnsworthy has deployed the case in favour of this series of Amendments so very cogently and with such an ample demonstration of argument, that I hesitate very much to take up more of your Lordships' time in support of these Amendments. If I venture to do so, it is because the subject matter is of such very great importance. It will decide for decades the future pattern, in large measure, of the role of the G.L.C. In its passage through Parliament, the issue has already aroused a great deal of anxiety not limited to any one Party. My noble friend reminded your Lordships of the result of the debate in another place, and for that reason I venture to intervene not, so far as I can avoid it, to repeat what my noble friend has already put so very fully and admirably, but possibly to supplement in some respects the arguments which he produced, in the hope that the Government will, nevertheless, take the matter back and give it some further thought.

Of course, broader issues than those which relate merely to the administration of water functions are involved. As my noble friend said, there is the status in general in our national life of the G.L.C., which was created as the environmental authority in 1964. It would be very sad if the London voters began to think that it was rather less worth while to go to the polls when the time came to vote on the membership of the G.L.C. But, as he has already said, the changes which are proposed by the Bill would lead to a reduction of some 15 per cent. in the personnel engaged in these functions. He might have added that if one also takes into account the proposed changes which will be introduced as the result of the recent Act about the National Health Service, the direct services rendered to the people of London by the G.L.C. will, if I understand the position correctly, be very nearly halved. If, in those circumstances, there was a gradual decline in the interest and in the enthusiasm of political and non-political Parties in the work and in the role of the G.L.C., it really would be extremely serious. Once it has set in it is, of course, extremely difficult to arrest; it is a disease which, as it were, spreads. In my submission, the changes which are proposed bring some danger of that kind of tendency to show itself in our national life.

May I add to what my noble friend said in this sense? It so transpires that, as he said, nature has created what is really a very convenient area of division of the responsibility which might be allocated to the G.L.C. as the London Water Authority and to the rest of the Thames Authority which is one of those set up under Schedule 1. Teddington, as he reminded your Lordships, is in a sense the boundary and if one looks at the proposals in the Amendments as to the re-allocation of areas between the London Authority and the remainder of the Thames Authority, the division fits very conveniently with the natural circumstances of the Thames. Teddington ends the area of the river where there is a tidal flow. The problems of water above and below Teddington are different in character. London has a great international port and is a great international highway. That is a problem peculiar to London. I submit that these problems have to be considered in the context of the general position of London as a great international centre, particularly a tourist centre. That does not apply so much to the river above Teddington.

If your Lordships accepted the division of areas as between the new Authority which the Amendments would set up and the remaining area of the Thames which is the Thames Authority, which is set up under the Schedule, the remaining authority would still cater for the needs of some 3 million people. So that, on the one side, you would have the G.L.C. catering for London's population and the river below Teddington, and on the other side, you would have the Thames Authority remaining, which would still cater for some 3 million people above Teddington. Anxiety has already been expressed as to the very large responsibilities which the Bill would impose in terms of numbers of population and scope of authority on the Authorities which are set up in Schedule 1. Far and away the biggest of them is the Thames Authority which finds its place now in that Schedule, and which, in effect, these Amendments would seek to divide into two. I submit that that is an important consideration. It makes for a much more tidy pattern and, the pattern at the moment is untidy. The Thames Board is unduly big and it is top-heavy. That is one aspect of the matter.

Another aspect of the matter is one which was again developed by my noble friend. It seems very unfortunate to take the existing achievements of the G.L.C., and the enormous organisational work that has gone to make that possible—the expert staff, the supporting services in the matter of finance, and the other expert services which can be brought to its assistance within the present framework of the G.L.C.—and to dismantle it. It seems such a pity, as it were, to arrest it in mid-stride. One knows, as my noble friend has again said, that the G.L.C. are concerned with the creation of the movable barrier to deal with Thames flooding. Is that again to be held up, as it were, by a change halfway? I do not say that it will be arrested, but the arrangements will be altered. It is that sort of general consideration which I would urge upon your Lordships, in support of a prayer to the Government that they once again give some thought to the question whether we are really acting unwisely in taking apart what started with the 1964 Act, and erecting in its place something which is in a sense, in the terms of this Bill, a little bit of a monstrosity. There will be this exceptionally large Thames Authority, with the responsibilities vested in it taken away from the G.L.C., put out of the scope of the voter in the G.L.C., removed from his practical sphere of interest as a voter. For what? The answer is really for very little.

If one looks at the Government's paper referring to disputes and conflicts of interest between various bodies at present responsible, it may be—and I am not arguing one way or the other at the moment, so far as that is concerned—that that is an ample justification in relation to authorities in the areas of the country. But because of the work that the G.L.C. has done and the general admiration which its achievement has won for itself, it surely cannot be said that those arguments have really any practical applica tion in the case of the G.L.C. The groundwork for the changes proposed by the Bill, therefore, really are not found applicable to the particular problems which centre round the work of the river of London up to Teddington.

Those are the general reasons I should like to deploy in support of my noble friend's argument, and I hope that the Government will be able to say that they recognise that there is anxiety on all sides of both Houses. I cannot speak for your Lordships' Committee at the moment because noble Lords on the opposite side of the Committee have not yet spoken, but certainly in the other House, and I would have submitted certainly outside the Houses of Parliament, it would be thought a great pity to interfere with, and in large measure to dismantle, the direct services for which the people of London are at present indebted to the work of the G.L.C. in this particular field of activity, as in others. For those reasons, I beg to support the arguments presented by my noble friend in support of his Amendments.

LORD HENLEY

Perhaps I should say from these Benches that I and my noble friends really feel that we ought to resist London's attempt at a separatist movement. I think—and I believe my noble friends do, too—that the smallest possible number of these large multi-purpose regional water authorities is the right answer, and I see no reason to suppose that the Thames Authority is top heavy or too large. Nor do I see any reason to suppose that, because certain functions are taken away from the G.L.C. as a result of the formation of this new water authority, that will in any way discourage electors from thinking that they are running their own affairs. The Thames area is a sound hydrological area in the hydrological cycle, and I think that to take London out of it would be to diminish its value in that respect. I hope the Government will not in fact reconsider this decision.

4.11 p.m.

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

Perhaps I may just add a thought on this technical side which the noble Lord, Lord Henley, was starting to develop, because this is essentially a technological Bill. The whole concept of it is to try to make the best management we can of the water in this country as we see our increasing demands endangering our resources and, indeed, endangering an adequate supply for our domestic and industrial needs. I rather sympathise with some of the points that are being made from the Benches opposite: the Thames Water Authority is going to be a very big authority indeed—enormous. So far as the present administrative structure goes, with the Thames Conservancy above Teddington and the G.L.C. and the Metropolitan Water Board below, this has been a very happy relationship in which I have taken a part for many years, and in many ways I would have been very happy to see it continue. But one must look at the ever-increasing demand for water supply—and it will continue to increase in demand, I think I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, in spite of the diminishing population of London. Each year that goes by, the peak demand on the Metropolitan Water Board goes up, and it is quite evident that the increasing domestic demand in everybody's house and the increasing demands of industry are such that, even if there is some diminution of the total population in the London area, the overall demand will still continue to increase. So I have not much doubt that this will go on; and, indeed, one has to remember that through these channels flows quite an amount of supply going into South Essex, and that will increase as well.

So looking at this picture we have to see how we can get a sufficient supply to meet the needs of London; and I should say straight away that if we do have a really dry summer this year (which in many ways would be very attractive) there really is not sufficient water coming down the Thames and the Lea to meet the needs of London. The needs could only be met by reducing the statutory flow over Teddington Weir. As noble Lords will know, there is a statutory minimum of 170 million gallons a day, and this is a sort of safety valve for London's supply. That can be reduced by a Ministerial Order; and, indeed, there is a very carefully adjusted formula which is related to the supply of water which is lying in the reservoirs belonging to the Metropolitan Water Board. When that water falls to a certain level danger is in sight, and at that level this statutory flow has to be reduced. That can be done, and it could be done even down to half that level, say to 70 million to 80 million gallons a day; but that is not particularly agreeable in this section of the river, because it means that there is not enough fresh water coming down the river in order to flush out this tidal estuary. Therefore, a certain amount of smell arises during the hot summer months. This could happen this year. The ground water flows are low as a result of an exceptionally dry winter and, therefore, unless we have certainly average, if not rather above average, rainfall during the summer months, we shall have to fall back on that emergency measure. So we arc already in danger, and no prudent Government could possibly go ahead on that basis. All the future provision must be to see that the supply of water for London and the South-East is progressively increased.

Now as soon as you look at that picture you are obliged to look not only at the River Thames as a whole but, indeed, at the supply of water in the country as a whole; at, possibly, as the noble Baroness mentioned earlier, a link with the Severn in the future rather than with the Wye in order to bring further supplies, possibly from the Welsh hills. The demand must be met from somewhere. The supplies are mainly in the West, and they have got to be brought to the East and brought down the natural channels. It just is not possible to manage satisfactorily the supply of water over such a big area, where the demand is so heavy as down here, unless the authority concerned covers as far as possible the area from the sources of supply are going to come. We are hopeful that, with the assistance of the ground water scheme now being developed, the Thames itself will be able to meet the requirements of London and the South-East for at least another decade or so, and possibly longer. But this general principle must be right: that, so far as possible, these new regional water authorities should have supply and demand in the same authority—and that, of course, is the concept here.

Now let me take this point one stage further, coming to the sewerage authority about which the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, spoke particularly cogently. I entirely agree with him that in the last 20 years the L.C.C. and the G.L.C. have done a tremendous job in improving the effluent from the London Sewage Works and thus improving the quality of the water in the Thames Estuary. The result, of course, is that fish are now coming back, and in every way the environment is benefited. In some ways it would have been very attractive to say, "All right; accepting that the Metropolitan Water Board must, for good hydrological reasons, be brought in, could you not leave the sewerage authority out, with the G.L.C.?" The answer is that we may very well find within the course of the next 10 or 20 years that we shall wish to recirculate that sewage effluent, progressively further cleaned up. It is already very good, but it is going to be cleaner still as the years go by. We may well wish to recirculate it and bring it back into the river somewhere higher up, well above Teddington, so that it can be used again. This is one of the many schemes which is being examined now; and, therefore, it really is vital, especially in a river like the Thames, where there is already a large element of re-use, to bring this enormous volume of water which flows out in the effluents from the London Sewage Works under the same authority so that if in the future it is desirable to bring that in for further recirculation it can be managed by the same authority as is managing the whole of the water supply and the water reclamation for the river as a whole.

I would suggest that as soon as you look at this total hydrological picture, the total hydrological cycle of conservation, distribution and reclamation, the arguments for bringing London within the Thames Water Authority are very strong indeed. The question of reservoirs has not been mentioned but the reservoirs of the Metropolitan Water Board could be most effectively managed if managed in conjunction with the general management of rivers, and particularly the ground water scheme now being developed, so that the most economic use of water could be achieved. I should have thought in the light of this general picture that the Government have done the best they can in setting up a constitution which will give the Greater London Council a large number of the members on the new Thames Water Authority so that they are very fully represented there. This gives London, and rightly so, a major voice in the running of this proposed new regional water authority. To my mind, that is about the best compromise you can make in order, on the one hand, to meet the hydrological needs and, on the other hand, to meet very properly London's very strong claim to play a major part in this picture.

LORD SANDFORD

I think it will be a great relief and comfort to the Committee to know that, following the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, we are now dealing in one debate with 24 of the 208 Amendments that lie before us. I am sure that that is the right thing to do. But I am afraid that I must follow my noble friend Lord Nugent and say, perhaps rather more strongly than he did, that this particular proposal can only be regarded as a reactionary and old-fashioned one, clinging to concepts of water management which, whatever merits they may have had in the past, are now almost universall regarded as distinctly passé. The present pattern of water services for London already reflects the unsuitability of the Greater London Council as a comprehensive water authority. Water supply is by the Metropolitan Water Board, a body distinct from the Greater London Council and covering a quite different area. Responsibility for sewerage and land drainage is certainly discharged by the Greater London Council. I would not deny, I would confirm, that they have done it most efficiently in the past; but that too is undertaken over a quite different area from the area which is the responsibility of the Greater London Council and each of the two areas is different from the other. Water resources and pollution control, two other functions of a modern future regional water authority, are not exercised by the Greater London Council but by the Thames Conservancy, the Lee Conservancy and the Port of London Authority; so, however well equipped the Greater London Council may be—and again I do not deny that they are—to deal with sewage, they are not equipped to deal with these other important functions of a regional water authority.

Furthermore, the Greater London Council proposals are quite unacceptable to other local authorities that are involved. The first proposal which the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, mentioned was put before the Committee in another place—and if one realises that one realises that a majority of one is not all that small. It would have had the Greater London Council being responsible for the water supplies of Banbury in Oxfordshire and Cirencester in Gloucestershire. Although the second one, now put before us, is more moderate in the territorial claims that the G.L.C. are making, it still has the Borough of Luton and the town of Bishops Stortford in the Lee catchment area looking to the Greater London Council for water; and the proposal is totally unacceptably to them and to the Hertfordshire County Council.

We have to face the fact that the more the area concerned is truncated—and the Greater London Council have done that in their attempt to make the proposition more palatable—to make the scheme acceptable to Cirencester, Banbury, Luton, Bishops Stortford or the Hertfordshire County Council, the more nonsensical the proposition becomes in terms of the area really needed for a modern comprehensive management of water services; and the less self-sufficient, as my noble friend Lord Nugent has said, in resources the area becomes.

The effect would be that, splitting the Thames as this proposal would require to be done, would mean that reservoirs from which the greater part of London's water supply is derived, the rivers from which water is taken and the schemes to augment these supplies would all be the responsibility of a second powerful authority, the Thames Water Authority whose primary duty would be the efficient provision of water services within their own area and not within the area of the Greater London Council.

But there is no denying the fact, and the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, was right to stress it, that the capital City of London is unique in a lot of ways, and not least its enormous size and that its need for water is imperious. But London is not unlike all other cities, as I think he was claiming, in the way in which it draws its water supplies. Like almost every other city, it draws its supplies from a river basin. That being so, I would claim that it has to be regarded in the same way as any other city. But its special position has to be recognised—and I would claim that it has been recognised in the following three ways: the Greater London Council and the London Boroughs Association between them have a clear and substantial majority over all other interests in the Thames Water Authority—36 or so seats out of 52; the Greater London Council and the London boroughs retain their present responsibility for land drainage and flood protection, and the Greater London Council retains its present responsibility for the great Thames flood barrier. There is now no proposal to transfer those functions after 1980. Furthermore, since the Bill was first introduced and in response to the special claim for London put forward by the Greater London Council, the Greater London Council will now be responsible for the recreational and amenity aspects of all the water in the Thames over all the Greater London Council area. That proposition will be embodied in a Government Amendment in a new clause after Clause 23.

To sum up the Government's attitude to this, I would suggest that the Greater London Council's future in water does not lie in a truncated, half-baked sphere which it will dominate and which it will call its own, but rather in the larger by far more natural area of the river basin of the Thames and its tributaries. It will be heir there to all the great traditions of the Thames Conservancy and much more besides, the authority on which it has always (and will always) depend for its water supplies and in the affairs of which it can command as powerful an influence as its unique position requires; and to which it can make a notable contribution from the present experience and skills in one or two fields of the Thames Water Authority of the future. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, and his noble friends will with that explanation come to see that this is much more promising as well as more apt a future role for the Greater London Council and the London boroughs and that he will not feel it necessary to press his Amendment.

4.30 p.m.

LORD GARNSWORTHY

I am grateful to the Minister for the care he has taken in replying to the case advanced from this side of the Committee. I should like to thank my noble and learned friend Lord Stow Hill for his powerful support and to say to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, in respect of his powerful intervention, that what he had to say deals with any suggestion of community participation, when it comes down to brass tacks.

LORD HENLEY

No. I think that if the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, had been listening to the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, he would have realised exactly how participation was to take place. It seemed to me that the participation that Lord Sandford was suggesting with regard to London was very much better than the kind of participation that Lord Garnsworthy was suggesting, which could kill the thing stone dead.

LORD GARNSWORTHY

We may be able to return to that point presently. I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Henley, has got it quite right. He may have interpreted Lord Sandford's remarks in a way that pleases the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, but I must say that I wish that he had himself developed his case a little more, as the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, suggested that he expected him to do. I have paid tribute before to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, in connection with Thames Conservancy. The noble Lord speaks from a very considerable experience. He speaks very persuasively and I only wish that he were on this side of the Committee, because I am quite sure that he could argue as persuasively in support of my Amendments as he has argued against them.

To return immediately to this question of community participation, I think I am right in saying that, of a total of 52 representatives on the Regional Water Authority, there will be only 20 for London; 10 for the Greater London Council and 10 for the London boroughs. It will be interesting to see what is the attitude of the Committee with regard to a later Amendment about the ability of regional water authorities to elect their own chairmen. That may carry the matter a little further. When the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, referred to these proposals as "old-fashioned and reactionary" he was not rendering the acknow ledgement which I think is due to the people on both sides of the Chamber at County Hall. I do not think there is any question of their being old-fashioned and reactionary.

We shall return to this matter later unless the Committee decide to accept these Amendments and the Government decide to allow them to stand. Far from having heard the last of the argument, I am convinced that in the years to come local government will demand a much greater say than it has been given in respect of such services as this. This is not the last scheme of reorganisation that we shall witness. If the G.L.C. has any claim to your Lordships' attention I would ask the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, to bear in mind that they are making a claim based on proven ability and on practical achievements in so many fields. The noble Lord confirmed that they had done a good job. But for him to indicate that they could not be entrusted to continue with the work that they have been doing, or undertake the responsibilities they seek is, I think, to underestimate the role they are capable of playing. I think that we have a duty to the people of London to divide on this Amendment because it is the only one of the series to which I shall be speaking. I think it right and proper that the Committee should indicate its view, whatever it may be, so that it is on the Record and the people of London will know.

LORD SANDFORD

Before the Question is put, I wonder whether I may put the Record straight. I think that, inadvertently, I gave wrong figures about representation on the Water Authority. The G.L.C. and the London boroughs as the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, said, have 10 members each, which itself is a majority among all other local authorities. The number will amount to 36, and they have a majority over all others.

LORD GARNSWORTHY

I thank the noble Lord for saying that. He has made it perfectly clear that the G.L.C. and the London boroughs together will have 20 out of 52 seats. To suggest that they will have a majority of local government representatives does not, I think, affect the issue very much so far as London is concerned.

4.36 p.m.

On Question, Whether the said Amendmnt (No. 1) shall be agreed to?

4.40 p.m.

LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 2: Page 3, line 7, leave out from ("the") to ("and") in line ll and insert ("existing areas described in column 2 of Schedule I to this Act (being, in general, areas established for the purposes of functions relating to water resources or land drainage)").

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 41; Not-Contents, 100.

CONTENTS
Archibald, L.	Faringdon, L.	Sainsbury, L.
Arwyn. L.	Gaitskell, B.	Serota, B.
Bernstein, L.	Gardiner, L.	Shepherd, L.
Beswick, L.	Garnsworthy, L. [Teller]	Shinwell, L.
Blyton, L.	Greenwood of Rossendale, L.	Slater, L.
Brockway. L.	Hale, L.	Snow, L.
Buckinghamshire, E.	Henderson, L.	Stow Hill, L.
Burntwood, L.	Jacques, L.	Strabolgi, L.
Burton of Coventry, B.	Lindsay of Birker, L.	Summerskill, B.
Champion, L.	Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B. [Teller]	Taylor of Mansfield, L.
Chorley, L.		Wells-Pestell, L.
Collison, L.	Nunburnholme, L.	White, B.
Davies of Leek, L.	Phillips, B.	Winterbottom, L.
Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.	Rhodes, L.	Wright of Ashton under Lyne, L.

NON-CONTENTS
Aberdare, L.	Eccles, V.	Nugent of Guildford, L.
Airedale, L.	Effingham, E.	Ogmore, L.
Allerton, L.	Emmet of Amberley, B.	Platt, L.
Alport, L.	Ferrers, E.	Rankeillour, L.
Amherst, E.	Gowrie. E.	Reay, L.
Amory, V.	Grenfell, L.	Redcliffe-Maud, L.
Amulree, L.	Grimston of Westbury, L.	Reigate, L.
Auckland, L.	Hailes, L.	Ridley, V.
Aylesford, E	Hanworth, V.	Rochdale, V.
Balfour, E.	Harvey of Prestbury, L	Rockley, L.
Berkeley, B.	Henley, L.	Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.
Bessborough, E.	Hood, V.	St. Aldwyn, E.
Bridgeman, V.	Hurcomb, L.	St. Helens, L.
Byers, L.	Hylton-Foster, B.	Sandford, L.
Carrington, L.	Ingleby, V.	Sempill, Ly.
Cawley. L.	Inglewood, L.	Shannon, E.
Chelmer, L.	Jessel, L.	Sinclair of Cleeve, L.
Clifford of Chudleigh, L.	Killearn, L.	Somers, L.
Coleraine, L.	Kinloss, Ly.	Stamp, L.
Colville of Culross, V.	Kinnaird, L.	Strathcarron, L.
Conesford, L.	Kinnoull, E.	Strathclyde, L.
Congleton, L.	Lauderdale, E.	Strathspey, L.
Cottesloe, L.	Lonsdale, E.	Swaythling, L.
Courtown, E.	Lothian, M.	Teviot, L.
Craigavon, V.	Loudoun, C.	Thomas, L.
Daventry, V.	Lucas of Chilworth, L.	Trefgarne, L.
Davidson, V.	Mar and Kellie, E.	Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, B.
de Clifford, L.	Merrivale, L	Vivian, L.
De Ramsey, L.	Milverton, L.	Wakefield of Kendal, L.
Denham, L. [Teller]	Monck, V.	Windlesham, L. (L. Privy Seal.)
Derwent, L.	Mowbray and Stourton, L. [Teller]	Wise, L.
Drumalbyn, L.		Wolverton, L.
Dundonald, E.	Northchurch, B.	Young, B.
Ebbisham, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

The noble Lord said: On behalf of my noble friend Lady Young, I beg to

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 41; Not-Contents, 100.

move Amendment No. 2, and I would suggest that it might be for the convenience of the Committee if together with that we discuss Amendments Nos. 3 and 4. The purpose of these three Amendments is to make it clear that the areas within which water authorities will exercise their functions are the areas described in column 2 of Schedule 1 in the form in which those areas exist immediately prior to Royal Assent. But if between Royal Assent and April 1, 1974, any of those areas is altered under or in consequence of the exercise of powers conferred on Ministers by another enactment, such as the Water Resources Act 1963, which enables the Ministers by Order to alter the boundaries of river authority areas, then the water authority area will be the area described in column 2 of Schedule 1 as altered prior to April 1, 1974. The date of April 1, 1974, is relevant because all the river authority areas and the Thames and Lee Catchment areas will cease to exist immediately before April 1, 1974.

The water authorities will have certain functions of a preparatory nature to perform between Royal Assent and April 1, 1974, and it is therefore necessary to describe the areas as they exist at Royal Assent, as well as to anticipate any altertion of the river authority areas or catchment areas which may occur between Royal Assent and April 1, 1974. I think the Committee will see that these three Amendments amount to little more than technical improvements. I beg to move.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD SANDFORD

I beg to move Amendment No. 3.

Amendment moved— Page 3, line 13. after first ("the") insert ("existing").—(Lord Sandford.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD SANDFORD

I beg to move Amendment No. 4.

Amendment moved—

Page 3, line 15, at end insert— ("In this subsection any reference to an existing area is a reference to that area as existing immediately before the passing of this Act, except that in the case of an area which is altered after the passing of this Act under any enactment other than this section. it is a reference to the altered area.")—(Lord Sandford.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

On Question, Whether Clause 2, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?

4.50 p.m.

VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN

May I take this opportunity of mentioning the Severn and Trent River Authority, on which I have down two Amendments, Nos. 78 and 79 in Schedule 1. By doing so, not only shall I save two Amendments, which is less than Lord Garnsworthy's 24, but I think it might be for the convenience of the Committee, because my objective in moving these Amendments is to increase the efficiency of local government representation in the water sphere, a matter to which I know my noble friends Lord Ridley and Lord Amory will be referring.

I am sorry that I was not present for the Second Reading. 1 know how sorry my noble friend Lord Sandys is that he cannot be here to-day to support me—he is the President of this year's Three Counties Show. My first point is a perfectly simple one. The framers of the Bill, though realising that the Trent-Severn Authority is on the large side, were nevertheless convinced that the technical considerations outweighed any resulting disadvantages. My own contention is that the reverse is the case. This contention, I know, is supported by my own county council of Shropshire, the Trent River Board and also the County Councils' Association. My noble friend will be speaking for them. I do not mean to go into any detail on technical points, because they were thoroughly canvassed in another place in the Standing Committee on March 15. There the Minister rested his case for this very large board on two considerations. The first was that if the West Midlands conurbation was split, waterwise, the utmost confusion would result. The second was a more technical point, because the first, though described as technical, was really an administrative one. The second point was that the Trent area depended for a great deal of their area on the water that comes from the Severn—or, to put it round the other way, a lot of Severn water goes into the Trent in the form of sewage. There the matter was left in another place after an honourable gentleman—and I paraphrase his words—had said that technical considerations should be subordinated to the needs of people. My honourable friend agreed to have the matter looked into again; but nothing more happened in another place.

I was very sorry to read in Hansard that on Second Reading my noble friend Lord Sandford gave no reason to suppose that any consideration on this point has taken place in the Ministry. He said that the pattern had been dictated by acute and urgent technical problems, problems of the kind I have mentioned. So here we have the disputed territory. Ministers, no doubt on the advice of their experts, take the view that technical considerations outweigh wider ones. Others, including many noble Lords experienced in local government, take the opposite view.

With all respect to technicians, I have always thought that anybody with any experience of management at all knows that when it is suggested that the technicians govern policy you have seen the amber light. There is a proverb—I do not know who invented it—that the difficult can be done at once but the impossible takes a little longer. None of us is terribly keen on having technical arguments given to us. We never are, especially when we are told that British trains or British aircraft cannot start because of technical hitches; and a technical argument is very apt to be a "joker" when it is given to those who cannot understand it. There is a story that Marshall Foch was once dealing with what I suppose one might call a pride of technicians, and when he gave an opinion he was asked what right he had to give any opinion in such a technical atmosphere. To that he replied that he was the technician of general ideas: "Je suis le technicien des ideés getter-ales." I hope that Hansard will do better with my French than with the Greek of my noble friend Lord Amory.

The price of accepting a technical argument in this instance will be a high one, because, whatever may be said in theory, in practice anybody who has had any experience of finding the right people to man these boards and taking the time —not talking but travelling—knows that in the end, whatever may be set up on paper, in practice no one will have any control over the chief engineer of the board. If that is what the Government really want, all well and good; but I do not know whether it is what this House wants. I feel that this is a matter which has to be taken in conjunction with the arguments which I know my noble friends Lord Amory and Lord Ridley will be putting forward, to make sure that when this Bill is passed the position of local government and of local government representatives on this Board will really be effective. At the moment, I very much doubt that it is.

It might be said that this is only a question of degree—that all the boards are big and that this happens to be just a little bigger than the others. That is a lovely Whitehall argument, but against that one can always say that a line has to be drawn somewhere. In my opinion, and in the opinion of those I have consulted, the Board is far too big to make sense; that a line ought to be drawn in such a way as to exclude this, and that the technicians and administrators should be made to give a very much harder look at this before we are asked to accept such an enormously large area going from the Humber and not merely to the Welsh Border—I see the noble Baroness opposite, and I know she is not entirely happy about this either—but entirely beyond it.

I hope your Lordships will forgive me for having put forward these considerations at this stage of the Bill. I hope that what I have said will assist my noble friend on the Front Bench to look at this matter again between now and the Report stage, and to see whether something cannot be done to improve the present position.

LORD DAVIES OF LEEK

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure indeed to stand up and support the noble Lord opposite who has just spoken. I will be brief and, I hope, cogent. I have a split loyalty between Wales and the Trent River Authority, and the one thing I am worried about with all modern legislation —and it has been growing with all Parties and all Governments—is that they worship size and believe that the bigger area you get, the greater the efficiency. I am quite sure we are losing the personal touch.

I was delighted to hear the noble Lord say that he would look at this with regard to the people who can give a service to this wide area from Bristol to the Humber. We are going to have a huge area. I have been going through all this background on water reorganisation. I have read it all very carefully, and it smacks of future shock: the apotheosis of human technology at the expense of the human being. We are losing something of devoted service in this bigness. We are told that the people concerned (who will have to earn their living) will get expenses. But in this case. in such a large area, it will mean a night, or perhaps two nights, away from home so as to give service to both the Severn and the Trent areas. Like the noble Lord opposite, I have read through both volumes of the proceedings of the Committee stage upstairs, and certainly the technical details were gone through thoroughly. I know that the officials and the Government have looked at those technical details. Consequently, it would be wrong of me to bore the Committee by being repetitive.

All I wanted to do was to add my voice to that of the noble Lord, in the hope that another look will be taken at this. I assure the noble Lords speaking from the opposite Benches that when a constructive opportunity arises I shall try at each juncture of this Bill, where appropriate, to get this point across. I beg the House to look again at this huge water authority. I know the Trent Authority and the Severn Authority and I know the good work that they have done. Are we gaining by this massive geographical expansion? I think not. I am grateful that the opportunity was taken on the Motion, That the clause shall stand part of the Bill for a little constructive and, I hope, human approach to this problem.

VISCOUNT AMORY

I hope my noble friend, when he comes to reply, will attach great weight to the case my noble friend Lord Bridgeman has made. I should like to add to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, from the point of view of the lay members of this body. The technicians will no doubt manage to grapple with an area of this size because that is their special role, particularly on paper. But when it comes to the lay members, I think it is asking too much of them to know such an area really well. In practical terms, the time spent in travelling and having to spend the night away from home, as the noble Lord said, will militate against the efficiency of this huge area. I hope that my noble friend will satisfy us further than he has at present that it is absolutely essential. I hope very much that it can be split into two.

VISCOUNT RIDLEY

As I spoke at the Second Reading, I want to add support to my noble friend Lord Bridgeman. I am sure that this is much too big an authority. There is the argument as to the position of Birmingham, which is between two river valleys. Presumably that is not an easy one to solve. I do not think that is an argument which stops one making two smaller authorities. I feel more strongly now than I did on Second Reading that we ought to think again about this matter.

LORD HENLEY

I hope it will not be forgotten that the whole point of having these large regional water authorities is to make use of modern technological hydrocycles.

LORD INGLEWOOD

May I ask for an explanation on two small points? Am I right in assuming from subsection (4) that there will be a separate order for establishing each authority? I think that is the right way to read the subsection. Subsection (5) reads: The Ministers may by order change the name of any water authority or alter the boundaries of a water authority area for the purposes of any functions specified in the order. Does that mean that if certain functions under this Bill are to be carried out by one authority, and there is difficulty for geographical or other reasons, they could be transferred to a neighbouring authority for administrative purposes? If not, could my noble friend say what it means?

May I reinforce the pleas from both sides of the House that the boundaries of these authorities should not be so great that the lay members will have great difficulty in carrying out their functions. I have looked at the dimensions of the authority proposed for the North-West of England. It is 150 miles from North to South. Reference has been made to spending one or two evenings a week away from home. If a lay member lives in the North of the area he will be expected frequently to travel not necessarily to the far extremity, but maybe the middle of the area, and not spend one or two evenings a week away but spending nights away from home. That means that a great many people—particularly the mothers of families—will not be able to accept office on these authorities. A great deal more responsibility will in the end rest with the engineers and other officials than I am sure Parliament thinks is ultimately for the nation's good.

BARONESS WHITE

What has now occurred strengthens the point I made earlier on about difficulty in not discussing the Schedules in their due place. We are now faced with a discussion on an exceedingly important point on the Motion, That the Clause shall stand part of the Bill, which means that even if it wishes to do so the Committee can hardly come to a sensible decision on the matter. The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, said that he hoped his noble friend would think again; but the trouble is that if the Committee does not make itself felt by coming to some conclusion on an important and specific point of this kind, the chances of the noble Lord think ing again are somewhat remote. I say this because of the kind of discussion which went on in another place.

This is a specific and crucial issue in this Bill—whether or not the Committee is of the view that we are justified in including in legislation a water authority of the dimensions of the proposed Severn-Trent Authority. I know very well that among the people concerned on the technical aspects of the matter, as the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, and others have said, there is virtual unanimity that they want the largest authorities possible. But the logical deduction from that is that one ought to have a national water authority, because there are no logical divisions between these different water authorities. The fact that one takes water from one area into another means that in a sense every one of these authorities is artificial. It is the totality of the system which counts.

The noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, was right in saying that the trouble over this particular area is the Birmingham conurbation and where it comes. We recognise that this is a genuine difficulty. Against that, I feel strongly that one must look at the working of a water authority, and of the persons who will be composing this authority. I have the strongest sympathy with the point made from all quarters of the House that it will be extraordinarily difficult, however conscientious they may be, for the individual members of these authorities to do their jobs adequately.

I should like to remind your Lordships that under the proposal with the Severn-Trent Authority a large area of mid Wales is going to be included—the Severn Catchment Area. One member of the Severn-Trent Authority will be appointed by the Secretary of State for Wales; one will be nominated by the new Powys County Council; one will be appointed by the district composing the area of that county. None of us can tell where the Secretary of State for Wales's nominee might live. He might not even live within the cachment area; he might live in an even more remote part of Wales. If he was someone with particular knowledge in matters of water supply it would be perfectly open and very proper for the Secretary of State for Wales to appoint someone as his nominee who, for example, might live in Milford Haven. The others, presumably, would live within the County of Powys. That, as we said on Second Reading, stretches a little further than Llanidlocs. Anyone who knows the conditions of motoring, let alone the rail service, in that part of the world, will appreciate that this is going to be a very difficult matter indeed.

On grounds of good sense as to the way in which the proposed river authority may do its work there is a strong case for reconsideration. I fully understand the technological arguments and the way in which those who are concerned with this business of moving water feel that they would like to have no boundaries at all. But we are discussing a body which has to run these things. With great respect, I do not entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Davies of Leek about the personal touch. Where you are dealing with water, I do not think the personal touch, in one sense of that word, comes into it very much except in the field of recreation and amenity where it matters very much indeed. The rest of the operation is largely one where the general public, so long as it gets good water and adequate sewage, does not need as much influence as it does in some other directions of life. The lay members, as the noble Viscount, Lord Amory, said, are another matter altogether. It is largely on this question of proper management that we feel strongly disposed to support the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, in what I had hoped would be an Amendment to a Schedule; but as it has turned out this is a discussion on "clause stand part" and, as we would not wish to throw out the entire clause, this rather deprives us of an opportunity of voting on it.

LORD DAVIES OF LEEK

May I point out to my noble friend that she kindly uttered that she did not think the "personal touch" came in with water, but I am sure she has been approached and lobbied by masses of people who were afraid of fluoride being put into their water. If she were in Maindee, where somebody has been putting poisonous water in a quarry, my noble friend would find that all round that valley the "personal touch" in water is most important at the moment. Water being the staff of life, with bread, I think the personal touch comes first and foremost.

BARONESS WHITE

I must grant my noble friend the point about Maindee.

VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN

If we had been on Report stage I should have agreed with every word that the noble Baroness has said, but we are on Committee stage and I hope very much that it will be possible for discussion to take place between now and the Report stage. I am not saying now whether or not I shall put down another Amendment, or what I shall do if I put one down.

5.12 p.m.

LORD SANDFORD

The first thing I should like to do is to join with the noble Baroness, Lady White, and hope very much that the Committee will not through some inadvertence move out Clause 2 of the Bill, because we should then be in some difficulty. I hope my noble friend will therefore wait for some other, future occasion. I agree it has been useful to have this discussion. The whole subject certainly merits discussion and it has been convenient to have this discussion now. I wonder whether, before I enter it, I might just deal with the rather different points which were raised by my noble friend Lord Inglewood, which will enable us to put them to one side. The answer to the first part of his question is, yes, there will be separate Orders establishing each authority. On the second question, there will be slightly different areas for different purposes, but he will find there is provision for rationalisation at Clause 7. As to distance, these authorities are much larger than local government authorities but nobody will be required to travel any further than the noble Lord himself does in order to come and grace our debates here.

LORD INGLEWOOD

The noble Lord will surely concede that that is an utterly and totally different problem. If Members of this House attempt to attend it regularly they make it, as it were, almost a profession. But we are asking county councillors and people who serve their county in many different ways to take on a job which is in many cases almost impossible.

LORD SANDFORD

My noble friend Lord Ridley behind me, and my noble friend Lord Ingleby on my right, are both examples of the fact that it is possible to combine local government and Parliamentary service at one and the same time.

To turn to the question of the Severn and Trent in particular, which was raised by my noble friend Lord Bridgeman, of course here we are dealing with something which is unique in that this Authority combines two separate river basins, and this is what has provoked the doubt and uncertainty as to whether it is really sensible to do it. It involves the Trent draining into the Humber and the Severn draining into the Bristol Channel. But in drawing up these boundaries, as well as giving prime consideration to the natural features which have produced the river basin, we have to take into account the pattern of human development—that is what the noble Lord, Lord Gams-worthy, was doing in Amendment 1—and the pattern has reflected that. But when we do it here we must come to the conclusion that the two river basins are inextricably linked together. In terms of population, in terms of actual or potential pollution, the whole of the proposed region is dominated by the West Midlands conurbation, and we cannot get away from that fact. Wherever possible it certainly is right that the responsibility for water services within a single major conurbation should lie with a single water authority, and this has been achieved in every other case. But we, again, were faced with the facts of geography, that the watershed between the Trent and the Severn runs right through the middle of the West Midlands conurbation, and it could not possibly therefore produce a boundary that made sense in terms of the planning and development of that conurbation to split the two river authorities. This explains why the local authorities in the West Midlands do not object to the Government's proposal.

Moreover, the West Midlands draws large and increasing quantities of water from the West and discharges them into the Trent. Separating the Trent and the Severn could not make sense in that neither would then be self-sufficient; it would still be necessary for one authority to supply another to a large extent. The Trent basin, for instance, contains not only Birmingham but Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, all with a great and increasing demand for water; and it is not self-sufficient in water resources now and it would become less so in the future, and it must look to the Severn for supplies. So it would not therefore meet one of the other criteria for water authority areas: that they should be self-sufficient. In contrast, however, a Severn-Trent Authority will be reasonably self-sufficient and in addition will be able to take account of the opportunities for optimisation (to use the technical word) offered by the combination of a large clean river with a large and rather dirty river. So in terms of water management—and I would agree with my noble friend Lord Nugent that this is what we have to consider all along in this Bill—there is indeed a very strong case for the Severn-Trent Authority. I think the argument that my noble friend and others are putting forward is that the area is large, geographically big. This is in fact an optical illusion because it will not be the largest authority. It is not the largest authority in terms of population; the Thames is much larger. It is not the larger geographically; the Anglian Authority is larger.

BARONESS WHITE

May I take the Minister up on that point? When he says "larger" he may be thinking of total area, but what about the maximum linear measurement from edge to edge?

LORD SANDFORD

I daresay that on maximum linear measurement Lady White may have it.

BARONESS WHITE

I am sure I have.

LORD SANDFORD

With no disrespect: that could have been much bet ter put. The fact of the matter is that we are dealing here with technical and geographical problems and it is they that dictate the two linked river basins. It really is much more than the technical people involved wanting this as a convenient solution. Nevertheless, the Government have borne in mind the considerations which my noble friend has been putting to the Committee and, so far as possible, have responded to them. Two quite significant alterations have been made to the proposition as it was first put forward. First of all, North Lincolnshire, which was originally to have been administered by the Severn-Trent Authority, will now be administered by the Anglian Authority; and secondly, the Government propose that an area on Severnside which is at present part of the Severn River Authority should be transferred at least for most purposes to the Wessex Water Authority. These changes at the extremities of the Severn-Trent area will mean that this authority will no longer have to concern itself with services in the Bristol area.

I would put it to the Committee that what is now left is a thoroughly rational and sensible area dictated by the geography and the population and the natural features of the area, albeit a large one. There is admittedly the further point that a number of the new counties will have to be represented on the Severn-Trent Authority, thus producing a relatively large total membership, but the Government have weighed this also and consider that it is acceptable in view of the other considerations.

All the factors which have been put forward in this short debate have been weighed and the Government have been able to respond to them, but I must tell the Committee that I think the Government have gone as far as it is possible to go while still leaving the authority responsible for an area which is sensible from all points of view (for regional water authorities have to be sensible) and taking into account all the factors which apply.

BARONESS WHITE

Before the noble Lord sits down can he tell us whether there is any possibility of the Government accepting later on an Amendment that there should be a special helicopter allowance for members of this authority?

LORD SANDFORD

That, so far as I know, is a new proposition, but we will consider it.

Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 3 [Members of water authorities]:

5.22 p.m.

LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 9: Page 4, leave out line 5.

The noble Lord said: In moving this Amendment I might say that Amendments Nos. 12, 88, 96, 97, 100, 102, 112 and 113 all follow and will be necessary if your Lordships decide to accept this Amendment. This clause deals with the appointment of members to water authorities, and the Amendment itself deals with subsection (1)(a) which lays down that the chairmen of regional water authorities shall be appointed by the Secretary of State. The Amendment would remove this unsatisfactory and, if I may say so, somewhat autocratic proposal, and the other Amendments would ensure that the chairmen would be elected by the members of the authorities.

I acknowledge that the Government have made some concession to local authorities in that the clause provides that the total number of members appointed by the Secretary of State and the Minister is less than the number of those appointed by local authorities. But that could be a bare majority only, and in any case they will have to sit under a chairman chosen by the Secretary of State. I hope that it is not to be taken as demonstrating the lack of confidence that exists in the ability of the persons to be appointed to choose wisely. I can think of few proposals more calculated to show that whatever the members think the man in Whitehall knows best. Clearly it is intended, while making a gesture to local government, that strong centralised control of these bodies will in practice be exercised by the Secretary of State and his Department—a Department which is not always as flexible and understanding as one might wish. What we need are chairmen who will be responsive to the views and the advice of colleagues; people who have their ears to the ground and who are aware of public feeling and capable of representing at higher level the opinions held by the public. Indeed, what I am proposing is that regional water authorities should elect their own chairmen. This would ensure that there would be on the National Water Council spokesmen of the regional water authorities, some of them likely to be elected by them and therefore possessing their confidence, which would be a distinct advantage.

I think we all know that when chairmen are appointed by a Secretary of State there is a strong tendency to get someone whose loyalty will be to his Departmental boss rather than to those who should be his colleagues, and here we are dealing with services which are not likely to arouse strong political feeling.

I can appreciate that it is thought desirable that the Secretary of State, and indeed the Minister, should have someone on the authority who can represent Departmental views, but that is surely met by the provisions in paragraph (a) and (b) of subsection (1). With bodies covering such huge areas as are here proposed, and the travelling problems thus presented for the generality of members who have other interests and duties to attend to, it is inevitable that the meetings of any such authority will be fairly widely spread. Control of the effective day-to-day running of the authority must therefore be left largely in the hands of the chairman and the chief executive. If, as the Bill proposes. the chairman is the appointee of the Secretary of State in every case, this indeed keeps the hand of Whitehall in firm control and is bound to generate feelings of frustration among the local authority appointees and doubts as to whether they are playing a worthwhile and significant role.

Accordingly, the Amendments I propose seek to ensure that each water authority and each regional land drainage committee will elect their own chairmen on the same lines as the chairmen of local authorities under the Local Government Act 1972, except of course that the water authority chairmen could be appointed for up to four years under the terms of the Amendment whereas the local authority chairmen are elected annually. If these Amendments are accepted it will still remain possible (and even probable in some cases) that a Ministerial appointee will become chairman of any particular water authority, but at least the door to the most vital and rewarding task will not he shut on experienced and capable local authority appointees. I suggest that if the Bill is amended to allow the water authorities and the regional land drainage committees (for the same reason arises) to elect their own chairmen the possibility, indeed the very strong likelihood, is that it will attract from the field of local government men and women of the highest possible calibre.

In another place on Committee stage an Amendment along similar lines was accepted by 11 votes to 5—a very substantial majority—but that decision was reversed by the Government at Report stage. This is an instance where, having regard to what happened in Committee in another place, this House, with advantage, should say that the matter should be looked at again. I beg to move Amendment No. 9.

LORD MERRIVALE

I hope my noble friend will resist this Amendment. Already, as the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, said, any such Order shall be so framed that the total number of members of a regional water authority appointed by the Secretary of State and the Minister is less than the number of those appointed by the local authorities. Initially the Department of the Environment envisage that the regional water authorities should, first, be compact, managerial-type boards and, secondly, that local authorities should enjoy substantial representation, but that this representation should not constitute a majority. This original concept, which would have seemed to be effective management, has now given way to large or representational-type organisations, with such organisations having, as I said earlier, a local government majority.

It seems to me that the two noble Lords who have put their names down to this Amendment want the Government to go still further in this process of reducing effectiveness by allowing the regional water authorities to elect their own chairmen. It seems to me, and it is I suppose a truism, that the Secretary of State is ultimately responsible for the carrying out, or implementation, of this Bill when it becomes an Act. Therefore, is it not right that he should retain the power to nominate chairmen, who have to be carefully selected? One of the essential points in considering this Amendment is that the chairmen should be carefully selected. That is why my preference goes to the Secretary of State to be in the position to do so. I should have thought it was self-evident and essential that the men who will be the chairmen of these authorities should be chosen because of their experience, knowledge and impartiality. Their top management and administrative skills must be of the highest order, especially if one considers the size of some of these authorities. Mention has been made that in certain cases some of these authorities will have 40 to 50 members. Not every one is a born chairman, and that is why I should have thought that a very effective selective process, as I mentioned before, is essential. May I also add that if one wishes to attract men of the right calibre for the chairmanship, then surely it must be a full-time post with adequate financial remuneration. On that aspect, perhaps my noble friend Lord Sandford can give the House an assurance.

I believe I am right in saying that Government spokesmen in the past have estimated the annual investment of the water industry for post-1974 to be of the order of £300 million and the revenue account to be around £350 million. We are considering, therefore, a highly important industry which must contain a high proportion of managerial skills in the authorities: in other words, men with a knowledge also of water management problems.

Finally, in view of the importance of the industrial use of water (and one should stress that the industrial user is the single most important user in this country) I trust that my noble friend will be able to assure the House that some of the members—and perhaps this could be done under Clause 3(1)(c—will be appointed for their expertise in and experience of industrial water problems. The regional water authorities must surely suffer if industry is insufficiently strongly represented in that respect.

5.34 p.m.

LORD WOLVERTON

I should like to support this Amendment because I spoke on this matter on Second Reading and, having served on a local authority, a county council, for nine years, I am sure that if local authorities are allowed to have control in numbers on these new regional water authorities then it is right that they should be allowed to elect their own chairmen. They are going to send to serve on these water authorities only men and women of great experience and will choose them very carefully. It is only democratic these days that a Board should he allowed to elect its own chairman and not have one imposed on them by the Minister. The Minister has ultimate control. I am very sorry to have to disagree with my noble friend here, but I am sure that that arrangement will work better.

It was said in another place that the only persons who would be paid would be the chairmen of these new Boards and that probably it would be about a threeday-a-week whole-time job. It was not considered by the Under-Secretary, from what I understood at the Committee stage, that it would be a whole-time job. I strongly support this Amendment, because when we were debating the Bill on the reorganisation of Local Government last year, it was stressed by the Government, and also by the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, the Chairman of the Royal Commission, that we must strengthen local government. Bit by bit local government is being eroded. We are now taking away large sections of the Health Service; we are taking away large sections of the water and sewage services—and I supported that move as probably being right although I thought that sewage should be given back to the local authorities to run on an agency basis under the supervision of local authorities. But I strongly support this Amendment and hope that Her Majesty's Government will accept it.

LORD DAVIES OF LEEK

This is a sad comment on our Parliamentary practice over this last couple of years. It is one which is growing, so I am not putting the burden on any one political Party, but it is no wonder that Parliamentary authority is being eroded in Britain. I shall not go into any pet hobbies of mine about the erosion of the authority of this Parliament, but let me give a concrete example in support of my noble friend's Amendment from this side of the House, but without any Party bias whatsoever. We have had example after example in the short period I have been in this House and after about 30 or 40 years in general politics and 26 or 27 years in the other place. The County Councils' Association, the Association of Municipal Corporations, the Urban District Councils' Association and the Rural District Councils' Association write in their professional journals and in local government journals; they lobby the other place and they lobby this House; they give the result of their experience and know-how in local government without political bias—irrespective of what my Party political bias has been over the years—and they add their experience to advise Members of both Houses in efforts to get constructive Amendments to very important Bills like this one. And what do we find? The only major concession to local government views which the Government have introduced in this Bill—and they did not change anything in the Common Market Bill, not one comma, but they have made concessions in this Bill; I had to get that point in, and I apologise—is the provision to give local authority representatives a majority.

I have the figures although I shall not bore the House with them. This is an informed House and it knows them. The matter has been discussed at length. The Minister has been approached. Standing Committee D, particularly during the ninth sitting on March 20 on an Amendment to guarantee local authority members a majority of at least three, despite an undertaking by Mr. Eldon Griffiths to consider the matter further, divided and the Amendment was lost only on the casting vote of the Chairman. Since then further discussions have taken place between representatives of the associations, including the Greater London Council and representatives of the Department, when the associations urged strongly that the number of local authority appointments should be increased to ensure stronger local government representation. So far, the Government have been unwilling to meet that point. And now, on this matter of the appointment of chairmen of the regional water authorities in Clause 3, the view of the associations was considered and an improvement was achieved in Committee stage in the Commons by an outstanding majority. That decision was won and the Committee felt that the chairmen should not be appointed by the Minister. Unfortunately, the decision was reversed by a Government Amendment at Report stage (Hansard, May 1, cols. 1099 and 1127) and the majority of the Standing Committee saw no justification for the chairmen being ministerial appointments. I shall not bore the House. There is a great deal of constructive comment and constructive lobbying of which no notice whatsoever is taken. But this information, though it is culled from dull type on rough, duplicated sheets is the result of years and generations of local experience.

Now all this is swept away, and we are giving to the Minister the right of appointment. One argument made by a noble Lord opposite was that the Minister by some marvellous alembic from the heavens above will be able to distil out of his pot a first-class chairman. I ask you! Having had experience as a Minister, and having waddled around the corridors of power in Number 10, I know what sometimes happens when they are looking for a chairman. The Minister comes along and says, "Have you got a good boy who will make a good chairman?" The House knows this to be true. I used to do mathematical problems: how many coloured stockings could you get out in three grabs. If you are digging into the pot for a chairman, sometimes you telephone to some part of the country—I have done it myself—without having a clue who the man is. Neither has the Minister.

LORD MERRIVALE

May I interrupt the noble Lord for a second, because I think he was referring to a remark I made? If in fact what he is saying is true—and I am quite sure it is not—would it not equally apply to the corridors of power in local government?

LORD DAVIES OF LEEK

Not so much. The power of election in local government can have devastating effects. I do not like it, but Lincoln is a typical example. When a Party get too cocky they can move people, and the same is true when a Government get too cocky, if I may use that ignoble language in this noble House. What I am saying is that it is all poppycock to say that the Minister knows best. The accumulated judgment of local authority in Britain over the years usually brings to the top capable men and women, who may be innumerate, and from the Oxford University—not the Welsh University—point of view illiterate; but illiteracy does not mean ignorance or lack of wisdom; failure to pronounce the aitches does not mean that a man may not know a wealth of information about water supplies, et cetera. Let us shake off this attitude and give to local authority, where it belongs as the result of years of service, the right of appointing the pivot of these authorities, the chairmen. I hope my side of the House will press this forward to a Division.

5.43 p.m.

VISCOUNT AMORY

I am afraid that my brief intervention will be a tremendous anticlimax after the very colourful speech from the noble Lord, Lord Davies.

LORD DAVIES OF LEEK

The Committee needed waking up.

VISCOUNT AMORY

I can promise him one thing, that we shall never regard the noble Lord as too cocky. I should like only to speak for a minute or two. Normally I believe tremendously in the advantages, whenever possible, of allowing a committee to appoint its own chairman. I think it is a good thing. When it cannot be done, the reasons need to be very strong indeed. I would just say that I am not suggesting that, because these water authorities are to have, anyhow, a nominal majority of local authority representatives, therefore the chairman should be a local authority representative. That does not go at all. But I think we ought to look and see whether the reasons are strong enough not to allow the authorities to appoint their own chairmen. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, implied, in the last year or two we have been getting accustomed to seeing a new type of authority set up, very much on a management-business basis. That may have advantages and it may work out well. But there is risk with those new bodies that we have got to watch out against: that they do not become too bureaucratic and rigid.

I understand that the view of the Government in this case is that the duties laid on the Secretary of State under Clause 1, to promote these functions, mean that the chairman of each authority should be the appointee of the Minister, the Minister's man. I am sure Ministers will try to find the most competent and able chairman they can find. There is inevitably the danger that the chairman who is most popular with the Department is the one who is most of a "yes" man. It has been said that the functions of these water authorities go well beyond the experience of any one local authority, and that is clearly true. But the representatives of local authorities who are likely to be appointed are not likely to be parish-pump local politicians.

I am afraid that running through this Bill, as through the National Health Reorganisation Bill, we are bound to notice a kind of suspicion of the local authorities which I believe is completely unjustified on their record. These water authorities are going to be very responsible bodies, and the members will react, as they do, to that kind of responsibility. Those who have experience of joint bodies on which members of local authorities sit know that members almost inevitably do their utmost, their best, to secure the services of the best chairman available on the body, irrespective of what body that individual happens to represent. In this case the chairman selected by the committee might well not be a member of a local authority, but he would be the person most likely to have the confidence of that authority. If the Government are thinking of full-time appointments, then I see a difficulty that comes into it. In such a case I should think the chairman would probably have to be an appointee of the Minister. But we gather, as my noble friend has just said, that the Government do not envisage the chairmen as full-time appointments. If not, I hope that, before agreeing to the proposal of the Government that these chairmen should be appointees, the House will weigh up very carefully the disadvantages that may follow from such a course. I have a good deal of sympathy with the Amendment which the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, has moved.

VISCOUNT RIDLEY

I wonder whether I might briefly add my support to the Amendment, and the very wise words spoken by my noble friend Lord Amory. I think the Government must realise that this implied lack of confidence in local government is very keenly felt; and the further away you get from London, the more keenly it is felt. I think that this decision, if it becomes a decision, has done a good deal of harm to the already bruised contact between local and central government which I do not think is in the interests of the country. The chairmen of bodies of this kind should, in my opinion, have the full support and encouragement, and indeed the complete confidence, of his colleagues, and I think we shall get a chairman with those qualities only if he is allowed to be elected by the members themselves. As the noble Viscount, Lord Amory said, it is not in any case a question of necessarily having a local authority parson; it should be the person most competent to do the job—and it is a very big job.

I realise that the Secretary of State has placed on him in this Bill the duty to secure the effective execution of a national water policy. These are very fine words, and exactly what we want. But I do not see how he can better implement this policy by appointing the chairmen himself. We all know that the effective implementation of this national water policy really depends on the availability of finance as the programme progresses. A chairman who is not popular with his authority could just as easily be overruled as any other member, and I think if he was unpopular the carrying out of this duty would be more difficult. For example, the Secretary of State for Education—and I do not wish to involve Lord Sandford's new post in this comment—has a duty to carry out a national education policy, using local government as agents in this matter; but he has never thought it necessary to appoint the chairman of education committees. I think there is a parallel here which we can draw. I hope the Government will accept this Amendment.

LORD REDCLIFFE-MAUD

I find this an extraordinarily difficult question, and I have found the speeches on both sides almost irresistible. I would like to say very briefly where I stand at the moment. In the first place, I am quite clear that the real question we have to decide is how we can be most certain to have the best man or woman at the head of each of the regional water authorities. When I say the best man or woman, I personally would put as top priority the person—he or she—who will most effectively control the technocrats, the chief executive officers, the people who will be the main instruments of those regional water authorities, and who will interpret democratically, and therefore as effectively as possible, the wishes of these huge communities which the regional authorities represent, and not allow the professional gentlemen to think that they know best. In other words, to control the technological expertise in this very highly technological field seems to me to be the first need in a first-rate chairman of a regional water authority. This seems to me to require at least halftime, two or three days a week, solid work, and I hope that he or she will be properly paid for that work—not a full-time salary, but something pretty good. The person chosen should also be willing to undertake this work and see it through for a period of years. I do not think that this person is going to find it at all easy to get the hang of the work, particularly by April 1, 1974, and do the job on behalf of these great communities unless he can do it, or at least intend to do it, for at least, I would say, four years. That being the kind of person I am looking for, why should not we expect the regional water authority membership to find that best person?

I absolutely reject the view that, because very large sums of money are involved, it means that the Secretary of State, advised by his Department and others, is the right person to do it. Local Government deals in large sums and always elects its own chairman. The noble Lord referred to the education committees, which are only part of it. Something like £5,000 million a year is spent by directly elected local representatives electing their own chairmen as an essential part of the democratic process. But I feel that we must clear our minds of the assumption, because it is an erroneous assumption, that these new water authorities are going to be democratic bodies; they are not. I wish that they were, but the whole Bill rests on the assumption that the technical reasons which require us to put water supply and sewerage, and all the water-based services, in new hands, outweigh the simple democratic argument that this should be a part of elected local government.

We have to face the fact that these regional water authorities are not like ordinary, elected, democratic education committees, county councils, district councils, or anything of the kind; they are—and I am delighted that they are going to be, at least by a bare majority—indirectly constituted from a number of elected local authorities. But do not let us kid ourselves; that is not the same as an elected county council or district council. I seriously ask myself, and my noble friends in this House: is the collective judgment of a regional water authority going to get that best man or woman to be the chairman of each of these regional water authorities. I am afraid that my judgment is that they are not. I think it is extremely doubtful, particularly at the outset, whether they will have a collective mind. Remember that they come from many parts of a widely scattered area, representing many different elected bodies, several Parties and Independents as well, mixed with appointees of the Secretary of State and the Minister. I very much doubt whether they really can be expected to seek out and find these indispensable elements in the new set-up.

Some of your Lordships may say, "They may not be very good at it, but aren't they going to be better than a Secretary of State, a Minister, or these horrible bureaucrats behind him?" I am going to be very frank; for six years I had the privilege of advising Ministers on the appointment of chairmen and deputy chairmen of Gas Boards and Electricity Boards throughout England and Wales. It was an exceedingly delicate and difficult operation, and I do not for a moment pretend that I or my colleagues did it as well as we would have liked.

VISCOUNT AMORY

May I remind the noble Lord of the task that we used to regard them as having, which was to march out the "stage army" for us, from which we could select one individual? The noble Lord was extremely clever at producing and maintaining the strength of the "stage army".

LORD REDCLIFFE-MAUD

Of course there is a very slight risk, whichever of the great Parties is running the country, that any Minister might possibly give one of these jobs to a political pal; at times in British history it is a thing that has not been unknown. It is conceivable that a Minister, on the advice or not on the advice of his Department, might give a job to someone he thought was going to be a "stooge"; and this is a risk that has to be faced. All I can say is that I do not believe that any of the chairmen of the Gas or Electricity Boards, or indeed the great national corporations like the Coal Board, who were appointed at the time that I knew anything about it, could be described as "stooges". I think particularly of the noble Lord, Lord Robens of Woldingham.

Be that as it may, I cannot believe that in this Bill we are likely to do the country better by allowing this Amendment to be made, and by asking the regional water authorities to take the responsibility for finding these indispensable chairmen, than if we take the Bill as it stands and trust the Secretary of State and the Minister to take all the serious advice they can from people on the spot: from the National Water Council and its Chairman (who I imagine will be a man or woman of great distinction) who will know a lot about the personalities in the field, and to whom I imagine the Secretary of State will look, among others, to guide him. In that way we shall hope to get something as near first-rate chairmen as possible to do the job of controlling the technocrats in the interests of these widely dispersed regions.

LORD DAVIES OF LEEK

Is the noble Lord thinking of the National Water Council? I am talking of the regional water authorities now, and we are moving to the managerial revolution. Is he arguing that the National Council should have an appointed chairman, as well as the regional authorities? I have seen managers in the United States with water undertakings, and other things. I am sorry that the noble Lord mentioned the Gas Board, because I have had the gas people coming to my daughter for I do not know how many months about a tap.

5.58 p.m.

THE EARL OF BALFOUR

May I for a moment quote part of Section 6 of the Water Resources Act 1963? In this Act, which I presume is the main predecessor to the Bill under discussion, there had to be not less than 21 members on a water board, and of those one or more had to be appointed. The list I am now giving is of those who were appointed by the Secretary of State: one or more members appointed by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food … one or more members appointed by that Minister as being qualified in respect of fisheries; one or more members appointed by that Minister as being qualified in respect of agriculture; one or more members appointed by the Minister as being qualified in respect of public water supply; and one or more members appointed by the Minister as being qualified in respect of industry other than agriculture. If the intention of the Bill, as it stands before your Lordships, is that certain people should be appointed by the Secretary of State (I am not too sure, but I believe it was something like one-third who were appointed by the Secretary of State)—is it wise that he should also appoint the chairman? Certainly there is no mention in the Water Resources Act of the Secretary of State—that is if I read it properly—appointing a chairman. I am putting this as a Question. I felt that the Water Resources Act has worked well and I merely put this forward as an idea.

LORD DE RAMSEY

My Lords, this was a highly controversial subject in another place and appears to be no less so today. The noble Viscount, Lord Amory, was kind enough to refer to me in Second Reading as one of his advisers at one time on land drainage. I was very disappointed to hear him take the line that he did today and had I been still his adviser—which, alas! I am not—I should have tried to dissuade him: not that he would have paid the slightest attention. I feel some trepidation in getting up after the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud and the noble Viscount and in disagreeing with them. The point I wish to make is a brief and simple one: whereas in local authority circles the line that we have heard is felt most strongly, in water circles to which I belong it is felt equally strongly that the Secretary of State should make this appointment. I would certainly have liked to hear the thoughts which the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, would have ex- pressed in this matter, but I should like to put the other side to the House.

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

My Lords, I had not intended to take the time of your Lordships, especially after hearing the excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, who I think made out the case against the Amendment far better than I could. In a way I suppose I am slightly being a traitor to myself, because on the Thames Conservancy I am an elected chairman and I am very fortunate that some 39 members on the Board are kind enough to re-elect me each year. But perhaps the Thames Conservancy are exceptional. I should have thought that, generally speaking, the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, are right: that these Boards inevitably are made up of the local government members coming from a number of different local authorities, the appointed members coming from other areas; and therefore I do not think we are really judging a completely democratic structure comparable with a county council, or indeed a county borough council, where the members know each other, where there is a coherent unity in the body and therefore a collective sense of responsibility. I think these bodies would find it very difficult to start with to use that kind of collective judgment which would be necessary, and therefore I am bound to say that I find myself against the Amendment.

LORD GARNSWORTHY

My Lords, before the noble Lord resumes his seat, I am bound to say that I thought he did himself less than justice as regards his chairmanship of the Thames Conservancy. I have vivid recollections of the work he did on Surrey County Council. Does he not feel that his training in local government did much to fit him for the very high responsibilities that he has undertaken and served with distinction. I would also ask him; does he fault the Metropolitan Water Board; does that not also elect its own chairman, and is that not based on local authority representation?

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

Yes, indeed, I did serve with much pleasure on the Surrey County Council some years ago, and I learnt a great deal about local administration and indeed about public administration. I should like to think that perhaps that knowledge has helped me in making such contribution as I have, but I still hold to the view that I have expressed.

6.5 p.m.

LORD SANDFORD

My Lords, it has been a most interesting and useful debate, not least because of the insights given to us by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, on how the Party opposite picks its key men.

LORD DAVIES OF LEEK

My Lords, I did not say that at all. This is absolutely typical of the way the boys opposite work. I blamed it on all Parties; they are all tempted like this, and it occasionally happens, as the noble Lord knows quite well.

LORD SANDFORD

My Lords, as I was going on to say, there are perhaps abuses, but when key figures such as the one we are talking about are being chosen, the situation is of course as the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, described, and very great care and the most delicate and thorough consultations are always undertaken by all concerned. I am sure noble Lords would not wish us to pursue the question of puppets and stooges, because if there are, or have been in the past, or may be in the future, appointments which would merit that name, I am sure noble Lords would agree that they are not confined to appointments made by Ministers or wholly excluded from appointments arising within local government. So my inclination is to leave those considerations entirely to one side.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that the chairmen of the regional water authorities are indeed key men responsible for executing in their regions a national policy for water for England and Wales. That is the basic reason why the Bill provides for the chairman of each authority to be appointed by the Secretary of State: a Bill which places the responsibility for the first time upon the Secretary of State and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for promoting a comprehensive national water authority. That includes the responsibility for securing the effective execution of such a policy by the bodies responsible for carrying out the various functions as listed in Clause 1 of the Bill—meeting the increasing demand for the natural resource of water which cannot be increased by the work of man's hand, the growing complexity of effluent treatment, water reclamation and re-cycling and calling for the development of fresh comprehensive nationwide policies and for their effective execution across the whole country.

The appointment of the chairmen of the regional water authorities, who will be the key figures in carrying out these policies, is an indispensable part of the machinery whereby the Secretary of State can discharge this new responsibility for which he will be answerable to Parliament. That I would put forward as the main and first argument for having the chairmen appointed by the Secretary of State. Of course it is true that such persons could be found from within local government, but the system of local government and local government election is designed to secure that those running it should be answerable to their council and to their own electorate whose policy they are carrying out. Regional water authority chairmen must be answerable to the Secretary of State, whose national policy they and their regional water authorities are carrying out; and regional water authorities will be able to follow local authorities in their practice of appointing their own committee chairmen—a consideration which it may well be necessary for them to want to apply.

The second argument which I would bring forward in support of the Secretary of State making this appointment is the importance of securing really experienced and competent managers. This is a function which includes the supply of water, the treatment of sewage, the control of pollution, the development of fisheries, the enhancement of amenity and the promotion of recreation, and the development of reclamation of water. I would immediately respond to my noble friend Lord Ridley behind me, by saying that the decision that the Secretary of State should make this appointment does not indicate a lack of confidence in local government. Persons fit for the role of managing that wide variety of functions may well be known in the ranks of local government. But I would put it to the Committee that local government elections are not of themselves designed to produce such men, and therefore cannot be counted upon to do so. They may do so, and if they do so then so much the better; and, certainly, it may well be that the Secretary of State will find men to appoint to this important position who, like my noble friend Lord Nugent, have the benefit of local government experience in their background. So that there is by no means a lack of confidence in local government. The Government are not doing what I think it has been claimed they are doing; that is, saying that Whitehall always knows best and can invariably pick the best people. The Government are not saying any such thing.

Furthermore, there are certainly many aspects of local government—and I think particularly of urban renewal—which are every bit as daunting, complex and diverse in their nature as the management of rivers. When we come to balance the importance of democratic control with technical efficiency, the argument clearly comes down in favour of the importance of securing democratic control and checks. But, as my noble friend Lord Nugent said earlier, it is the technical solution of the problems which is of paramount importance. However, this decision certainly does not indicate a lack of confidence in local government, and I hope that the stress I have laid upon this point will make that quite clear. If local government has been bruised by this decision, I am sure that it is out of a mistaken impression of the reasons why it has been necessary to give this appointment to the Secretary of State.

The third reason that I would give in support of the argument that the chairman must be appointed and not elected by his fellow members is that of detachment. The chairman of a regional water authority, like all the other members, needs to have a range and a width of vision stretching far beyond any of the areas for which the local government members will have been chosen. He will be the servant of a population far more extensive than the electorate of any of the local authorities that may cover the regional water authority. He will be discharging responsibilities wider in geographical extent than any of the individual counties represented in the river basin, and will have a range of water functions, which I have just listed, more diverse than and going beyond any that have hitherto been discharged by any existing local authority in the water field. There, again, I am not saying that there are not people in local government who have reached the position which they are in through the elective process, who do not have these qualifications, do not have this width of vision, and could not acquire them. What I am saying is that these are qualities of the utmost importance which the Secretary of State must be looking for and there is no guarantee—because the system is not designed to produce it—that the process by which the other members are found will necessarily produce them.

The fourth point which I would make, which has not been made in the debate so far, is the absolute necessity, the indispensability, of continuity of direction at the top and at the leadership of each water authority. This will be vitally important for the first decade and it will continue to be an essential and important requirement, given the time scale for the planning and development of water schemes of every kind. Continuity cannot be guaranteed for the majority of the members who will be subject to local government elections. This makes it all the more important to secure continuity in the chairmanship and—though it might be secured in other ways—this can be guaranteed only if the chairmen are appointed by the Secretary of State. The noble Lord, Lord De Ramsey, for whose support I was—

LORD WOLVERTON

May I ask the Minister for how long a period these chairmen will be appointed by the Secretary of State?

LORD SANDFORD

This may come with experience as we go along, but it will not be broken by the chances and changes of local government elections. That is the important point. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord De Ramsey, for his support of the Government's view. He mentioned that there are other bodies outside local government who are also in support of this measure, and I should like to list them in order to indicate to the Committee how substantial the support is. There is the C.B.I., the C.E.G.B.—who use more water than anybody else—the Chemical Industries Association, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, the N.F.U. and the Country Landowners' Association, just to mention the most important ones.

I hope that this debate, and what has been said by myself and by other noble Lords in support of this difficult decision which the Government have, nevertheless, now firmly arrived at, will enable the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, whose Amendment we are discussing, to feel that there is no necessity to press it, because, after all, the Government have come to the right conclusion. But if he feels that he must press it, then I must ask the Committee to reject it.

LORD MERRIVALE

Before the noble Lord sits down, may I ask him one question? He has said, quite rightly, that one of the bodies which have given their support to this measure is the C.B.I. But will he agree that, in effect, the C.B.I. feel very strongly indeed that the chairman should be a full-time member of the authority?

LORD SANDFORD

We do not go so far as that, but I would confirm—and I would apologise to my noble friend for not answering that point—that somebody representative of water-using industry is certainly to be considered in making up the composition of a regional water authority.

VISCOUNT RIDLEY

Is the vice-chairman, if there is such a person, also to be appointed by the Secretary of State, or will he be elected?

LORD SANDFORD

The Bill provides only for the chairman to be appointed.

LORD GARNSWORTHY

I take it that we all want the best chairmen, and I think there is no difference between us on that point. But the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has been talking as though this Amendment, and those who have spoken in support of it, intend that the local authority representatives will necessarily, and always, appoint one of their own number. That is not so, and there is no reason for supposing that it would be so; or, if I may put it a little more optimistically, that it will be so. I was extremely interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, said. We always listen to him with the greatest possible interest. Of course, he presided over that Royal Commission whose Report was accepted by the Government of the day, but it has not been put into effect by this Government. That makes it quite clear that what the noble Lord has to say, although my Party accepted the Report, is not necessarily always the view of the people who make the ultimate decision. With great respect I think that he does less than justice to local government generally; and I understand that he was for a time a member of a local authority.

I should have thought there would be more recognition in this House of the great men who have risen to positions of the highest rank in the service of this country and who have established their names in the first instance in the field of local government. I reminded the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, of how high his services were regarded while he was at Surrey. He is not alone. He is not the only one in this House, and neither am I, who has service in local government and who has been a member of local government while attending fairly regularly in this House. I can think of the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, the noble Lord, Lord Wolverton, and the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, all eminent members of this House who give outstanding service. While the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, was speaking, my mind went back to Herbert Morrison and also to James Chuter Ede who came to your Lordships' House and who was an extremely valuable servant at national level. My mind went back to Neville Chamberlain who made his name in Birmingham local government.

Let this House not underestimate the talents that reside in the seats of local authority. Let us not underestimate the size of the task the county councils and county boroughs have undertaken. There has been talk in this House this evening which by implication suggests that local government cannot throw up the right people. I do not think that those who have talked in this way have been mindful of the thought and care that the county councils give when choosing who is going to represent them. I venture to suggest that when the county councils are called upon to select from among their number one or perhaps two or three to speak for them they choose people who have demonstrated their ability to deal with large issues.

I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, may well have confused the Committee in another matter—I am sure he did not do so deliberately. But do not let us confuse chairmanship with management. I think the noble Lord. Lord Sandford, was in grave danger of doing that. I thought that his criticisms in regard to the ability of the chairmen that local government may throw up was an indication that he expected them to do the job of the manager. Local government, and particularly local government chairmanship, is a great school at which to learn how to work with and to get the best out of the executive administrator and people below him. It is high time that this Government, and the Department of the Environment in particular, gave a little more credit to people who for so long have given so much voluntary service. If they have committed one fault in matters like this it seems to me that many of them appear to have done too well.

We shall be coming back again to the question of the nationalisation of the water industry and I may have more to say when we reach that matter. I am tempted to reply to points that would take far too much time; but I shall say only this. I am grateful to those noble Lords who supported the Amendment to which I am now speaking and on which I shall invite the Committee to divide. I know that the local authority associations are behind it and I know that this is not a Party political issue. What is the limit of the risk—and it is a very limited risk—that we are asking the Government to take? It is that some regional water authority might appoint as its chairman someone who is in local government and who has a sense of responsibility to people that comes about as a result of an elected appointment. It would not be a bad thing if we had one or two of those people on the National Water Council. May I remind the Committee—

LORD SHINWELL

May I ask my noble friend a question? I have not taken part in this debate but I have been listening very closely and I suppose we are sure to come to a Division. Do I understand the position of the Opposition to be that the appointment of chairman should be made by the local authority?

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS

No.

LORD SHINWELL

In the case of the Electricity Board and the Gas Board, when we nationalised both electricity and gas we did not demand that the chairmen should be appointed out of local government representatives. They were appointed by the Secretary of State.

LORD GARNSWORTHY

The answer to my noble friend's question is quite clear. It is "No." Earlier I dealt with that. I made it clear that this Amendment was not intended to ensure that the local authority representatives would necessarily choose one of their own number. My Amendment would provide an opportunity for some local authority representatives to be considered for election as chairman.

I was coming to the question of the National Water Council. Let us briefly

CONTENTS
Amory, V.	Hale, L.	Rhodes, L.
Balogh, L.	Hall, V.	Ridley, V.
Beswick, L.	Henderson, L.	Sainsbury, L.
Blyton, L.	Ingleby, V.	Segal, L.
Bridgeman,	Jacques, L.	Serota, B.
Brockway, L.	Kinnoull, E.	Slater, L.
Burton of Coventry, B.	Lauderdale, E.	Stow Hill, L.
Champion, L.	Lindsay of Birker, L.	Taylor of Mansfield, L.
Chorley, L.	Llewelyn-Davies, L.	Wells-Pestell, L.
Davies of Leek, L.	Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.[Teller.]	White, B.
de Clifford, L.		Winterbottom, L.
Douglas of Barloch, L.	Maelor, L.	Wolverton, L.
Gaitskell, B.	Nunburnholme, L.	Wright of Ashton under Lynwe, L.
Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.]	Phillips, B.
Greenwood of Rossendale, L.

NON-CONTENTS
Aberdare, L.	Cowley, E.	Grimston of Westbury, L.
Allerton, L.	Craigavon, V.	Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.(L. Chancellor.)
Alport, L.	Crathorne, L.
Amulree, L.	Daventry, V.	Hanworth, V.
Auckland, L.	Davidson, V.	Harvey of Prestbury, L.
Aylesford, E.	De Ramsey, L.	Henley, L.
Balfour, E.	Denham, L.[Teller.]	Hurcomb, L.
Berkeley, B.	Derwent, L.	Hylton-Foster, B.
Brabazon of Tara, L.	Digby, L.	Inglewood, L.
Brooke of Cumnor, L.	Drumalbyn, L.	Kinloss, Ly.
Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.	Dundonald, E.	Lonsdale, E.
Brougham and Vaux, L.	Ebbisham, L.	Lothian, M.
Byers, L.	Emmet of Amberley, B.	Loudoun, C.
Clifford of Chudleigh, L.	Falkland, V.	Macleod of Borve, B.
Colville of Culross, V.	Ferrers, E.	Masham of Ilton, B.
Conesford, L.	Gainford, L.	Merrivale, L.
Cottesloe, L.	Gowrie, E.	Milverton, L.
Courtown, E.	Grenfell, L.	Monck, V.

examine it. The chairman is to be appointed by the Secretary of State. The Council will include the chairmen of the water authorities, all of whom are to be appointed by the Secretary of State. There will be also 10 other members of whom not more than eight are appointed by the Secretary of State and not more than two appointed by the Minister. On the National Water Council all the people will be appointed by the Secretary of State. In this vitally important public service I think it would be an excellent thing if at some point we could have the kind of check that the election of chairmen by members of the regional water authorities would ensure; with those chairmen ultimately going on to the National Water Board and being more representative than they are likely to be if this clause is not so amended.

6.28 p.m.

On Question, Whether the said Amendment (No. 9) shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 40; Not-Contents, 80.

CONTENTS
Amory, V.	Hale, L.	Rhodes, L.
Balogh, L.	Hall, V.	Ridley, V.
Beswick, L.	Henderson, L.	Sainsbury, L.
Blyton, L.	Ingleby, V.	Segal, L.
Bridgeman,	Jacques, L.	Serota, B.
Brockway, L.	Kinnoull, E.	Slater, L.
Burton of Coventry, B.	Lauderdale, E.	Stow Hill, L.
Champion, L.	Lindsay of Birker, L.	Taylor of Mansfield, L.
Chorley, L.	Llewelyn-Davies, L.	Wells-Pestell, L.
Davies of Leek, L.	Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.[Teller.]	White, B.
de Clifford, L.		Winterbottom, L.
Douglas of Barloch, L.	Maelor, L.	Wolverton, L.
Gaitskell, B.	Nunburnholme, L.	Wright of Ashton under Lynwe, L.
Garnsworthy, L. [Teller.]	Phillips, B.
Greenwood of Rossendale, L.
NON-CONTENTS
Aberdare, L.	Cowley, E.	Grimston of Westbury, L.
Allerton, L.	Craigavon, V.	Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.(L. Chancellor.)
Alport, L.	Crathorne, L.
Amulree, L.	Daventry, V.	Hanworth, V.
Auckland, L.	Davidson, V.	Harvey of Prestbury, L.
Aylesford, E.	De Ramsey, L.	Henley, L.
Balfour, E.	Denham, L.[Teller.]	Hurcomb, L.
Berkeley, B.	Derwent, L.	Hylton-Foster, B.
Brabazon of Tara, L.	Digby, L.	Inglewood, L.
Brooke of Cumnor, L.	Drumalbyn, L.	Kinloss, Ly.
Brooke of Ystradfellte, B.	Dundonald, E.	Lonsdale, E.
Brougham and Vaux, L.	Ebbisham, L.	Lothian, M.
Byers, L.	Emmet of Amberley, B.	Loudoun, C.
Clifford of Chudleigh, L.	Falkland, V.	Macleod of Borve, B.
Colville of Culross, V.	Ferrers, E.	Masham of Ilton, B.
Conesford, L.	Gainford, L.	Merrivale, L.
Cottesloe, L.	Gowrie, E.	Milverton, L.
Courtown, E.	Grenfell, L.	Monck, V.
Mowbray and Stourton, L.	Rochdale, V.	Somers, L.
Napier and Ettrick, L.	Rockley, L.	Stocks, B.
Newall, L.	Ruthven of Freeland, Ly.	Strathclyde, L.
Northchurch, B.	St. Aldwyn, E.[Teller.]	Tenby, V.
Nugent of Guildford, L.	St. Helens, L.	Thomas, L.
Orr-Ewing, L.	Sandford, L.	Tweedsmuir of Belhelvie, B.
Rankeillour, L.	Shannon, E.	Vivian, L.
Redcliffe-Maud, L.	Sherfield, L.	Wakefield of Kendal, L.
Reigate, L.	Sinclair of Cleeve, L.	Young, B.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

6.36 p.m.

THE EARL OF KINNOULL moved Amendment No. 9A: Page 4, line 8, leave out from the first ("than") to end and insert ("one-sixth of the total membership;").

The noble Earl said: It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I spoke on this Amendment and, at the same time, on Amendment No. 10, which stands in the names of my noble friends Lord Davidson, Lord De Ramsey and Lord Henley. The purposes of both these Amendments are entirely the same, although the approach is somewhat different. After that sparkling Amendment, No. 9, which dealt with the chairmen of the new authorities, these Amendments deal with the nominated members; that is, the members nominated by the Minister of Agriculture, with their special knowledge, their special expertise and their special experience covering the subjects of agriculture, land drainage and fisheries. The purpose of this Amendment is to achieve what is hoped will be a better balance between these expert, nominated members and the elected members, with their general experience. Under this clause as it now stands the Minister of Agriculture is to be allowed to appoint a minimum of two members and a maximum of three members, whatever the size—however big, however small—the new regional authority may be. The view which has been put to me—and it is one with which I hope my noble friend may feel able to agree—is that in the cases of the larger authorities, particularly the new Thames Authority, with possibly 50 members, the numbers of the nominated members will really make the authority seem very out of balance. In saying that, one fully accepts the principle that there should always be a clear majority of the elected members over nominated members. Nothing in this Amendment, nor indeed in Amendment No. 10, would affect that.

This general argument was in fact aired in another place during the Committee stage, and at that time the Government's reply was that the Minister of Agriculture himself felt quite content with being allowed to nominate just two or three members. I am not sure whether the Minister has now been able to reconsider this matter, or indeed whether his advisers have. But what I am sure is that those representing agriculture and land-owning interests are concerned about it because I gather that when the Bill was in its consultative stage the number of the regional water authority's members was anticipated to be between 20 and 30 members, and not, in the case of the Thames, as I have mentioned, 50. I have looked around for guidance on this matter in other legislation, like my noble friend Lord Balfour, and indeed, if one looks to the Water Resources Act one finds that in that case the Minister nominates five members: one to look after drainage, one to look after fisheries, one to look after agriculture, one to look after public water supply and one to have a general interest in industry other than agriculture. All, one assumes, are experts in their fields; all have added a balance of knowledge, experience and wisdom to the authorities which they serve. What is perhaps significant is that these five appointed members represent between one-fifth and one-sixth of the total membership of these authorities.

The purpose of this Amendment is to give a similar balance to the new authorities, to increase it to the same ratio as under the Water Resources Act and to keep it to a ratio rather than to a precise number because of the widely differing size of the 10 regional authorities. I hope that my noble friend will feel able to accept the concern which has been expressed and to reconsider getting the balance right—the better balance for the very important and powerful authorities which both Amendments are designed to achieve.

LORD SANDFORD

I do not rise now to answer my noble friend but to confirm that, from my point of view, it would certainly be for the convenience of the Committee if we were to discuss Amendment No. 10 now, and I hope that my noble friend Lord Davidson, the noble Lord, Lord De Ramsey and the noble Lord, Lord Henley, would deploy their arguments, when I will try to answer all four noble Lords together.

VISCOUNT DAVIDSON

I am grateful to the Minister and also to my noble friend Lord Kinnoull and I agree that it would make sense that these two Amendments should be discussed together, not only for the convenience of the Committee but also for the convenience of the Minister, in that he will have only one reply to make. The two Amendments are similar in principle. The only difference between them is that they propose two alternative mathematical equations to which only one reply is feasible. First, I would remind the Committee that the Amendments have nothing to do with land drainage considerations, which are already covered adequately in the Bill. On the contrary, they have to do with the importance of the availability of water for agricultural purposes, for crop irrigation, the watering of livestock and other uses, all of which are vital not only to our agricultural economy but also to the national economy. In general, they have to do with the proportion of agricultural representation on the new regional water authorities.

I am afraid that I may cover a little of the ground my noble friend has gone over already, but I will try to be as brief as possible. When the Government issued their original proposals it was understood that no regional water authority would have more than 15 members, of which a maximum of three would be appointed by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Those three members would be persons who according to subsection (2) of Clause 3 appeared to the Minister to have had experience of, and shown capacity in, agriculture, land drainage or fisheries. So far, so good. This proportion was accepted by those representing the agricultural interests as being fair and adequate. Now it is clear that some of the new authorities, the Severn, Trent and Thames and in particular Anglia, are to have a considerably larger total member- ship than the 15 originally proposed. It is obvious that if the maximum number of members appointed by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food remains at three, their influence will in those cases be proportionately whittled down, or perhaps "watered down" would be a more appropriate description.

As I said earlier, there can be only one answer to these two Amendments. It is possible that the Minister might be willing to consider and to put forward a formula which, although not completely meeting either of our proposals, would go some way to reassuring the agricultural community that its interests are not only acknowledged but also safeguarded so far as is possible and practical.

LORD DE RAMSEY

The noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, and the noble Viscount, Lord Davidson, have covered fully and ably the arguments in favour of this Amendment. It is highly desirable to increase the agricultural representation in certain regional water authorities though we are not suggesting that it should be an across the board increase. We are happy to leave to the Secretary of State and the Minister where this should be done, provided that the principle is agreed to. Furthermore, though I am adamant that there are too few in some instances, I am not so dogmatic, any more than was the noble Viscount, Lord Davidson, about whether the number should be four, five or six. So the noble Lord will see how reasonable I am, and I trust that he will be equally so.

6.45 p.m.

LORD SANDFORD

I think it was helpful to have the two Amendments debated together and I would straight away admit that the situation under which this provision was originally made has changed since the Bill was first introduced to Parliament, when 15 was thought to be the appropriate size for each of the regional water authorities. However, the situation has not changed in every case, and that is one of the reasons why I do not feel that I can accept either of the Amendments in precisely the form in which they have been put forward. Nor has it changed—even in the case where it has changed most—to the extent that would require a figure as high as five. I was, therefore, glad to hear my noble friend Lord Davidson, and the noble Lord, Lord De Ramsey, say that they think that perhaps some other figure than five, but nevertheless above three—the indications now fairly clearly point in one direction—might be suitable in all the circumstances. So I agree that the situation is changed in some cases and it might require a figure between the figure in the Bill and what the noble Earl has proposed. I think I am able to forestall an allegation from the Benches opposite that the Government are being inflexible in their approach to this Bill by saying, without that accusation being hurled at me, that in this case the Government would be happy to consider the points which the noble Lords have made, if they in their turn would be good enough to withdraw the Amendment.

THE EARL OF KINNOULL

I am happy to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment. I feel that my noble friend is still watering down the figure, and I hope that we may persuade him to go up a little. I am grateful for his assurance that this matter will be looked at again before the next stage of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

VISCOUNT DAVIDSON

In view of the reasonably reassuring reply by the Minister I do not propose to move Amendment No. 10.

VISCOUNT RIDLEY moved Amendment No. 11: Page 4, line 16, after ("is") insert ("at least three").

The noble Viscount said: Before commence to move this Amendment, wonder whether, at this rather late stage, I may offer my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Young, on het arrival on the Government Front Bench on the occasion of this very important debate. I feel that the noble Baroness must have spent a lot of time and burnt a lot of midnight oil trying to read up the Water Bill in a very short time, and our sympathies are definitely with her. If this Amendment were to be accepted by the Government, I think that Amendment No. 19 would be consequential and it might be for the convenience of the Committee if I took the two together. It could be that other drafting Amendments would follow which I have not as yet put down. I wish to be brief because I think this is not a matter about which we should take a lot of time.

The point is that the Government have conceded the principle of the local authority membership majority on the regional water authorities. This is a very real concession. It would be time-consuming and unnecessary to go into the arguments why the Government conceded this in another place. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Leek, spoke eloquently on the subject when we were debating the previous Amendment. The noble Lord is not now in the Chamber to add to what he said then, but what he said then is what I might have said now. This Amendment seeks to secure a working majority in six areas where the majority is only one member. In the Severn—Trent it is of six members and in the Thames Authority area it is of 20 members. I do not think in asking, that this majority should be increased from one to three the local authority associations, all four of whom I think unanimously support this Amendment, are being too greedy. There are many large counties, for instance, Kent and Lancashire, with populations of well over one million who would have only one councillor, one member from the district on their water authority. I do not think this is enough for such huge populations. Similarly, the position of Cumbria, where only one member to the authority is proposed, is not enough in view of the special circumstances. But as we are to debate that later on an Amendment put down by my noble friend Lord Rochdale, I will not go into it further.

I should like to ask the Government whether they will consider each area on its merits in this respect. A majority of one sounds all right (it may have been possible for the Labour Party to govern with a majority of three), but in practice I think it is neither one thing nor the other. It would make much more sense if this could be looked at again, to see whether it is possible to increase the majority by two more local authority members either from the county or the new district council. I see no conflict here with the two Amendments, Nos. 9A and 10, which have just been taken back by the Government where the constitution is about to be looked at again in the light of circumstances regarding the Minister of Agriculture's appointees. If this is done, I think here is a good opportunity to look at whole thing again and to come back to it on Report.

If my proposals were to be agreed, it would mean at the minimum appointing only 13 more members to the authorities in England—that is to say, the nine English authorities—distributed, if my mathematics are correct, as follows: 2 for the North-West; 2 for the Northumbrian; 2 for Yorkshire; 1 for the Anglian; 2 for the Southern; 2 for Wessex; and 2 for the South-West. That makes 13 more members out of a total of some hundreds of members of the effective authority, and I do not think this is being too greedy. I have not included Wales in these figures because it is not really relevant to my argument. It is not because I ignore the position of Wales, but I have not the figures. I hope that the Government will consider looking at this in the light of what has happened under the two previous Amendments. I beg to move.

VISCOUNT AMORY

I should like to support what my noble friend Lord Ridley has said so lucidly. He mentioned that he believes the local authority associations agree with the view he has put forward, and I can assure your Lordships that that is so: they feel very strongly about it. Not wishing to be outdone by my noble friend in gallantry, I should like to say how delighted we all are to welcome my noble friend Lady Young to her new position. I think that will make it impossible for any other of your Lordships who propose to speak not to offer congratulations.

I hate saying this, but under the National Health Service Reorganisation Bill the Government seem very anxious to keep participation of the local authorities to the absolute minimum. They rather grudgingly agreed to a bare majority of local authority members on the authorities. In the case of six of the nine mentioned by my noble friend it will mean a majority of one, and in the other cases the majority is adequate for a working majority. All we are asking in this Amendment is that the majority should be a workable majority in all cases, as indeed it is in the other six.

My noble friend Lord Sandford may well say: "Well, bearing in mind that the Government are going to be helpful in allowing local authority members to have substitutes, this will be unnecessary". But I very much doubt whether that will go quite far enough. In the discussions on this matter in the other place, I thought the Minister in his remarks showed consistently a lack of confidence in local authorities; on one or two occasions it amounted almost to contempt. I know that my noble friend does not feel like that and will not say anything to that effect. In the other place, however, the Minister said that they wanted to keep politics out of water. Did that mean that they wanted to keep the voice of local democracy entirely out of the new organisation? I cannot think that. It seemed to me to be saying that central Government itself was entirely free from any political views or bias, whereas, of course, the Secretary of State is himself a politician.

All my noble friend Lord Ridley is asking is that a formula should be devised which will ensure that the principle that has been conceded by the Government is effective. My noble friend has mentioned the difficulties in some of the big counties, like Kent and Lancashire, but I am sure if the formula which he would prefer should be considered by the Government defective in itself, then he would be quite happy if my noble friend the Minister would say he will produce another formula which will have the same effect, of making a provision for the majority effective and therefore in line with the principle.

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

Before my noble friend replies, I should like to make one point in which I am going to conflict with both my noble friends Lord Amory and Lord Ridley. They both talk about the need to have a working majority. Neither of them, I know, sits on a river authority, and I doubt if they sit on water undertakings. The business is not run that way. These boards work as a team. They have a technical job to do, and irrespective of the political Parties to which the members belong, whether they are appointees of Ministers or of local authorities, they work together quite happily. I think it is a misconception to think that you must have a few more local government members so that the local government section will always have a majority and will always vote together. I cannot think of anything more disastrous for the proper working of the regional water authorities than that they should work like that. The concept here, as I see it, is that the local authorities should have a majority because of their importance: they are local people; they have their roots in the local community, and they know the feelings of the local community. But after that, when they get there, I hope they are going to shake down with the appointed members and all work together quite happily.

VISCOUNT AMORY

Perhaps I might say that I do not disagree with my noble friend that that is the way in which bodies like these work. All we are saying is that if the principle is being conceded, then the principle should be effective. I always pay great attention to what my noble friend Lord Nugent says, and I should have paid even more attention in this case had he remembered to congratulate the Minister.

LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD

My noble friend Lord Amory has done it so well that I do not think there is anything else to say.

LORD REDCLIFFE-MAUD

I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, said about this not being a matter of a working majority or any idea of one side against the other—the elected representatives, on the one hand, and the appointed on the other. None of us believes that this is what will happen, because the parties will be sensible when it comes to working the matter out. But let us face facts. There is no doubt that this Government have a reputation for not having confidence in local government. This is a very serious thing. I personally do not believe that they do lack faith in local government. I very much hope, particularly in the light of what has gone before in this Committee, that something can be done, even if it is only symbolic, which the acceptance at any rate of the principle of this Amendment would do to reassure local government that the speeches made from this side on an earlier Amendment are not made in vain—in other words, that this Government believe in local government and recognise the enormous debt that we still owe not only for the past but at present for what is being done in local Government, and to express how much we all rely on the "local governors" which are in transition, if I may put it that way, in continuing to have confidence in themselves and in believing that they have the confidence of the central Government.

LORD DIGBY

I supported the Government over the appointment of the chairman and I feel that this makes it all the more important that working control should lie with the water authorities. No one thinks it will work as a caucus, but I am sure we all realise how facing an electorate concentrates the mind. It is for that reason that I hope the Government will consider this Amendment.

LORD SANDFORD

It is now clear that one can only win one's case by a suitable display of gallantry at the outset! Let me say at once that my noble friend Lady Young is being reserved, with her skills and charms (as she was on the Housing Finance Bill), until the Amendments become really difficult. My noble friend will be dealing with the later stages of the Bill when that position is reached. I would agree with the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, that local government is feeling bruised, but I would claim that that is not because of anything to do with this Bill, or with this particular Government. They are still in the middle of the biggest reform in the history of local government, and that is something which is bound to leave some bruises. I think that is something we have to reckon with.

LORD GARNSWORTHY

If I may say so, the noble Lord misses the point. It is in the very middle of this reorganisation that they are being bruised and their powers are being reduced. I think this Government are failing to take into account what I would describe as just ordinary human feelings.

LORD SANDFORD

I have gone out of my way once, and I will do so again now, to say that there is no such motive behind the balance that has been arrived at between the appointed and the elected members of the regional water authorities. It is the importance of local government which has led to their being given a majority of the membership of the regional water authorities. But much the most important point is that made by my noble friend Lord Nugent—that we are not here setting up bodies with a delicately balanced power on one side or the other. It is inconceivable that these regional water authorities, once they start work, will sit with the elected on one side and the appointed on the other, facing one another across a table as we are doing here. They will all come to make their several contributions in a joint operation—one in which they will all be involved and in which they will work as a single team. It will be the job of all concerned, and particularly that of the chairman to bring about such a situation from the very start.

Nevertheless, there are subsidiary technical difficulties in meeting this point. Noble Lords who have spoken in support of the Amendment from the point of view of the local authority associations will know that a pattern has been developed which is fair as between counties with a large population and those with rather less; as between metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan counties; and with respect to district councils as between those with a large population in the river basin and those with a not-so-large population. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to increase that representation by anything except by something quite arbitrary, to adjust the formula upwards. But on top of that we have been doing all we can—not always successfully—to keep the total numbers of the regional water authorities down to an appropriate figure for bodies which are going to exercise executive functions rather than the functions of deliberative bodies. Any further increase in numbers, whether by elected or nominated members, will have to be looked at very carefully. Even the modest proposal which we dealt with in the previous two Amendments will not, I hope, amount to more than an increase of one in one or two particular cases.

The only other way of doing this would be to reduce the number of appointed members. Here we are in the position where the Secretary of State, in making these appointments, has to choose men to cover an immensely wide range of functions: industry, agriculture, amenity, recreation, conservation. The next two Amendments will suggest that there should be a statutory requirement to include somebody from the trade unions, and so on. All these people have a claim, but it really is not possible to meet such claims either in a strict statutory way or any other way, if at the same time the numbers are to be reduced in order to get the balance right. However, I agree it would be reassuring to the local authority interests if the principle which has been adopted to secure a local government majority on the regional water authorities were extended to ensure that the majority was reasonably secure. My noble friend Lord Amory says it really will not go far enough to meet him if there is some kind of arrangement for substitutes so that, in the event of the sickness of local authority representatives, the authorities would not lose their majority where it is only a bare majority. But if he or his noble friend Lord Ridley, whose Amendment this is, would care to discuss with me between now and the next stage whether it would help, even if it does not go as far as they would like, this can certainly be looked into. I do not believe this is necessary, though it would go some way towards meeting the points, for the reasons that my noble friend Lord Nugent gave, that we are not going to be dealing with a body which is working in two camps facing each other in antagonism across a table. I do not really believe that this is a substantial point, but we can certainly look at it.

VISCOUNT RIDLEY

I thank my noble friend for his reply. I think I can quickly say that I do not foresee, as the noble Lord Nugent does, any sort of division between the local authority and the non-local authority members, whom he envisages as not being able to speak to one another. From my experience on river boards, this does not happen, wherever the member comes from. All I am saying is that the majority of the members should be subject to the feelings and pressures of the electorate on what are often very important and sensitive areas indeed. However, my noble friend Lord Sandford has said that he will be prepared to have discussions on this as regards the question of substitutes. A substitute is a very second-best solution but it is a possibility, and in view of the promise which has been extended to give further thought to this, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD SANDFORD

I believe this might be a convenient moment to suspend the Sitting for three-quarters of an hour; that is to say, until five minutes to eight.

[The Sitting was suspended at 7.8 p.m. and resumed at 7.55 p.m.]

7.55 p.m.

LORD HENLEY moved Amendment No. 13: Page 4, line 23, at end insert ("including the conservation of the natural beauty and amenity of the counutryside.")

The noble Lord said: This time I am not asking for an extra body, or a voice, or a vote to be provided. What I am suggesting is that regard should be had to an attitude of mind. Under the clause the appointed members of the water authority have to be people who appear to the Secretary of State to have had experience of, and shown capacity in, some matter relevant to the functions of water authorities. I should like to add the following to those words: including the conservation of the natural beauty and amenity of the countryside". Clearly, conservation of natural beauty is a matter that is relevant to the functions of water authorities. It may well be that the noble Lord will feel that it is sufficiently covered by the phrase which precedes my Amendment. There is a point, in that amenity is clearly not a function, and to that extent it might be as well to add my words. I feel that they should be given special emphasis when appointments to water authorities are being made. Other specific requirements for appointments are mentioned in the Bill; for instance, knowledge of agriculture and land drainage, and familiarity with local circumstances. Conservation must not be allowed to be swamped by these other important considerations.

As I say, I am not asking for another voice; indeed, I would go so far as to say that I would rather not have a special statutory voice for a matter like amenity, because there would be a danger there that the statutory voice would become isolated and an authority might give the impression that matters of amenity had been considered when in fact the voice that was supposed to stand up for them was kept down. I would rather the Minister gave me an assurance, if he cannot go so far as to allow my words to go into the Bill, that these considerations will be taken into account when he appoints members to the water authority. I beg to move.

BARONESS WHITE

I should like to support the noble Lord, Lord Henley, in this Amendment. It is right that we should indicate that we consider the matters of conservation and cognate affairs of considerable importance. I also warmly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Henley, that one does not want to have a statutory member for amenity. That might be unfortunate. But the words as they are now in the Bill can be taken to be extraordinarily limiting. Sometimes when we have tried to get women members on to certain bodies we have been told that the Minister cannot appoint them because they cannot show that they have had experience of various functions which are detailed in the Bill concerned. I am not suggesting that that applies in this case, but these words can be extraordinarily limiting if one is not careful. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will give a constructive and sympathetic reply to the noble Lord, Lord Henley.

VISCOUNT ROCHDALE

I also would support the noble Lord in this Amendment. It so happens that its subject matter is closely related to an Amendment I have down and hope to deal with shortly. It is perhaps platitudinous to say so, but it so happens—we sometimes forget it—that areas where water can be conserved happen to be areas of particular beauty and need care. To have it written into the Bill in this way is immensely important. I also hope that my noble friend will feel able to accept this Amendment.

LORD SANDFORD

I can certainly give the assurances that are called for. The noble Lord, Lord Henley, used the happy phrase that regard, he hoped, would be had to "an attitude of mind". And it certainly will—an attitude of mind which gives proper weight to the conservation of amenity and other characteristics which make up the natural beauty of the countryside. Conservation in those terms is indeed among the functions of regional water authorities, and is specifically so stated, first of all and in general in Clause 1(2)(e): "the enhancement and preservation of amenity …", and then, much more fully, in Clause 21—"Duties with regard to nature conservation and amenity"; together with other important and related functions. I hope that the noble Lord will be content with those formulations and will agree that the Statute should not be more precisely drawn in such a way as to tie the Secretary of State's discretion more exactly than that, in all the considerations that he has to bear in mind in creating a regional water authority of suitable membership.

The chief reason for saying that is that I think the noble Lord would agree that the pattern should be variable as between one river basin and another; it should be capable of being developed as experience dictates and as circumstances change; and there should be a certain scope for variety according to the range and variety of talent that is available in each particular case. But the main point I hope I have made is in giving the assurance that this particular aspect is fully covered in at least two places in the Bill already and does not need to be covered in the way proposed.

LORD HENLEY

I think that with that assurance I can withdraw the Amendment. I agree with the noble Lord that one must not over-define these things and over-constrict what the Bill is trying to do. If I have the assurance which the noble Lords gives me, that an attitude of mind will be taken care of here, I am pleased to beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

8.5 p.m.

LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 14: Page 4, line 23, at end insert ("and shall include, for each regional water authority a member appointed after consultation with such organisation or organisations as the Secretary of State considers to be representative of persons employed in the water industry").

The noble Lord said: The noble Lord, Lord Henley, in moving his Amendment No. 13, just now drew attention to what is set out in Clause 3. It will be a matter of interest, not only to members of the Committee but outside the House, and indeed it will be of considerable value, if we can be informed of the criteria the Secretary of State will be using in selecting persons to sit on regional water authorities in the area to which my Amendment refers. I speak as a life-long trade unionist myself who is privileged to hold a whole-life membership card of one trade union, and I enjoy association with another. To that extent I suppose I have an interest in securing recognition of the trade union movement on bodies such as regional water authorities and indeed on the National Water Council.

We have persons with trade union experience on the boards of industries which are publicly owned, and it would seem to me logical, or at least in line with that, that we should ensure participation in the work of these bodies by trade unionists with experience in the water industry. Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us how the Government propose to give effect to the recent proposals from the European Commission on Company Law harmonisation, which, as I understand it, suggested that workers' representatives should have a statutory right to sit on the supervisory boards of companies. It seems to me to bear some relevance to the Amendment I am putting forward.

Again, it seems to me that my Amendment could be very helpful, particularly so if the Government would have another look at the measure of disqualification of a paid officer of the Authority; but I do not want to take up your Lordships' time at this stage on that point. But I would say in passing that to my mind that appears to conflict with what the Commission suggested. The greater the extent to which the trade union movement is consulted and given opportunity to render service, the greater the cooperation it can be expected to give. When the National Health Service Reorganisation Bill was going through your Lordships' House some clear assurances were given, and indeed some Amendments were made to the Bill along the lines of this Amendment, but not in these precise terms. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us information, as I have said, that will be extremely helpful and indicate that proper acknowledgment is going to be made of the role that trade unionists with experience of the water industry can play.

LORD SANDFORD

Once again, I think I can respond to that request for a general assurance, provided that it is not pressed to something more specific. The main criteria which my right honourable friend will have, in deciding the membership of the regional water authorities will, of course, be the functions they will have to perform. In so far as people are employed in large numbers to discharge those particular functions they certainly have a claim to be represented in some way and to some degree. If I am cautious about expressing myself in any more detail than that, it is not because trade union men are not wanted; still less because of any thought that they have no contribution to make—of course they have, a very considerable contribution. I think that all the factors I mentioned in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, apply here: the particular circumstances of each river basin regional water authority; what experience with this new Authority dictates; how circumstances change, and particularly the way in which the necessary talent becomes available. It may be possible to secure trade union representation in the person of somebody who is representing some other interest or some other locality, and that would be all to the good. The noble Lord will already know that one of his noble friends, Lord Cooper, is one of the members representing the industry on the Thames Conservancy. That is the kind of thing which we shall see being continued. The noble Lord was right, of course, to point out that the normal local government practice does disqualify paid employees of a water authority from being appointed members of the authority. That will still apply here, but it is only one limited bar.

The noble Lord mentioned the proposals emerging from the European Commission and I should be glad to acknowledge our recognition of these, but I think he would agree that it would be premature to transplant them, without further consideration, direct into this Bill because they need to be considered in a wider context and on a wider front before that is done. We are certainly aware of the point he was making.

I hope that what I have said, which I am afraid is rather a repetition of the same points that I made to the noble Lord, Lord Henley, will satisfy the noble Lord that the Amendment is not strictly necessary and would be going a little further than would be strictly desirable in limiting the discretion of the Secretary of State.

LORD GARNSWORTHY

I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he has said, but I am not at all sure that he has met my request. Certainly he has not met it to the extent that I hoped he would do, unless I have not fully understood him. If he could give an assurance that there will be consultations with such organisation or organisations—that is to say, trade union or trade unions—as the Secretary of State considers to be representative of the persons employed in the water industry, I should be content. I have no anxiety to press this Amendment too far. I put it down as a probing Amendment because it seemed to me to be important to get it on the Record at this stage. I appeal to the noble Lord to be a little more forthcoming than he has been so far with regard to consultation with specific organisations, without naming them, that is to say trade union organisations catering for the water industry.

LORD SANDFORD

I did not mean my resistance to this particular Amendment in this particular form to mean that everything included in it was ruled out and that there would be no consultations with any organisation of representative persons. I was saying that the importance of this matter was recognised, that there would be consultation in a general way and there would be a need for the persons that the noble Lord has in mind to be considered, alongside all the others, for membership of the regional water authority and that that will be weighed by my right honourable friend. I am sorry I did not make that clear before.

LORD GARNSWORTHY

I am sorry that the noble Lord has replied in such a general way because my Amendment deals with people who are investing their lives in the water industry. I regard them as being in a very different category from a number of other people whom one would expect to see serving on the regional water authority or on the National Water Council.

There was no question here of thinking the noble Lord had, as it were, refused the point. I think he has replied in a rather negative way instead of, as I could wish, in a more positive way. I really do not think that my Amendment asks for very much. I think I am being moderate in saying that at this stage I will not press it, but unless the noble Lord can be a little more positive I may have to come back to it at Report stage.

LORD SANDFORD

Let me try to be more positive now. What I can say is that of course there will be consultations with the organisations representative of persons employed in the industry about representation on the various bodies concerned in this Bill. What I do not want to be pressed to say is—

LORD GARNSWORTHY

I am satisfied. If the noble Lord had said that in his first reply I should not have pursued the point any further. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

8.14 p.m.

VISCOUNT ROCHDALE moved Amendment No. 14A: Page 4, line 31, after ("subsections") insert ("(7)");

The noble Viscount said: This is really a paving Amendment, and I wonder whether we may debate it along with my next Amendment, No. 15A, which is the main Amendment. First, I should like to apologise to your Lordships in that I was unfortunately unable to be here during the Second Reading debate and therefore, as it were, to give notice of this point that I wanted to raise today.

The point deals essentially with the North West Water Authority, and perhaps it would be a help if I could just remind your Lordships of what that authority is like. It is a very long one—150 miles from North to South—and essentially divided by a comparatively narrow neck in the middle. In the North there is an area which is predominantly the producer of water. There are few industrial users there. In the South there is the area which is the predominantly major user of water. The purpose of this Amendment is tb try to redress the balance on local authority representation as between, on the one hand, the producers of water to the North and, on the other hand, the users of water to the South. To get the matter into perspective it is as well to mention the numbers that now exist in the Bill for local authority representatives, including both county and district authorities. The total number of elected representatives is 14, but Cumbria, the area to the North where the bulk of the water comes from, has only two of those representatives. I submit to your Lordships that that is an unreasonably small number, bearing in mind particularly the very special circumstances of the district of Cumbria, an area of great natural beauty—I dare to say it, the principal National Park in the country, and an area also which has had a not entirely happy history when one remembers the rather greedy (or perhaps I should say thirsty) looks which have come to it from the South and which have not always resulted in very satisfactory arrangements.

So this is a problem. Can we not have a better balance of representation from local authorities as between the water producers in Cumbria and the water users to the South? I say this with some deference because I happen to be a Lancastrian myself and I realise very well indeed how important water is to industry in that area; but there must be a give and take. This was a matter that was dealt with in another place and referred to in Standing Committee, and I shall mention that in a moment. The procedure adopted in that case was not the procedure that I am suggesting, of altering the representation, but to divide the North Western authorities into two authorities: the one in the North was the Lakes/Lune Authority, which would be all the producers, and the one in the South would be the rest of the present authority now in the Bill.

I think there is a great deal to be said for that approach, of having two authorities, but 1 think the argument can be debated fairly easily both ways. On balance, I personally should have preferred to have a Lakes/Lune Authority; but I can see the other side of the argument. At any rate the Amendment was not accepted in another place and the arguments against it which were put forward, both then and in correspondence that I have also seen, really amounted to three separate points. The first point against this separate Lakes/Lune Authority was a point that has been mentioned in earlier debates this afternoon, that major sources of water should be in the same area as those who depend on those sources. That is the first argument that the Secretary of State had against a separate authority. The second argument against it was that the smaller authority would have insufficient financial resources. And the third argument was that the Lakes/Lune Authority would have insufficient technical resources.

As regards the last two arguments—the financial resources and the technical resources—I do not think that they are tenable arguments because whether there are enough financial resources or whether you can pay for adequate technical resources depends on the amount of money that the user authorities are prepared to pay for their water. There is provision in the Bill that money can be transferred from one authority to another where the water it uses comes from a neighbouring authority.

On the first argument, the question of the major sources of water being within the same area as those who depend on those sources, my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford referred to that in an earlier Amendment. That is important and can be debated both ways. What emerges is that it will probably be generally admitted that in cases where you have a user interest and a consumer interest there is bound potentially to be a conflict of interests as between the users and the producers. That conflict of interest has been very well seen in the Cumbria/Lancashire area over the years in the case of Manchester and the Thirlmere and Ullswater water supplies. Many of your Lordships will remember only too well the notable debate held in your Lordships' House some years ago when the late Lord Birkett, in what was probably the last speech he made in your Lordships' House, made such a tremendous impression in this House that the Order we were debating was defeated. The Secretary of State's solution to this question of conflict of interest between user and producer is found by putting both sides round the same table and hoping that they will come to a harmonious agreement between them. That is plausible enough provided the two sides are reasonably well balanced. And that is what I am seeking to bring about in my Amendment.

I have not so far mentioned the question of the appointed members, who have an important bearing on this issue. In the Standing Committee in another place on March 8, Mr. Griffiths, the Minister, gave an assurance which I should like to read to your Lordships. Referring to the Lake District he said: Without prejudging my right honourable friend's choices, I should like the Committee to know that he will pay special regard to the situation of the Lakes within the whole area when he makes his appointments. That was a valuable assurance and one that I personally welcome and feel very grateful for. But of course one has to bear in mind that no Minister can bind his successors, and even with the very best will in the world the Minister could only bear that point in mind in certain of his appointments. That being so, taking both local authority representatives and the appointed members, the outcome would still be a balance very much in favour of the users as opposed to the producers.

My Amendment, therefore, does not go very far but it seeks to write into the Bill a larger proportion of producer members from local authorities. Many of my friends in Cumbria would say that it was not nearly drastic enough. But I believe that it is enough, particularly taken alongside the assurance that the Minister has given. It seeks to do what I have been saying. It would do so without in any way undermining the principle of the Bill, which I feel is essentially a good Bill. Admittedly it increases the size of the body, but not by all that amount. I very much hope that my noble friend will be able to accept this Amendment which I regard as a very important one. I beg to move.

8.26 p.m.

LORD INGLEWOOD

I rise to support my noble friend. As he has explained, the area of the proposed North West Water Authority is a very strange one. It is 150 miles long from North to South, and in the middle there is a narrow neck, no more than 15 miles wide, dividing the area not just into two districts of roughly equal size but also of a completely different character. The area to the North, which is England's premier National Park, under the Bill is allowed two local authority members, whereas the area to the South, of approximately the same extent but where there is great concentration of industry, is to have 12 local authority members. There is no difficult watershed dividing this area such as has been suggested was one of the problems when the Trent and Severn were under discussion. And it is worth noting that there is no member to be appointed by the Lake District Planning Board.

I hope that my noble friend will not accuse us of being old-fashioned and reactionary just because we do not happen to agree with what is written in the Bill. The Bill proposes certain changes from the present position and I submit that they are not changes for the better. It is interesting that they are very roughly what was proposed in the original draft of the 1963 Act when it came before the other place as a Bill. But in fact they are rather worse. After much discussion in the other place, the Minister agreed to a change, and as I sensed it then it was against the Department's advice. He agreed to a change so that the greater part of the Lake District was treated as a self-contained area and became the Cumberland River Authority area which has worked very well and which people in the district, and not least the Cumberland County Council, would like to see continued. There has been no criticism voiced against it.

The case was argued in another place for continuing a smaller area, but no convincing reasons for the change have been given. I am afraid that we believe it is Central Government's view here that in order for anything to be better it must be bigger. If the noble Lord thinks that disagreeing with him is reactionary, then I would say that this firm, uncritical belief that in order to be better you must be bigger is just vulgar. The other argument to which I think the administrative side of the Government machine always attaches undue importance is uniformity, and that if a certain principle is accepted then it must be applied ruthlessly to all parts of England, whether it abuts on the metropolis here or whether it is some 100 miles away where the character may be entirely different. Far too great a worship of uniformity is at present to be seen in this country.

My noble friend has dealt with the arguments in the Minister's letters and in the reply from the Front Bench in the Committee in another place, but they leave the people of Cumbria unconvinced and sad that the Government should have so little regard for what we claim to be the premier National Park with its special character. The noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, spoke about the Government's reputation (perhaps not as high as it ought to be) in their regard for local authorities, and I am afraid it is true that the Party which I have supported over many years has never shown the enthusiastic support for the National Park movement that I should have liked to see. They have been ready over the last few years to pay great lip service to the very precious status of National Parks in this country at this time, but their acts have not, I am afraid, always lived up to their words. Of course, the members of these authorities will try to work as a team, as people in Britain always do when they are well led and well chosen, but it would be entirely wrong for us here tonight to overlook the fact that there has for a long time been feeling between the Lake District and the urban areas of Lancashire, and it is not just an imaginary fear.

We have had experience of Manchester Corporation when they thought the going was easy and showed complete indifference to the interests of the area to the North where population was less dense, where rateable value was much smaller and where they thought they would not have any difficulty in getting their own way. I was sorry when I read the Second Reading debate the other day to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Stocks, actually said this—and she is not a fanatical person: When I lived in Manchester, the city of Manchester had made absolutely adequate provision for its own needs. … They were busily and efficiently exploiting the lakes of Cumberland and North Wales."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st May 1973, col. 1035.] She made not a word of apology for that, and I am afraid this cannot be overlooked. But, as my noble friend has said, the situation was saved by action in this House. That was ten years ago, and since then things have changed greatly for the better. The relations between the two parts of the North-West of England have improved out of all recognition, but the fact remains that it is really asking too much to assume now that all will be well. Water is as important to us in the North-West of England—it is one of our principal resources—as oil is to the Gulf States.

If a separate area is not possible, at least I think the Government should give greater representation to the North, as my noble friend asks in his Amendment. This is important in recreational as well as other interests. We have been as anxious as any to try to give the greatest possible recreational opportunities to people who come to the area, from the North-East as well as from the North-West. Surely the area should have a bigger voice than just two against twelve among the local authority members, not least since tourism is our principal industry. But there is a danger here in two ways. There is urban pressure for all kinds of water sports, with no distinction between the noisy ones and others, which could easily change the character of that whole district for the worse. Then, on the other side, it should be noted that in the Lake District there are only two lakes where there are no recreational opportunities at all, and those are the two under the control of the Manchester Corporation. There have been many promises in the past that they will try to meet this need for recreation, but up to date very little has happened, as I am sure my noble friend Lord Rochdale will bear out, and I see he nods.

We shall listen with the greatest interest to the Minister's reply, and I hope he will not reply from the same brief as I heard in 1963, because sometimes these pieces of grey paper are left in pigeonholes for a long time. This is not our last chance to improve this Bill. I hope the Minister will show appreciation of our case and our arguments, and will give us an assurance that if he cannot accept the wording of this Amendment he will himself table an Amendment broadly on the same lines at Report stage. I am sure my noble friend does not want to come back at Report stage, and I certainly do not want to come back at Report stage, but I cannot accept the Bill as now drafted.

LORD HENLEY

I feel great embarrassment and a certain difficulty here, because I do not want to appear to be, as it were, disloyal to my noble neighbours, nor indeed to Cumbria, nor indeed to the Lake District. Furthermore, I agree with everything the noble Lord has said; but I am not at all sure in my mind that what he wants and what I want and what the noble Viscount, Lord Rochdale, wants is to be achieved by putting two more members representing Cumbria on this water authority. The difficulty I feel is that one must be very careful lest further changes in the constitution of the new authorities makes them less effective. I have great sympathy with this conflict between the producer and the user. I want to try to redress that balance, but I have a sort of feeling that it can only be redressed in a different way. I agree that most of the areas where water is produced are poor upland areas which are in great difficulty. It seems to me perfectly fair that we should try to give them some of the benefit of having supplied that water to the richer urban conurbations. I think it could be done in some different way; I am not at all sure how; but I do not believe that the conflict can be resolved in this particular way.

I was very impressed with what the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, said earlier. What we are dealing with here is not analogous to a democratic process at all, but a technological device along rather new and untried paths to try to make the best use of public utilities. One must forget some of the basic liberal ideas with regard to democratic representation, because I do not believe they are relevant to what we are talking about. That is why I feel embarrassment: because I want to do the best for Cumbria and the best for the Lake District National Park and the upland areas, so that they get some advantage from what they have to sell—and they have very little—but I am in some doubt as to whether it can be done by the device the noble Viscount puts forward.

Naturally, if he were to press it to a Division, in that kind of boneheaded way which one does I would say "Blow my principles, I will come in!"; but I do not want to do that because I feel that this is wrong. I think we must try to find other methods of making good for Cumbria what ought to be done for Cumbria and for the Lake District National Park and other National Parks and upland areas. I am not sure what it should be, but I am not convinced that it is along the lines we have been talking about today. We have talked about London in terms of democratic control; we have talked about local authority representation and landowners' representation—and I have put my name to an Amendment—we have talked about amenity representation, and we have talked about election or appointment of chairmen. We have talked about all of these things in a way which I suspect to be irrelevant to the kind of thing we are trying to do. For this reason, though I have every sympathy with the Amendment and should be delighted if the Minister would give way, I nevertheless cannot help feeling that it would be the wrong solution.

LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE

If the question I ask is right out of order, I hope the noble Lord will tell me and I shall be the first to sit down. It seemed to me from the speeches I have heard that it might just be on the edge of order. It seems to me that the right place to get water from is not the tops of the rivers, as in the Lake District—I would remind the House that I was a Member for the Lake District for 20 years—but the bottom of the rivers where they enter the sea. That is the point at which if you do not take the water it goes into the sea and becomes part of the ocean and is lost. I therefore want to ask this single question. If the Morecambe project is thought by the technical people to be feasible, does this Bill provide the opportunity of bringing it into operation? There we have 500 square miles of sea, which is of great value to the nation because it produces the Morecambe shrimps, all of whom used to vote for me of course; but it is much more important that people who need the water should have the water. Here we have a lake of 500 square miles, water which has done its turn in the rivers and the lakes and is of no more real use, and it is just going into the ocean to be salinised and lost. That is my question. If it is irrelevant to the Amendment, and I am pretty sure it is, would the Minister tell his Front Bench to give me an answer before this debate ends?

8.40 p.m.

LORD SANDFORD

I should like to start by agreeing with my noble friend Lord Inglewood that it certainly is not always better to be bigger. I think that that applies with as much force to the Cumbrian representation on the North-West Regional Water Authority as to anything else. I do not really think that they need to be bigger in order to do a good job on that water authority. I would claim to be among those who are enthusiastic supporters of the National Parks, and I am particularly enthusiastic after my experience of the last three years. One of the things that I have learned is that there is not one premier National Park, but ten. I am glad of support for that proposition. There is one of them at the head of almost all—certainly the majority—of the regional water authorities, and their situation has to be borne in mind. They are strange, unique, wild and beautiful areas, and they have to be preserved and their natural beauty safeguarded. I have already indicated that there is ample provision in the Bill for that. It will all, I hope, be better and more readily done than in the past.

The particular point that I want to make is that the necessity will remain for any water authority that wants to build a reservoir to go to the planning authority and get planning permission, and if a National Park is involved to come to Parliament for endorsement of the decision, if the Secretary of State gives his permission to such an application. That is the way in which that is safeguarded, and of course it must be. In answer to my noble friend Lord Fraser, I would certainly say that estuarial schemes have a role to play and have been considered. Morecambe Bay has been considered, but I would go on to say that this Bill provides a better framework for such further consideration of such schemes as are before us, and furthermore a better framework for exploiting the potentiality of estuarial schemes. I would not agree with him that he is out of order; I think it is entirely appropriate to raise the matter in this particular context.

I would go on to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Henley, when he surmises and feels, as I do and as I think many other noble Lords do, that there are better ways of overcoming the problems which my noble friends Lord Rochdale and Lord Inglewood feel exist in this authority for Cumbria. I think that we can all understand the wariness with which the new county of Cumbria and the new metropolitan county of Greater Manchester will come to lie down together, as it were, in the same river bed. That is a natural attitude borne of the experience of the bad old days, to which that notable debate in this House over Ullswater and the use of Ullswater by Manchester related. I venture to think that these can now be regarded as things of the past, and these two authorities in particular, and the others in the authority, will soon learn to get on well together, perhaps helped to compose their past unhappy differences by the other 24 members of the new authority. That, I venture to agree withthe noble Lord, Lord Henley, is the way in which these conflicts—and I can see that they are potentially there—will in fact be resolved. It is for this reason that the regional water authorities have been composed in the way they have been. I would end by agreeing wholeheartedly with my noble friend Lord Inglewood that bigger is not necessarily better, and I am sure that it is not for Cumbria in this authority.

VISCOUNT ROCHDALE

I am sorry that the noble Lord takes that view. I agree with him that we hope very much that the two authorities will come to lie down together. Obviously this is what we want and this is by far the better way of achieving our end; but will they lie down together when they can be compared to the lion and the lamb, when I should prefer it to be the lion and the lion, or the lamb and the lamb? That is the sole purpose of my Amendment.The noble Lord, Lord Henley, said he was agreeing with what I was trying to get at but thought that there were better ways of achieving it. I wonder if my noble friend Lord Sandford—and I think that he agreed with that point—would consider whether there are betterways of dealing with the main point of making it apparent to the people of Cumbria that they are not being ridden over roughshod and that they really are having an adequate say in the authority. That is all I am trying to get. I entirely agree with everyone who says that you do not want a bigger authority. I have taken the chair over a great number of authorities and I know how much easier it is to get effective control over the smaller authority. I ask my noble friend whether there are not ways and means that he could bring forward in an Amendment on Report which would achieve the same purpose, but do so in a different way from the one I have suggested in my Amendment.

LORD SANDFORD

Certainly I cannot but respond to that request. Needless to say I have considered, and so have my noble friends, how Cumbria might fare. I believe that, with all their charms, natural beauty, and so on, they will get on very well in this authority, and I am sure that they will find ways and means of influencing the many friends that they will have within it. I will certainly respond to my noble friend's request to give the matter further thought, and if I cannot, as I do not think I shall be able to do, accept the idea in this particular Amendment, I will consider whether there is anything else that might be done in its its place.

VISCOUNT ROCHDALE

I am grateful to my noble friend for that statement. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 15: Page 5, line 6, leave out ("discharges any functions") and insert ("discharge any functions or, as respects the period between the passing of this Act and 1st April 1974, the area as respects which they will discharge any functions as from that date.")

THE noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 15, which is little more than a technical Amendment. Local authority representation on a water authority is to be based upon the proportion of a local authority's population which is located within the area in which the water authority discharge any of their functions. The water authority, however, will not be discharging their main functions until April 1, 1974. The new form of words in this Amendment relates the calculation of representation during the period from Royal Assent until March 31, 1974 (that is, the time during which the calculations will have to be made in respect of the first members of the water authority) to the area in which the water authority will discharge any of their functions as from April 1, 1974.

8.49 p.m.

LORD SANDFORDmoved Amendment No. 19A: Page 5, line 43, leave out from ("this") to end of line 44 and insert ("section require to be enacted by a public Bill which cannot be referred to a Select Committee of either House under the Standing Orders of either House relating to Private Bills").

The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 19A on behalf of my noble friend. This is really just a drafting Amendment. Clause 3(11), to which it relates, is necessary in order to prevent orders under Clause 3 altering the constitution of the water authorities from having to be treated in the circumstances set out in the subsection as though they were private persons. There is a corresponding provision in paragraph 1(3) of Schedule 3 to the Local Government Act, 1972, which relates to orders giving effect to proposals submitted by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England for defining areas of the non-metropolitan counties. I beg to move.

On Question, Whether Clause 3, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill?

8.50 p.m.

BARONESS WHITE

I want to raise one matter on Clause 3. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, is not here. I had understood he was going to be at the service of the House on Welsh matters and I did give some notice of this point. I want to ask what exactly are the Government's intentions under subsection (10), whereby the Welsh authority is treated entirely differently from the nine English regional water authorities in so far as it will be set up by special order. As I understand it the reason for this differentiation between the Welsh and the English authorities was that the Government apprehended that conceivably at some time—though heaven knows when—the Kilbrandon/Crowther Commission on the Constitution will report, and that this might have some bearing upon the constitution of the Welsh water authority. I am, of course, gratified if this is the correct explanation for the difference in treatment between the Welsh and the English authorities, because of course for a very long time we in Wales have said that the administration of water in Wales should be one of the functions of an elected Welsh Council, and we have had some suggestions from the Prime Minister—he made them first in Scotland but repeated them in a recent visit to Wales—that something of the kind (though he was naturally not very specific about it) may be expected.

If I am right in my conjecture on this, I should like to know in some detail from the Government what precisely they propose to do in the interim. It seems to me plain that we must have an interim arrangement in Wales. Subsection (10)(b) of this clause says: a draft of the order establishing that authority shall be so laid not later than one month after the passing of this Act". I am not quite sure when the Government propose that the Act is to receive the Royal Assent, or precisely what is to happen when an Order has to be, very properly, approved by Resolution of each House of Parliament. It seems to me that we might be running rather close to the end of our summer Sitting before this could be achieved. If it is not achieved in time, then is the Welsh authority going to be lagging behind all the others in assuming its functions? What is the timetable which the Government have in mind? And may we perhaps know a little more specifically so that we can then understand exactly what it is that Wales is to expect in so far as the Welsh National Water Development Authority is concerned?

I will go on talking for a little while to give the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, time to catch up on what the matter under discussion is if he so desires. In fact I will give him the name in Welsh again, if that will help matters at all. I am sure he will appreciate that this is a matter of concern and that we really would like to know what the Government's intentions are as to the timetable which will plainly be different for the Welsh authority—I did give notice of this —from the English ones. I do not know that we can wait while the noble Lord reads the brief which I suggested some time ago he might have the opportunity of looking at.

LORD SANDFORD

If the Committee and the noble Baroness will let me venture into this tricky field I shall do my best. May I say that my noble friend Lord Aberdare is, as the noble Baroness indicated, entirely available to deal with Welsh water matters, but if the noble Baroness would let me or my noble friend Lady Young know when she is going to raise things which in the nature of things are unexpected on the Question, That the clause stand part of the Bill, I will certainly make sure that a Welsh voice answers these Welsh points instead of an English one, because I know an English one is entirely unsatisfactory.

BARONESS WHITE

I did give notice to one of the Lords in Waiting.

LORD SANDFORD

May I, as an interim point, make some response? The reasons which the noble Baroness has supposed lie behind subsection (10) are the real ones. It is indeed in order to allow for the recommendations of the Commission on the Constitution to be taken into account because these are expected to be available later this year. The intention is that subsection (10) will enable the Government to propose either an interim or a final constitution for the Welsh authority at the time when the draft of the Order is to be laid depending on whether the Report of the Commission has been published or has not been published at that particular date. In any case, the constitution of the Welsh authority, whether interim or final, is obviously a very important matter. All Welsh matters are important, but they are particularly important in this case because the greater part of the water that is required for England and Wales as a whole falls in the first place as rain over Wales—so it is very important. That is the reason for the further provision that a draft of the Order, subject to the approval of the Resolution in both Houses, is provided for here. There may be further Welsh nuances to this topic which perhaps my noble friend may be able to supply.

LORD ABERDARE

I am very sorry; I did not understand that the noble Baroness intended to raise this point and therefore I am not briefed on it, but the brief that I have entirely corroborates what my noble friend has already said and I can only confirm that this is the position.

BARONESS WHITE

I am sorry that the message which I delivered obviously did not reach the noble Lord. I am sure that the Committee will appreciate that we are placed in some difficulty. If I may say so to the noble Lords who come from England, the Commission on the Constitution of course deals with the entire United Kingdom and not with Wales only; and although it is quite true that we in Wales attach particular importance to the findings of this Commission on the Constitution, Scotland might equally do so, though Scotland of course is not germane to this particular Bill. Nevertheless, I should imagine that those concerned with English regional water authorities might also like to know whether there are any recommendations in the Commission's Report on the Constitution which might affect regional organisation in England.

It is not very satisfactory to have to proceed in the dark on this. Furthermore, I am still not at all clear what the pattern of authority in Wales is to be. If, as I can only suppose, this Bill is passed and one month elapses before the Report of the Kilbrandon Commission sees the light of day, on what basis in those circumstances is the Welsh authority to be formed? I think we are entitled to have a little further information about this, because Wales is not covered by any other provisions in the Bill, and therefore it is surely time that the Government should tell us what it is they have worked out and what their proposed timetable is. I cannot see how they can escape an interim Order, and I think we are entitled to know what their plans are.

LORD ABERDARE

I think it is quite clear that we are trying to meet the point which the noble Baroness made very clearly at the time of the Local Government Bill—that we should take the Report of the Commission on the Constitution very carefully into account. This gives us the latitude to produce an interim solution which will carry us over until a final solution can be arrived at.

BARONESS WHITE

I am not in the least quarrelling with that, as it seems to me absolutely inevitable. What I am saying is that we should rather like to know what thoughts the Government have had about what seems to be inevitable; namely, an interim constitution. I raised the matter in this way—on the Question, Whether Clause 3 shall stand part of the Bill?—because we did not wish to put down an Amendment, and I am sure that noble Lords opposite will appreciate that one is in some difficulty. I say that, because at Report stage one cannot further discuss it, on the Question, Whether Clause 3 shall stand part of the Bill? and we shall then have to put down a substantive Amendment. But I suppose one could put down an Amendment to leave out the entire clause, and perhaps by that time the Government would be able to give us a little further information.

Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 4[Establishment and functions of National Water Council]:

9.0 p.m.

VISCOUNT RIDLEY moved Amendment No. 20: Page 6, line 25, after ("State") insert ("including at least four appointed after consultation with such Associations of local authorities as he considers appropriate.")

The noble Viscount said: It has not so far been a very successful night for local government, and looking around me I do not think it will get much better, especially since my noble friend and colleague Lord Amory has had to leave the Chamber. Very briefly, this Amendment seeks to ensure the participation of local government as a whole in the formation of the National Water Council. I hope it will not have escaped your Lordships' notice that the Council consists of a chairman to be appointed by the Secretary of State, ten chairmen of the water authorities—and your Lordships have just decided that those ten shall be appointed by the Secretary of State—and not more than ten other members, of whom not more than eight shall be appointed by the Secretary of State and not more than two by the Minister of Agriculture. This gives the Secretary of State very nearly a full house; in fact, this amounts as near as nothing to a complete and utter majority. I am here suggesting that, having conceded the principle that local government should become involved in the process of water reorganisation, with which they generally agree, they should be consulted in so far as four people should be suggested by the local authority associations; that is to say, four out of the latter ten.

I do not think that this is a greedy or a thirsty request, and having conceded the principle I think the Government should realise how much this matters to local government. I am not asking for the appointments to be made by local government; only that consultation should be held and names suggested. We all know that they are not always appointed, however much one suggests names. When we come to the Water Space Amenity Council, and such like bodies too numerous to mention, we shall find the position becoming exactly the same as in this case. I believe that local authorities have the right, and indeed the duty, at national level to be involved in the many serious problems for the future of the water industry as such, particularly in the question of supplies which will become more and more difficult; and we have already heard, with great eloquence, the feelings of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, on the problems of supplies in his part of the world. I do not here see any conflict with subsection (3) which follows immediately after my Amendment, and I feel that local government can offer very valuable assistance at national level as well as at local level. I therefore hope that the Minister will be kind enough to take this Amendment away and look at it again. I feel that some form of specific provision is needed. Otherwise, some future Secretary of State may feel disposed to ignore completely the interests of local government in this vital matter. I beg to move.

LORD SANDFORD

I am very sorry that my noble friend Lord Ridley feels that local government is not having a good night. I have sought, over and over again, to stress the importance of local government in the whole of this machinery and I shall go on doing so not least on this Amendment, because it is so. Local government constitutes the largest single element in the whole of this new structure and it has an indispensable part to play. I should have thought, of all the assurances that one might be asked to give—I have been able to give most of them so far—the one that local authorities should be consulted about the way in which these bodies are composed is the least necessary. It is even less necessary to provide for it in the Bill in this rather inflexible way, which would go beyond anything that has been insisted upon by any other noble Lords who have wanted to have regard to trade unions, to natural beauty or to any of the other interests, such as the water industry and the industries which use water.

I am sure my noble friend appreciates that it is not possible to respond; in fact, he himself expected me to take the Amendment away and consider it. I am glad of that indication that he does not wish to press the matter; but certainly I shall give him the assurance for which he asked, that of course local authority associations will be consulted about the membership of these bodies, and they will clearly have to be because their interests are so much bound up in them. But I should not want to go so far as he seeks to go in his Amendment, so that there are specific consultations about specific appointments to specific authorities. I hope he will appreciate, not only from what I am saying now but from what I said earlier, that that would be tying my right honourable friend's hands too much and not allowing some flexibility, which he needs, to reflect on the characteristics of each river area, on the changing experience and changing circumstances, and on the different way in which the suitable talents for these authorities become available. But I shall be glad to give him the general assurance which he is seeking.

LORD GARNSWORTHY

I have listened with the very greatest care to what the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has said in reply to the very persuasive arguments advanced by the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley. I must say that I feel that either his brief is restricting him to a point where he can make no concession of any great value, or he has not understood the point which the noble Viscount seemed to me to be making. If the noble Viscount was not making it, then let me make it. Local government are looking for actions; they will not be satisfied with mere words. They have had all sorts of assurances and have been told that of course their value is recognised, the quality of the service which they can give is appreciated. But when it comes to any real concession that establishes the position of local government on this National Water Council nothing satisfying has been said.

When we were discussing an earlier Amendment to enable regional water authorities to elect their own chairmen I drew attention to the fact that if they were allowed to do that, there was a considerable probability that we should get on to the National Water Board people who came from local government. As things are, we have no assurance that any substantial number of people on the National Water Board are going to come from local government. The noble Lord would rightly say that a knowledge of local government is not enough; that what we want is people who understand water—how to conserve it, how to use it. how to re-use it; people upon whom we can rely to be useful. Such people are to be found in local government. Our county councils have tremendous experience in many directions. Many of our local authorities are themselves, and have been for a very long time, water undertakers. I hope that the Government will be prepared to do as the noble Viscount suggested and have another look at this proposal and not turn it down this evening. The noble Viscount has indicated, 1 think quite clearly, that he is prepared to withdraw it. I should have thought that there could be an undertaking to look at it in the light of what has been said.

I appreciate that there is some difficulty. The noble Lord, Lord Sandford, is no longer at the Department of the Environment, and it may well be that he cannot commit anybody to anything very much; I do not know. It may be that he is as free as he ever was, if he was ever free, to make some sort of concession. But the noble Baroness serves at the Department of the Environment, and on this matter I really think that local government ought to have some little comfort at least this evening that their plea for recognition to be given to them is going to be looked at anew.

VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN

I should like to go part of the way with the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, because although I felt that the answer given by my noble friend Lord Sandford to the Amendment was a very good one, I felt it was an answer to a slightly different point from the one which I understood to be raised in my noble friend's Amendment. What I thought he was trying to do—and I hope it was—was to make quite sure that the Council would be so composed that in their deliberations there would always be someone sitting around the table with knowledge of local authorities. That, to my mind, is the right way to test local authority opinion, and not to send a proposition outside the Council and get the Minister to ask the local authority associations, and that sort of thing. I am quite sure that the local authorities want to get the situation where they are properly represented on all these boards and where through their representatives they can give the right sort of opinion without any further procedure. So although I believe my noble friend is going to withdraw his Amendment, I hope that point will be seriously taken when my noble friend Lord Sandford takes it back to his advisers.

LORD DAVIES OF LEEK

The longer we listen the more it emerges clearly that the Government are oscillating from one contradiction to another. Their policy is to establish regionalism, but with all due respect to the excellent replies given, I would point out that Machiavelli was brilliant in giving replies but the hypotheses were always wrong—that is the point. It is not good replies which count: it is the hypotheses upon which the replies are based. What is sad it that, these days, Governments do not seem to be basing their replies on the good, old-fashioned approach that it has taken us a thousand years to establish against all the winds of change: that, come hell, fire or deep water, the best method of Government is to give the ins and outs a chance at different times to attack the other side through democratic representation, without too much technocracy and without too much expertise, because native wisdom counts. It is acknowledged now that there will be no real local representation. This National Council is primarily to be under the direction of the Secretary of State, and it will be subject to strict Ministerial reply.

It reminds me that, years ago, when I had to study a little philosophy for some silly little exam I had to pass, we were told a lot about the pantheon of Hinduism and its gods. Vishnu was always depicted with four great arms: one of them had a club, the other a lotus, the other a shell and the other a disc. The Government are developing regional arms. The trouble about the Government is that there are no flowers in any of their arms; in every arm there is a club. They are clubbing local representation out of existence. I would ask the Minister: what formula now exists for the easy passage—never mind the Party political point of view—of democratic local views and complaints to get to the top? Even on this subject of water meters (if they ever come about) one must remember that the people working in dirty jobs in the "coffin areas", the industrial areas, use more soap and water than anybody else. Have not the Government considered the burden that will be placed on those living in those areas, as against those in the clean parts of the country like Brighton? It will be ten times as much. An old document I have of 1931 showed the amount of soap and water used by the people of Rochdale, for example, compared with those of Brighton. None of this seems to have been taken into account.

I believe that we are right in urging that there should be some local representation on the National Water Council. Without burdening the Committee—as I can and as at some time I threaten to —I beg the Minister not to give us replies based on handed down hypotheses. I hate to talk against such charming noble Lords as those on the other side; I hate bandying words with them. It hurts me to go into the Division lobby; I feel crippled, and when the poor noble Lord, the Whip on the other side, is about to tap me on the shoulder, I feel like a lumbering member of the proletariat, as though I had no right to vote against him. I beg the noble Lord to look at this matter again. It is not good enough for the country at the moment to have the kind of answer that sweeps aside appeals from both sides of the Committee from men of vast experience, men serving on local authority organisations which have been in existence since the formation of local government in Britain.

VISCOUNT RIDLEY

I have only two arms and I shall not be able to answer at great length or with Lord Davies of Leek's eloquence. In each arm I hold a leek, this being also a Welsh Bill. My noble friend gave me some assurance that local government will be consulted. I am prepared to accept that as representing some step towards the solution of the problem. I think that we should have this provision written into the Bill if possible, and it is only fair to say that if we cannot get it written into the Bill it may be necessary to return to the matter at Report stage. I beg to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

9.16 p.m.

LORD GARNSWORTHY moved Amendment No. 22: Page 6, line 31, at end insert ("and of the members appointed by the Secretary of State one shall be appointed after consultation with such organisation or organisations as the Secretary of State considers to be representative of persons employed in the water industry".

The noble Lord said: This Amendment is very similar, but not exactly the same in wording, as Amendment No. 14. This clause deals with the National Water Board. If the noble Lord could give me the same assurance that he gave during our discussion on the early Amendment I should be happy to withdraw this one. So that I may be in order, however, I beg to move the Amendment.

LORD SANDFORD

Yes, I am very happy to give that assurance—if anything with even greater conviction than in the first instance.

LORD GARNSWORTHY

I am grateful to the noble Lord. That was the most satisfying speech I have listened to from him this evening. He is coming on! I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD CHAMPION moved Amendment No. 22A:

Page 6, line 33, at end insert— ("( ) (a) The Council may arrange for the discharge of any of their functions by a committee or sub-committee but any arrangements so made shall not prevent the Council from discharging those functions. (b) For the purpose of discharging any of their functions in pursuance, of arrangements under this subsection the Council may appoint one or more committees of the Council, and any such committee may appoint one or more sub-committees. (c) The number of members of any such committee and their term of office shall be fixed by the Council, or, in the case of a sub-committee, by the appointing committee, and any such committee or sub-committee may include persons who are not members of the Council or, in the case of a sub-committee, of the appointing committee. (d) A person who is disqualified for being a member of the Council shall be disqualified also for being a member of a committee or sub-committee appointed under this subsection.")

The noble Lord said: I am moving this Amendment on behalf of my noble friend Lord Hughes who very much regrets that he is unable to be here. This Amendment deals with a Scottish and Northern Ireland aspect of the Bill. Amendments Nos. 22A and 27A go together and with permission I shall discuss them together. The first is a paving Amendment for the second.

This clause provides for the establishment of the National Water Council which will have among its varied duties that of setting up a scheme for the testing and approval of water fittings and the very important scheme for the provision of training throughout the United Kingdom. For these functions, at the moment there exists a Standing Committee on Water Regulations dealing with fittings. In the case of training there exists the Supply Industry Training Board. Both those bodies cover the United Kingdom as a whole, and when their functions are undertaken, as they will be, by the Water Council, I gather that the staffs of both those bodies are to be taken over, and for these aspects the Water Council will function for the whole of the United Kingdom.

In preparing these schemes, the Council is to be under an obligation to consult, among others, regional water boards and water development boards in Scotland and the Ministry of Development in Northern Ireland. In connection with the Council's training functions, consultation has to take place between the Council and "such educational and other authorities or bodies" in Scotland and Northern Ireland "as the Secretary of State may direct". It would seem to us, and to our friends over the Border and over the sea that it is not enough for the Council to consult the named authorities in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Neither does it seem to be enough to that highly responsible body, the British Waterworks Association. For that association takes the view that, so far as the interests of water authorities in Scotland and Northern Ireland are concerned, there should be a statutory requirement for the Council to make provision in these schemes for the representation of these authorities on any committee or other body established to administer the scheme. This would accord with the present arrangements for the administration of the testing and approval of the fittings and training in the water industry and is especially important, since neither Scotland nor Northern Ireland will be represented on the National Water Council.

That is a very modest statement of what ought to be readily acceded to, for all it asks is that provision shall be made by Statute for representation on the appropriate committees; that is to say, that consultation shall be followed by representation. At the outset I said that the first Amendment is a paving Amendment. I admit that it is a "paving stone" of considerable size, but it seems necessary in that form to lead to the second Amendment which is the reasonable purpose of both Amendments. I feel its very reasonableness will appeal to the responsible Minister and the Government. I sincerely hope that we shall have the sort of answer to this modest Amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has just given to my noble friend Lord Garnsworthy.

LORD SANDFORD

There is so much charm emanating from both sides of the Committee to-night that I cannot but respond as the noble Lord, Lord Champion, would wish, and say that if it is necessary to reassure the Scottish bodies that their interests will be properly safeguarded, that is something which we must look into. Of course we had hoped that the terms of the Bill would do this, but if they do not, then certainly discussions may be reopened. They would have to include the draftsmen to see how the terms of the Bill can be modified, but I will undertake to be ready to have discussions with the noble Lord between this and the next stage of the Bill with a view to meeting his point.

LORD CHAMPION

We are getting on. Sweet reasonableness is guiding us all in everything we say, and I am happy to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

9.25 p.m.

LORD HENLEY moved Amendment No. 23: Page 6, line 38, after ("authorities") insert ("and, in particular, to promote co-operation between them in the exercise of their functions.")

The noble Lord said: This Amendment deals with co-operation between regional water authorities, but I think that to some extent I must discuss it with several other Amendments, one in my name and others in the names of various other noble Lords, which in part deal with the same sort of thine. Where they do not deal with co-operation they deal with co-ordination. First of all, there is my Amendment No. 23, which would add the words and, in particular, to promote co-operation between them"— that is, between the regional water authorities— in the exercise of their functions. There is also my Amendment on page 5, Amendment No. 26, which would put in the words "and planning". Then there is Amendment No. 24 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young. Her Amendment deals with co-operation, but it seems to me that it limits the co-operation to the area covered by the specific reference to Clause 23; that is to say, that it is only co-operation with adjacent areas and not between all the regional river authorities together. There is then my noble friend Lord De Ramsey's Amendment, No. 28, dealing with the same sort of thing with the National Water Planning Unit, and there are two Amendments in exactly the same terms from the noble Lords, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve and Lord Molson, dealing with research and planning. The National Water Council deals in a manner with research, but I am not sure that it is the right way to deal with it.

When we came to the Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill, a great deal of what I am talking about was aired by the noble Baroness, Lady White; the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, gave an answer, and we suggested that we should all be coming back to this matter. The same thing happened to some extent, when the noble Baroness spoke on the Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill? Then she said that the logical answer to all this was, of course, a National Water Authority.

What worries me and a number of my noble friends is that there is no requirement in the Bill whereby regional water authorities shall co-operate. There is a danger of separate planning. Lady Young's Amendment goes some way to meet this, but, as I say, it deals only with co-operation with adjacent river authorities, and to that extent I feel it is too limited. In the Bill, the Minister of the Environment, assisted by the National Water Council, is to be responsible for planning. But the Bill does not state that it is part of his duty to co-ordinate. The provision, on the other hand, is altogether weaker. What it says is: The Council may be directed by the Minister to consider matters which appear to affect the execution of the national policy for water or otherwise to affect the national interest. Indeed, the Secretary of State for the Environment said in another place: The function of the National Water Council is to provide a forum for discussion and examination of matters of common concern to all regional water authorities. I feel that that is not enough. Not only is it not enough, but at least half of the members of the National Water Council will be chairmen of regional water authorities, and they could be a majority if the Minister does not make all the appointments that he may make. There is a danger, which has been pointed out a good many times by noble Lords on the Opposition Front Bench, that the National Water Council will therefore be subservient to the water authorities and the Minister, rather than independent and able to give strategic planning advice from a national or detached viewpoint.

The strength of the old Water Resources Board, whose abolition everybody except Ministers seems to deplore, was that it was able to do this. I think research would suffer, as well, and I dare say the noble Lords, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve and Lord Molson, will have something to say about that. I shall listen with interest to what they have to say, because I think it may well be that their suggestion is not the right one.

Clause 23(9) of the Bill gives regional water authorities a facility for making an organisation for the purpose of research, and that is to be under the Minister's direction. Again I feel that where this breaks down is that it is not really coordination for research any more than it is co-ordination for planning; and the Government's proposal for a central water planning unit cannot develop an effective national water policy on its own. It has to be responsible to the very Ministers who themselves have to take quasi-judicial decisions on, for example, the planning of new reservoirs. A lot of us are anxious that the National Water Council should have the widest possible functions and responsibilities independent of the central Government. I myself believe this to be essential, and I also believe this would go some way towards meeting some of the criticisms of the local authority interest which we have heard expressed this evening. The more it is directly (that is, of its own right) involved in the planning of water resources and overseeing the planning of such water resources by regional authorities, the better. Unless the National Water Council gets contacts as least as strong as those of the existing Water Resources Board, we risk the fragmentation of water policy. I begto move.

LORD SANDFORD

I am grateful to the noble Lord for what he has said. I think he has, as it were, raised the curtain on the debate which we were bound to have—and it is welcome to the whole Committee, I am sure—on the various national bodies which are going to be concerned in this structure. I will not, if he will excuse me, follow him into that general area in order to answer this particular Amendment, because I think it might be more convenient to turn to the rather narrower point which is raised by the Amendment alone. I would assure him that the wish of the Government is that the National Water Council should do what the Amendment seeks: to promote co-operation between the regional water authorities in the exercise of their functions. However, I should like to assure the Committee, and in particular the noble Lord, that it is not necessary, because this is already achieved by subsections (5)(b) and (11), if they are taken together, and particularly subsection (11) which says: The Council shall have power, if so authorised by any two or more water authorities, to perform services for or to act on behalf of those bodies … which really amounts to promoting co-operation. That is also the effect of subsection (5)(b), because there the Council is charged with the function of promoting and assisting the water authorities in their functions. This is another way of expressing the same thought as that which is in the noble Lord's mind. I hope those explanations are sufficient, though I will certainly enlarge on them if necessary, in order to assure the Committee in general and the noble Lord in particular that his purposes are fully recognised and are met in those two ways. I hope therefore he will not press the Amendment.

LORD HENLEY

I shall listen with some interest to what the noble Lord says to my later Amendment, which adds the words "and planning". I feel very much that one of the weaknesses of the Bill, which in general I warmly welcome, is that there is no proper machinery for coordination and overall planning. I believa this to be generally recognised, and in spite of what the noble Lord says I am a little doubtful at this stage whether it is taken care of in the Bill. I am even more doubtful, because when we come to debate the Amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Young, it seems to me that these limit what the noble Lord has said to be the purpose of (5)(b). We shall hear whether the Government think it does limit, or, if it does not limit, what they think it does. It certainly weakens the force of the noble Lord's argument that part of what I want is already in subsection (5)(a). Having said that, I will withdraw this Amendment and see what comes up in the course of the continuing debate on several further Amendments which are cognate.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

9.35 p.m.

LORD PEDDLE moved Amendment No. 23A: Page 6, line 40, at end insert ("and, without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, to advise any Minister and the water authorities on the discharge of their respective functions so far as they relate to recreation and amenity").

The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 23A. The purpose of this Amendment is to place on the Water Council the responsibility of advising the Minister and the water authorities on matters relating to recreation and amenity. Noble Lords will be aware that recreation and amenity have loomed pretty large in the discussions so far. Water authorities and, indeed, water companies, for a long time past have been deeply concerned with this particular activity. It is rather interesting to note that in the list of duties which are placed upon the National Water Council in Clause 4 there is no reference at all to the matter of amenity or recreation. Therefore this Amendment seeks to lay on the Council that responsibility of advising on such subjects; and the Council will be well equipped in terms of expertise and responsibility to undertake that job. I would, however, point out that this Amendment is linked with another Amendment with which my name is associated, to leave out Clause 22. I draw the attention of the Committee to that fact because although this Amendment could stand on its own regardless of what happens to the Amendment relating to Clause 22, I think in any discussion upon my Amendment one should bear in mind the matter I have just mentioned with regard to my Amendment relating to Clause 22. I beg to move.

LORD SANDFORD

The noble Lord's Amendment raises a number of substantial issues. He dealt with them briefly, and I will respond briefly for the reasons he gave, and also because there are probably several members of the Committee who until the noble Lord's Amendment appeared on the Marshalled List—a little bit late, but I make no complaint about that—were perhaps expecting a substantial debate on recreation to come later in our discussions on the Bill.

To answer the noble Lord's point briefly at this stage, and without any unwillingness not to return to this later at much greater length, either on Committee or later, by virtue of Clause 4(5)(a) the National Water Council will, as things stand in the Bill with the Water Space Amenity Commission in being, have its own locus in relation to recreation. Recreation is a matter relating to the function of the regional water authorities and therefore comes within the purview of the National Water Council. That is the first point I would make in answer to the points the noble Lord has made to me.

Furthermore, under Clause 22, which is where we will next be debating this matter, it is provided that the chairman of the Commission is to be appointed from among the members of the Council. There is a link there. But the main and final point I would make is that the Government's view is that it would not be sufficient just to provide for recreation by having a member with that function on the National Water Council, but that if what has been described as the "fourth dimension"—amenity and recreation in the Government's water policies; this is a new feature, or it is new to give it so much prominence—is to be properly followed through, a separate body is needed with the special expertise and time and resources to devote itself to the many facets that there are in water recreation and amenity. Those would be my general reasons for resisting the Amendment, which would have the effect, coupled with the next one, of eliminating the Water Space Amenity Commission. I hope that the noble Lord will be satisfied with that explanation for the time being, with the understanding that we shall be able to return to it.

LORD DAVIES OF LEEK

I listened with care to the Minister's reply and I noted the point. I think it would be wise to leave a fuller debate to Clause 22 of this Bill when we have the Space Amenity Commission discussion. When the noble Lord was speaking a moment ago he said that Parts II and III of Schedule 3 to this Bill—I may have misunderstood, and I apologise if I did—covered part of the answer to my noble friend Lord Peddie, who moved this Amendment. When I turn to Part II and Part III of the Schedule, which I have read very carefully, I see that it refers to numbers, salaries and other things. Have I got it right?

LORD SANDFORD

I am afraid not. I referred to Clause 4(5), not a Schedule.

LORD DAVIES OF LEEK

I beg the noble Lord's pardon.

LORD PEDDIE

I thank the noble Lord for that reply, although it certainly gives me no satisfaction at all. However, I respond to the appeal that I should withdraw the Amendment at this stage, because I am quite conscious of the fact that there will be Members of this House who would be anxious to take part in this debate, since it involves certain matters of principle. It is only fair that other Members of the House should be present to hear the debate. I thought it would probably come up a little earlier; I am sure that other noble Lords thought the same, but it is surprising how much talk can be generated by water, far more than is the usual experience. Therefore I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment, and hope to return to it at a later date.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

9.43 p.m.

LORD SANDFORD moved Amendment No. 24: Page 6, line 43, at end insert ("and their duty under section 23 below to prepare plans and keep them under review").

The noble Lord said: On behalf of my noble friend Lady Young I beg to move Amendment No. 24 and to respond to the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Henley, that with it we should discuss his Amendment No. 26. I think it is true to say that both Amendments are intended to clarify—that is how I would put it in respect of mine, at any rate—the functions of the National Water Council in relation to planning by making special mention of planning in the context of the duty placed on the Council by Clause 4(5)(b), which is the one we have been talking about, and assisting the efficient performance by water authorities of their functions in that respect.

I think that my noble friend's form of Amendment does this rather more precisely than the noble Lord's, though the general object is the same. There is already special mention in the context of the functions of water authorities relating to research, and the Government agree with him that it would be appropriate to add a reference to planning. But the word "planning" by itself is, we think, too imprecise and would not link this provision with other provisions of the Bill. My noble friend's Amendment achieves the same purpose in a more satisfactory way by tying the N.W.C.'s duty down to the specific provisions in the Bill set out in Clause 23, which relates to the preparation of plans by the water authorities and the review of those plans. I hope in that way I have satisfied the noble Lord that co-operation in this respect is indeed fully safeguarded in the terms of the Bill and he will be able to confirm that he can accept my Amendment and therefore not need to move or to press his Amendment. I beg to move.

LORD HENLEY

I most certainly cannot accede to the noble Lord's suggestion. It seems to me that this Amendment operates altogether too narrowly. The noble Lord suggests that in fact it clarifies the position, but it does not seem to me to clarify it at all. If noble Lords will look at the words of subsection (5)(b) they will see that it says there: to promote and assist the efficient performance by water authorities of their functions, and in particular, their functions relating to research;". Then this Amendment ties that to Clause 23(1), which says: It shall be the duty of each water authority, as soon as practicable after 1st April, 1974, in consultation with any water authority or authorities for an area or areas adjacent to that of the first-mentioned authority. What in fact that means is, as I suggested when I argued my earlier Amendment, that it does not clarify but it damages subsection (5)(b). I do not know whether the Government can be persuaded to say whether their Amendment is not intended to be restrictive, because it most certainly is very restrictive here. I will say something about my own Amendment later, but I should like to hear what the noble Lord has to say, because clarification here is very much a limiting activity which operates far too narrowly.

LORD SANDFORD

I do not see that the Amendment does restrict it. I think it does exactly what I claimed for it, namely, clarifies it. It adds to the general duty of the Council to promote the efficient performance by water authorities of their functions, without specifying then and there what they are; and that must cover co-operation, because "authorities" is in the plural. It specifies not only research but planning as set out in Clause 23, and I should have thought it was helpful to have that cross-reference there to the particular forms of plans and programmes which under the Statute are called for from the water authorities. But it does not limit the terms of the previous phrase.

LORD HENLEY

I cannot see why it does not limit them. It limits what is said in subsection (5)(b) to areas adjacent to the particular regional water authority. I suggested before that the weakness of this Bill is that there is no overriding duty on the National Water Council to co-ordinate or control. My first suggestion about co-operation is meant to go some way towards this, and my later suggestion about adding planning would do the same thing. But this Amendment does neither: it merely weakens the effect of what already exists in a Bill which is defective in this respect.

LORD SANDFORD

It may be that we should make better or easier progress if the noble Lord felt that he was able to accept my Amendment for the time being and we could discuss the nature of the National Water Council and its relationship to the Central Water Planning unit under the next set of Amendments. I had not quite appreciated that there was as much behind the noble Lord's Amendment as he is now indicating.

LORD HENLEY

I am far from happy to accept it, although I shall not attempt to divide your Lordships' House on this issue.

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Why not?

LORD HENLEY

It is entirely up to noble Lords. I can only ask to withdraw unless noble Lords wish to press it. The Government's Amendment is a bad one but I should be very glad to have some guidance from the Front Bench about it.

BARONESS WHITE

With regard to that challenge, I should be disposed on this particular point to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Henley. The reference to Clause 23 is limiting, and I do not feel that the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, has given us an adequate explanation. Quite frankly, I was not intervening because I thought that we would at some point in time have an opportunity to discuss the whole matter of central planning more fully under Amendment No. 25 to be moved by the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, and subsequently Lord Henley's own Amendment, No. 26. It seems to me that both those Amendments take in the much wider concept of national planning which is not included in the Amendment now being moved by the noble Lord, which is a very narrow one and does not meet the point of the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Henley, at all. I entirely agree with him. Nor does it meet the point to be raised under Amendment No. 25. On the other hand, there is no harm in it so far as it goes and therefore we were not proposing to oppose positively the Amendment moved by the noble Lord.

LORD SANDFORD

So far as procedure goes, I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady White, that we could have a much more successful discussion under Amendments Nos. 25, 26, 27 and 28, which all deal in various ways with the central national water bodies, if that is the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Henley—

LORD HENLEY: That is indeed my concern.

LORD SANDFORD

May I finish by saying that certainly my noble friend's Amendment, No. 24, which I am moving now, does not go into the full range of matters which we all want to discuss.

LORD HENLEY

Would the noble Lord himself be willing to withdraw his noble friend's Amendment? Because as I say I am not at all happy to accept it, even for the time being. It seems to me to be limiting what I want to extend, and I should be much happier if the noble Lord could withdraw it. He could then perfectly well move it at Report stage if he wants to. But if he could withdraw it now we could then discuss the central issue of planning under the next three or four Amendments.

LORD SANDFORD

I still contend that this is not a limiting Amendment, but it is preventing us from getting on to a much more substantial debate and I am happy to withdraw it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

BARONESS WHITE

Before the noble Lord moves the next Amendment may I ask what are the Government's intentions for business tonight? It is now nearly 10 o'clock and we are about to embark on what many of us feel to be possibly the most important group of Amendments in the entire Bill. It seems to me that it would be regrettable to embark on these Amendments because, as we have just indicated, Amendments Nos. 25, 26, 27 and 28 are all concerned basically with the same matter. I wish to know what the Government's intention is as regards business. May I make it perfectly plain that we have reached no agreement on this matter?

LORD SANDFORD

I think we ought to have made more progress than we have made so far, although I would not complain at the rate we have been proceeding. These topics certainly ought to be discussed and perhaps after we have the central water bodies behind us we could consider how much further it is necessary to go. We are not aiming to go as far as we originally intended, which was to the end of Part II. That is obviously not necessary.

BARONESS WHITE

The noble Lord will appreciate that it is not our fault that the Ulster Defence business was taken as first business. We had supposed that we were to start with the Water Bill, and the fact that we have not made as much progress as the Government hoped does not lie at our door. As I say, my concern is that this is a very important group of Amendments and a number of noble Lords wish to speak. It seems to me we are going to keep the Committee pretty late if we embark on them. If the Government insist, of course, we will go ahead, but I think it is right to make this protest.

LORD DE RAMSEY

I should like to support the noble Baroness, Lady White. I think this is undoubtedly the most important Amendment we have down at the Committee stage of the Bill, and to embark on it at this late hour with a not very full Committee seems to me a great pity.

LORD SANDFORD

I wish I could agree to that suggestion, but I think we have to make a little more progress tonight. I have discussed with the noble Lords who are moving the next four Amendments whether they would agree with me that they could be profitably discussed together, and at an earlier stage they agreed. So I do not think this debate will be as protracted as perhaps it looks as though it might. I should have thought that the best thing would be to get on at least with this amount of business.

LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE moved Amendment No. 25: Page 6, line 43, at end insert ("and for those purposes the Research Centre and the Central Pianning Unit shall he vested in the Council.")

The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 25. May I, at the outset, reassure the Committee to the extent that I believe Amendment No, 27 to be accidental. I had communicated with my noble friend Lord Molson in regard to Amendment No. 25; he replied that he entirely supported it and would take steps to see that his name was put down in that way, but much regretted that he would not be able to be present to-day to speak to it. So I believe that the Amendment in identical terms with Amendment No. 25 can, so to speak, be disregarded.

In the debate on Second Reading from all sides of the House great tribute was paid to the services which had been rendered by the Water Resources Board and great regret was felt at its impending demise as an independent unit. In some quarters, too, I believe, regret was felt that under the proposals in the Bill the National Water Council had functions that were in effect little more than advisory. As we all know, the function of the testing and approval of fittings is adequately handled by a committee of the British Waterworks Association, and the training and education is largely dealt with under the existing training board. The National Water Council—and I will not repeat its constitution because it has been referred to to-day so often already—can obviously exercise, by its constitution, a most important co-ordinating and advisory function, including, I think, not least the harmonisation of the proposals or plans of the water authorities, for the best utilisation of resources and the development of new resources in their areas, with the overall long-term national water plan which, in the first instance at any rate, is, or will be, the responsibility of the Central Water Planning Unit.

In the re-organisation of this very important industry I am sure there will be universal agreement that the functions of planning and research are vital and that they are complementary. I do not think there can be any possible argument about that. The Government have made it clear that, with the passing of this Bill, there will he three separate units—the Central Water Planning Unit, the Research Unit and the Data Processing Unit. The Data Processing Unit is really, in effect, a general service unit, and there is no reason why it should be suggested that that should be a part of the National Water Council. I think that it can be very well left as proposed; but I feel that there is a strong case for planning and research units being directly under, and a part of, the National Water Council, and this Amendment is so worded that they should be "vested in" as being the simplest way of conveying the general idea that I am trying to argue. Organisationally I feel sure that this is right.

I have good reason to believe that industry, as a whole, would welcome it. They appreciate the importance of the contribution that the Water Resources Board made as an independent unit; they looked at the National Water Council as being an independent unit. I think conceivably there may be some objection to this proposal on the ground that the staffs of these two bodies (the Planning Unit and the Research Unit), are going to be the staffs of the old Water Resources Board, and in fact civil servants, and therefore there might be some difficulty in their being, so to speak, employed in units which are vested in an independent body. On the other hand, I find it difficult to see why there is much difference between the degree of independence that we have been asking for and the degree of independence that was accorded to the Water Resources Board. If there is some technical reason why this is a difficulty, then surely it is not beyond the bounds of human ingenuity to find some form of secondment of that staff, which would ensure their being employed in the capacity in which we want them to be employed, and exercising the functions we want them to exercise, under conditions in which their existing rights and privileges and so on are amply preserved. It would be a great pity if something which is organisationally sound and administratively desirable is prevented by a technicality of this sort.

This question was so fully raised at Second Reading that it does not require any further elaboration from me. I hope that the Government will give it serious and sympathetic consideration, and, if there are any technical difficulties, that they will genuinely try to find ways of overcoming them. I beg to move.

10.4 p.m.

BARONESS WHITE

I, too. referred to this matter on Second Reading, and to my mind this is probably the most important Amendment in the entire Bill. Anyone who read the Ninth Annual Report of the Waterworks Board, published last December, could not fail to have been impressed by the extremely lucid and cogent criticisms—made by what we all agree has been an outstandingly capable body—of the Government's proposals so far as the central organisation of planning and research were concerned. I honestly fail to understand how the Government could have proceeded with this Bill in the way that they have done when they had these criticisms before them. The Government have taken cognisance of two of the criticisms made in paragraphs 11 and 13 of the Water Resources Board in so far as they are proposing to incorporate into the research organisation the Water Pollution Research Laboratory as well as the Water Research Association. That is all to the good and we are very happy that they are doing so. The Government have also made it clear in their consultation paper that they propose that there should be free interchange of staff between these various units, and this also is to the good and we certainly welcome it. But where the Government have entirely failed is to meet the basic criticism, and it is that which is concerning all of us who have put our names to these various Amendments; and although the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, said that the name of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, was put down by inadvertence, I think that although the noble Lord, Lord Molson, is not able to be present we should be quite clear that he, with all his great experience, is supporting these Amendments; otherwise one presumes that his name would not have appeared on the Paper at all.

LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE

I am certain that that is so. He said that in his letter and he in fact said it on Second Reading. I am sure that is right.

BARONESS WHITE

So we have his support. I also have a letter here from the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, who was the former Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, in which he says, apropos of the Amendment which we are now discussing: I cannot be there"— that is, in your Lordships' House— and feel that I therefore should not add my name as one of the sponsors although I am fully in sympathy with its purpose"— that is, the purpose of the Amendment. He goes on to say: You may quote me as saying that these are my views"; and he goes into further detail. Here we have from all quarters of the House—the name of the noble Lord, Lord De Ramsey, is also on this Amendment—from the Government side, from the main Opposition Bench, from the Liberals, from the Cross-Benches and from the former Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, absolutely basic criticism of one of the central features of this Bill.

I very much regret that this subject has come up at this very late hour when, for very understandable reasons, we do not have as many noble Lords present as we could have hoped to listen to this debate. If one looks at the comments made in their official report by the Water Resources Board one finds that they say that there are problems of an interregional or national scale which can be effectively dealt with only by a single body covering England and Wales. They say: The national body should evolve, direct and co-ordinate national water policy and management; and it should have specific executive functions. And they proceed to list those functions, which include planning, research and development, national capital investment appraisal and allocation, promotion and operation of major works, powers of delegation and so on. It is perfectly clear that in the view of this highly experienced body, which has won universal regard expressed in all quarters both of this House and another place, the Government proposals now before us are quite inadequate.

They continue that to carry out functions which they think are desirable will require an element of central co-ordination and decision. But the National Water Council and these appendages—they are not even appendages because they are separate—these bodies which are to be set up, have no powers of central co-ordination and decision. That is entirely lacking. If one looks at the proposed functions in Clause 4, one finds that the Council is to consider and advise. It is also permitted to promote and assist, but that is as far as it is allowed to go. The only executive functions which it has are to deal with water taps, training and education and so on which are important but entirely subsidiary.

The Report of the Water Resources Board goes on: … the Council will not be able to perform really effectively without an adequate expert staff, and for this the present proposals make no provision. This, again, is true, because the expert staff will be included in these other separate bodies—the planning unit and the research centre, respectively. These will be subject to contract work from the Council, but they will not be under the control of the Council and the Council will not be able to give them any lead or any directions. The Water Resources Board Report continues: The Government proposal is for a central planning unit staffed by civil servants and reporting both to Departments and to the National Water Council. This proposal is welcome in that it recognises the need for some central planning capability, but has the serious weakness that the unit will serve at least two masters and will be unable to resolve conflicts which will necessarily, and rightly, arise between them. The central planning unit should be an arm of the National Water Council This is absolutely specific in this Report. It goes on: We recognise that Ministers will also need some expert advice on their own, but we do not believe that this need result in wasteful duplication of effort. I could quote more from this Report, but I think I have said enough to make it plain that we are seriously disturbed about the proposals in the Bill, and about the proposals not set out in the Bill but included only in the various consultative documents which have been circulated. Unless we can obtain something on the lines of the Amendment which is now before your Lordships, I believe that there will be no firmness of purpose in the planning of this great reform of the water organisation of this country. It just will not happen, because there is no organic line between the National Water Council and these other separate bodies—a separate body for planning and a separate body for research. It is not as though even those two were put together: they are not. They are two quite separate entities, and the National Water Council does not have any firm powers of decision. It has only free access to the two bodies concerned.

At this late hour, I do not want to weary the Committee, and I am sorry that this debate has come on so late. But I wish the Government to appreciate, as they can see from the degree of support for this Amendment, that this is something which profoundly disturbs us. We think that the Government have made a cardinal error of judgment, and we are supported in this view by people of far greater authority than the majority of your Lordships. I speak now of the Water Resources Board itself which, with a frankness which is unusual for a public body, felt it its duty to indicate publicly its complete lack of confidence in the pattern proposed by the Government. It is for these reasons that we on this side, in company with noble Lords from all other parts of the House, implore the Government even at this late hour to recognise that they have made an error of judgment here. They have perhaps listened to advisers within their own Departments who, naturally enough, are thinking in departmental terms. But one has to rise above departmental terms from time to time, and this is one of those occasions. I beg most warmly to support this Amendment.

LORD DE RAMSEY

In the circumstances, I shall be very brief. The only point I wish to add is that, under the Bill, the Department of the Environment controls planning; and, of course, research must go hand in hand with it. With many other noble Lords I believe that this is wrong. Furthermore, the Department also have to hear appeals against their own plans, and this, I know, is very wrong. The right of appeal should remain to the Secretary of State and the Department. The planning should be taken out and, together with research, vested in the National Water Council. I support this Amendment.

10.15 p.m.

THE EARL OF SHANNON

Unlike those who have just spoken, I am going to oppose this Amendment most strongly. In doing so I ought to declare that, as your Lordships all well know, I have a connection with research associations as a group, though not with any one in particular. But I make no apology for that; I think it gives one a very good background against which to discuss this particular subject. I am not in any way referring to the Amendment in so far as it affects the central planning unit, but purely as regards research. I think many of us are tending to fall into the trap of thinking that this National Water Council is an all-embracing global authority: it is not. In its field it covers approximately half the United Kingdom geographically—that is all; and even less than half executively. It is not the all-powerful global authority that perhaps we all tend to think it is. For these reasons, it will be absolute nonsense, with the greatest respect, to allow the water research centre to develop into a department of the National Water Council, however tidy this might appear at first sight.

The Government have evidently considered this matter very carefully, and the setting up of the water research centre as an organisation based on the Water Research Association makes sense. If I may refer to the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, when he introduced this Bill into your Lordships' House on Second Reading, he said: It is essential that the unit's reports should be objective assessments of the facts, independent of Government and of the water industry."—[OFFICAL REPORT, 21/5/73, c. 975.] In the same way it is quite obvious that, whereas one must be divorced to be objective, research, on the other hand, must co-operate with industry. That is the only way in which really valuable results will be secured. Does the noble Baroness wish to interrupt me?

BARONESS WHITE

I just want to make quite clear, because this is something which puzzled me in the Government's own consultative paper, what is the noble Earl's definition of the water industry. The National Water Council will not be running the industry, in the way in which the regional water authorities will be doing it. Therefore, I cannot see what the noble Earl's objection is to linking up with the National Water Council.

THE EARL OF SHANNON

Perhaps if I had gone one sentence further I might have answered the noble Baroness's question. If 1 do not, perhaps the noble Baroness's would let me know. Other than through a research association organisation, how are you going to attract support, not only from the National Water Council—and I agree that that will be the largest single member of the research association—but from the regional water authorities and from the water authorities in Scotland and Northern Ireland? Neither of the latter is covered by this Bill. You are going to get the consulting firms—many of them—consulting water engineers, the manufacturing industry who make the stuff and the university departments. Does that answer the noble Baroness?

BARONESS WHITE

No, not entirely; because there will be nothing to prevent all the bodies mentioned by the noble Earl, including private firms, from buying research. But if the National Water Council has no control whatever over the activities of the association how can the National Water Council make certain that there is a conspectus, or what I called a synoptic view, of research to be undertaken?

THE EARL OF SHANNON

The National Water Council, I agree, will be the largest individual member. It will obviously dominate and will be the largest shareholder. It will have at least 55 per cent. of the shareholding. One has only to look at the figures for research from private industry with departments of that sort and compare them with the support they give research associations percentage-wise, to realise that the research association type of organisation beats absolutely hollow the agency type. The figures show it. With the research association type of organisation, it is quite possible that all these people can be brought together, and if it is based on an existing research association which has all these people in membership—for they exist at present—it becomes a highly desirable project. It is much more so than just the water research centre as a department of only one of its members, albeit the largest one. In contrast, there is a strong temptation—and one must exist; anybody who has run a company that has an in-house research facility knows that there is this strong temptation—to go on finding work to keep an in-house research department going. The R.A. type of organisation allows the customer/contractor principle to operate, and basing the water research centre on the autonomous style of the R.A. constitution ensures that it will grow only to match the requirements of the industry and not for any other reason.

There is no doubt that it will take time. Several years will be needed for the reorganised industry to accommodate the changes which the Bill envisages. It will be of value for the industry to have its research managed by a research association type of organisation already in existence, or the basis or nucleus of it, since past experience of the working of the 40 or more research associations we have in this country shows that this type of structure has the necessary flexibility to enable the organisation to evolve gradually and to meet the changing circumstances of its members. Such a body would form a focal point for all concerned with the water industry. I submit that a department absorbed into the Water Council would not do so, even on an agency basis. In addition, from such a broad base of membership it will be in a far better position than any other organisation to supply the comprehensive service that the industry requires. If I may again refer to the Second Reading debate, when the noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe introduced this Bill, he said (col. 976): Your Lordships will have noted that a Committee under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Bessborough has recently completed a comprehensive survey of the work of the research asociations in this country and in that Report the committee endorse the Government's proposals for the reorganisation of research in matters of water. That Report was prepared under the chairmanship of the noble Earl, Lord Besborough. The Committee consisted of another Member of your Lordships' House and three very important scientists well known in industry and the Civil Service. I would remind the Committee shortly of what the Report said: The proposed new Industrial Research Centre would have in membership the new regional water authorities and the Scottish and Northern Ireland water supply bodies which are outside the reorganisation, the industries supplying to the water services and other present Water Research Association members. The Government considers that the new Centre should embrace the Water Research Association and the technology division of the Water Resources Board, and that the Centre should place contracts with the Water Pollution Research Laboratory for the appropriate part of its work. We understand that the Water Research Association is not itself opposed to this proposal, and indeed that it is likely that the Water Research Association will form the nucleus of the centre. It is at all events intended that the Centre should retain the principle of membership and that industrial representation should be sustained. This would seem therefore to be an extension of the R.A. principle which, while it may involve the apparent dissolution of the present Water Research Association, will in fact lead to a more extensive and more rational provision of R. and D. service to the water supply industry. In view of that, I think that this Committee would be very unwise to be associated with a scheme to put the new Water Research Centre within the National Water Council. It could result only in duplication, because the Water Research Association is bound to go on to serve the rest of them and it will only waste facilities and money.

BARONESS WHITE

May I interrupt the noble Earl? When he says that it is bound to go on to serve the rest of them, what is to prevent the facilities from being made available to Scotland, Northern Ireland or private industry?

THE EARL OF SHANNON

I suppose nothing. But when you have something which is already working remarkably well, why not build on it, instead of saying, "Let us scrap it and start again"? I cannot see, and I cannot agree, that we should just find another job for another under-employed National Water Council.

VISCOUNT INGLEBY

Speaking also from the Cross-Benches I should like to take a different line from that taken by my noble friend. I have the honour to be chairman of the Farndale Defence Committee. The Committee will remember that three years ago a Bill was introduced to make provision for flooding the top half of Farndale. This Bill was rejected by a Select Committee in another place. But Farndale is still threatened because it is one of 10 possible reservoir sites that are currently being considered by the Yorkshire River Authority. The reason I mention it is that under the proposed procedure in this Bill, as I understand it, if the Farndale proposal were opened up again and got as far as a public inquiry, an inspector would come from the Department of the Environment and would, in effect, have to sit in judgment on the proposals of the Central Planning Unit, It seems to me that this is asking almost too much of any man.

10.29 p.m.

LORD SANDFORD

As I have said, I welcome this opportunity to offer a fuller explanation than I did on Second Reading of the way in which the Government feel it would now be appropriate for the central national bodies to be organised in respect of water. I start with the National Water Council. This is clearly going to be an important body though it cannot, for reasons that I will set out, fulfil all the functions which some noble Lords seem to think it should fulfil. The Council will be the main source of advice on the execution of the national water policy. It will have the further function of providing the regional water authorities with a forum for the discussion of common problems, and a means whereby they can do together things which they decide will be best done together, rather than within the framework of their own organisation in each particular region. It is a body which will help them to form a united view on matters of common interest, two of which are specified in rather more detail in Clause 4(5), testing equipment and training staff for the development and dissemination of uniform policy and practices, and for the provision of common services. That is a two-way role, and the second of them one could describe as being a tool or servant of the regional water authorities.

But we need further specialist national bodies to be set up to deal with planning, research and statistical information. These things cannot just be tacked on to another body which has a different function, because in these fields there are particular requirements. The other bodies must have a special relationship with each other and with the National Water Council: they cannot all be absorbed in one. These bodies will be the successors and inheritors of work now being done by a variety of different organisations. Initially they will be formed by grouping these existing bodies, and it is intended that they should be staffed by those at present employed in similar work.

First of all, we come to the Central Water Planning Unit. It is perfectly true that the Water Resources Board developed an important capability in the field of planning for water resources. They said that they had some reservations (that was the word they used, not "a complete lack of confidence") about the Government's proposals. There has been some anxiety, I think, because of a misunderstanding of the extent to which the previous functions of the Water Resources Board have to be widened and developed to fit the new situation. What they have previously done in the preparation of regional strategies now falls naturally to the regional water authorities and no longer needs to be done by a central organisation. The Water Resources Board, as I say, came to know a great deal about the whole business of water resources and how much water there might be. The regional water authorities will take over from the Water Resources Board everything that they had previously done in the way of regional planning for water resources. But they will have a whole lot of work in five other fields with which the Water Resources Board were not concerned, the most important being water quality. There now has to be much more planning in that field.

The Government propose that the Central Water Planning Unit should be a planning team which will take over the national planning function of the Water Resources Board, and identify and study the main strategic options for the benefit of the National Water Council, the water authorities and the Government, so that a new national strategy can be developed for execution by the regional water authorities. This body needs to be independent, in the same sense that the Water Resources Board was independent, of the Government, and it will be independent to the same degree. It will be composed of civil servants, as the Water Resources Board was. It will be steered by an independent committee (and this is important; it would not be feasible if it were just part of the National Water Council), though the chairman will be the Chairman of the National Water Council. Other members of the committee will include representatives of the Water Research Centre, to which I will come to in a moment, and other relevant Government Departments, who of course will have to be associated with the formulation of a national water policy.

The scope of this Unit, as I say, will be broader in a very important respect than that of the planning division of the Water Resources Board, which was limited to water resources. This one embraces water quality, and other things. It is not necessary to go quite as extensively as I had intended into water research, because the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, has already done so; but the new Centre will take over and embrace the Government's Water Pollution and Research Laboratory, the work of the Water Research Association and the small amount of research done by the Water Resources Board—small but significant, because it accounts for about £600,000 out of a total of £3½ million. The Centre will undertake all this, together with the research previously commissioned by the Director General of Water Engineering in my own Department, under the pattern of a water research association which will be able to serve not only the regional water authorities (which will be its main clients, as the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, said) but also Scotland, together with other countries outside the shores of the United Kingdom. This will be a much more powerful research organisation than it would ever be appropriate to establish within the National Water Council which, however extensive its functions may be, is not broad enough to embrace this.

I need not say very much about the Data Collection Unit, because that is not covered by this Amendment; but I should like to end by pointing out to the Committee that this Amendment, even if it could be satisfactorily drafted as it would need to be, is not only too restrictive but also unnecessary. We have not specified any of the things I have been talking about in the Act. The precise division of responsibility between the National Water Council, the water authorities and the Central Government and these bodies ought not to be confined and established in that restricting statutory way. The Government's proposals I have so far outlined represent what we consider to be the right division at the moment and for the foreseeable future. But if at some future date experience were to show the desirability of a shift in the balance between these bodies and their relationship with each other and to indicate a somewhat larger role for them at the expense of other national bodies, then it would be possible to achieve this shift within the framework created by the Bill.

I hope the Committee will be able to agree that, now that I have spelt out their functions in rather more detail, it would be unsuitable to provide for these bodies in the Bill, and certainly to provide for them in the particular way this Amendment seeks to do. I very much hope that my noble friend Lord Sinclair will not feel it necessary to press his Amendment.

10.39 p.m.

BARONESS WHITE

It is of course for the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair, since he moved the Amendment, to reply to the Minister; but I think it is only right for me, since my name also appears on the Amendment, to say a few words. Frankly, I have not been convinced either by the noble Lord or by the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, that the proposals under the Bill are satisfactory. Neither—certainly not the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, though that was because he was speaking ex parte for the Research Association—has explained why they are entirely content that there should be a complete divorce between the planning and research functions. As they know very well, one of the great reasons for the success of the Water Resources Board, within its own terms of reference, was precisely that responsibility for planning and research was within the compass of one organisation. As we said on Second Reading, it did not mean necessarily that they did all the research themselves, but there were people there who did have to take cognisance of all aspects of this organisation. I have discussed this with some of the people who have been working in this field and they feel very unhappy indeed at the way in which Government Planning in this matter is going. The noble Lord simply stated categorically that it was not possible for these bodies to be one. He gave no reason whatever why they should not be connected one with the other. This is one of the reasons why we are extremely unhappy about it. We are perfectly well aware that the terms of reference of any such body would be entirely different from those of the existing Water Resources Board; we are cognisant of that. We know that the Water Resources Board are concerned with the water supply and not with quality, for example, and this would have to be extended. We are perfectly well aware that in the changed circumstances a great deal of the work done by the Water Resources Board in the regions will no longer be required because the regional water authorities will be taking that on.

But there still remains the great problem of how do you best plan at national level? The Minister has not said, but I can only assume he must be meaning, that it is the Department of the Environment that will do this. If it is the Department of the Environment why set up all these separate bodies? What co-ordination is there to be between the Department of the Environment, the National Water Council, the Water Research Unit and the central planning organisation?

The noble Lord said that the Amendment before us in his view was restrictive and unnecessary. It is restrictive only in the sense that he has admitted the Government may be wrong; and he is hesitant about putting in Statute form something about which the Government are not certain as to where they are going. It seems to me that that is the only valid basis for his criticism that the Amendment is restrictive. Apart from those who may have certain direct interests in some of the research organisations, our information is that the people who are best qualified to know—that is to say, if I may put it bluntly, the people best qualified to know outside the Department of the Environment—are not happy with the pattern proposed by the Government. They regard it a serious error of central organisation for the planning of our water resources, and feel that it would be far better to bring together planning and research under the National Water Council.

LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE

May I say, in answer to the Minister, that he has interpreted the Amendment much more narrowly than I had intended? I say this rather more particularly on research than on planning, because on planning the general case is fairly clearly established. The National Water Council envisaged in the Bill will be, as I understand it, a truly national body for the water industry. This is something which the water industry, as an industry, would very much welcome. Those essential functions of planning and research we say, slightly loosely but basically truly, should go together. This has resulted in the very natural approach that what the Government are proposing to call the research unit should go, with the central planning unit, under and be part of this national body that the Bill is setting up, the National Water Council. I believe that this, in effect, includes direction, supervision and support of the Water Research Association, which I know very well and the industry knows very well; and the industry believes that something of this nature would be very much in the interests of the industry as a whole. I say "of this nature"—under which research and planning came somehow (and I think this form of vesting is very difficult to define) within the ambit of this central body which the Bill proposes to set up.

Having tried to explain this, I am afraid not very clearly, I find my situation rather difficult because of the general sympathy in this Committee. It is a small Committee, I know, but I think predominantly there is a great deal of sympathy with the Amendment. But I should be rather loath to press this Amendment to a decision to-day, which would simply mean that this would go on the Record as a clause in the Bill. If the Government could give us some undertaking that before Report they will consider this matter further I personally should be happy to have the matter thoroughly reviewed then in the light of the fullest information we could get. We put this Amendment down as a basis for the fullest possible debate on the subject, and this we have secured, but unfortunately in a rather small Committee.

10.47 p.m.

LORD SANDFORD

I shall be glad to respond to that. One of the difficulties is that the bodies we are talking about are not provided for in the Bill. Their functions are not spelled out in detail, and it may be that by furnishing additional documents between this stage and the next I may be able to help your Lordships. I wonder whether I might deal with just one or two points. The National Water Council, as my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve has said, is indeed an important body, but it is not quite as all-embracing as perhaps he and some other noble Lords have supposed. I do not believe it could embrace the Research Centre and the Central Water Planning Unit, as he supposes.

The noble Baroness, Lady White, spoke as though in providing for the demise of the Water Resources Board we were divorcing two things which together had made up almost everything that needs to be done for water. This is not the case. The Water Resources Board were dealing, so far as planning goes, solely with the planning of resources. This is the important function, but it is not enough. We must provide for planning in the field of quality, and they did not do that at all.

BARONESS WHITE

Would the noble Lord forgive me for interrupting? Of course we are, as I tried to explain, fully aware of that; but that is not a matter of principle. If you can plan one, you can plan another. It does not touch the organisational aspect of this at all.

LORD SANDFORD

I think it does a little. The noble Baroness also spoke as though we were divorcing from that planning all the research that was done, or was needed to be done, in water. The Water Resources Board certainly did some research, but it is less than one-fifth of all the research that is being done at the moment, in terms of the cash put into it, and that will need to be increased. This breaking up of two important functions which the Water Resources Board fulfilled is not something to be regretted in the circumstances; it is something which follows inevitably from this broader and more comprehensive approach.

BARONESS WHITE

I am so sorry to keep interrupting the Minister but this is a very important matter. Again he is touching on something which is not a matter of principle. If you add one bit of research to another bit of research to another bit of research, you have a larger bit of research: you have not changed the principle.

LORD SANDFORD

No; but what I am saying is that, whereas there might have been a case for bringing together research and planning of water resources in the limited field in which the Water Resources Board worked—that might have been right—what we now need to do is to develop a whole bunch of research comprising all the bodies which I have described, on the one hand, and provide for a Water Research Centre which goes far wider than the area covered by the regional water authorities, and, on the other hand, a bunch of planning far wider than anything undertaken by the Water Resources Board in the past, and going beyond the planning functions required for the regional water authorities.

I was asked how you plan. The regional water authorities plan as indicated in Clause 23. The rest of the planning is done not by the Department of the Environment but by the Central Planning Unit, which comprises and serves a number of other relevant Government Departments—because there are more Departments concerned with the national water policy than the Department of the Environment. I will certainly respond to the point raised by my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, that before the next stage it may be possible to spell out the functions of these bodies which are not provided in the Bill and are therefore not before members of the Committee. Having said that, I hope that he will be good enough to withdraw his Amendment at the moment.

LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE

I do not know whether, if I withdraw this Amendment, others who have spoken will wish to press it. My judgment is that it would be wise to leave this to the Report stage for further consideration in the light of such evidence as can be produced by the Government in the form of additional papers. We have all had a certain number of additional papers about the research unit and the planning unit (I think the Minister would confirm this), but they do not materially increase the information on which our present debate is based. What we said before was based entirely on the facts as we were given to understand them by the Government as to their proposals. But if there are further facts that can be produced I should like them to be considered on Report, rather than that we should proceed now with this debate and then contest it.

LORD SHACKLETON

Do I understand that the noble Lord has asked leave to withdraw his Amendment?

LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE

I was about to withdraw it.

10.53 p.m.

LORD SHACKLETON

In that case I feel that I must ask one or two questions of the noble Lord. It is of course for the Committee to decide whether the Amendment is withdrawn. Having listened—and I thought it was rather important in this context—to the speech made by the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, I am bound to say that, unfortunately, the very interesting Report of the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, on the research associations is one that we have not debated; and it is one in which there is a good deal of controversial material, some of it on this very subject. It is a very late hour to vote. I do not know what value the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, put upon the Amendment when he said he would consider the arguments, but I wonder whether he would be frank enough to say whether there is the slightest chance in his opinion of the Government changing their minds on this matter. He will remember that not so long ago, when we debated the Nature Conservancy Bill, a resounding defeat was inflicted on the Government—at least there was not a defeat because they forgot to put their Tellers in, or something went wrong; but in fact it was the view of the House that a research capability should be put in the Nature Conservancy Council.

As I have come in rather late it would be quite improper for me to attempt to prolong the debate—and I see that the Government Chief Whip supports this observation on my part. However, I should have been extremely inclined to test the opinion of the Committee on this Amendment, because many noble Lords have heard the debate and I should have thought that was probably the better course. The noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, has had an unfortunate experience in the past over Somerset late at night, but I think he should take his courage in both his hands and see what in fact the Committee think of his Amendment. He is perfectly free thereafter to try again, and no doubt the Government, having given a promise to consider the matter, will honour that promise, whether the Committee divides or not.

I am bound to say that I have listened very carefully to the arguments. This is an area of extreme difficulty for any Government. One can divide this up in a dozen different ways. I have the greatest sympathy with the Department in coining to this solution. I discount to some extent, though not entirely, the opinions of the noble Earl, Lord Shannon, in this matter and, for reasons I will not go into, I do not find them convincing. That is the only support the Government have and we have not been given an answer to the very powerful arguments put by the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, my noble friend Lady White, the noble Lord, Lord De Ramsey, and indeed, in absentia, the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman.

LORD SANDFORD

I have been very willing to test the opinion of the Committee on several occasions already today, but those occasions were on matters about which the Committee had full information as the matters were fully set out in the Bill. Here I was anxious to respond to my noble friend Lord Sinclair of Cleeve because we were discussing two bodies, the Central Planning Unit and the Water Research Centre, which are not provided for in the Bill. Before the noble Lord came in I was explaining that the Government's mind was not finally and for all time made up on this matter. I was explaining that it would be possible to modify the arrangements for linking these two bodies with the National Water Council within the framework of the Bill. We are not now establishing something by statute which cannot be altered; we are doing the very reverse. But I am anxious that the Committee should have all the necessary information before it. It may be possible to extend the information I have given. But if the noble Lord feels that this is a matter on which a Division must now be held, that is all right with me. I should have thought, however, that it would be far better to leave it to the next stage.

LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE

I feel that that is right, and I shall not press the Amendment. I beg leave to withdraw it.

On Question, Amendment negatived.

LORD HENLEY

I do not know how much longer noble Lords wish to go on.

BARONESS WHITE

No longer.

LORD SANDFORD

May I suggest to the Committee that the right thing to do now would be to tidy up Clause 4. I do not think that it will take very long.

LORD HENLEY

As I said before, I do not know how long noble Lords want to go on. My Amendment No. 26 is a couple of words but could take a couple of hours, and there is the Amendment of my noble friend Lord De Ramsey which covers similar things. There is the whole question of the clause's standing part. We have disposed of certain aspect of research, but the question of planning has been left somewhat in the air. We have had a long exposition from the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, which in my opinion was a very lame one. Do noble Lords wish me to argue my Amendment now? The noble Baroness, Lady White, put this question an hour and a half ago as to whether noble Lords wanted to go on. I certainly have not finished and I do not believe the noble Lord has.

BARONESS WHITE

Perhaps we might appeal to the noble Earl the Chief Whip. It is entirely unreasonable to expect us to go any later. I hope that we shall now adjourn.

LORD SANDFORD

I thought we should just tidy up Clause 4. I had hoped that the noble Lord, Lord Henley would do what I did with my Amendment relating to planning, which was to withdraw it, so that we could have a general discussion. But if he wants to deploy the whole argument afresh and have an extensive debate, the Committee as a whole would much prefer to call a halt where we are now. On that basis, I beg to move that the House do now resume.

Moved, That the House do now resume.—(Lord Sandford.)

On Question, Motion agreed to, and House resumed accordingly.